DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[DD_Friar]

So we do need to work with an initial point (where the units are placed on the map) and an end point. That is all.

Which means it will be down to the ME to work out the route between the two. And I think we all know your thoughts on the current route finding algorithms.

Which also means that I will not be able to have a convoy travel by road and then go off road at the end.  (if I want them to refresh with persistence). 

@cfrag Another question if I may, regarding the Artillery Module.

In the description it says the helicopter that will be calling in the strike should have "line of sight" to the target.

If this is a player flown unit, for example the Kiowa, he could be behind a ridge or building and using the top sight to view the position (as they did in real life)

I appreciate that this might be taking things a bit far, but in this scenario I assume it would not work?

How is "line of sight" worked out (if it is not too complicated to explain to us mortals)

[cfrag]

14 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

If this is a player flown unit, for example the Kiowa, he could be behind a ridge or building and using the top sight to view the position (as they did in real life)

I appreciate that this might be taking things a bit far, but in this scenario I assume it would not work?

Having LOS in DML isn't very exact; it takes the unit's location ("center of gravity", but the 3D model's origin in reality), and plots a line to the zone's center point. If that view is unobstructed (a DCS API test as provided by MSE via land.isVisible() ), you are good to go and call in the strike. Since trees, houses and objects are not taken in consideration for these tests (per documentation), it should work for the Kiowa. Since I suspect that the AI can see you through trees and houses as well, that good feeling may be short-lived, though.

[Reccelow]

Greetings,

I'm starting to dabble into the DML environment.  Currently trying to create an Afghan carrier based mission and, as the Afghan map has no reachable coastline, I'm using multi map method with a call from an exit zone in the Persian Gulf map to load the second (afghan)  mission which has a exit zone to return back the first map to recover on the boat This works well going both ways.  My goal now is to use DML persistence module  on the Afghan map  to create the persistence for the "ongoing" campaign,  autoload save on start and autosave on exit.  I've watched your videos and referenced the doc and the demo mission, mirroring things as I understand them.  Also added in the Radio menu item for save. No errors and all modules with dependencies loading ok.  I can see DML has created the folder for the mission saves in the default location, however there is no data being saved. No data being saved using the manual save in radio menu either.

 I'm sure I've missed a step/module or syntax is wrong some where.....?

Edited September 7, 2024 by Reccelow
spelling

[cfrag]

3 minutes ago, Reccelow said:

No data being saved using the manual save in radio menu either.

Usually, when this happens, there is s slight misspelling in the flag names that you are using to trigger the saves, or you are missing the "?" and "!" in the attribute names (you should get a warning on mission startup in the latter case). After you checked for typos and still can't get it to work, simply post screenshots of the config zones for persistence, unitPersistence and radioMenus.

 

[Mistermann]

Thanks for the response Cfrag.  Understand the limitations of persistence due to base DCS.  I also share your perspective on the huge task on ED to deliver on mission saving and dynamic campaign.

Does your persistence module save logistics information?  

[cfrag]

8 minutes ago, Mistermann said:

Does your persistence module save logistics information?  

"Logistics" as in the form of warehouse data? Not yet - the persistence framework can do it easily enough, but I have not yet started work on DCS's warehouse API integration, as it looks like a (terribly bad) joke in its current form to me. I'm sure the fine people at ED will release something resembling a real API and that contains some real engineering in the future, now that we have some meaningful cargo modules ready to go (and others coming).

[Mistermann]

6 minutes ago, cfrag said:

"Logistics" as in the form of warehouse data? Not yet - the persistence framework can do it easily enough, but I have not yet started work on DCS's warehouse API integration, as it looks like a (terribly bad) joke in its current form to me. I'm sure the fine people at ED will release something resembling a real API and that contains some real engineering in the future, now that we have some meaningful cargo modules ready to go (and others coming).

Thank you. 

I won't hold my breath waiting for ED to deliver a "real API with real engineering".  Or heck....even an attempt at one!  A real shame, but I suspected logistics persistence was a pipe dream.

Thank you for all you do for this community, sir!  

[Reccelow]

Thanks, you were correct!  I missed the "?" on saveMission

[Panthir]

Gents have a nice day. 

Regarding score awarding it seems that destroying Static Objects doesn't award the assigned in playerScoreTable score value anymore. 

Any idea?

It seems that DML scoring that it was related to the Static objects is broken.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, Panthir said:

Any idea?

ED have changed a lot stuff surrounding the "dead" event. I'll see if I can track this down, thank you!

[cfrag]

2 hours ago, Panthir said:

It seems that DML scoring that it was related to the Static objects is broken.

Apologies, but I can find nothing wrong with how it works. When I kill the static car on the runway cross, I get 100 points just as intended.

 

object scoring test.miz

[Panthir]

28 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Apologies, but I can find nothing wrong with how it works. When I kill the static car on the runway cross, I get 100 points just as intended.

 

object scoring test.miz 147.61 kB · 0 downloads

I will test as well in my missions as well

[Panthir]

Dear Christian, in your mission I added some other Static objects of high interest that score is not awarded when destroyed. On the other hand when I was killing the M32 I was awarded with 100 points. 

