Mission persistence achieved using triggers and client aircraft

[DaveSD]

Hey everyone,

This may be old news to a lot of you, but I found a simple way to achieve mission persistence using triggers. In my test, I had a Hornet in the air and one on the ground. I had an F-15C going at max speed so I could watch it in the F10 view to make sure it was continuing on and not starting from the first waypoint.

I pretty much only fly the Hornet, and in naval aviation a carrier flight cycle is roughly 90 minutes, so I'm going to set my pauses for that duration. Here's how to do it:

1. Create as many client aircraft as you'd like, starting from anyplace you'd like. (I haven't tested it yet to see if multiple aircraft will crowd each other on a carrier flight deck, but since only one client aircraft at a time exists I would guess that it won't be a problem.)
2. Create a trigger
   1. Column 1: Mission start
   2. Column 2: (skip)
   3. Column 3: (named) Flag on
3. Create another trigger
   1. Column 1: Repetitive action
   2. Column 2: Time since (named) flag - X number of seconds (5400 = 90 minutes)
   3. Column 3, first item: X: Set command with value: 52 and -1 (negative 1)
      Column 3, second item: (named) Flag off
      Column 3, third item: (named) Flag on

Then begin your mission. After X number of seconds the mission will pause. At that point, hit the Escape key to bring up the menu, then Choose Slot and continue the mission. The AI units should all be continuing from where they were when the mission paused. Then after X number of seconds the mission will pause again and you can choose a new aircraft. On and on... You'll have to either set waypoints for all the client aircraft in advance or figure out how you want to fly subsequent missions when you get to them.

If you'd like, please test this yourself and let me know if you experience any problems. Thanks! (I may have actually contributed something of value here after all these months!)

Dave

EDIT: There's a minor blip, not even really a glitch, that I encountered when flying a full-length 90-minute flight - the pause didn't kick in until (apparently) the engines came to a complete stop. My 90 minute timer paused at about 113 minutes. Not a huge deal and it doesn't really have an effect on the usability.

Edited January 28, 2023 by DaveSD

[cfrag]

I’m not sure I understand how your method persists (saves the mission) to storage and then lets you continue the mission some other day. AFAIK, you can switch slots in a mission at any time, there are no triggers needed, so I’m not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish.

perhaps I misunderstood what you mean by „persistence“?

 

[DaveSD]

4 hours ago, cfrag said:

I’m not sure I understand how your method persists (saves the mission) to storage and then lets you continue the mission some other day. AFAIK, you can switch slots in a mission at any time, there are no triggers needed, so I’m not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish.

perhaps I misunderstood what you mean by „persistence“?

 

Thinking back, I didn't really explain it clearly. Oops!

Basically, it keeps the same mission file running, but it pauses after a certain amount of time so that not only can you hop into a new airplane, all the assets and time itself will stop. (Quantum physics!) Then once you're in a new airplane (or the same one, for that matter, as long as you haven't crashed it) and you un-pause, everything continues as if it were a caveman thawed out of a block of ice. So you can create a single mission file that can run until the sun goes supernova - there's literally no limit as to how long one of these could run. The only limiting factor I can think of is once the last unit (AI or client) is dead there's nothing more to do. The nice thing about this is there's no need to write the positions and damage conditions of the units to file, that's then read back into a new mission that took off where the first one ended. You could also combine more than one of these extended mission files into a campaign. And if you wanted, you could even opt to not fly for one or more timing cycles (whatever interval you want - one hour, 90 minutes, two hours, etc.), just letting the AI do its thing while you sleep.

Another thing I wasn't clear about is that I chose a 90 minute cycle between pauses, which roughly correlates to the length of a carrier aviation cycle. (And some may not know that aircraft in the second cycle launch before aircraft from the first cycle recover - that minimizes the number of aircraft on the deck that have to be respotted, armed, etc. The only time the flight deck is completely packed is the period between the recovery of the last cycle on day one and the launch of the first cycle on day two.) Often (at least in the glory days of the 1980s) gas-guzzlers (pretty much anything except Vikings and Hawkeyes*) would fly a single cycle - launch at 0600 and be back on deck around 0730. That doesn't mean those aircraft can't fly multiple cycles - more external tanks and aerial refueling are there to ensure you get a nice case of hemorrhoids. (Ejection seats only have about a half inch of padding.) Vikings, and I assume Hawkeyes, usually flew double-cycle missions - launch at 0600 and be back for the 0900 recovery.

*We also had an A-3D in our airwing - I don't know how many cycles a typical mission took, but I would guess two because they probably carried a lot of gas. And because they didn't have ejection seats (nor do Hawkeyes, obviously) the seat cushions would be thicker. I don't know of any E-2 or A-3 guys with 'roids.

[cfrag]

7 hours ago, DaveSD said:

Basically, it keeps the same mission file running, but it pauses after a certain amount of time so that not only can you hop into a new airplane, all the assets and time itself will stop.

Understood. That's what X:SetCommand(52, -1) does - it sends the Pause command.

My question is: why put this in a timed loop every N minutes? What keeps you from pressing the "Pause" button (which is mapped to the same command) whenever you feel like it?