How do I preserve fog of war when moving a token between maps?

[Carlos]

When you move between maps with tokens the fog of war (FOW) in FGU with LOS enabled will reset.

Is there a way for it not to reset?

For example consider the use case of a single map, with 3 floors on it, and you move characters between sections of the map.

To move characters between sections of the map you have to drag them into the new section from the combat tracker.

When you drag them from the combat tracker to the new section (since you can't drag them on the map because LOS enabled won't let you) the FOW resets.

Is there a way to avoid this behaviour? The players do not want to loose the FOW, which should be something that is "remembered" on a per-player-per-map basis.

[jharp]

Without an extension you presently cannot. I have made this: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/224/view but like every extension, it involves some risk. Since I wrote it I don't think it's too risky but others may wish to chime in their opinion.

I've reread your post and that use case might have an alternative. I think you can hold shift-drag and you can move tokens without the LOS boundaries being an issue. Yes verified, shift-drag moves a token on the map without LOS updates being applied. So you drag to another area and you don't lose the existing LOS.

Jason

[Carlos]

Without an extension you presently cannot. I have made this: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/224/view but like every extension, it involves some risk. Since I wrote it I don't think it's too risky but others may wish to chime in their opinion.

I've reread your post and that use case might have an alternative. I think you can hold shift-drag and you can move tokens without the LOS boundaries being an issue. Yes verified, shift-drag moves a token on the map without LOS updates being applied. So you drag to another area and you don't lose the existing LOS.

Jason

Thank you! The shift-drag does indeed work for a map that we're working on with multiple levels in one map. I was not aware that the GM could do that. This solves quite a number of issues for multiple levels on one map.

The only remaining issue is with multiple larger maps where you want to preserve FOW, but your extension does help with that issue. It seems like FOW should be "remembered" for all players for a given image until reset.

[LordEntrails]

You may wish to vote on the enhancement suggestion here; https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=135949

There is also another idea you might like as well; https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136793

[Carlos]

You may wish to vote on the enhancement suggestion here; https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=135949

There is also another idea you might like as well; https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136793

Thanks. Voted and added comments. I think that any data on the maps need to not be lost, and that loosing data is critical bug. That data is always meaningful for players e.g. FOW, drawings, squares, etc.

[Zacchaeus]

Thanks. Voted and added comments. I think that any data on the maps need to not be lost, and that loosing data is critical bug. That data is always meaningful for players e.g. FOW, drawings, squares, etc.

The problem is that if you retain the FoW for every map that you use in a campaign the db.xml file for the campaign will gradually bloat until you slow things down to a crawl. So preserving FoW isn't necessarily a great idea.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks. Voted and added comments. I think that any data on the maps need to not be lost, and that loosing data is critical bug. That data is always meaningful for players e.g. FOW, drawings, squares, etc.

Its not a bug because it's working as designed. As mentioned by Mr Z, there are reasons that such might not be desirable. The suggestion is there so that SmiteWorks can see how popular a change to their intended design may be

[Carlos]

The problem is that if you retain the FoW for every map that you use in a campaign the db.xml file for the campaign will gradually bloat until you slow things down to a crawl. So preserving FoW isn't necessarily a great idea.

A user story, like preserving FoW (or other specific data), is either relevant or not depending on the vision and strategy you have for the product. Preserving FoW is a GREAT idea if you ask me my opinion, because it is data that my players wish to have retained.

The fact that the current implementation may have problems with this use case is a distinct issue, and may indeed prevent you from implementing "preserving fow", but I want to make it clear that it is unrelated to the value perceived by the customers when the feature is delivered.

Yes, FoW as handled via <fow> with <points>, needs to be handled efficiently.

I would be happy to *never* clear FoW as a "setting" and provide directed feedback on how the growing db.xml size impacts other issues.

[Moon Wizard]

Fog of war is actually a significant data storage item; so you can't separate the two things (saving vs. use). It's not on our current short list, but this is something we'd like to have some solution for long term.

Realistically, it is impractical to store FoW data "forever" for every map ever played by a PC. Long running high-level campaigns would be significantly bloated for no real good reason. (i.e. they're not going to go back at L18 to explore the goblin caves from their first adventure.)

So, any design needs to consider usage and storage as a whole.

Regards,
JPG

[darrenan]

The problem is that if you retain the FoW for every map that you use in a campaign the db.xml file for the campaign will gradually bloat until you slow things down to a crawl. So preserving FoW isn't necessarily a great idea.

How does the size of FoW information compare with masking information (which are stored as B/W images)? It seems like per token it's about the same amount of information, so multiply that by the number of PC tokens which is typically 4-6 and to me it doesn't seem like that much more information to store. Especially if you the GM the ability to clear it when it is truly no longer needed.

EDIT: I guess FGU doesn't store masks as images the way FGC does.