DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[cfrag]

Version 2.3.3 - 20240926 - Minor Update 

A few more busy weeks. DML appears to be stabilizing (most of the DCS bugs identified and bridged, some can't be fixed without ED's help) and this update is thankfully small.

Behind the scenes I'm working on a new module that is quite different, and that I'm sure that many of you contributors will appreciate. It's not ready for prime time, and I'm hoping to be able to tell you more with the next release. 

Changes in Detail:

Documentation
    Main 
        Various corrections 
        
    Quickref
        Various corrections 
        
Demos
    (none)

    
Modules
    - persistence 3.0.1 
        - corrected a typo in shared data fallback code 
        
    - playerScoreUI 3.0.1 
        - DCS Jul-22 code hardening 
        
    - Scribe 2.0.3
        - improved time measuring by switchiong from passive (event based) to active
      

Enjoy,

_ch

[Recluse]

@cfrag this must truly be a labor of love because your dedication and support is nothing short of phenomenal!  THANK YOU..

P.S. I have been going through your A-10A flight school missions (again).  Also a GREAT resource for a largely overlooked platform.  Overlooked both by PLAYERS and by ED who have yet to fix MANY little bugs I have seen reported in OLD threads on the Flaming Cliffs/A-10A forums.

The A-10C was one of the First Full Fidelity Modules I purchased, but it and its big sister the A-10C-2 have pretty much been Hangar queens, so my Hawg itch tends to get scratched by the -A model.

[Panthir]

On 9/26/2024 at 8:57 AM, cfrag said:

Modules
           
    - playerScoreUI 3.0.1 
        - DCS Jul-22 code hardening

Dear Christian, 

What exactly did you fix in those two? I ask you because I have modified several of our virtual Sqn missions in order to have a working score by using by passing tips. So I would be grateful to know what I will have to rollback to normal.  Thanks. Have a nice weekend.

Edited September 27, 2024 by Panthir

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, Panthir said:

What exactly did you fix in those two?

Uh. I don't keep details, but you easily run a diff between the two versions. I think Github also provides the relevant view.

[DD_Friar]

@Panthir

I dont get what you mean by roll back?

DO you just NOT use the new version in your load DML section?

Apologies if I am completely missing your point / situation

Or is there some dark art that you use to update your missions with the new scripts when they get released that I am blissfully unaware of

Currently I go into my mission, open the script, clear the code then paste in the new version from notepad++, rinse and repeat for all the modules in the mission.

[cfrag]

7 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

Or is there some dark art that you use to update your missions with the new scripts when they get released that I am blissfully unaware of

If I understand @Panthir correctly, he performed some open-heart voodoo on some the scripts, and now wants to know how he can retro-fit my changes to the sources that he changed. Since I can't afford to support scripts modified by other people, he might be slightly up a proverbial creek.

[CidTheViking]

Hello fellow DML users.

I am looking for a way to de spawn a helotroop  unit once they reach a zone to simulate them entering a building to clear it. I looked at the wiper module but was unable to see a way to link into when a unit enters a zone.

So the scenario goes like this. Player spawn troops on the tarawa, pick them up, drop them off at the terminal on larnca on Cyprus they will get out and move to the closest owned zone. From there there once they hit that zone I would like them to de spawn to make it look like they entered the building. At the same time once those units hit that zone I would like to send a signal to activate cloners to send in QRF outside the airport.

Any help would be great.

[DD_Friar]

@CidTheViking Salute

Which movement command are you using; wait-guard or wait-captureandhold?

Have you tried a small unitZone inside a larger wiperZone

set up the unitzone to look for ground forces entering the zone, that sends a flag to the wiper. Make sure the wiper covers a large enough area for the troops. Give it the "unit" attribute to just take out the troops.

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag

I am having an issue with the messenger and reporting ownedBy# values.

I have a FOB and a bunch of towns. The FOB at mission start is Neutral (0), the other towns are controlled by Red (1).

Using the rsp: attribute I gave a "Red In Control" and "Captured".

If I supply "Neutral",Red In Control" and "Captured" they all get returned as Neutral.

My problem is that the neutral FOB gets reported as being Red.

Is it not possible to use this function in this scenario? If not I will just exclude the FOB from the list.

