DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[bitboy]

Do I have a demo miz for this, but of course! I'll send it too you. 

It's not a show stopper if some of the functionality is not working, but the level of detail that you can go with spawned units is very compelling. 

[vgilsoler]

On 2/6/2024 at 6:02 PM, cfrag said:

Confirmed - thank you!

Fixed in the script below, will be part of the next release.

 

radioMenus.lua 18.84 kB · 3 downloads

Working fine now.

Thanks a lot for your help and for the DML.

[davidp57]

On 2/5/2024 at 3:13 PM, cfrag said:

if you spawn a FARP via script, it is not synchronized across clients:

That's not true anymore. Since a few months/years it works now

[Chad Vader]

HI,

Me again.  Things are going well!  Ive overcome many hurdles with my mission.  I wonder if you could help me with what looks like a simple one..

Im trying to use a countdown module to display a message when a base is destroyed

(see attached image)

The counter should start at 10

Basically when a base is destroyed we have an input on count? Then we pass the counter number out with counterOut! to numBase

Then we feed numBase into a message.

However, the message reads There are 0 bases remaining, when it should read the counter number, which after 1 base is destroyed should be 9.

Can you let me know what im doing wrong please?

Thanks a lot.

Edited February 9 by Chad Vader

[cfrag]

31 minutes ago, davidp57 said:

That's not true anymore.

Thank you for the update! Do spawned FARPS now work, or will any ground crew still ignore you? The last update that you kindly posed is indeed quire old:  

On 9/26/2021 at 6:56 PM, davidp57 said:

I confirm, the FARP spawn do work now, but is of no use because the ground crew does not respond to my queries.

Has that situation changed?

12 minutes ago, Chad Vader said:

Basically when a base is destroyed we have an input on count? Then we pass the counter number out with counterOut! to numBase

Try the attribute "counterOut#" (exchange the exclamation point for a hash)

[Chad Vader]

32 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Thank you for the update! Do spawned FARPS now work, or will any ground crew still ignore you? The last update that you kindly posed is indeed quire old:  

Has that situation changed?

Try the attribute "counterOut#" (exchange the exclamation point for a hash)

Ah ok, im looking at the example on page 654 and it says to pass the *cVal on counterOut! Is this a mistake?

That worked.  Thank you. 

Edited February 9 by Chad Vader

[cfrag]

12 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

Is this a mistake?

Naw, merely old  - DML is evolving quickly, and updating the manual is already quite a task. And I'm lazy. So when counter's ME interface changed, I did not catch that one in the demo. Maybe I'll have time to correct it for the next version. 

You may also mistake the countDown module for the counter module. I'll never receive a prize for original module names, and it sometimes shows  

 

Edited February 10 by cfrag

[Recluse]

@cfrag  Another report on WilliePete and Multiplayer groups. Sorry that I did not capture the script errors, but maybe the description is enough, and I will try to capture them the next time.

 

- Been using WilliePete in Multiplayer.  Since we noted issues (that you described) when the FAC is part of a multi-unit group, I've been either taking a singleton FAC aircraft, or more oftenI just take one aircraft from a multi-unit group when NOBODY ELSE is flying another client in that group. I believe this issue might be related to that, but may be an issue with a singleton as well, but I don't think I have specifically noted it.

- Things seem to work fine up to the point where I (the FAC aircraft) get shot down AFTER checking in and marking some targets.  The Host gets deluged with script errors.   My hypothesis is that the WillePete script keeps checking  for the presence of the FAC after it is gone and throws the errors. Possible it is also due to the fact that even though they haven't spawned, WilliePete might also see the other units in that group (which get initialized at mission start) and looks for THEM when the spawned FAC aircraft gets shot down, but since none of them spawned, it throws errors.

 

Just wanted to see if you had any thoughts.  I will try to get the actual script errors.

 

Also.... wondered if you had any thoughts about my post above with the odd Capture behavior of FARPzones that spawn resource units.

