DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[cfrag]

11 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

Im getting a strange warning in one of my coundDOwn zones

I'm unable to reproduce the issue. Can I trouble you to perhaps PM that miz to me (or a simplified version that isolates that behavior)?

[cfrag]

Version 2.3.5 - Feature Update 

So yes, my professional opinion of DCS's warehouse API is low. Very low. I personally deem the quality of the entirety of ED's design work that has gone into that part of DCS to be non-existent, amateurish. I also think that any time on my part sunk into supporting that aspect to be wasted. DCS is a quality show, and it deserver better. A lot better.

That being said, I was approached to add support for persistence to warehouse inventories. This would enable mission designers who do appreciate that I wouldn't touch current warehouse inventories for DML with a long pole to brew their own inventory management, and still have the ability to persist the missions. 

This update to DML provides completely transparent, drop-in persistence for warehouse inventories. Against my better judgement. Please do not expect me to follow this up with a DML module for warehouse inventory management any time soon, at least not until ED show us something that resembles a  professional warehouse API design. Because, in case I didn't mention this before, I think its current state is really, really bad and unworthy of DCS.

Other than that, this update contains some more fixes for bugs that were introduced with recent DCS releases (more and more strange objects turn up in events and need to be guarded against), and while I worked on persistence for inventory, I also fixed some long-standing bugs in existing modules (most of these bugs are quite arcane, and you are unlikely to have ever run across them, one I discovered while supporting adding persistence to a larger Warbirds mission)

Documentation
    - Main
        - WHpersistence (new)
        - minor corrections 
        
    - QuickRef
        - minor correction 
        
Demos
    - (no changes)
    
Modules

    - airfield 2.3.0
        - lock/release cycles on mission load for better persistence 
    
    - autoCSAR 2.2.1
        - more DCS bug hardening 
        
    - cloneZone 2.5.0
        - restored cloned connection on mission reload (persistence) for empty!
        
    - heloTroops 3.1.5
        - better destination guards on loading mission 
        
    - impostors 1.2.0
        - better filtering of dead groups 
    
    - noGap 1.3.1 
        - parity with stopGaps 1.3.1
    
    - radioMenus 4.0.2 
        - ackSnd now broadcasts when no group specified 
        
    - raiseFlag 3.0.0 
        - supports persistance 
        
    - slotty 1.2.0
        - better nilling of players 
        
    - WHpersistence 1.0.0
        - initial version 
 

[cfrag]

12 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

The rnd should then only trigger if okToSpawn (which should = 1) is equal to the value of ownerGaziantep (1=red). If blue capture the airfield this value will change to 2 and the trigger rule is then invalid okToSpawn will equal 1 and owner will equal 2 so no spawn.

I believe that there are many ways to do what you want to achieve, and your approach seems fine. My approach would be a bit more straightforward: use the Changer as a gate that can close, and simply only propagate signals through the gate if/when the owner of Gaz is red (1). So instead of baseCaptured, I'd use airfield (it has a direct ownedBy# output) and use changer to guard the signal from unitZone so it only flows into the randomizer when Gaz is owned by red.

[DD_Friar]

4 hours ago, cfrag said:

use the Changer as a gate that can close, and simply only propagate signals through the gate if/when the owner of Gaz is red (1).

Could you provide a simple screen shot of what charger needs just to act as a gate (open if Gaz=1, closed if anything else (0 or 2), I am afraid I am struggling with what would be required?

 

[cfrag]

5 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

Could you provide a simple screen shot of what charger needs just to act as a gate (open if Gaz=1, closed if anything else (0 or 2), I am afraid I am struggling with what would be required?

That is because I was lazy. You need two changers: once to act as a gate, the other to provide the gate's signal to open/close. I'll see if I can create a demo miz for that, but that may take some time, on the road right now.

 

Edited October 24, 2024 by cfrag

[DD_Friar]

3 minutes ago, cfrag said:

I'll see if I can create a demo miz for that, but that may take some time, on the road right now.

Ok, no worries, I am going to play hooky from work this afternoon (I "work" from home  ) and see what I can work out. Dont need a full mission just a simple idea of the parameters required. Safe travels.

Friar

[cfrag]

Here's a miz that controls the flow of signals to messenger with changers.

The goal of the entire assembly is to only let the signal sent from radioMenu output A! through to messenger? input if the flag 'owner' is set to 1 (to simulate ownership of red), and block it otherwise.

You can use the radioMenu to set owner to 1 or 2 (note the outB/outC attributes). It is set to 0 on startup. The signals for messenger are also created with radioMenu, output A!. Note the funky use of 'pulse', and see if you can deduct why I'm using it  -- Note that this is not for beginners, but you don't strike me as one, so happy puzzling.

