Mission Building Addons/templates

[Druid_]

Thought it might be a good idea for mission builders to share some mission templates/addons. By this I mean things like creating loops, tanker orbits, airfield attacks, Helicopter troop dropping ..etc , but all in the form of an example mission that can be easily added then changed to suit in your own mission. This could also save hours of pain trying to achieve something that someone has already done.

 

Builders can go through the ME GUI and maybe learn a thing or two along the way, I know I have by looking at others mission files.

[Druid_]

MULTIPLE TANKER REFUELLING AREAS

 

Built this mission addon as its unreal for a tanker to stay in one position especially if, you the player, is short of fuel. I thought it would be nice if you could have several refuelling areas for the tanker and you as the player/client could ask him to relocate to an area closer to your position.

 

START YOUR BUILD WITH THIS AS YOUR TEMPLATE AND MOVE THE WAYPOINTS INTO POSITION AS REQUIRED ONCE YOU COMPLETE YOUR BUILD. PLEASE AVOID USING FLAGS 90-93 (else you’ll bugger it all up).

 

Set up your mission with a number of refuelling areas and by use of your Radios you can ask the tanker to relocate to any one of those areas. He will leave his current area and reposition to requested area.

 

In this mission example the refuelling orbits are waypoints (as shown in GUI Map) 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 & 7-8 (4 areas in total).

 

Please refer to the mission brief in the .miz file for more information on this template/add-on.

 

Note: If you check the Advanced/Orbit STOP CONDITION you will see a tick next to the User Flag. I unticked it but the GUI still shows it as ticked (i.e. True) this is NOT the case (a GUI bug I’m afraid).

 

p.s. I have included an a10 Player behind tanker so you can try it out.

Tanker relocate addon.miz

Edited March 7, 2011 by Druid_

[MadTommy]

Random Mission Framework

 

Druid great idea... however there is one massive draw back, there is no way to integrate or import other peoples trigger systems. You have to copy them manually or use them in isolation to anything else. I have tried adding one part of a mission to another via editing the mission file when you unzip the miz.. but i failed to do this without corrupting the mission.

 

That aside still great to share ideas etc.

 

____________________________________________________

 

From: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=67560

 

Ok, here i'm sharing a mission framework I've created. This will always be 'work in progress'. If i wait for it not to be to share, it'll never be shared. ;)

 

This is not for the uninitiated mission maker, this is in fact pretty complicated. To be honest, i expect it to be a little daunting to the majority as you have not built up the trigger system from scratch, please ask any questions you may have.

 

Main Goal: This structure allows you to make a mission that can be played over and over again, and you won't know what the next task is or where the potential threats are. With 256 variations this should work well. The mission should also always be balanced, as there are NO random triggers, you can control the mission precisely.

 

Explanation: (excuse me if this is a little long winded, it's not easy to explain)

 

This is a template for a mission structure. To be honest it is not random, it is in fact very structured with equal odds of any one scenario be active. It will allow for a minimum of 256 different scenarios from one mission. It allows for 12 tasking, any 3 of which will be run in any one running of the mission. At the mission start there is a pool of 4 tasks, any one of these has a 1 in 4 chance of being selected. Once this task has been completed there is a another pool of 4 tasks, of which there is a 1 in 4 chance of selection. This occurs 3 times, i.e the 3 tasking per mission. There is also a system to allow for a pool of 4 mission threats & environments. There is a 1 in 4 chance of these being selected. So this gives you 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4 = 256 variations. If you follow it as i intended. It can of course be used in different ways. And please alter it as you wish.

 

The template has 1 player & 7 client slots included. So it can be a SP or MP 8 coop mission. This of course can be expanded.

 

I have provided an excel sheet to go along with it, this should help you understand it a lot.

 

The excel file has two sheets, one called Logic has the template trigger system written out. In order to make the mission you have to add all the taskings yourself, and all the tasking success criteria. And all the threat & environment (group activations) too. Where this is required there is red font. I have also colour coordinated trigger types to help make it easier to follow. Most of the 'message to all' are just place holders for mission creation.

 

The second sheet, called Data, is what i use to add the missions & threats. It helps me keep track what has been placed. This is basically empty, be ready to be used with this template. It may be of no use to you.

