Starship encounters: hex grid and tokens off-center in "Into the Unknown"

[Colgrevance]

I have just bought the "Starfinder Society Quest: Into the Unknown" official module, and am having problems with the starship encounters:

1. The "Map B Drift Battle" hex alignment was totally off. After fiddling with hex scaling, I could get it to align with the grid on the background image, but I think this is not something I should have to do myself as a paying customer.
2. There is not even a preset gex grid for the final space battle map, "Map E The Lawblight". Again, I can probably add a grid myself, but I am paying for official content so I don't have to do this kind of work myself.
3. The starhip tokens that come with the module don't align with the FGU hex grid correctly - I would expect them to be centered on their hex, but there is a substantial offset, which makes it difficult to see a token's true position (sf_token_grid.jpg). Is there some setting to correct for this? I have auto-scaling set to 80%, but the offset is there with the other scaling options, too.

The adventure isn't very expensive, but if this is the level of quality I should expect from all Starfinder content, I definitely will not use FGU for it. Or is there something I am missing?

[Colgrevance]

After playing around with the module some more, I think the token offset (under 3. above) is because I changed the hexes' width independently from their height. But a) if I do not do this, the FGU grid does not align with the grid on the background image, and b) I don't see a good reason why tokens shouldn't still be centered even if the aspect ratio is changed in this way. Is this some kind of general FGU bug?

[Moon Wizard]

I've forwarded your comments to the DLC developer who made the initial conversion of this module.

For the third item, it's a client limitation that hex grids must be proportional, as the tokens will not line up. We typically recommend removing the hex grid from the image, unless it's absolutely necessary, and if so, adjusting the image so that the grids are proportional.

Regards,
JPG

[Colgrevance]

Thanks. I'd like to use a proportional grid, but the module does not come with the images needed for that... Quite disappointing; I most likely will not buy any additional Starfinder content.

What is the reason for the client limitation you mentioned? I cannot think of a good argument from a usability point of view here.

[Moon Wizard]

To be honest, hex grids are rarely used, or when used are used on maps without pre-baked grids that have the grid visibility turned off. In this particular scenario, the map would be fine if the pre-baked grid was not on the map at all.

The client bug/limitation is just that the code isn't currently written to handle tokens on non-proportional hex grids. It's just hasn't been at the top of our queue to fix, given that this is the first time I think it has been reported since FGU released in 2019. I've filed a ticket to track the issue.

Regards,
JPG

[Colgrevance]

Thank you, I appreciate your forthright assessment and I agree that all publishers should include gridless versions of maps in their modules, as I have had problems with non-aligned grids before (for other rulesets).

I do think this would be a good requirement for (prospective) third-party publishers and quality control on SmiteWorks' side, though.

[twistedtechmike]

Just got hit by this same issue as my hex is not proportional in a different map/setting. This is an unfortunate limitation of the software.