 

As always, thanks for your hard work and tireless support 

 

 

[cfrag]

41 minutes ago, Recluse said:

I've been either taking a singleton FAC aircraft, or more oftenI just take one aircraft from a multi-unit group when NOBODY ELSE is flying another client in that group.

Using multi-unit groups with WP is looking for trouble. Without any hint as the where to look I don't think I can narrow the down the code part. 

 

3 hours ago, Recluse said:

any thoughts about my post above with the odd Capture behavior of FARPzones that spawn resource units.

I think this is an ED issue. Hopefully someday we'll get word how capturing rules really work.

[Recluse]

2 minutes ago, cfrag said:

 

 

I think this is an ED issue. Hopefully someday we'll get word how capturing rules really work.

My issue with it was if I make a FARP and populate it with support units, and use a regular ownedZone, the Rock Paper Scissors hierarchy that we observe holds. But when I use a FARPzone to auto-generate the support units, that hierarchy kind of goes out the window. Maybe it is the ownedZone code doing its magic.

Edited February 10 by Recluse

[bitboy]

cFrag,

 Looking for some insight on a scenario that I'm trying to sort with Clone Zones.

1) Would like the Cloner to start with a delay or fire off with an input from another trigger zone. So the spawn? would be trigger with a value or Flag, I don't want to use the no onStart attribute.

2) I would use the coolDown value of the Clone Zone to have gap, maybe 15 - 30 minutes or more, before the Cloner cycles a new group.

3) Lastly, have a Flag that would trigger the "pause" attribute in the Clone zone, stopping the Cloner when a condition is met. (Say an Owned Zone is captured, I know I could likely use a bang output from the OwnedZone here to set this value, I would just have the Clone zone watch for that value and then pause accordingly).

 Is there a specific demo mission I should look at or do you have a suggestion?

thx

 

[cfrag]

20 hours ago, Recluse said:

when I use a FARPzone to auto-generate the support units, that hierarchy kind of goes out the window.

I'll have to check the attributes of the units produced - perhaps one of them has the armored attribute. DML cannot interfere with DCS's standard capture rules. I'll look into it as soon as I have some time.

 

[cfrag]

9 hours ago, bitboy said:

1) Would like the Cloner to start with a delay or fire off with an input from another trigger zone. So the spawn? would be trigger with a value or Flag, I don't want to use the no onStart attribute.

Hmm. What have you against the onStart attribute? I think turning it off would do exactly what you want. Then I'd use a pulser with a slightly randomized (say 15-30 range) delay, and if you don't want to have the spawner spawn at the mission start, turn off zero pulse.

9 hours ago, bitboy said:

have a Flag that would trigger the "pause" attribute in the Clone zone, stopping the Cloner when a condition is met.

Pause the pulser instead. Same result, more options for you to play around with

 

[bitboy]

LOL yeah no worries I have nothing against onStart attribute.  In many cases with the Multiplayer stuff I develop, not everything rolls at the beginning. (Sometimes for immersion, sometimes for DCS performance reasons).

Thanks for the insight, I'll dive deeper with the pulser, I was already looking at that based on a couple of the Clone demo missions.

Thxs

[bitboy]

cfrag,

 Is there the ability to offset or change the placement location of Defenders in a Factory zone? I see there are attributes for attackers: attackPhi and attackDelta. Just looking for a means of offsetting the Defenders from the center of the zone when they spawn in. Using the formation attribute helps some. And these Factory zones are not linked zones so the offset feature of a linked unit wouldn't apply either.

 If it's not a current feature of DML, no worries, just double checking here.

Thxs

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, bitboy said:

Is there the ability to offset or change the placement location of Defenders in a Factory zone?

Use cloners instead of the factory's built-in spawners. See the cloneFactory demo as a possible example. Personally, I think this puts the old factory spawning to shame  

 

[bitboy]

Thanks I was considering that as well. I know the demo you speak of, sounds like a plan.

Thxs

[bitboy]

cFrag,

 A question regarding how input flags are processed with Clone Zones.

