Just wanted to say this is fantastic and thank you for your work!

2/2

Automatic actions are timed by waiting a set number of frames before executing. I've set the timings to be quite generous to avoid issues where actions were overlapping. I've not yet worked out how to get the script to simply wait for an animation to complete. The fact that alien cards are being dealt before being shuffled suggests that you might be coming across a timing issue:
Are you using a particularly fast or slow machine?
Does the frame rate drop a lot when you're using TTS?
Has everything fully loaded on the table before you start setting up?
Are you making sure all card movement animations finish before pressing any more buttons?

Let me know how you get on!

1/2

Hi @mandate439, Eons is included with the TTS base game so no need to leave it out when selecting expansions to include.

With regards to the bugs you're encountering, they aren't something I'm able to recreate. I'll try and do some troubleshooting!

The hand zones in TTS can be a little 'grabby'. They sometimes have a habit of catching cards that are moving through them while being moved to another space on the board. The way the cards are originally set up should avoid this, (at least it does when I'm running it). Are you moving any pieces on the table before interacting with the setup buttons? The only time you should need to move anything before starting the game is after alien cards have been dealt to players and you move one from your hand to the space to the right of your ships. If not, it may be connected to a timing issue.

Thanks for putting the effort into this!

I ran into some issues with setup. After selecting what expansions and skill levels to use, all aliens dealt are from the base set, despite my owning all expansions (with the exception of Eons, which I don't believe is available, and which I excluded from setup). In general, the alien cards seem to be dealt out in order -- so if the base set of alien is excluded, it deals out all Incursion aliens first. Moreover, the number of aliens in hand varies from player to player -- some have three to choose from, others have four, others have two.

Any idea what's going on? I am testing all of this on my own without other joined players, both in single-player and on an empty multiplayer game.

@Jesentra - Turns out I had a moment to look this morning. I've added in a card that temporarily fixes the Nightmare essence issue until (or if) there's an official fix. I've also added short descriptions of the different add ons you can include during setup as well as directions to which rulebook you need for them. Hope that helps!

@Jesentra - Thanks for the suggestions. That's a good shout. I was thinking about adding in some rule reminder cards. Expanding the tooltips when highlighting setup options makes a lot of sense too. I'll add some in when I get a sec.

Good spot with the missing card! Unfortunately it looks like it is a problem with the official DLC. It's not there even in the unedited version. I've got a scanner and a physical copy of the game so I'll see if I can work out how to add it manually!

Another small thing, I noticed that the Nightmare only has 9 of its 10 Essence cards. Not sure if they're just missing from the DLC, but thought I'd let you know!

Thanks for the awesome work adding the scripting to the DLC. I was quite irate that this $10 DLC didn't even come with setup scripting!

If I could offer one bit of feedback? If you could add some more highlights to the setup options when choosing what addons to include (like tech, hazards, etc) that give a bit more detail about which expansion they're from, that would be helpful to new players like me. I picked up the game because I've heard such great things about it, and as someone who has zero idea what tech, hazards, space stations, etc include, I was a bit confused during that part of the setup. XD

A massive improvement on the DLC, nonetheless! Thank you for your hard work.

@simple - Just uploaded your latest tweaks with the matrix and seat swapping fix. Thanks a lot for this. It works like a dream

@jachamberlain - Since I enjoyed hacking together the last changes, I decided to give another feature I wanted to have a go. I implemented an "alien matrix" which allows you to choose the alien sets individually for each expansion and experience level and also allows the playing without any base set aliens.

In case you're interested, I pasted the script here: https://pastebin.com/ZHaMQsZJ

@simple - Amazing stuff! When I get a chance this week I'll give it a test and upload it :D

@jachamberlain - Good point! I have modified the script so that it works if the number of seated players is different from the number of players chosen. You can have a look at it here: https://pastebin.com/svZvP1Vu

(Initially I thought that you could Tabletop Simulator's hotseat mode, but I now know that that is completely broken. Furthermore, there could be scenarios where some people share the same machine whilst others have their own.)

@simple - Thanks for taking a look into that! I couldn't get my head round how it worked, so this is extremely helpful.

I've just taken a look at your code and it all makes a lot of sense. One thing I noticed was that if fewer people are seated at the table during setup than selected, setup can't progress. I'm just wondering how many people use mods such as hot swap to have multiple players on one machine. I use it sometimes to just pass a laptop around when multiple players are in the same room. Not sure whether there's a way you can get the best of both worlds. What do you think?

@jachamberlain - Thanks for the improvements!