 

gated changes.miz

[DD_Friar]

Ok thanks. I will take a look.

Hopefully it will shine a light on what I am doing wrong because at the moment I don't think my changer is working correctly. It does not seem to be changing the values of the flags as expected.

Thanks for taking the time to produce this example.

Regards

Friar.

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag - Got it!

Many thanks for the example. I have now successfully translated your logic to my test scenario and have designed flag names that I can copy and paste to each airfield with little change.

Just thinking I will be tweaking it slightly as I am thinking the order will be;

• plane flies into zone
• random airfield selected based on where the plane has come from etc.
• airfield then checked for suitability (gate open / closed)
• on a pass the random plane spawn is activated.

I get that this could mean an airfield could be selected where the gate is closed meaning no spawn triggered, that will be the pilots good fortune. This will be easier to build rather than staged zones with different airfield combinations as the mission progresses.

But I understand now.

Again thank you.

Cheers

Friar

[Guest]

Hi all,

hope this is the correct thread for my question.  Please feel free to direct me to somewhere more appropriate if needed.  (New to mission making/DML.)

I would like to restrict a players ability to enter a ground unit, unless there is a friendly, player-flown 'transport' helicopter on the ground next to it.

Does anyone know if you can attach a unitZone to a ground vehicle, so it can check if a chopper is next to it?

Or- is there a more elegant way perhaps?

Thanks for any help you can give.

'52

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, Gunslinger52 said:

I would like to restrict a players ability to enter a ground unit, unless there is a friendly, player-flown 'transport' helicopter on the ground next to it.

That is a really cool idea, but unfortunately current DCS has no provisions to support that. Entering ground units is part of "Combined Arms", a module that (to me) evokes the semblance of being created by an unwilling, sullen, low-ability temp. I deem it being of shoddy quality; it breaks any number of established DCS UX, and it is unworthy of DCS. Worst, it uses non-standard and undocumented API for entering and leaving units.

At this point in time, controlling how and if a player can enter a ground unit cannot be accomplished with scripts. 

Edited October 28, 2024 by cfrag

[DD_Friar]

Salute @Gunslinger52

Perhaps we need to think a little more "outside the box" due to the constraints that cfrag mentions.

I have not tried this, and it is a "knee-jerk" response, but what about turning the logic around a little.

Are you wanting the same player to jump from the helicopter to the vehicle, or is it another player doing the flying and another doing the driving?

If it is the first, when the player leaves the helicopter to switch it will of course disappear. If you wanted it to remain for eye candy you may have to look at spawning a static but that could lead to the static coming in before the player has left, more thoughts on that later.

I assume you know where the helicopter will be landing?

If which case use the module LZ (landing zone). This has the ability to bang a flag when a plane lands (or departs).

When the helicopter lands in the zone it bangs a flag on the landed! parameter "helicopterlanded" for example.

That could trigger a parameter in the cloneZone module on the clone? parameter  "helicopterlanded" that then spawns the vehicle of your choice.

If you want the vehicle to be sitting there as the helicopter comes in you could have a static (meaning that no one could drive it) and then use wiper or something to clear the space for the new spawn in the same position. Have a go at using the "declutter" parameter set to true on the cloner, that may work.

There may be a "blink" as one disappears and another arrives but that is a s good as it is going to get I think. The player will then go to the F10 map, click on the now drivable vehicle and select drive, so long as they have "Combined Arms" of course. Although the mission can be configured for pilots to control ground units, only players who own the Combined Arm module can actually occupy them.

Hope this helps.

regards

DD_Friar

 

 

[DD_Friar]

@Gunslinger52 and @cfrag

I to thought this a cool idea.

To assist I created the attached mission which has a stab at doing what I think you wanted.

The mission starts with vehicles waiting at the end of the runway. You can see that the Humvee is not drive-able at the moment.

We then fly in and land and swap to the tactical commander and how presto, we can now jump in the Humvee and drive away.

I have attached the mission as well for you to have a look at.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Friar

Fly-Drive.miz

[Chad Vader]

On 10/24/2024 at 7:44 AM, cfrag said:

Version 2.3.5 - Feature Update 

So yes, my professional opinion of DCS's warehouse API is low. Very low. I personally deem the quality of the entirety of ED's design work that has gone into that part of DCS to be non-existent, amateurish. I also think that any time on my part sunk into supporting that aspect to be wasted. DCS is a quality show, and it deserver better. A lot better.