RESPONSE-SELECTION WILDCARDS • looks up the value of and uses that value and an offset into the responses given with the ‘responses’ attribute. The first response has an index of 1. If the flag’s value is less than 1, the first response is returned, if the value is higher than the number of responses, the last response is returned

Also

Is there any way that the PlayerScoreUI could only report back to the player that requested the update?

I had a player the other night who uses VR and was just coming in to land when his headset was filled with score information requested by another player.

No problem if this is a limitation of the DCS interface, just thought I would ask as it would be a "nice to have".

Cheers

Friar

[cfrag]

19 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

Using the rsp: attribute I gave a "Red In Control" and "Captured".

If I supply "Neutral",Red In Control" and "Captured" they all get returned as Neutral.

My problem is that the neutral FOB gets reported as being Red.

I believe it would help tremendously if you could show a screenshot of the relevant trigger zones. That being said (but I'd like to verify this) now that you report this I believe that an issue might arise with the way that Lua looks at tables: the first element is element 1. If you are using 0 (neutral) as an index, i'm not sure what that will return, nor how we can easily use coalition into that sequence. 

[DD_Friar]

Ok, fair enough. I can work round it so no big problem.

[CidTheViking]

@DD_Friar

I am using attackOwnedZone so that when two ch47s drop them off near terminal offsetting the landing by 50 meters or so to get them to go the correct side of the terminal. Haven't fully tested the unitzone idea yet but is in the mission file. Hard to test and create mission at the some time with hooking up and taking down flight gear constantly. I will report back once I do get to test.

thank for the heads up

[vgilsoler]

Getting this error when activating impostors.

I'm using DML v2.3.2.

I think the problem is that I have factory zones inside the impostors zone. I use the same flag to activate impostors and pause the factory zones, I use another common flag to deactivate impostors and activate the factory zones. The rational behind is to start/stop fight/production when allied aircraft is in/out the impostors zone.

Tested and failed on both DCS v2.9.8 and v2.9.7

I attach the miz for review if someone can help.

Normandia_captura_base.miz

Edited October 2, 2024 by vgilsoler

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, vgilsoler said:

Getting this error when activating impostors.

Apologies, can't load the mission, requires ww2 pack.

[bellaevioron]

hi . can someone please create a sample mission starting from "Owned Zones and Factories" where there is a limit on the number of units created ? thanks.
I think you have to use the pulse function but I can't. thanks

[cfrag]

15 hours ago, bellaevioron said:

I think you have to use the pulse function but I can't.

I believe that you are 90% on track. Instead of a pulser, use the countDown module that is triggered each time that the factory produces something (through the factories blueP! or redP! outputs). When the countdown reaches zero, send a signal to the fctory pause? input to prevent further production.

[vgilsoler]

On 10/2/2024 at 8:54 PM, cfrag said:

Apologies, can't load the mission, requires ww2 pack.

I've replaced the ww2 pack units.

The mission starts with units and factories started, then a pulse at 5s move them to paused, when an IA P-51D enters in the zone it activates the units and factories and when it exits the units and factories are paused. Until here everything works succesfully. But, when the P51 enters again in the zone to activate units and factories I got the script error. Maybe the number of units in the zone is the problem? Or maybe new units from the factories?

Normandia_captura_base_No_assets.miz

[bellaevioron]

7 ore fa, cfrag ha scritto:

I believe that you are 90% on track. Instead of a pulser, use the countDown module that is triggered each time that the factory produces something (through the factories blueP! or redP! outputs). When the countdown reaches zero, send a signal to the fctory pause? input to prevent further production.

thanks i tried but i cant. i dont see all the dots.
as a base i used mission "demo - Owned Zones ME integration" and
"demo - The Zonal Countdown". please dont do like ED at 90%
two weeks.. do it yourself when you have time a demo mission Caucasus
thanks.

[cfrag]

24 minutes ago, bellaevioron said:

thanks i tried but i cant. i dont see all the dots.

