Mission Editing?

[bonglander]

Hi All,

 

Finally getting the grips with this fantastic sim and some of you will despise me with this but honestly, I hate going through tons of text.. I prefer you guys :D

 

Here's my question: is it possible with the fast battle planer to do a ground attack on an air base?

 

I've been trying to create custom missions and all I can do is attack a sam site or a hummer, but what about a whole airbase, or a c-17 thats parked on the ramp of a base? how can this be done? pleas help O friendliest forum in the web

[golfsierra2]

Instead of using the fast battle planer, I recommend to use the mission editor instead.

 

Choose your attack aircraft, select the appropriate A2G weapons and set a flight path, that will come across the selected target base. There you can have other planes, radars, vehicles and other stuff as targets, select them as stationary objects. For your attacking aircraft, you have to designate targets for them, use "attack" instead of "waypoint" for the routing. There is another menu item where you can select either an object (one of the stationary objects you placed on the base before), a coordinate or the base a main target.

 

Be sure, that the flight path is not too low or too far away from the target, some testing is advised to find the suitable parameters (speed, altitude, approach direction) for each weapon/aircraft/target combination before.

 

Good luck !

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

bonglander - now that you are hooked (and Lockon is more addictive than crack), you need to get into the ME (Mission Editor) as the FBP is very limited. Trust me, once you get into using the ME, you'll be quickly thinking up idea's for missions and then trying to turn them into reality using the ME.

 

A good idea is to watch the excellent video that IronHand did called Getting Started I (Getting Started II is a video of actually flying the mission). They are near the bottom of the page (link below)

 

http://flankertraining.com/ironhand/flightbasics.htm

 

Check out this site for some helpful stuff on designing missions.

http://home.hccnet.nl/hmms.janssen/Tutorial_complex_mission.html

 

What I did when I started messing with the ME was to download one or two missions from the Community, fly them and then use the ME to open them up and have a look at how the mission designer made it work. Or you could even do this with the stock missions that come with Lockon, (just keep a copy of the mission you look at in case you accidentally mess it up).

 

 

 

 

I just put down some thoughts of things that may trip you up in the future, not in any particular order.

 

Assigning unit(s) / group(s) / building(s) as targets using the TARGET button from ATTACK waypoints is what ensures the diamond appears in your HUD. Incidentally this is the mechanism by which AI units are assigned specific targets to attack.

 

But the SUCCESS / FAIL at the end of a mission is caused by having set MISSION GOALS using the icon on the left of the screen that looks like a sniper sight.

Having these as seperate actions means that a mission can have SUCCESS/FAIL goals set without necessarily having targets diamond'ed. Two examples - mbot's UrbanThunder which has an attack waypoint, but no TARGETs assigned

 

http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=9039

 

also my Smerch Hunt mission, which has no attack waypoint at all...

 

http://www.lockonfiles.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&cid=61&lid=36&ttitle=A-10_Smerch_Hunt#dldetails

 

 

Be aware that if you set up some vehicles or ships in a group then the Mission Editor treats that group as a single item when you use TARGET button. Once you target it and then try to target another item in the group the mission editor will latch to nearest thing (usually a building) leaving you wondering what is going on. I still get caught out by this with ships as a group of them by default are quite spread out and they dont look like a group. I then try to target a second time and it targets a building a 100kms away!

When you have a group targeted then if you kill the 1st in the group, the diamond will move to the next in the group etc until all destroyed then moves to next TARGET'ed unit/group

 

Set SKILL to PLAYER for your own aircraft (you can only fly the yellow aircraft names)

If you want wingmen, add more pilots (not more flights)

 

 

If the mission designer has set up an ATTACK waypoint and used the TARGET button to mark particular target(s), then you will see the diamond as soon as you change to a2g mode (7). If the target is out of the field of view of the HUD it will have an X through it. If you kill the target and there are multiple targets are set up, the diamond moves to the next target, and finally dissapears when you have killed all the marked targets.

Some mission designers might only mark some or none of the targets you need to kill to get mission success, other targets may only be mentioned in the mission briefing.

 

If there are multiple targets in a mission, you can swap the diamond between them by pressing ' key (depends on your keyboard - anyway it is the same key that swaps airfields when you are in nav return mode).

 

 

Is it necessary to lock on by pressing TAB?

 

All the diamond is doing is showing you where the target is. You still have to attack it yourself with whatever weapon you choose. If you choose a Maverick then you have to lock it on, but if you use gun / rockets / dumb bombs, then you don't.

 

 

What is this ATTACK point?

 

It is a type of waypoint,shown on the map as a triangle instead of the usual circle, in the ME . As you fly your route it does not appear any different to other waypoints to you as a pilot. But used in conjunction with the TARGET button in the ME, it will cause targets to be diamond'ed. If the aircraft is an AI(computer flown) one, then it tells the AI when to begin an attack.

 

 

Do you have to reach a particular waypoint before you can lock on?

 

No, but generally the mission designer will have chosen a particular waypoint (nearest to the target) as an attack waypoint. Some missions might have several attack waypoints if there are several targets. Before you fly a mission, look at the map, remember which waypoint is the attack waypoint (triangle) so you know where to start looking for the targets you are tasked to destroy.

You might find there are enemy SAM/AAA defenses or enemy aircraft you have to kill simply to be able to get to your actual mission target, keep your eyes and ears open for threats - the RWR (Radar warning receiver) can help.

 

 

In one of the A-10 training missions there is a nice diamond to show you where to drop your weapons but in the other using cannon and rockets no diamonds

 

As I said above, sometimes the mission has been designed so there is a diamond, sometimes not.

 

 

As for some more annoying things in the Mission Editor that might catch you out in the future when you are making more complex missions, check out this thread...

 

http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=12608

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

One further thing to think about is Time of Day and Weather.

 

Set the time in the Briefing (the button next to the Coalitions).

 

The start times of all the aircraft/ships/vehicles are stored (in the .mis file or .cmp file) as differences from the briefing screen time, so instead of changing the time of every unit (a real pain) if you want to change the time of the whle mission (eg. to make a night mission), you just change the briefing time.

 

Not forgetting that changing the day of the mission on the briefing screen can change the phase of the moon. Lockonfiles has a couple of Mods by TekaTeka that improve how the moon looks in Lockon - just search for "moon" in the Download section.

 

 

You should mess around with the Time. You can get some great eye-candy effects with before sunrise / sunrise / sunset / after sunset. Try changing the time by 10-15 mins at a time and starting the mission to see what difference it makes. Try from before sunrise, you get a great effect of the sky starting to get lighter a long time before sunrise.

 

Of course you can combine the start time with weather effects like clouds, ground fog/mist, haze. Try a strong wind so the chimney smoke (and burning vehicle smoke) doesn't go straight up, it looks more realistic. Of course a strong wind can change the direction that the ILS will have you land back at base, which can be fun at a couple of bases!

 

For some different fun, consider making yourself a night mission and take along some illumination flares. I suspect that too many folks just make missions that are set at noon with the default weather settings and miss out on just what Lockon is capable of.

 

http://i14.tinypic.com/40cq7uv.jpg

 

http://i13.tinypic.com/4c7nkvs.jpg

[bonglander]

you guys are fantastic! seriously! thanks a ton!

If the wife wasn't lurking over me right now and

if I were drunk I would make love to you all endlessly

[159th_Viper]

If the wife wasn't lurking over me right now and

if I were drunk I would make love to you all endlessly