Campaign storyline evolution - linking 1 mission to another

[chromium]

Hi to all. I'm working on a Russ+NATO vs Georgia Sceario, wich have a random semi-dynamic scenario with multiple unit moving/fighting in different places. My idea is that at the end of a mission, updating the scenario situation with kills and new unit position, to start the next mission from the end of the first one. From now, I'm creating the scenario locking units to an excel sheet where i take note of name, location, number an coalitons to help me taking account of the campaign developement. Obviously the operations of Coalition BLUE and RED are planned by me and my friend in opposition: something like "risiko".

 

At the end of a mission, i Must reproduce the scenario ending every time, that is not much difficult for helos and planes (they start from the same place if not destroyed...), but it's a problem to move 50 to 90 ground units per time that randomly could activate or not...

 

So, that's the questions:

 

Is there a workflow that allow me to "save" a mission ending situation like a .miz files? (that resolve everything).

 

Thanks in advance. :smilewink:

[zdXu]

You mean is there a tool to show me the exact position of all (dead or alive) assets/units/fighters after the mission then the answer is yes.

 

(1)

If you have installed tacview the "tool" is a file and can be found at

...\Ka-50\temp\TACVIEW-yyyymmdd-hhmmss.txt.acmi where yyyymmdd-hhmmss are the missionendtime of your played mission.

 

FileType=text/acmi/tacview
...
MissionTime=2009-08-19T22:30:00Z
LatitudeOffset=41
LongitudeOffset=36
...
+7900,?,2c,1,xi,,Unit #99,INS RPG,?
7900,2.459063,5.756590,1357.55,-0.8,0.1,179.8
...
#12.36
...
!20,7900
...

(Example from http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=836255#post836255 = deployment04-mission)

 

Assetcreation (line start with +): xi=insurgent, unitid 99 (see mission-file in .miz), insurgent with RPG,unitnumber = 7900.

Position was 43.756590/41.756590 (latitude+latitudeoffset/Longitude + longitudeoffset) at creationtime.

Creationtime was not declared because creationtime was at missionbegin.

Missionbegin was 22:30 zulutime (means 00:30 am at black-sea-location).

#12.36 means 12.36 second after missionstart.

!20 means death, 7900 is the unitnumber.

 

Because there is no movement found of the unit 7900 in the tacview-file, unit 7900 died at 00:30:12.36 at location 43.756590/41.756590.

 

(2)

Another "tool" is lua-scripting (export.lua-file).

[chromium]

Thanks, I'm using directly tacview by working in windows (one side tacview log other side ME). It's easy to se the unit destroyed by the yellow color... It's a long process, but it might work to build a comprehensive scenario for our virtual squadron. Every time I'll spend 1h or 2h to kill down units in the scenario and briefly reallocate them in a realistic matter. Maybe one day we will be able to save a mission end situation... and it will be a great improvement...

[chromium]

Ok, an update about this thread subject. I prepared a complex scenario (>1000 units), but It seems to be unflyable even in single player. Also, given tha unavailability to convert an end mission situation (Track, Tacview acmi, anything else) in a “miz” file to have a starting point for the next mission, I had to use the manually way.

Than, to obtain what I want (a continous campaign) I had to do this:

1) Edit your mission over the scenario files, cut out any units away of your flying area, Fly the mission. Record by TACview.

2) Run the scenario mission by Itself for 6 hours; Record by TACview.

3) Manually Edit the original scenario (1) to obtain the situation displayed in the TACview recording of the point 2 (Units Dead, Units position, etc).

4) Merge the information gained by the TACview recording of your flown mission (Units Dead, Units position, etc) on the new updated scenario. This will be the starting point for another mission.

I have to say that it’s a lot time consuming… but I cant’s see another way to got a scenario like I want.

[zdXu]

Maybe one day we will be able to save a mission end situation... and it will be a great improvement...

 

Complete agreement.

 

First have a look at FC 2.0. If i am right the new ME has an option to transfer dead units into the next mission. Maybe this can help you a bit ... or not? (And if the FC 2.0 ME has that feature then the DCS-MEditor will have it too in the near future, right?)

 

But a question in advance: The point-2-scenario means that we are dealing with a ca. 10gigabyte TACVIEW-yyyymmdd-hhmmss.txt.acmi file?

[chromium]

nope, since now I haven't much more than 1.4 Gb of records... since now.

[zdXu]

nope, since now I haven't much more than 1.4 Gb of records... since now.

My question was how big is that 6-hours-TACVIEW-yyyymmdd-hhmmss.txt.acm-file with more than 1000 units in there?

 

I had a file with 2 hours mission-playtime with 120 units in there that was 120Mb. So i assumed your file must be much much bigger.

 

I asked because my method was to analyze that 120Mb-Text-file with a program. And you can imagine that a 5GB (or something like that) large textfile can be a little "problemka" (;

[chromium]

ahaha ok, I understand the problem. If you could wait one week I will give you an answer... friday I'm going to Prague for a weekend and I don't believe I will think about missions or anything else :)

[Grimes]

The tacview size also depends on what is happening within the mission. If the units are static it shouldn't be too bad, however if you've got ground forces and they are in combat with each other, then the file can get quite massive.

 

The only decent solution I can think of is to use a single flag to spawn each group of units. At the start of a mission have a triggers in place that check to see if the flag is true or false.

 

Code could look something like this.

Once> Time More (2 seconds)> Set Flag 1, Set Flag 2, Set flag 3...

Once>Time More (5 seconds) and Flag 1 is true> Activate Group 1

Once>Time More (5 seconds) and Flag 2 is true> Activate Group 2

 

and so on.

 

Build each mission off of the last one so all of the triggers and groups are the same. If a group dies or up to 25% of the group dies just go into the mission and change "Set flag" to "Clear Flag" this way nothing happens and you can easily go back and change it since you didn't actually delete anything. Think of it as "a platoon is nearly wiped out, so its remaining forces link up with another platoon and bring it back to full strength"

 

Obviously some overhead is needed from mission to mission, however its much much easier to change a trigger from true to false than to make the exact unit counts between missions identical.

[chromium]

But you will have to reposition every units on the ground (about 40% randomly activated each time on the scenery), and once you have to do this... deleting or adding would't add much time.. (not so much..). But I have to try before...