In case you are interested I modified your mod so that players no longer are forced to change their colors during setup. You can find the modified script here: https://pastebin.com/Js9dKm5N

Feel free to use this in any way if you think it is a good idea.

This mod is a godsend for me and my friends! Cosmic Encounter is one of my favorite games and this mod makes setting up and explaining the game so easy.

@jachamberlain, thank you so much! I'd forgotten just how fun this game can be, and this mod has helped me rediscover that.

@simple - Invasion! cards are now safely tucked away in the alien bag until Invader is selected. The cards will be dealt out to the player with Invader in the same way the other alien specific tokens are. You just whack them in the destiny deck manually when needed.

@simple - Ah! I knew some random alien power would catch me out! Thanks for spotting. I'll take a look this week

@jachamberlain - I just noticed another minor issue: It seems that the destiny deck contains the three "Invasion!" cards irrespective of whether any player having chosen the Invader alien.

@jachamberlain - Thanks for fixing this so quickly and the detailed update. The scripting in Tabletop Simulator does seem to be quite hacky!

Also thanks for the heads up concerning the minimum number of aliens. If I recall correctly, there are 23 green aliens in the base game, so assuming one always includes those one shouldn't run into this issue. (I guess if you are hardcore you can play "all reds" or similar.)

@simple - Just to give you an update. I've now fixed the issue. The scripting area that causes the cards to be dealt from the alien deck was floating just above the table. This meant that when selecting a small pool of aliens the deck wasn't tall enough to be seen.

I've also finally managed to add in the ability to say whether you want just the incursion rewards, just dominion, or both.

FYI I've noticed one potential issue that players could run into if playing with large groups. If the number of cards in your alien pool isn't double the number of players, the alien draft won't set up properly. If playing in groups of 5 or more, I'd recommend picking at least 2 skill levels to play with or including at least one set of expansion aliens.

@simple - Thanks for letting me know. I'm getting the same issue. It appears to happen when using only base game aliens, regardless of skill level. I'll take a look this week as it was working without issue before. Including expansions seems to resolve the issue for me for now.

@jachamberlain - I just noticed a bug: When you only select beginner aliens it does not seem to deal any alien cards to the players during setup.

@jachamberlain everything loads in fine from what ive experienced, only bringing out the appropriate tokens when the alien is in play. also the beginner alien problem and flare problem are no longer happening! youve really done an awesome job with this

Hi all, I've just posted an update which I hope fixes the issue with both the flares deck and the aliens pool. You can now also customise the alien pool by expansion as well as skill level. Let me know whether or not this has solved the issues you've been having!

@cyanidetiger - Thanks for the feedback. Quick question, what happens to any aliens/ships/components that belong to expansions you don't own. Are they simply not on the table or do they load wrong?

I think both the flare and the beginner alien issues may be caused by a slower frame rate. The code pauses for a set number of frames before it tries to deal. I've tried working out how to make the code wait for cards to move to where they need to be, but can't get my head round it. I'm working on an update now so will increase the amount of frames it holds for and will see if that fixes it for both you and simple.

i dont own all the expansions and it runs fine for the most part. there is an issue where it only deals beginner aliens even with intermediate and expert selected, and doesnt deal at all if beginner isnt selected. have had the flare cards problems mentioned before happen too. otherwise its amazing!

@simple - Great points. I've got some time over the next couple of weeks, so think I'll be able to try and implement something that'll enable this.

@jachamberlain - Thanks for the response. "Unfortunately" I do own all the expansions and therefore cannot tell you what happens if you don't have them. The reason I asked for the feature is because I simply want more flexibility when creating the alien pools (and reward deck). In particular, I think that when playing with new players it is better to explore the core game first.

@simple - Do you own all of the expansions? I'm interested to know how the script behaves when a player doesn't have access to all of the assets. This is a feature I have been thinking of adding, but am working out the best way to implement it. Is it that you want to avoid including things that you don't have access to, or are you simply after more flexibility when creating the pool of aliens to draw from? Let me know and I'll have a look into it!

@ChimBlade (Robert) - Thanks for the feedback. It's not an issue I can recreate, but it sounds like cards are being dealt from the cosmic deck before the script has had chance to shuffle it. The only thing I can think of is that the script currently waits a number of frames before executing the next step in its sequence. If one of the animations doesn't complete in time on your machine that might be throwing things out of step. I'll see if I can work out another way to keep things running in the right order.

It would be great if you could add the possibility to choose what expansions to include, in particular for the aliens.

Hi, great mod! Only problem I've encountered so far is that when flairs are selected as an option, it deals out all the flares to one player (I think it doesnt shuffle the deck before dealing)