That being said, I was approached to add support for persistence to warehouse inventories. This would enable mission designers who do appreciate that I wouldn't touch current warehouse inventories for DML with a long pole to brew their own inventory management, and still have the ability to persist the missions. 

This update to DML provides completely transparent, drop-in persistence for warehouse inventories. Against my better judgement. Please do not expect me to follow this up with a DML module for warehouse inventory management any time soon, at least not until ED show us something that resembles a  professional warehouse API design. Because, in case I didn't mention this before, I think its current state is really, really bad and unworthy of DCS.

Other than that, this update contains some more fixes for bugs that were introduced with recent DCS releases (more and more strange objects turn up in events and need to be guarded against), and while I worked on persistence for inventory, I also fixed some long-standing bugs in existing modules (most of these bugs are quite arcane, and you are unlikely to have ever run across them, one I discovered while supporting adding persistence to a larger Warbirds mission)

Documentation
    - Main
        - WHpersistence (new)
        - minor corrections 
        
    - QuickRef
        - minor correction 
        
Demos
    - (no changes)
    
Modules

    - airfield 2.3.0
        - lock/release cycles on mission load for better persistence 
    
    - autoCSAR 2.2.1
        - more DCS bug hardening 
        
    - cloneZone 2.5.0
        - restored cloned connection on mission reload (persistence) for empty!
        
    - heloTroops 3.1.5
        - better destination guards on loading mission 
        
    - impostors 1.2.0
        - better filtering of dead groups 
    
    - noGap 1.3.1 
        - parity with stopGaps 1.3.1
    
    - radioMenus 4.0.2 
        - ackSnd now broadcasts when no group specified 
        
    - raiseFlag 3.0.0 
        - supports persistance 
        
    - slotty 1.2.0
        - better nilling of players 
        
    - WHpersistence 1.0.0
        - initial version 
 

TImely you should post this as im trying to create a logi mission where helos load cargo and lift it to another zone.

The way im doing it now is rudimentary just using LZ to detect a landing and simulating the cargo loading.

Im looking at the dynamic cargo just added and or sling loading and wondering if there is an intergration with DML to detect the cargo loaded and dropped off 'events'?

[DD_Friar]

@Chad Vader

I think I recall someone else looking to do cargo transport by helicopter and was able to use the cargo receiver module and linked the zone to the helicopter so no matter where it landed the fact was tracked (and therefore could be actioned upon.)

I think the below is what I was thinking of

null

[Chad Vader]

1 minute ago, DD_Friar said:

@Chad Vader

I think I recall someone else looking to do cargo transport by helicopter and was able to use the cargo receiver module and linked the zone to the helicopter so no matter where it landed the fact was tracked (and therefore could be actioned upon.)

I think the below is what I was thinking of

null

Cargo receiver!!! Totally missed that one.  Thanks!

[Chad Vader]

Hmm. I have setup a cargo receiver zone and its not working, I notice a dependency is cargo manager.  Do I need to create a config zone for this as per other modules?  I see it loads in the initialisation messages but not sure how to turn its logging on to verbose.  Ok ive found the types and am spawning a cargo container, but one always seems to spawn at mission start, and it is floating in mid air!! How do i suppress this?  THe floating cargo also causes the cargo loading process when sling loading to fail..

So I tried to a normal cargo object and the object is not registering with the cargo manager and therefore not sending flags to the receiver zone.  A clone Zone however does work.

Finally, I noticed that at lest wit the chinook, the moment the cargo hits the ground, the cargoReceived! flag fires, is this intentional?  I wanted there to be a delay on removeDelay and then fire the event once the cargo is removed.  As it stands if the chinook bounces up and down and drops the cargo while still attached it fires multiple times.

null

null

Edited October 29, 2024 by Chad Vader

[jeni1976]

Greetings Guys! Please tell me how and where to install DML

[Chad Vader]

9 minutes ago, jeni1976 said:

Greetings Guys! Please tell me how and where to install DML

Have you read the documentation?

[DD_Friar]

@jeni1976

The DMl Toolbox does not need to be "installed" so to speak. Go to the first post in this thread. This will give you the link to download the required files.

You will have a zip file that contains folders for very good quick reference guide and a more detailed user guide.

It will also give you a folder that contains all the modules available to you to use as well as folders that contains some demo missions.

When building a mission using the tools it is just a case of copying and pasting the module script into your mission. You then use the module by adding zones on the map that control what the scripts do.

Download the zip, unpack to a directory. Then go have a look at the user guide.

If you have any more questions please do not hesitate to post back here.

using DML has transferred the way I build missions and the "magic" I can perform.

 

[jeni1976]

Sorry for my inexperience, after watching the video and reading the post I understood everything Thank you for your help

 

[Karuptsock]

I made a account , just so I could post.

