DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[Los]

Hi Thanks for your excellent set of tools. We cant get the UH60L mod to function with the troop transport or the CSAR script. I believe this is because the script or game doesn't recognize them yet as troop transport helicopters. Is there a way to designate a specific airframe or group as being able to transport troops or do CSAR? Thanks.

 

Los

[cfrag]

On 1/25/2023 at 12:24 AM, Los said:

I believe this is because the script or game doesn't recognize them yet as troop transport helicopters. Is there a way to designate a specific airframe or group as being able to transport troops or do CSAR?

Great Idea, thank you! The module to add this (small) change would be "HeloTroops" --  I'll add it to DLM's to-do list. Since it appears to be a smaller change, I think I can fit it in with the next update, scheduled in (as everything in DCS ) two weeks.

-ch 

[cfrag]

Version 1.2.2

Feature Update: new module "Valet" 

Over the past holiday season, I was crafting a couple of short missions for my group to do something fun. To make them more fun and immersive, I also added  'interactive' elements that individually address players. It was pretty much just polish, but the players in my group responded well to this - very well. So well, in fact, that I wanted a simple way to add better and more player integration to missions. 

I looked at how I created these interactions, and found that they all followed a similar schema: a unitZone watches for player units, and then triggers a messenger. The messenger assembles a greeting and uses wildcards to access player information that make the message more personal. To make the messages more varied, I often added a counter and changer to be able to switch between the first and all subsequent messages. So a zone with a stack of two to four modules allowed me to populate the map (via copy/paste) with many interactive elements.

I decided to take that idea, and coalesce these module stacks into one, then round out the features. Result: the new 'valet' module. It's there mainly to respond to players with personalized messages, sound effects or events whenever they enter or leave the valet's zone. They are player-focused (they only work for player-controlled units). And they are incredibly easy to use, are as powerful as the fully-blown messenger module when it comes to displaying dynamic content, and they can make a mission much more immersive simply by engaging the player. Convenient for single-player missions, a god-send great for multi-player missions.  

Valets add a *lot* of polish to your mission in just a few seconds. Drop a valet zone over an airfield, and have it greet and send off player units with messages that address them by callsign. Put a valet over a hospital to direct players who control helicopters to the helipad. Fence your player spawn-points into a valet, and greet players individually when they spawn in. 

Valet zones may have limited mission flow/control impact - but they can send output events whenever players enter or exit a zone, so they also make natural mission stage triggers. Above all, though, they add tremendous panache to your mission with a minimal effort. 

Beyond the new valet module, there have been a number of changes under the hood, and - as so often - "DML crown jewel" cloneZone has received further integration with other modules: you now can spawn "brittle" units - units that explode after they receive only a modicum of damage. This service is provided by the delicates module, and cloners can automatically pass clones to delicates for handling.

All changes:

Manual
    Main
        - New chapter "Valet"
        - New chapter Demo "I say hello goodbye" (Valet)
        - Various updates to modules 
        
    Quick reference 
        - Valet (new)
        
Demos
    - new "I say hello goodbye" (Valet)
    
Modules
    - object Spawn Zones 1.3.2
        - delicates hand-off supports "*" shortcut 
        
    - spawn zones 1.7.3
        - delicates hand-off supports "*" shortcut 
        
    - cfxZones 3.0.2
        - maxRadius for polygonal zones 
        - central wildcard processing, re-factored from messenger 
    
    - cloneZones 1.7.1
        - new ability to hand off clones to delicates 
        
    - dcsCommon 2.8.1
        - refactored wildcard handling 
        - wildcard matching for arrays 
        - stringStartsWith fix for DCS/Lua string.find oddity 

    - delicates 1.1.1
        - addGroupToInventory() (new)
        - verbosity updates 
        
    - FARP Zones 1.2.1
        - corrected a bug where no FARP was contained within zone 
        
    - messenger 2.2.0
        - wildcard refactoring to cfxZones, dcsCommon 
        - new <player: unit> wildcard 
    
    - valet 1.0.0
        - initial version

 

Enjoy,

-ch

[cfrag]

On 1/25/2023 at 12:24 AM, Los said:

We cant get the UH60L mod to function with the troop transport or the CSAR script.

