DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[cfrag]

9 hours ago, bitboy said:

However the factory spawns an enormous amount of units. I've been reviewing the documentation and I missing on how to control the number of attackers produced. 

You can control a factory's production in two ways:

• with the pause? and activate? inputs you can directly turn a factory's production on and off
• with the config zone's "productionTime" you control the interval (in seconds) for a production cycle for factories. If you set it to 5, it produces new units every 5 seconds. If you set it to 300, it produces new units every 5 minutes (5 * 60 = 300)

 

[bitboy]

Happy Sunday, thanks for the follow up. Yes I was aware of the pause and activate options, good stuff as always. I also determined the production time (as noted in the documentation) would have control as well. Basically.....I figured it out about 30 minutes after posting the question, sorry about that.

Also, the mrSkortch database of DCS units is great...a little dated (for example some of the insurgent Technicals are not in the listing). However searching the mission file inside the MIZ archive (once you've placed the units you're trying to define), is  perfect way to find the unit reference for use with DML. It would be nice if ED had spreadsheet or complete listing that came along with each update. 
Thanks again.

[Chad Vader]

Hey cFrag,

Apologies for all the questions but I am struggling with a way to flip the owned zones in my mission.

I basically want to continually check if a zone is neutral, if it is I want to spawn a helo unit on a cloner every 900 seconds to go capture it.

I have the cloner and it can clone helos but only when the zone change TO neutral by taking an input flag from this event.  How can I continually check that the zone is neutral?

Thanks for any advice.

[cfrag]

2 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

I basically want to continually check if a zone is neutral, if it is I want to spawn a helo unit on a cloner every 900 seconds to go capture it.

I have the cloner and it can clone helos but only when the zone change TO neutral by taking an input flag from this event. 

I believe that you are 90% of the way already. All you need is to look slightly different at the problem:

So here's how I would look at it: 

• when the zone belongs to neutral. a pulser runs to start a new capture attempt every 900 seconds
• should the zone be captured by anyone except neutral, the pulser is stopped 
• when the zone is captured by neutral (which really can't happen, right?) the pulser starts. If the zone doesn't start neutral, start the pulser with the same flag that you are using to force the zone to neutral or the one that you use to make it capturable. If the zone is neutral at mission start (which I assume), use a pulser without the zero pulse.

Does that fit the bill?

[Recluse]

Have a bunch of  questions: 

Looking for a good way to spawn client accessible Aircraft when a base is captured. Originally was going to use Slot Blocking, (and got that working) but would like to have it work for Single as well as Multiplayer.

- I placed the clients with Late Activation and was going to use one of the flags banged on a Capture event by the correct faction to spawn them. 

- In the baseCaptured zone, there is a "baseOwner" that should set a flag with a value corresponding to the faction that I could use, but it doesn't seem to work.  In the documentation, the "baseOwner" doesn't have the usual  ! after it for an output.  Should it  in order to have the value captured in a Flag? Or should it get a # like the ownedBy# in the Airfield zone?

- I tried to use the same flag banged on capture of the base from a certain faction, but, of course, the ME itself doesn't work well on Change or Increment, and setting the flag to TRUE (assuming it started out un-initialized) will check this.

- Is there anyway for DML to do the Group Activate, or do I have to use the built in ME Triggers for that?

- My understanding that I cannot use CloneZones or SpawnZones for Clients, but I didn't actually try.

- I realized in my testing, I forgot to SELECT ROLE to actually check if they ACTIVATED.  Forgot that the clients wouldn't show up on the F10 menu without StopGap...I also noticed that I can still enter an Inactive Client, I just get the "MISSION DELAYED" message, so slot blocking looks like the best option. Do you think it might be possible down the line to institute some kind of Single Player Slot blocking??

Thanks 

Edited January 30, 2024 by Recluse

[Chad Vader]

21 hours ago, cfrag said:

I believe that you are 90% of the way already. All you need is to look slightly different at the problem:

So here's how I would look at it: 

• when the zone belongs to neutral. a pulser runs to start a new capture attempt every 900 seconds
• should the zone be captured by anyone except neutral, the pulser is stopped 
• when the zone is captured by neutral (which really can't happen, right?) the pulser starts. If the zone doesn't start neutral, start the pulser with the same flag that you are using to force the zone to neutral or the one that you use to make it capturable. If the zone is neutral at mission start (which I assume), use a pulser without the zero pulse.

Does that fit the bill?

Gah! so many modules, ive been looking through the manual for something like this.. thanks

[bitboy]

cFrag, (yeah I know....Tuesday and already another question!?!?!)    What can I say....DML is really cool and sparks the imagination/creativity.