Playing with the civAir and the 'exclude' doesn't seem to stop airframes from spawning at a certain airport , trying to kill it as they are stacking on top of each other.

I have the civAirConfig setup and the Civ Traffic-2 zone set as well to closed and I have also tried exclude.

Using 'sweeper' to kill the spawn stack on the syria map at Abu al-Duhur

All the modules seem to load fine with no errors and the civ plans spawn across the map.

Any help appreciated.

Wish DML had a Discord.  (^_^)

[cfrag]

18 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

I think I recall someone else looking to do cargo transport by helicopter and was able to use the cargo receiver module and linked the zone to the helicopter so no matter where it landed the fact was tracked (and therefore could be actioned upon.)

Huh. I'm as baffled and thrilled at the inventiveness of people as the next guy. Great stuff! I'll have a look - since originally CR zones were written to work with "registered" cargo (through cargomanager), this is going to be educational I hope  .

Thanks for the headsup, @DD_Friar!

18 hours ago, Chad Vader said:

TImely you should post this as im trying to create a logi mission where helos load cargo and lift it to another zone.

I've had some thoughts about a module for exactly that purpose (Hook and (hopefully soon) inbound Herc, for transport mission galore), when I came across that steaming pile we currently have for cargo/warehouse API/UX. Unfortunately, although DCS has two (competing, silly) events each for take-off and landing (ED's API team really showing some low-ability moves here), there are no cargo events. I did ask nicely ED to perhaps consider implementing cargo_unload and cargo_load events, and ED, in their usual and polite way, did not deign to respond. So there's currently no logistics module, as there is nothing to build on. I'll look at cargo receiver, and see if I can make it easier to be used as a crutch.

Boy do I hope that ED allow some grown-ups to work on the cargo/warehouse API before the Herc drops.

[cfrag]

3 hours ago, Karuptsock said:

Playing with the civAir and the 'exclude' doesn't seem to stop airframes from spawning at a certain airport , trying to kill it as they are stacking on top of each other.

Now that's an interesting (for me, annoying for you I guess  ) issue that I'd like to get to the bottom of. Before I go too deep into what may be happening to you, please allow me to see hat I understand a hazard a guess that you might check up on:

Here's what I can see / interpret:

You are using CivAir in your mission to create civilian flights between airfields (and perhaps also inbound/outbound zones.

Using civAirConfig, you want 30 flights at max to be active at the same time (maxFlight = 30). At mission start, this will create 15 flights in-air between source and destinations, and spawn 15 further ones, every 25 seconds, randomly picking from the available source airfields.

So what are your source airfields? Well, unless you define a single source, all airfields on the map serve as source, else only the zones that you have designated as a civAir source with a civAir attribute. 

As far as I can see, you only have a single airfield marked civAir, and it also has a value "exclude". That's an edge case I did not forsee: a single defined airfield but that airfield should be excluded.  

Can you add at least two more civAir zones to the map to some other airfields, to allow planes to travel between them, and perhaps lower the number of maxFlights in civAirConfig to 4 to test out if civAir is doing it's thing? After that, ramp up the numbers, but 30 flights with no place to go seems strange to me. Then again, I have only the context of what you kindly shared in your post to go by, so probably there's more to the mission.  

[Chad Vader]

41 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Huh. I'm as baffled and thrilled at the inventiveness of people as the next guy. Great stuff! I'll have a look - since originally CR zones were written to work with "registered" cargo (through cargomanager), this is going to be educational I hope  .

Thanks for the headsup, @DD_Friar!

I've had some thoughts about a module for exactly that purpose (Hook and (hopefully soon) inbound Herc, for transport mission galore), when I came across that steaming pile we currently have for cargo/warehouse API/UX. Unfortunately, although DCS has two (competing, silly) events each for take-off and landing (ED's API team really showing some low-ability moves here), there are no cargo events. I did ask nicely ED to perhaps consider implementing cargo_unload and cargo_load events, and ED, in their usual and polite way, did not deign to respond. So there's currently no logistics module, as there is nothing to build on. I'll look at cargo receiver, and see if I can make it easier to be used as a crutch.

Boy do I hope that ED allow some grown-ups to work on the cargo/warehouse API before the Herc drops.

THanks CFrag.

Can you let me know though if the behaviour im seeing is intended, in that, receiver zone does not fire its output flat when the cargo is deleted form the zone, only when the cargo touches the ground.  If I lift off again and touch down again, the flag bangs again and this causes the counter i have to fire again, registering 2 cargo deliveries.

Edited October 29, 2024 by Chad Vader