Tabletop Simulator - Grogheads Gaming Club

[panzerde]

I have a copy but haven't done much with it. If we pull a group together I would be interested.


I'd still like to get an RPG group together using Fantasy Grounds, too.

[MetalDog]

I'd be in for a Fantasy Grounds RPG.

[Bison]

I could be interested in a fantasy grounds, but it'd really depend on what RPG is going to be played.

[panzerde]

When I was first thinking about using Fantasy Grounds I was considering Savage Worlds, but I'm open to about anything.

[MetalDog]

As long as I only have to participate, I'm a good party member.

[Bardolph]

Found some pretty surprising things in the Workshop. Prestags?!  A few other oldie but goodies in there as well. Only took an hour or so to go through all 183 pages of mods lol. I am intrigued by the possibilities presented. A fair amount of 3d toy soldier style models already in there and some are available for use in other mods freely. Looks like I might be able to do some miniatures gaming via this thing which would be cool. Table size is the only real concern, not sure why they made the max size so limited. Also could use a better measuring device, preferably one you can change the "units" to suit your map and figure size like VASSAL has. They have said they are looking into improvements on that front a while back, not sure of the progress.
Will be poking into the mod making process to see what I can come up with. Better than I expected so far.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I'm laid up at home and bored.  Anyone up for giving TTS a whirl this evening?

Some Betrayal and House on the Hill or Puerto Rico would be good for up to 5 players. 

[BanzaiCat]

Whoa, what?

Hell yeah I'd be in, if timing is right for scheduling games.

What the heck is Tabletop Simulator? Like VASSAL but for other boardgames other than wargames?

I have X-Wing Minis (oh God do I ever have X-Wing Minis), as well as Betrayal at House on the Hill and several others.

[Bardolph]

So. I've been poking round this thing a bit. My main interest is using it for playing miniatures type wargames with friends too far away to meet across a real table but I've been looking at the boardgame stuff too. There are a few old school wargames already on there. Having messed around with modding a bit I can say it will take an act of dedication to make anything with a bunch of different counters due to the way adding assets is handled.

I rigged up a working mod for a fun little auto racing game we used to play, and I've got the beginnings of an Up Front module in progress.
Got sidetracked trying to remember my meager 3d modelling skills from a decade ago to make some models to try some miniatures stuff. There is some stuff already available, like the Axis and Allies mod and a couple others but whoever made those used models that are insanely detailed for the purpose. The Axis and Allies mod lags hard for me, probably due to the fact that all the little ship models appear to have every antennae modeled etc. The WWI mod I looked at the machine gun models had the chain to the water cap modeled on them, each little link. Totally unnecessary. So I'm working on making some passable low poly stuff but I am no modeler.

TTS needs some work in places.TTS has things that work "sort of". Like they got a request to add a feature so they did but didn't have any understanding of how the thing would be used.
The measuring line is a good example. It isn't persistent for one thing. Let go the mouse button and it disappears. Makes it nearly useless for moving pieces/miniatures. It shows a number as you draw it out, but it only measures the game's set "unit of measurement". So no adapting it to your needs. And the number is not visible to other players, so they will have to take your word that the line they briefly saw you draw was as long as you said it is, and that you moved where it ended, if you managed to remember. VASSAL on the other hand has a measuring line that is persistent until you remove it, and adjustable units of measure. Far more useful.

Handling of pieces can be somewhat clumsy, and they are prone to explode all over the place if you accidentally stack too many on top of each other. The entire physics engine is a bit wonky, which is sad because that's mostly what this thing is, a physics engine. It just isn't  a very good one.
Collisions are odd, some objects won't stack on other objects etc.
Custom dice still show standard numerical output in the pop-up you get when you hover the cursor over the die. The actual texture for the faces is there, but the pop-up text is not changeable to match custom faces. So on my D3 the 2 still says 4 when you mouse over it.
Apparently can only rotate objects on two axes, which made the block game I tried annoying.
Arbitrary and rather tiny table size limitations that limit the possibilities for miniatures.
Arbitrary grid size limitations on those tables. Grids limited to 4 units in size for no apparent reason, but what if I wanted a bigger grid square?
The flick tool also shows a number when you use it, which would allow for a rather inhuman precision, except the physics are wonky enough you sometimes get odd results anyway so it almost balances out. (I was playing Crokinole, a sort of shuffleboard boardgame and was worried you could just apply the same power every time due to the number but some weird, glitchy interactions between the pieces and the board made it possible to still miss lol)
Netcode seems very problematic. I've had success playing with one other person at a time, but the times I've tried 4+players have crashed every time so far. I'm sure my boondocks DSL is partly to blame but even so this limits things.

There is more, but...

The thing that makes it worth putting up with all that, the thing that makes me want to play this, where VASSAL often left me cold, is the ability to "step back" quickly and seamlessly, in first person view, to see the whole table just like in real life. VASSAL always made me claustrophobic, so do most top down computer wargames where you can only see a small part of the board at any given time. This thing is like sitting at an actual table. You move around easily, using standard WASD and mouse control. Simply far and away better than looking at a tiny part of a 2d map and scrolling around trying to get the big picture. This alone is enough to sell me. And hey, you can always flip the table... (or not, thankfully they added in a way to prevent that.)

Off to go make some stone walls in Blender...

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I had a look at the new TTS version of Star Wars: Rebellion.  It's very well done.  Anyone want a game?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

TTS is on sale at GMG today for $7.99 or $23.99 for a 4-pack.

[acctingman]

TTS is a neat little program. Tried playing Heroclix using it, but with ZERO 3d modeling experience I gave up

[Boggit]

Is it a 3d version of HPS' Aide-de-Camp?

[Bardolph]

Sort of? It is a virtual boardgame space in 3d, which is a nice idea. But I'm not sure the devs are actually boardgamers. The emphasis on flipping the table in their ads and a lot of the reviews, and some rather odd design decisions make me wonder. Netcode is also pretty rough, have to have a good connection to host or it lags out pretty hard in my experience.

That said, its one of the few 3d game simulators out there, and I found it much easier to get along with than things like VASSAL and ADC2, in great part due to the 3d nature and the fact that you are "in" the virtual space and can step back and scan the board like in real life as opposed to zooming in and out on a 2d top down view like VASSAL et al.

There are some wargames on there now, and a few attempts at miniatures though most are using the same handful of models. I managed to get some fun games in, mostly racing stuff but some others as well. The big draws on there are Secret Hitler, and Magic the Gathering and Munchkin. Not my thing.
It's worth a look though, especially on sale. I made a few mods for it and I'm no coder though I can fight my way out of a wet graphics program occasionally.

[acctingman]

There is this one too on Steam. Similar to TTS.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/387090