Here's the scenario:

1) I have several Clone Zones that spawn AA units based on the activation of a Flag. The flag is activated by a standard ME trigger zone when Blue air units enter a trigger zone (call it ABLE, this is Once only trigger).  Also the expectation is once the AA is destroyed there is no need to re-Clone it....so a one time Clone only.   Also trying to limit the number of units at start and keep mission performance optimized as the mission covers a large area and since the players are only in certain sectors at any given time I only want the applicable units "live" for that sector to conserve resources.  (Imposters maybe...I'll look at that option as well).

2) The AA unit(s) spawn in at Red airfield (Owned Zone), in order to protect it. However assume at some point the airfield is captured by Blue.

3) The mission would leverage Persistence, so the concern is, the next time the mission fires up, even with the original AA units destroyed, the ABLE trigger would be live again causing the Cloner put the AA units at the airfield, not the ideal situation since Blue captured the airfield during the last session and it was saved via persistence.

 Sooo, the question is, how would I go about evaluating a flag(s) to prevent the AA from spawning in if the airfield is controlled by Blue?

I have tried having the Cloner pause? or Wipe? based on Flags that I have set for when ownership of the airfield changes to Blue. However I think part of the problem is, since I'm using the spawn? to see the ABLE flag go active the Cloner disregards the other inputs or I'm using the wrong inputs....or I'm approaching this the wrong way.  LOL

Any insight or suggestions are appreciated.

Thxs

 

UPDATE:  Impostors!! Such a simple module and yet what a game changer. The Impostors module with some Switch Triggers sprinkled in to set off Flags, very slick!

Edited February 15 by bitboy

[bitboy]

cFrag,

  Starting to run into this error/warning with use to the attackers with the Factory module.

WARNING TRANSPORT (Main): CREATING PATH MAKES TOO LONG!!!!!

  The AI struggle to figure out how to get going. This didn't seem to happen on the Caucasus and Syria maps, (I'm using Normandy v2 for this one).  

I decided to scrap the Factory and use a cloner as a test. The "attackers" where setup in a clone zone with waypoints all on road to their destination. Using the cloner with pulser worked great, except I wanted to limit the pulser to only 3 instances and it did three pulses, but then after a while it started pulsing again. No other conditions had changed. 

From what I understand the AI pathing withing DCS has been a long time issue, so I may have to just find ways to work around it.

Thxs

[cfrag]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:30 PM, bitboy said:

 Sooo, the question is, how would I go about evaluating a flag(s) to prevent the AA from spawning in if the airfield is controlled by Blue?

IMHO, that depends on what you are seeing - what the symptoms are. From what I read, your main concern revolves around how persistence affects the overall mission, not the other modules themselves. So in order to trouble-shoot any issue, we need to look at the issue, and especially the order of events that lead up to it. Maybe it's merely something that can be avoided by changing the sequence in which modules load, and using persistence's ability to save flag values to prevent triggering.

13 hours ago, bitboy said:

WARNING TRANSPORT (Main): CREATING PATH MAKES TOO LONG!!!!!

Uh - is that a message from one of DML's modules? I know that my English is bad, but that's terrible, if just from a syntactic and semantics point of view. I hope that this error is thrown in relation to vehicles using roads. I know that the commander module will complain when it checks the path generated over roads is shorter than the direct distance between two points (a way that it checks if DCS has failed to generate a path). I also have the feeling that vehicle pathing (via roads) can be really, really bad for some maps, so I tend to avoid it. Can you show me how this thing comes about?

[cfrag]

2 minutes ago, Chad Vader said:

Has you ever managed to get the herc scripts to fire on a dedicated server? 

The Herc is (AFAIK) a piece of sheer wizardry by Anubis. Since I'm (anxiously) awaiting the "real" Herc (IIRC also with strong contributions from Anubis), I have not (yet) bothered with airdrop functionality in DML since I'm (perhaps naïvely) believing that since air-dropping is an important aspect of a military flight sim, this will come as part of some future DCS core.