 Is there a basic "StopWatch" like function with DML? I think it can be done possibly with DelayFlag or Countdown. But what I'm looking for is a scenario where a player airframe enters a trigger zone and that starts a StopWatch, once the Player drops ordinance that strikes the ground the StopWatch stops.
 Now before DML I would use at trigger zone with a Flag and start incrementing the Flag and once the player was out of the zone stop the Flag from incrementing and post the current flag value out as a message. 
 Can you point me in the right direction with DML to implement something similar? Thxs

[Chad Vader]

On 1/29/2024 at 3:12 PM, cfrag said:

I believe that you are 90% of the way already. All you need is to look slightly different at the problem:

So here's how I would look at it: 

• when the zone belongs to neutral. a pulser runs to start a new capture attempt every 900 seconds
• should the zone be captured by anyone except neutral, the pulser is stopped 
• when the zone is captured by neutral (which really can't happen, right?) the pulser starts. If the zone doesn't start neutral, start the pulser with the same flag that you are using to force the zone to neutral or the one that you use to make it capturable. If the zone is neutral at mission start (which I assume), use a pulser without the zero pulse.

Does that fit the bill?

That works!! Thanks so much

Actually, how do I get the pulse to continue running after it ends?  I have the pulses attribute set to -1 but when the pulser fire its done! flag it just stops.

Edited January 30, 2024 by Chad Vader

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, bitboy said:

I'm looking for is a scenario where a player airframe enters a trigger zone and that starts a StopWatch, once the Player drops ordinance that strikes the ground the StopWatch stops.

Well, looking at the problem you need a clock signal, and a flag to stop the signal. I'd use a pulser, set it's method to 'inc' (default, nothing to set here) and  use the output flag as counter. Use pausePulse? input to stop the pulser. The pulse! output flag holds the value that you are looking for. Use messenger's :h :m :s wildcards to convert that number into a time value and add some nice text around it to make it look preofessional  

Edited January 30, 2024 by cfrag

[cfrag]

15 hours ago, Recluse said:

like to have it work for Single as well as Multiplayer.

Unfortunately that is not possible with current DCS. Slot blocking is only available as a server function so you must run the mission as multiplayer, even if playing alone. 

15 hours ago, Recluse said:

- My understanding that I cannot use CloneZones or SpawnZones for Clients, but I didn't actually try.

Correct. You currently can't spawn player aircraft by script.

15 hours ago, Recluse said:

Do you think it might be possible down the line to institute some kind of Single Player Slot blocking??

Not unless ED significantly change the way that player spawning works. My bet would be that ED finally make the leap to 'always multiplayer' since they already have moved to MT, so a single-player mission is simply a server, and a single client on the same machine. If that happens, you can run SSB or slotblock all the time, and they would also work for single player automatically (because single player is merely one-player multiplayer). AFAIK, the difference between self-hosted singleplayer multiplayer and single player is very small right now already

Edited January 30, 2024 by cfrag

[cfrag]

15 hours ago, Recluse said:

- In the baseCaptured zone, there is a "baseOwner" that should set a flag with a value corresponding to the faction that I could use, but it doesn't seem to work.  In the documentation, the "baseOwner" doesn't have the usual  ! after it for an output.  Should it  in order to have the value captured in a Flag? Or should it get a # like the ownedBy# in the Airfield zone?

Altough I do not believe that this will help you here (single player slot blocking currently does not work), have a look at the airfield module. It has an ownedBy# output that may be doing what you are looking for.

[Recluse]

19 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Unfortunately that is not possible with current DCS. Slot blocking is only available as a server function so you must run the mission as multiplayer, even if playing alone. 

Correct. You currently can't spawn player aircraft by script.

Not unless ED significantly change the way that player spawning works. My bet would be that ED finally make the leap to 'always multiplayer' since they already have moved to MT, so a single-player mission is simply a server, and a single client on the same machine. If that happens, you can run SSB or slotblock all the time, and they would also work for single player automatically (because single player is merely one-player multiplayer). AFAIK, the difference between self-hosted singleplayer multiplayer and single player is very small right now already.

 

Thanks. Slot Blocking SEEMS To work in the FOOTHOLD missions in Single Player.  Not sure if it is something in dzekeb's Zone Commande.lua or some other script in that mission, but it gave me hope

 

[bitboy]

cfrag,

Thanks for the follow up on the Pulser, I'll give it a shot. 

A quick note regarding the Bombing Range module, during some testing today I started getting these types of errors about 1 to 2 seconds after bomb impact in the zone. Once I cleared the error message I could continue and release more bombs, however I would receive the error message again.

In my case I had set up the Bombing Range to smokeHits with smokeColor red. I tried changing the trigger zone to flagHits and moved the attribute a little higher in the listing. 

