Best Practices for Testing Missions?

[ReflexArc]

Hi All,

 

Sorry if there's a good thread on this--I tried searching!

 

Any suggestions for good ways of testing missions? Do you set up radio commands to manually trip flags? Similar but for killing off specific targets?

 

Thanks!

[Exorcet]

I don't have a well defined process, but debug flags to manually activate triggers is something I've done. I've also rebuilt portions of a mission as a separate mission for the purpose of testing. It lets you mess around without fear of accidentally saving, or alternatively lets you save the test mission if you come up with something unexpectedly interesting.

 

 

Another thing to try is setting up dummy AI flights around the map that you can jump into. This will let you move around quickly if your mission covers a large area.

[MadDog-IC]

Hi All,

 

Sorry if there's a good thread on this--I tried searching!

 

Any suggestions for good ways of testing missions? Do you set up radio commands to manually trip flags? Similar but for killing off specific targets?

 

Thanks!

 

Whilst I haven't made any of my own missions, I have fixed a hell of a lot of others single player missions, as a part of the process my best practice for testing is:

 

1. Enable Battle Commander mode (Must have Combined Arms for this).
   
2. Program aircraft (Players) with AI commands that will mimic the actions of a human to win the missions.
   
3. Test by putting "Player aircraft" from skill:player to excellent, make immortal=on, Battle commander enabled so I can send, see and respond to radio commands with the F-keys, run mission and see how it plays out by watching all aspects of mission, scoring, radio and voice overs, AI flights.
   
4. This approach allows me to test missions quickly, with out me having to fly any of them, the only caveat is that it will not work with complex missions, ie, radio to groups, etc.
   
5. Always make multiple backups of mission as you go, when doing major changes particularly, then backup as major milestones to off site such as dropbox.
   

Regards, Ian.

Edited April 9, 2019 by MadDog-IC

[beppe_goodoldrebel]

It would be cool to have a console where you can send real time LUA commands...

There is a similar function in the ARMA editor and it's usefull for debugging.

[ReflexArc]

Great suggestions, guys, thanks! I'm trying to help improve one of the multiplayer missions for the squadron I recently joined. It has a lot of moving parts and would otherwise rely on 20+ people. Sounds like making the players into immortal expert AI will really help with the exception of edge cases that I've read about on here (issues with AI and SEAD, for example.)

[Tiramisu]

For testing purposes I let the mission run with AI only and then I let the time run faster.

For long missions I try to recreate some situations. E.g. instead of letting the AI takoff from the very start I let them spawn near the objective, which is very helpful if you want to balance your mission.

Furthermore you can write down the time stamps of important events during the mission and then compare it with the Tacview replay. For missions with lots of airplanes you can select one of them in the F-10 map and then watch its outside view with F2. So you do not have to switch through all available airplanes.

 

It would be cool to have a console where you can send real time LUA commands...

There is a similar function in the ARMA editor and it's usefull for debugging.

 

At least you can add radio items to trigger certain things during the mission.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Tiramisu