Changing Nationalities in M/E

[Warbird_242]

Hello all.

 

I tried to edit the deployment mission 1 so I could use the wonderful static objects and FARP arrangement etc, but I found that once I did I was stuck with having Russia Georgia Turkey and Insurgents, but I want to use the UK, USA, France, Germany etc. There must be an easy way of editing this without deleting everyone, or possibly could someone more experienced with mission files tell me which lines to edit to include these countries.

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

Warbird

[STP Dragon]

There is no way. You have to arrange the nationalities when you add a new mission. After that the nationalities are fix.

[Butcher59]

If you open the *.miz file with winrar or a similiar programm, you will find several files within.

In the mission file you will find the category " coalition " several times.

Each coalition has it's own number! So if you change one of these numbers to a coalition you would like add / change, you should be able to change without to make a new mission.

I say extra you "should" be able!! I never tried it. But because this is the only place where the coalition is mentioned or i have better to say, described, this must also the place where you can change them as well!

 

Would be interesting if i'm right. :smilewink:

Edited October 7, 2009 by Butcher59

[Warbird_242]

Thanks very much - will report back!

[Warbird_242]

Right, I've found the file, and where I should edit it, but I don't know which numbers to put in, and I don't know how to edit it ( WinRAR). I can't delete or type or anything, and opening in notepad ++ gives about a million random icons. Any more info?

[Butcher59]

Ok, i use 7 zip to open the miz file and unpacked it to my desktop.

Then i opend the file with notepad++!

I have uploaded a picture from the opend mission file.

The number behind the brackets " [5] = 6; " (in this case the six) is the number of the nation. Six stands for germany.

As far as i know, russia has the 1, USA 2, Belgium 11. The other country i don't know but if you put in one mission all countries and take a look in the miz file, you can find it out .

In the next coalition section (see the second picture), all planes, vehicles, helicopters, etc... , for each nation are described here (including loadouts, waypoints and so on..) starting with the first bracket!

So if you would like to add a nation after you created a mission, you have to add it in the first coalition section!

 

Don't forget to put your changed mission into the miz folder again!

 

I hope it is not to confusing!

[Warbird_242]

HI Butcher

 

Using WinRAR I can rename eveything, get the coalitions I want, but I can't seem to open the misison in DCS - comes up with 'DCS cannot read the file Template.miz' . I haven't repacked it or anything, but the file size is noticably smaller than before???

[26-J39]

From memory DCS uses the UTF-8 BOM format so make sure when in NP++ to save in that format.. ;)

[Warbird_242]

Ah ok thanks.... um.... how???

 

Well actually I'll try first and report back again - thanks 26-J39 :D

[Warbird_242]

Wohoo that's done it - not sure about that file format, but after a bit of fiddling with winRAR turns out I just hadn't repacked the files properly. Thank you sooo much guys that's made my week :D

 

More rep inbound haha :D

[Butcher59]

good to hear that i was right!

 

:thumbup:

[Warbird_242]

Yes actually mate, just tried to edit the units - changing the russian FARPs to UK, and I got another error message. I can't add or change any units yet :(

[Butcher59]

ok, but that isn't so strange because the farps are designed for russia and turkey only (as far as i know) and if you want a farp to be in your coalition, make sure that russia or turkey is in your!

To edit the units from one country to another it isn't so easy as to add a country to your coalition because you have to be sure, that the changed country has the equal units!!

 

So i think you have to find out which country has what kind of units and then you can change the units or country. For example, i don't think that it is possible if you change a german Gepard to Russia because russia dosn't have Gepards (at least i think so ^^). So you have always be sure, that, if you change the coalition, you make sure, the changed country has the equal units or you have to change them by hand! :wacko:

 

Take a look into the mission file and you will find out what i mean!

Look at the picture, there you can see the name "BMD-1" at the variable "type". The following variable "CLSID", belonged to the BMD-1!

In this quik mission i add russia and georgia, both have BMD's and both have the same entrys to the variable type and CLSID! So it would dosn't matter to change the country from russia to georgia.

 

That you couldn't change a russia farp to canada is because canada has no farps! And that you couldn't change the unit to canada is because the unit

belonges not to canada!

[Warbird_242]

So I have to make completely new units?

[Butcher59]

Not necessarily. If you see, that the unit belongs not to the new country, you need only to change the variable "type" and "CLSID" to the unit you would like to or has to replace.

As long as this unit has no special weapons like a heli or plane or has tasks which are not equal the new unit can do, it should be enough.

[Butcher59]

well, better then alway to guess i tried for myself and made an startling discovery.

I had a mission with a lot of countrys and with a lot of planes, vehicles and so on.

 

I deleted the entry of the USA in the first country section, changed the ID of germany to the one of the USA and removed the hole entrys of the USA in the second country section.

Now i opend the mission in the ME and tried to change the planes and vehicles to USA. There poped up an error message but nothing else. To change to UK (because they have Tornados as well) gave me no error message but i wasn't satisfied.

 

I investigated the old mission file again and found some (for me) new variables between the hole bunch of arguments of this country section. Here i changed the name and id to the USA (see picture one and two) and made the same as i described above.

 

Now i opend the mission in the ME again and as you can see in the third picture, the planes and vehicles remained but the country changed from germany to USA!

Aha thought i, what to do now?

Now i flew the misson from the ME and as you can see in the next picture, the planes and vehicles are still the same but they changed to the USA as you can see down on the left hand side!

 

I have no farp in my missions so i couldn't find out what would happen then, but i think there is now space enough to play a bit for your own. :thumbup:

[Warbird_242]

OKay so I can change existing units to other nationalities as long as they are the same unit, but when i try to place completely new units - such as put a tank, I get that error again :(

[Butcher59]

that was my first thougt. But my experience showed, that i could change or shift all existing units to another country, in this case to the USA. The USA has no tornados and no gepards. But once there are in the mission file and i change the coalition they remain there as i put them into. So try it with your mission as i described and see what will happen.

[Warbird_242]

OK thanks mate