Not sure if there is something broken with the smokeHits and smokeColor sections of the bombingRange.lua or not. Or maybe I just need to push those two atributes up higher in the listing? (I test that later as well). I've attached a screenshot of the error.

UPDATE

Ok ran additional tests with both smokeHits (getting errors) and flagHits (working fine). I've attached the bombRange trigger zone setup for both options.

Thxs

Edited January 30, 2024 by bitboy

[Chad Vader]

Hi again  thanks for all the previous help, im nearly there now!

Question: Is there a way simulate an AI task Push action in DML?  I want to tell a helicopter to change to a specific waypoint mid flight if a flag is raised.

Thanks.

[cfrag]

10 hours ago, bitboy said:

ran additional tests with both smokeHits (getting errors)

That's indeed a strange one, thank you. Seems it slipped by my regression testing. Please find (an equally untested, haven't had time yet) hopefully fixed version below to bridge the gap until release.

 

bombRange.lua

10 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

Is there a way simulate an AI task Push action in DML?  I want to tell a helicopter to change to a specific waypoint mid flight if a flag is raised

Currently no. You'd have to use special waypoint actions for that right now. 

Cheers,

-ch

 

[bitboy]

cfrag,

 The updated bombRange.lua worked like a charm, red smoke markers depicted for hits. Thxs!! 

Edited January 31, 2024 by bitboy

[vgilsoler]

The new TDZ script is giving following error when added to the mission.

I'm trying to add the TDZ to Orly RWY in Normandy 2 map. When using the previous version the TDZ is showed in mission map in a path 0/180 instead of 70/250.

[cfrag]

2 minutes ago, vgilsoler said:

I'm trying to add the TDZ to Orly RWY in Normandy 2 map. When using the previous version the TDZ is showed in mission map in a path 0/180 instead of 70/250.

Thank you for the headsup. Are you using the most recent version of TDZ (I thought that I squashed that bug recently)? It should be TDZ version 1.0.3.

That 0/180 is a bug that is fixed in 1.0.3, and can be worked around by adding an attribute "manual" = "false" to the TDZ (a wrong default in 1.0.2)

 

 

 

[vgilsoler]

1 minute ago, cfrag said:

Thank you for the headsup. Are you using the most recent version of TDZ (I thought that I squashed that bug recently)? It should be TDZ version 1.0.3.

That 0/180 is a bug that is fixed in 1.0.3, and can be worked around by adding an attribute "manual" = "false" to the TDZ (a wrong default in 1.0.2)

 

 

 

If I use the last version 1.0.3 then I get the attached script error. Let me try with the workaround.

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, vgilsoler said:

If I use the last version 1.0.3 then I get the attached script error. Let me try with the workaround.

In that case, can you send a small demo mission with that error for me to analyze? Hopefully I can resolve that quickly

[cfrag]

13 minutes ago, vgilsoler said:

If I use the last version 1.0.3 then I get the attached script error. Let me try with the workaround.

Perhaps show a screenshot of the trigger zone. I've just tested Orly with a basic TDZ, and it seems to work:

[vgilsoler]

15 minutes ago, cfrag said:

In that case, can you send a small demo mission with that error for me to analyze? Hopefully I can resolve that quickly

It seems the problem is using Bigging Hill for another TDZ. I move it to another airfield and the error starting the mission is gone.

[vgilsoler]

Thank you for your quick responses and for the AMAZING! work you developed with DML.

One more question, I'm thinking about to develop an interception training mission using messenger and unit zone, similar to the formation training mission.

Is it possible to filter in any way messages sent by the GCI to the player if he/she is not using the correct radio channel?

[cfrag]

3 minutes ago, vgilsoler said:

Is it possible to filter in any way messages sent by the GCI to the player if he/she is not using the correct radio channel?

I have not yet found a reliable way to figure out which channel(s) an arbitrary player unit is currently tuned to, so unfortunately, no. It would be great if that was possible, I agree, but this would require some API from ED that would allow us to access a unit's radio settings.

[DD_Friar]

Salute @cfrag - I am having an issue with the Artillery Zone.

I believe my logic to be doing the following;

1. A vehicle drives into a zone.

2. The zone then sends a trigger to a pulse zone

3. The pulse sends 5 repeat triggers to the Artillery zone.

In testing the pulse is working and the Artillery Zone is banging out some nice explosions.

My problem is that the journey time for the vehicle should be around 10 minutes from mission start, however the explosions are starting pretty much right away, allowing for the shell traverse time. 

I have attached screen shots below for all the applicable zones and parameters.

Am I dong something wrong? (Mission start time is 07:30)

 

Edited February 1, 2024 by DD_Friar