Based on Vega Prime, the Stealth Viewer in STAGE can be used both at runtime and during the design phase to display entities from a scenario in 3D. While its most obvious use is at runtime, the viewer is also great during development to help simplify vertical placement of entities by simply selecting the entities and dragging the mouse up and down to adjust its initial altitude.
The second function that I want to highlight relates to the use of the middle-mouse button. By default, pressing the middle-mouse button and performing a click-and-drag motion will draw a line and give information on range and bearing, which is very useful when designing scenarios or during scenario execution to quickly calculate the distance between two entities. The multiple selection mode, which can be can be activated by pressing the appropriate button on the toolbar, is a very practical option that is less known but definitely very useful.
When the multiple selection mode is enabled, pressing the middle-mouse button and drawing a selection rectangle will select the entities that are located in that area. Once selected, this group of entities can be manipulated using commands in the edit menu. The most interesting of these editing options are the copy and paste functions, which allow users to get a copy of all selected entities, including their settings and trajectory, and paste the new entities back into the scenario. When pasting the entities, the user can slide them around the map to determine the new position of these copies. Using this technique can greatly accelerate the creation of scenarios with multiple squads or squadrons. In the following illustration, I copied a group of entities from one of the sample scenarios with a few clicks.
Multiple Selection can also be used to move entities to a new location by copying and pasting between scenarios created in different areas. The move option, accessible from the same menu, is just as useful as it can be used to re-locate entities on the STAGE map.
Last but not least is a small dialog box that can often go unnoticed called the Attrition window. Located in the Runtime menu, this dialog can be used to get a global sense of the current success of the opposing forces that are engaged in a virtual combat. In the example below, the blue forces clearly have the upper hand.
