Fleet Management Mk2 – Mod 3

It’s done!

The biggest sticking point that I had with actual usability of this map was all of the little fleet flags. The idea itself was sound, but unfortunately the hardware was lacking. See, I was using a label maker to print little flags that wrapped around pushpins with coloured heads. Great, except that there just wasn’t enough pin for the flags to really adhere. So they’d get loose. And spin, and slide up and down, and inevitably work themselves loose and fall off of the pins. So that made it all kinds of fiddly, and frustrating, and not quite useless. Well, I could look AT the board and read the info I needed, but moving things around was… more annoying than it should have been.

I was thinking “somebody has to have this solved”, when I realized that I had only been checking a few local stores. So I actually bothered checking on Amazon, and yep, they have actual flag push pins. As in they have small injection-molded flags that are part of the head. So, one order and a little waiting, and I had my solution. Of course I had to reprint ALL the labels, and with the different geometry that ended up costing me a fair amount of label waste (which I wasn’t fond of). But on the flip side, they’re not peeling apart and going missing, so I don’t have to replace them either.

It’s a little hard to see the flags from this angle, but trust me, they’re there. I’ve got a few of the old-style flags still in place (mainly around K’Tokk space in the bottom left) since this area really isn’t seeing any movement. So I figured I’d leave it all alone for another time. They can always get updated later. I also need to make a new legend for the map. The sticky note is a little primitive, but it’s good enough for now. I’ll give it some actual use for a while, and then I’ll see what kind of improvements come to mind in the process.