New Builder Looking for Guidance

[Justificus]

Hi All. I'm relatively new to DCS and brand spanking new to trying out the ME... I've created a couple of missions for myself to practice with but am now looking for a little way to juice things up. Not even having close to a clue I'm going to ask you experts here to not tell me how to do what I want to do but point in in the direction of where to look so I can read the pertinent info.

 

Here's what I'm looking to do. It's pretty simple judging by what I read you guys are doing with this incredibly powerful ME. I'm currently flying a Huey and have a group of targets I want to practice on. I have 3 enemy transports at a pseudo base I created and would like to have them start their take off proceedure once I arrive in the area. I've tried to do this with playing with the time they spawn (trying to avoid diving head first into the much more complicated stuff) but would love to have them in the mission from the start and only start their engines once they know I'm coming on them. From what I've read in the manual and here on the forums after many searches, is that using a trigger is the way to go. Reading Snowtiger's ADDer thread makes me relate to how he feels very much! Though I already feel he could teach me a ton of things. So where in the manual/forum/web should I look for SIMPLE (read I'm a complete idiot with these things here) explanation of what I"m trying to do. After reading so many different things about this ME my head is spinning and ready to fall off... :( Thanks for any help you can give to this struggling newbie! :helpsmilie:

[mwd2]

There are some tutorial under Youtube ... one i found with google, should help you:

 

[FSFIan]

I think you want to check "visible before start" and "late activation" and then have a "group activate" trigger with an appropriate condition.

 

(Disclaimer: This is untested, so it may or may not be complete bullshit. I have never built a real mission. Anything I think I know about mission building and triggers was learned by osmosis while researching the Lua scripting side of things for the various projects linked in my sig.)

[Justificus]

Thank you both for your quick replies! I actually stumbled upon how to do it and came back to say so but you two beat me! Once I found the set trigger rules that got the whole ball rolling. mwd2, thanks for that youtube link, will check it out shortly. {FSF}Ian, thanks for that, I had to figure out that late activation check box. The helos would take off right away without that being checked. This is exciting, I'm actually learning a little about this ME monster! Thanks again guys.