This wasn't nearly as difficult as I feared. I updated the CSAR Manager script. You now can list all helicopter types in the csar manager's config zone in the troopCarriers attribute.

I don't know what type string the HU-60L Mod uses in-game (maybe have to look at the .miz), but if you add it to the list, the csarManager should allow the Blackhawk to evacuate personnel.

Please see the attached script. Be advised: it uses new versions of dcsCommon, cfxZones and csarManager that are slated for the next DML review, soi you will need to copy/paste them from the mission into your own if you can't wait  

The demo below allows only the Huey and Gazelle Minigun to perform CSAR missions, which is different from DML's default set (Huey, Hind, Hip).

After you add the Blackhawk's type, remember to also add it to the miz

 

demo - CSAR of Georgia.miz

[Los]

Thank you very much this works like a charm. Well done!

 

Los

[Los]

Will this enable troop transport for the ground forces as well or does that require a similar modification to that script?

[cfrag]

11 hours ago, Los said:

Will this enable troop transport for the ground forces as well or does that require a similar modification to that script?

Silly me, of course it does - and I already updated that yesterday as well, it just didn't occur to my single-track mind that you might need it. Same attribute "troopCarriers", same format (the joys of the dcsCommon code base ) as in csarManager.

 

demo - helo trooper.miz

[Los]

Thank you Sir, it works great!

 

[Faflynx]

Hello, as a no-brainer with code & Lua I shall say that what you created is just AWESOME, and I'm just beginning tu see all the possibilities...

Be thanked a lot for your time, patience and incredible follow-up with users !

Keep it up, and fly safe man !

Edited February 2, 2023 by Faflynx

[winghunter]

It would be nice to integrate this with DCS Web Editor. We could increse the usability even more by adding custom buttons and drag&drop elements to the UI.

[cfrag]

4 minutes ago, winghunter said:

It would be nice to integrate this with DCS Web Editor.

It surely would be. If/when the web editor arrives, I'll be happy to take a look. Pre-populating trigger zone attributes from a drop-down per module could indeed put DML on steroids. x-referencing used flags and graphically showing flag connections (out-->in) between modules via flags will officially classify as "Nirwana" (not the band)

Edited February 6, 2023 by cfrag

[Faflynx]

Hello cfrag, I have a question, would it be possible with DML, to track a ship,( like a P3 Orion would do), and get information on heading & speed maybe coordinates or bearing/range from a Unit ?

[cfrag]

6 hours ago, Faflynx said:

would it be possible with DML, to track a ship,( like a P3 Orion would do), and get information on heading & speed maybe coordinates or bearing/range from a Unit ?

Yes, and quite easily so. It's part of messenger's standard functionality:

Please see enclosed example. I threw it together so quickly I didn't even realize the typos

 

keeping an I on ya.miz

Edited February 7, 2023 by cfrag

[winghunter]

13 hours ago, cfrag said:

It surely would be. If/when the web editor arrives, I'll be happy to take a look. Pre-populating trigger zone attributes from a drop-down per module could indeed put DML on steroids. x-referencing used flags and graphically showing flag connections (out-->in) between modules via flags will officially classify as "Nirwana" (not the band)

 

Can you hit me on discord, I would give you early access and then we can see how this could work

[Faflynx]

cfrag, thanks a lot, it's awesome !!!

Might even help me understand how it really works (dumb me).

Thank you very, very much !

[Hallsy]

Hey Cfrag. Do you plan on adding your ASW module to the Github documentation? It looks like an awesome addition to multiplayer! Thank you again for all your work on DML.

[cfrag]

7 hours ago, Hallsy said:

Do you plan on adding your ASW module to the Github documentation?