 

As i said if you like the look of it and have further questions post away, but at this stage i won't spend ages explaining the details of the template unless there is genuine interest in it. Its just too complicated.

 

I hope if you are familiar with triggers & the editor and with the help of the excel file this might help you create some diverse missions.

 

If you have any suggesting for better way of doing things i'd love to hear them. But please remember this framework is designed to work under all the betas and MP environment, so i have tried to use a fool proof trigger structure.

 

The excel has been attached as a zip due to attachment constraints.

 

I can't attach the same files to two posts.. so you can download them from the linked thread.

Edited March 6, 2011 by MadTommy

[Grimes]

Scalable Randomization

 

Scalable Randomization

 

There are several methods available to create randomization to your missions. Mad Tommy posted on one way, I'll post on another..... and Speed will probably show up with a lua script that is better than both :D

 

In the attached file I included 3 basic examples. All revolve around the same principle, but are executed slightly differently from one another. The big difference between this randomization and the randomization posted by Mad Tommy is that this is scalable and is determined at mission runtime.

 

Advantages

Easy to understand

Easy to reproduce

Can Execute more than once

Can be used with any number of choices

 

With all of these examples it is possible to write the requiring conditions differently than how they are presented. I almost always write my randomization triggers assuming that I might use them more than once within a mission. As a result they often have 1 or 2 more triggers and conditions implemented that are not necessary if the triggers are to be used only once.

 

One Time Random Choice

This method needs 1 trigger to start it and 1 trigger for every choice

 

Usually I like to use a Once> Time More 10 seconds> Set All Flags that need to be true

 

Once> Flag X is True && Random 10%> Flag X Off and activate group A

Once> Flag X is True && Random 10%> Flag X Off and activate group B

 

 

Multiple Choice

Sometimes you might want to select several different groups to activate, but you want it limited to a specific amount. In the example in the file there are 6 total groups to choose from and it will randomly choose 4 of them.

 

As always a trigger is needed to start the randomized choice.

 

I added an end trigger:

Once> Flag 21 is More than 3> Flag 20 Off

 

 

The Choices

Once> random10% && Flag is 20 is true> Flag 21 Increase 1 (+1) && Action A

Once> random10% && Flag is 20 is true> Flag 21 Increase 1 (+1) && Action B

......

The choices will all execute whenever they are randomly executed. Each time they run it increases flag 21 by a value of 1. By default flag 21 starts at 0. Once 4 choices are made flag 20 gets turned off by the end trigger. Thus no more choices are made.

 

Multiple Group Random Choice

This method was extensively used in creating On Station. Each randomly selected task was within a randomly selected group. Each group can be chosen more than once and I implemented conditions preventing a group from being chosen if all its options within were already triggered.

 

As always a trigger is needed to make the first selection.

Also included is a trigger used for whenever another choice needs to be made.

 

Select Group 1

Switched Condition> Flag 30 is True && Random 10% && Flag 119 is False> Flag 30 off, Flag 110 On

Select Group 2

Switched Condition> Flag 30 is True && Random 10% && Flag 129 is False> Flag 30 off, Flag 120 On

 

Sub Choices

Once> Flag 110 is True && Random 10%> Flag 110 Off, Flag 111 On

Once> Flag 110 is True && Random 10%> Flag 110 Off, Flag 112 On

Once> Flag 110 is True && Random 10%> Flag 110 Off, Flag 113 On

....

 

To prevent the group selection from being chosen if all sub-choices are made

Once> Flag 111 is True && Flag 112 is True && Flag 113 is True> Set Flag 119

Scalable Randomization Template.miz

Edited March 7, 2011 by Grimes
edit... or Druid will post one.

[Druid_]

another RANDOM TASK GENERATOR using SCRIPTS

 

The following script will generate a random table every time the mission is run.

 
local tasktotal = 10    -- change this number to the number of random tasks you want to generate.

user_task = {}

for x = 1,tasktotal do
user_task[x] = x
end

function randomiseTable(tableName)
 local temp_table = {}
 local index = -1
 math.randomseed( os.time() )
 while #tableName > 0 do
   index = math.random(1,#tableName)
   table.insert(temp_table,tableName[index])
   table.remove(tableName,index)
 end
 return temp_table
end

user_task = randomiseTable(user_task)

The table is then used to set flags upon which you can set triggers.

 
trigger.setUserFlag(user_task[1], true)
table.remove(user_task,1)
if #user_task < 1 then    -- last task has been set i.e. No more tasks.
trigger.setUserFlag(999,true)
end

 

Attached is a mission example. A complete explanation is written in the mission brief. Suffice to say I have made it easy to understand and use (hopefully).

random task table lua.miz

[Speed]

Druid, you created this yourself, huh? Awesome! I'm really glad someone else other than myself is actively scripting. On the way, I will be updating my destroyed map object script, making public a message input and output function library (part of which Grimes is using in On Station v5), and finally releasing autoarty.