So, unfortunately no, I have not looked into this.

[bitboy]

cFrag,

 Thanks for the follow up.

Missed that one, Persistence saving flags...so they don't fire again...problem solved. 

The second part the "WARNING TRANSPORT (Main): CREATING PATH MAKES TOO LONG!!!!!" is not from a DML module, (your English is fine BTW ), it's taken from the DCS.log it's what I captured when I had Attackers spawning at a factory but never moving to attack an enemy zone nearby (15 nm away). I think it's has to do with the map. I'm using Normandy v2 map. Also I did some research and this particular DCS.log warning message has been a known issue with AI pathing for quite sometime. 

I haven't encountered this on Caucasus or Syria which is why I'm a little suspect of the map. I was curious if you had come across this before or not.

thxs

Edited February 16 by bitboy

[Recluse]

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

The Herc is (AFAIK) a piece of sheer wizardry by Anubis. Since I'm (anxiously) awaiting the "real" Herc (IIRC also with strong contributions from Anubis), I have not (yet) bothered with airdrop functionality in DML since I'm (perhaps naïvely) believing that since air-dropping is an important aspect of a military flight sim, this will come as part of some future DCS core.

So, unfortunately no, I have not looked into this.

I did some testing and kludged up the Herc HERCULES_CARGO.LUA logistics script (found in the AIRCRAFT\MODS\Hercules folder) and loaded MIST for it and I got Airdrops working with the Herc.  I guess you could also go full CTLD..  I just loaded the units in the Herc and dropped them, rather than using any of the menu items. Managed to spawn units suitable for capturing zones.

[Spankinvicar]

Hi.  Im literally brand new to this and mission building in general.  So please excuse me if I sound like an Idiot. This looks really impressive.  Ive managed to get the autoCSAR template to work at the first attempt (using the vids you made)but I have a couple of questions, if you can be bothered answering Newbie questions, that is. ?

1/  Is it possible to add the UH-60L flyable mod to the list of Heli's that can fly these missions.?  and If so how do I add it.?

2/  How exactly do I use the missions that you have set up as Tutorials and demo's.?  Ive ran a few of them but I have no idea what Im looking at even when im looking at how you have them set up etc.

Thanks 

[Chad Vader]

Hi CFrag.

I cant get csarManager to work.

I have installed the following scripts via trigger at mission start.

5.6.3.2 Dependencies
Required: dcsCommon, cfxZones, cfxPlayer, nameStats, cargoSuper
Optional: cfxCommander, limitedAirframes, autoCSAR

It says the scripts start but no new CSAR mission is triggered inside the CSAR zone at mission start?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

29 minutes ago, Spankinvicar said:

Hi.  Im literally brand new to this and mission building in general.  So please excuse me if I sound like an Idiot. This looks really impressive.  Ive managed to get the autoCSAR template to work at the first attempt (using the vids you made)but I have a couple of questions, if you can be bothered answering Newbie questions, that is. ?

1/  Is it possible to add the UH-60L flyable mod to the list of Heli's that can fly these missions.?  and If so how do I add it.?

2/  How exactly do I use the missions that you have set up as Tutorials and demo's.?  Ive ran a few of them but I have no idea what Im looking at even when im looking at how you have them set up etc.

Thanks 

Id really suggest you get to grips with the mission editor before attempting to use this framework.

7 hours ago, cfrag said:

The Herc is (AFAIK) a piece of sheer wizardry by Anubis. Since I'm (anxiously) awaiting the "real" Herc (IIRC also with strong contributions from Anubis), I have not (yet) bothered with airdrop functionality in DML since I'm (perhaps naïvely) believing that since air-dropping is an important aspect of a military flight sim, this will come as part of some future DCS core.

So, unfortunately no, I have not looked into this.

Thanks for replying... you replied quickly I managed to fix it and deleted the post hoping you wouldnt need to reply

Edited February 16 by Chad Vader