If you post the mission that you have, I think that we can quickly connect the remaining dots together

 

[bellaevioron]

10 minuti fa, cfrag ha scritto:

Se pubblichi la missione che hai, penso che possiamo rapidamente collegare insieme i punti rimanenti

 

Thank you

test1.miz

[cfrag]

7 hours ago, vgilsoler said:

The mission starts with units and factories started, then a pulse at 5s move them to paused, when an IA P-51D enters in the zone it activates the units and factories and when it exits the units and factories are paused. Until here everything works succesfully. But, when the P51 enters again in the zone to activate units and factories I got the script error. Maybe the number of units in the zone is the problem? Or maybe new units from the factories?

Confirmed, reproduced and corrected. Root cause was that the impostor code did not check if a unit that was "impostored" was killed before being impostored, leading to a unit not found. Below please find the corrected module. Note that I took the opportunity to tweak the code's performance which required an update to cfxMX as well (see below)

I'm sure that you are aware of this: units that are spawned (e.g. by a factory) will not be controlled by an impostor zone since it can only handle groups that are present from the mission start.

 

impostors.lua cfxMX.lua

[cfrag]

17 hours ago, bellaevioron said:

thanks i tried but i cant. i dont see all the dots.

Perhaps re-visit the manual.

17 hours ago, bellaevioron said:

as a base i used mission "demo - Owned Zones ME integration" and
"demo - The Zonal Countdown"

I recommend against using DML's demos as a base for your own missions. Use the demo to experiment only. DML demos quickly become hopelessly outdated (DCS requires rapid changed to many modules), so the demos only serve to present the idea of the module for you to experiment with. Build your own mission with DML's newest and brightest modules as only the newest versions are supported. 

Below please find a miz that uses a factory to build groups of BTR-80 and sends them to a red owned zone. A countDown zone is used to limit the factory's production to exactly three blue production cycles. 

This is a bare-bones implementation,  using textbook countDown and a factory. Of note may be "CommanderConfig" that sets "forceOffRoad" to true to work around a DCS pathing bug.

Have fun,

-ch

 

produce three times.miz

[bellaevioron]

5 ore fa, cfrag ha scritto:

Perhaps re-visit the manual.

I recommend against using DML's demos as a base for your own missions. Use the demo to experiment only. DML demos quickly become hopelessly outdated (DCS requires rapid changed to many modules), so the demos only serve to present the idea of the module for you to experiment with. Build your own mission with DML's newest and brightest modules as only the newest versions are supported. 

Below please find a miz that uses a factory to build groups of BTR-80 and sends them to a red owned zone. A countDown zone is used to limit the factory's production to exactly three blue production cycles. 

This is a bare-bones implementation,  using textbook countDown and a factory. Of note may be "CommanderConfig" that sets "forceOffRoad" to true to work around a DCS pathing bug.

Have fun,

-ch

 

produce three times.miz 213 kB · 2 download

thanks.
sorry but it seems to me that we are getting worse
I have some questions.
1 why do you use do script by copying and pasting inside dcs and not use
do script file?
2 why don't you make a single file instead?
3 latest version of the files? where?
4 what tricks do you use to avoid the fps from dropping?
5 in the mission you create a blue factory zone a counter config zone:
wouldn't it be better to have a counter/time option for each factory zone?
can't you have more types of counters?
6 what do you use to quickly compile various zones? I use scrachpad copy and paste
7 what do you recommend to avoid path problems?
8 how to avoid that the blue and red side ignore each other?
9 what do you recommend as the size of the zones?
10 I see that in the attached mission the troops stop. I can't
find a setting to remove it
11 is there a module that with predisposed units controls them
to conquer zones?

my goal is to use dml to create various missions like c&c redalert
in a fast and practical way but it seems to me "Complications Office Simple Business"
thanks

41.miz

[cfrag]

39 minutes ago, bellaevioron said:

it seems to me that we are getting worse
I have some questions.

Perhaps it would help if you invested some time into finding out what DML is and how it works. There’s a manual in the download, and it should answer most of your questions.

[bellaevioron]

Il 05/10/2024 at 17:48, cfrag ha scritto:

Perhaps it would help if you invested some time into finding out what DML is and how it works. There’s a manual in the download, and it should answer most of your questions.

thanks now I see a little better.
with worsening I meant that now I see that the units get stuck on the road. I am aware that ED is involved. I did not mean to criticize your work.
if you check inside I used the original dml file older version... it works +-

is there a module that controls units set on mission editor to control various areas without using spawn or factory?
thanks

 

58.miz