Yes - "Troubles Deep" originated as a test bed for the ASW module. It's not done yet (the ASW module), and although an experimental version will probably be included with the next DLM release, writing the documentation for such a big module (it currently consists of four separate parts that can link together automatically) and its accompanying demo will take more time. If you look at the "Troubles" mission, you'll realize that it's pretty much only a few ASW zones plus a cloner and messenger module, with valet shown in just to show off. And since it's DML, expanding that mission to other helicopter types (like a Blackhawk Mod) is easy. Once I get the docs done that is  

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by cfrag

[Hallsy]

18 hours ago, cfrag said:

Yes - "Troubles Deep" originated as a test bed for the ASW module. It's not done yet (the ASW module), and although an experimental version will probably be included with the next DLM release, writing the documentation for such a big module (it currently consists of four separate parts that can link together automatically) and its accompanying demo will take more time. If you look at the "Troubles" mission, you'll realize that it's pretty much only a few ASW zones plus a cloner and messenger module, with valet shown in just to show off. And since it's DML, expanding that mission to other helicopter types (like a Blackhawk Mod) is easy. Once I get the docs done that is  

 

 

Hey Cfrag. Thanks for the reply. That was my assumption! All of your work is greatly appreciated, your tools have been a real game changer.

[Phoonzang]

I'm making a mission with DML that includes using a helicopter to deploy troops in to battle.

What's the best way to distinguish those troops being killed in action from being "deleted" due to being picked up by a helicopter?  Techniques like groupTracker and unitZone can't tell the difference it seems.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Phoonzang

[cfrag]

27 minutes ago, Phoonzang said:

What's the best way to distinguish those troops being killed in action from being "deleted" due to being picked up by a helicopter?

Ah, good question. I think that rather depends on your mission's goals and may need some better integration within DML. Can I trouble you to describe your use case for the mission? DML has good integration with SpawnZones so they can spawn new troops shortly after you pick up a batch of troops, but from what you are writing I believe you are trying to do something else: pick up troops at one place, drop them off at another, while keeping track of them as alive even though they are technically not in the game while loaded onto the helicopter. Did I get that right?

If possible, I'd like to hear more about your setup and mission goals to see if there is an easy work-around, or if we need to expand Helo Troop's integration with other modules.

Edited February 9, 2023 by cfrag

[Phoonzang]

The mission idea is this:  Pick up troops at one point on the map (after requesting from a spawnZone) and deliver them to a combat area miles away.  In the combat area there is a target they are tasked to destroy.  The mission is successful if you exfiltrate them after the target is destroyed.   If they are killed by the target/defenders in the combat area then the mission should fail.  My issue right now is that picking them up for exfiltration after success is the same as them being killed.

A related and additional problem I encountered while working on this:  wait-attackZone as an order doesn't work for me here either because as soon as I request them at the staging area they start running towards the target zone miles away, rather than only after helicopter deployment.

[cfrag]

11 hours ago, Phoonzang said:

My issue right now is that picking them up for exfiltration after success is the same as them being killed.

Alright, yes that would need some enhancements to DML. How are you tracking the troops right now (I'm guessing GroupTracker), and how/when are they submitted to the tracking module? I hope I can come up with a good, well-integrated solution quickly. If you don't mind, please PM me the mission so I can have a look.

11 hours ago, Phoonzang said:

wait-attackZone as an order doesn't work for me here either because as soon as I request them at the staging area they start running towards the target zone miles away

Over-eager little buggers - I'll see if I can fix that right away.

[cfrag]

17 hours ago, Phoonzang said:

wait-attackZone as an order doesn't work for me

Now it does. The good news: this bug obscured another bug when picking up troops with "attackZone" orders. The better news: that one's fixed as well. Please see the attached miz. Note: if you grab those scripts off the mission, make sure you grab and replace them all in your mission to avoid compatibility issues with the new sources.

 

zone attackers spawn test.miz

[Phoonzang]

The fix for wait-attackZone looks good to me.  That was fast - thank you!

I'll send you a PM with the mission (and more details) as requested.

[Los]

Hi Chris,

We are making a mission that has a whole city battle. It is gong ok, the troops auto spawn and head off to fight battles  per usual,(very fun thanks!)   but eventually too many troops are spawned and it bogs the server. We are playing with adjusting spawn times but in a battle where you have a fair amount of zones, the ones in the rear area end up bogging down the mission by continual  spawning troops. Is there a way to set a limit or a trigger to deactivate a cloner zone after some period of time or set of conditions. I have poked around the internet to see if we can deactivate zones but I haven't found anything. Any guidance appreciated. Thanks.

 

Los