 

 

object scoring test v2.miz

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, Panthir said:

I added some other Static objects of high interest that score is not awarded when destroyed.

It looks as if there is no way that you can tie SOME kills back to the aircraft that originated the weapon because inexplicably, for some objects there is no 'KILL' event when they are killed. Worse, even though the API documentation CLAIMS that you should be able to tie a hit of an object to a unit via the HIT event, unfortunately that is not true. If it did, I could try to thread the needle and tie a weapons hit back to whoever dropped the weapon.

So it looks like for the time being, destroying SOME objects with bombs cannot be tied back to who killed them - the KILL event isn't invoked for SOME objects (it is invoked for others, very strange -- it may depend on the killed object's category: ground vehicles seemingly receive a kill event, structures and warehouses seemingly do not). We get two generic 'DEAD' and 'UNIT LOST' events for those objects that do not carry the required data to tie a kill to the killing unit. Very disappointing; very, very inexplicable why ED would overlook something as fundamental as that. Here's to hoping that ED can arrest DCS's API quality decline soon. 

 

Edited September 8, 2024 by cfrag

[Panthir]

10 hours ago, cfrag said:

It looks as if there is no way that you can tie SOME kills back to the aircraft that originated the weapon because inexplicably, for some objects there is no 'KILL' event when they are killed. Worse, even though the API documentation CLAIMS that you should be able to tie a hit of an object to a unit via the HIT event, unfortunately that is not true. If it did, I could try to thread the needle and tie a weapons hit back to whoever dropped the weapon.

So it looks like for the time being, destroying SOME objects with bombs cannot be tied back to who killed them - the KILL event isn't invoked for SOME objects (it is invoked for others, very strange -- it may depend on the killed object's category: ground vehicles seemingly receive a kill event, structures and warehouses seemingly do not). We get two generic 'DEAD' and 'UNIT LOST' events for those objects that do not carry the required data to tie a kill to the killing unit. Very disappointing; very, very inexplicable why ED would overlook something as fundamental as that. Here's to hoping that ED can arrest DCS's API quality decline soon. 

 

 

So the only we can do, is to setup a trigger ONCE-UNIT DEAD-FLAG ON and use the flag to award the score to the teams via blue snd reScoreFlags tables.

Edited September 9, 2024 by Panthir

[cfrag]

27 minutes ago, Panthir said:

So the only we can do, is to setup a trigger ONCE-UNIT DEAD-FLAG ON and use the flag to award the score to the teams via blue snd reScoreFlags tables.

Until ED restore the expected functionality of the KILL event I see no other way, yes. I have filed a bug report in the relevant forum, so let us hope that someone sees it and reacts.

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag / @Panthir

I have only just added the objectDestructDetector module to my mission for scoring hits on map objects I have set as "assign as", does this mean it will not work?

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, DD_Friar said:

does this mean it will not work?

Have you tried it?

[DD_Friar]

No, not yet, the ink is still wet on it being added to the mission and put on the server.

I am hoping to test it tonight, I was just wondering if you knew it was a non-starter, in which case i will remove it from the mission.

Cheers

I will post back tomorrow if I get a chance to test tonight.

Friar

[cfrag]

2 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

I will post back tomorrow if I get a chance to test tonight.

Thank you. It's difficult to predict if a bug in DCS that affects one item (missing kill event for some static objects) will affect others (map objects).  Thank you for taking the time to investigate.

Edited September 9, 2024 by cfrag

[Panthir]

6 hours ago, cfrag said:

Until ED restore the expected functionality of the KILL event I see no other way, yes. I have filed a bug report in the relevant forum, so let us hope that someone sees it and reacts.

You are perfect as always!! Many Thanks

[mimamema]

On 9/8/2024 at 3:08 PM, Panthir said:

Dear Christian, in your mission I added some other Static objects of high interest that score is not awarded when destroyed. On the other hand when I was killing the M32 I was awarded with 100 points. 

 

 

object scoring test v2.miz 149.52 kB · 1 download

are you using by any chance the splash damage 2 script?, because that made difficult to Dzesekb to tie kills to the actual players completing tasks in the Pretense mission. Maybe this could interfere as well with the DML Score module.

 

[Panthir]

12 hours ago, mimamema said:

are you using by any chance the splash damage 2 script?, because that made difficult to Dzesekb to tie kills to the actual players completing tasks in the Pretense mission. Maybe this could interfere as well with the DML Score module.

 

No mate I don't use it

Edited September 10, 2024 by Panthir

[DD_Friar]

Module: playerScore and ObjectDestructDetector

@cfrag Further to my earlier post on scoring destroyed buildings, it looks like, from my test anyway, that this does not work.

I set up a mission for a player flown F16 dropping JDAMs on the target using steerpoint so pretty pin-point.

nullBelow is my set up of the object. The messenger was triggered with a simple message saying the target had been destroyed but I received no score for it.

null

Edited September 10, 2024 by DD_Friar

[cfrag]

17 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

The messenger was triggered with a simple message saying the target had been destroyed but I received no score for it.

Thank you for the heads-up. How did you configure PlayerScore to recognize the object kill? Can you please show that trigger zone as well?

[EDIT: silly me, the blueScore attribute is there, thank you]

Edited September 10, 2024 by cfrag