Mission Building questions

[chrno120]

ok pardon me for being a bit inquisitive this time.. :P

 

i'm trying to create a somewhat livelier mission. Sure it can never be dynamic but at least creates a sense of a living world in Lock On.

 

i've been playing with package's spawn/start time. Assigning them several minutes or even an hour after my flight took off, same goes for the opposition.

 

I kinda liked how it came out, though i little bit of probs..

 

How can i relieve "looping"/BARCAP aircraft?

meaning they get to turn back to base.

 

i've also assigned a US carrier battle group but seems that the Ticonderoga CG always attacks our enemy's SAM site even though i didn't assigned it to the cruiser as target.

How do i keep the cruiser from attacking? (not just yet..)

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

How can i relieve "looping"/BARCAP aircraft? meaning they get to turn back to base.

If you have set up aircraft using beginloop and endloop, they will keep going until they get low on fuel, so give them less fuel in the Payload screen. Of course that is a guess then of how long they will keep going. Instead of beginloop and endloop, you could use a lot of waypoints to make them fly the BARCAP line say 10 times, (it is a lot more work for you in the Editor) then you know after they have finished they will go to land.

[chrno120]

I was thinking of that though i wonder if the AI would resume following their assigned waypoint after engaging the opposition or land somewhere else..

[Highwayman-Ed]

It's damned hard work, but generally, you need to work out how much fuel the AC have and work out how long they'll stay up. Then you have to time a flight to relieve them manually, and watch it over and over and over again to get it right.

 

One good method I've found for creating A-G missions is to put the CAP on a "Nothing" task so that they're just there for visual effect. That way, they engage if they're attacked, but otherwise ignore everything else around them.

 

A begin loop, end loop Aircraft will return to the loop IF they have fuel which in most cases is rare as AI seem to always dogfight in full AB!

 

Hopefully something that the Editor in BS will allow for (IF, THEN, ELSE!)

[Floyd]

i'm trying to create a somewhat livelier mission. Sure it can never be dynamic but at least creates a sense of a living world in Lock On.

 

i've been playing with package's spawn/start time. Assigning them several minutes or even an hour after my flight took off, same goes for the opposition.

 

I kinda liked how it came out, though i little bit of probs..

 

You know about LMR - Lockon Mission Randomizer?

It's the best tool to enhance your missions:

 

Link to the randomizer:

http://www.geocities.com/litamarieg/LMR.zip

 

Link to posting with ReadMe:

http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=57692

[Black_Hawk]

You could also set the task to "Observation", that way the ships shouldn't attack any opposition.

[Weta43]

LMR's a good thing to try.

Missions are much more fun if you don't know what's coming.

[Highwayman-Ed]

How well does it work? I've heard it's a bit shakey...

[Weta43]

Never seen it be shaky.

Takes a bit (quite a bit) more work to put together a decent mission ( I guess depending on what you like to fly), but it always seems to do what it's supposed to, and if you're going to fly offline & fly the same mission again, it is much more fun to fly when you don't know what's coming.

I've always thought it's a shame more people don't seem to use it.

[Highwayman-Ed]

Is it possible to have items have a random start time & have a random inclusion chance...?

 

I read through the read me, and it looks pretty much like one or the other...

 

I.E. I can make 3 groups of tanks and give them waypoints

 

If I set their start time prior to the mission start time they have a random chance of being in the mission.

 

If I set their start time after the mission start time, they have a random value set to WHEN they appear.

[Weta43]

Any given unit can either have:

- a fixed start time (Unit start time set at gamestart or any time after gamestart that is not 1 second after gamestart).

- a random start time within the time frame set for the randomiser (where the unit start time is 1 second after gamestart).

- a user set probability of appearing at game start (where the probability is influenced by how far in advance of gamestart they are set to 'appear').

[Highwayman-Ed]

Bugger, Downloaded it, but it wont install with Vista 64bit