 

autoarty is my biggest project right now. It's a script that causes artillery to automatically engage targets in range, lead them if they are moving, and take steps to correct for the undershoot problem which occurs at higher altitudes. So artillery will actually take an active role in battles now. Much of the script is done already, but it's a pain to implement for a large mission, and I am taking steps to ease this pain before I release it.

 

Druid, would you like me to create a quick lua function guide since ED seems occupied at the moment?

Edited March 7, 2011 by Speed

[Druid_]

Utilising the F10 Other menu effectively

---------------------------------------.

 

For single player missions (F10 other menu only works for Host in ver 1.1.0.7) it is nice to involve the player in decision making and interactive communications. This is done by the mission builder through use of the F10 other menu in missions.

(you can use this for Co-op MP missions, just remember Host does the radios)

 

Using the current GUI in ME means that you have to select transmit and select F10 again to see a user created sub-menu.

e.g

1. OPS MENU

2. TANKER MENU

selecting 2. (F2) you might like to display another sub-menu. This means deleting all of the current menu, adding your sub-menu then the player has to hit F10 again to view this new sub-menu (i.e TANKER MENU). I didn't like this so reverted to lua for a solution and found it in the bottom 2 commands shown at the bottom of this post. However, I went a step further to tidy up and produce a more efficient and 'quicker' method by putting all of the menus in script.

 

creating a menu is as easy as

ftenMenuItems = {'Hawg task complete', 'Say again', 'OPERATIONS MENU', 'TANKER MENU'}

then displaying the menu and setting appropriate flags (in this case 201 to 204)

for i=1,#ftenMenuItems do
RadioCommandDialogsPanel.addOtherMenuItemUserFlag(ftenMenuItems[i], 200+i)
end

then to remove the menu do

for i=1,#ftenMenuItems do
RadioCommandDialogsPanel.removeOtherMenuItem(ftenMenuItems[i])
end

Once any single F10 menu item is selected use the following commands to instantly pop up the commands menu, display the F10 Other menu and your now added sub-menu.

RadioCommandDialogsPanel.setShowMenu(true)
RadioCommandDialogsPanel.selectMenuItem(10)

Here is an example of this menu system (I tied it in with my texaco tanker relocate mission in post #2)

F10 other menu popup lua.miz

Edited May 18, 2011 by Druid_
added example .miz

[Cibit]

Some clever people about in these parts:thumbup:

[McVittees]

On the way, I will be updating my destroyed map object script, making public a message input and output function library (part of which Grimes is using in On Station v5

 

Will this allow you to destroy buildings before the start of a missions or dare i hope it's something allowing destroyed objects to be tracked between missions?

[WildFire]

Druid, I am using your random table script and I have a question. Say I set up a few groups/locations to be triggered at the beginning of my mission. Say if group1 activates, flag 500 goes on, group2 is flag 501 and so on... Can I assign a variable to them so that the task will select whichever group went active? Somehow automatically select the active group so other scripts know which coordinates to broadcast...?

 

I guess Im looking for something like:

 

Tank1={unit1,unit2,unit3.....}

Tank2={ '' }

Tank3={ '' }

 

if flag#=0, flag#+1

for flag500, flag501, flag502

taskname=flag#

set task 1= "taskname

 

or maybe just a getvariablename statement of somekind, but I would have to associate the flag to the specific group, i.e. flag501=tank1, then it would be get flag#, settask1=flag#..... I still would have no way to pass on the group id to speeds script, but I could just write seperate radio messages for each flag, which is perfectly fine.

 

sorta.... lol. I dont know the language for this game, yet. obviously...

Edited June 9, 2011 by WildFire
Little more specific...

[Druid_]

^replied via PM