Category Archives: Beta Testing

Map Editor Documentation Now Available Online!

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Screen capture of the Map Editor (working on the battle of Little Bighorn). Click to enlarge.

We are extremely pleased to report that the documentation for the General Staff Map Editor has been completed and is now available online at Famdom (link: https://general-staff-wargaming-system.wikia.com/wiki/The_General_Staff_Black_Powder_Map_Editor). There is also a link from the Map Editor itself to the online documentation (under the Help menu). This, of course, means that the Map Editor will be released for beta-testing in the next day or two.

During the course of my professional career I have worked on numerous programs that create or facilitate the drawing of maps for wargaming and military simulations. These include my own UMS, UMS II, the War College and TIGER / MATE (created for DARPA) as well as an extremely large  US Army Military simulation with a budget of over a billion dollars.

Creating easy to use military topographical map programs is not a trivial undertaking. Dr. Ken Forbus, and his group at Northwestern, worked for years on the NuSketch project (link here and here).

I believe that the General Staff Map Editor utility is the best program of its type commercially available and, in fact, is superior in ease of use to the billion dollar equivalent. The Map Editor supports digitizing tablet and pen as well as two-button mouse with scroll wheel. Andy O’Neill (see here) did a remarkable job coding the Map Editor.

In essence, the Map Editor is a 3D paint program that allows the user to draw terrain, topography and elevation. The maps are then used in the General Staff Wargaming System and can be printed out for your own use.

If you were an early backer of the General Staff Wargaming System (Kickstarter and Indiegogo) you will be receiving an email shortly to go to the ‘secret beta-test site’ and download the installer for the Map Editor.

Any questions or comments? Please feel to contact me directly.

 

 

Track progress on the General Staff Army, Map & Scenario Editors!

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Andy O’Neill (read about Andy here) has thoughtfully created a public ‘changelog’ on Grogheads.com (link here) to assist beta testers. In his words:

“The idea of this thread is to list the development work as it’s done on the General Staff suite of apps. This will be fairly low level stuff. I expect parts will not be very easy to follow unless you know the apps well. Version numbers will eventually start appearing. This way it should be easier for early adopters and beta testers to see what’s in each change and Kickstarter supporters can see things are being done.

Feel free to drop by and follow our progress, leave comments, etc.

Army Design Module Is Out of Beta Test!

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We are extremely pleased to report that the General Staff Army Design Module has now completed Beta Test and we are moving on to sending out the Map Design Module to our valiant Beta Testers!

Screen capture of the Army Design Module showing the built-in Help documentation. Click to enlarge.

The Army Design Module allows users to easily create new army Order of Battle Tables that, when combined with a map and another army, become battle scenarios that can be played in the General Staff Wargaming System.