Tips for a buildernoob - randomnessessess.

[maxmax]

Hi, I need some help from gurus :)

 

I've just made my first mission. Sort of a simpe silly little mission where a large group of russkies are attacking an airfield.

I've made triggers, for example a large group of infantry activates when a group of hinds go through a set point (simulates special forces landing). At the same time an afac is activated ("special forces" observing the landing) so that they will pop up as an afac on FM40. Green smoke also pops up where they land.

 

Afac actually works, i get the targets i set it to give in the editor. Which makes me proud. Sort of.

 

So now - to the questions.

1. The mission always starts in the same way since afac has a set list of targets to choose from. How do i randomize that? I tried setting him to just Fac not targeted fac. That way he gives nothing at all.Just "no targets" even though they are shooting at him.

2. Whats the difference between a trigger and a flag? And what are flags useful for? (Big one, I know)

3. How do I randomize the start of the mission. So that, say, I have 9 different starting possibilities of from which way the russkies are making their attack.

 

For the number 3 I'm guessing I have to make lots of groups and set the groups to advance from different directions. And then randomize which groups spawn at the start of the missions. But how? And then I'd have to make afac not random, but rather react to the randomized groups?

 

EDIT - one more pls

And what could be a good option to end the mission? Ive set an "end mission" trigger for both blue and red. When blue at airfield are "destroyed" the mission ends in a fail. When all red "destroyed" the mission ends in a win. I still haven't checked if the triggers work since there are A LOT of enemies.

Edited July 1, 2011 by maxmax
added dumb question

[nomdeplume]

1. The mission always starts in the same way since afac has a set list of targets to choose from. How do i randomize that? I tried setting him to just Fac not targeted fac. That way he gives nothing at all.Just "no targets" even though they are shooting at him.

 

Hmm this is kinda #3, so see below.

 

2. Whats the difference between a trigger and a flag? And what are flags useful for? (Big one, I know)

 

This recent discussion should explain things nicely: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=75831

 

3. How do I randomize the start of the mission. So that, say, I have 9 different starting possibilities of from which way the russkies are making their attack.

 

For the number 3 I'm guessing I have to make lots of groups and set the groups to advance from different directions. And then randomize which groups spawn at the start of the missions. But how? And then I'd have to make afac not random, but rather react to the randomized groups?

That's basically it, unfortunately. What you normally do is set all the groups to be disabled (by setting the 'hold time' on their first/starting waypoint to several days in the future; 9 is a common choice. The day field is the last field in the time entry widget, i.e. [hh] [mm] [ss] / [dd].

 

Groups that have their starting time set in the future will not appear in the game world until that time occurs, and by setting it to several days in the future you effectively prevent them from ever appearing (who's going to leave the same mission running for over a week?).

 

The "GROUP ACTIVATE" trigger action can be used to make a group appear in the game world prior to its hold time arriving, so if you set 3 groups with a hold time of 9 days, then activate one of them, only that group you specifically activated will appear in the game world. There's a GROUP DEACTIVATE action that does the opposite, so you can make all the groups active at mission start and then remove the ones you don't want to use from the game world.

 

Previously the standard way was to use 'mission start' triggers to randomly set one or more flags, and then use those flags to decide which group(s) to activate.

 

Now we have the ability to set a flag to a random value (rather than just on/off), so you can alternative have a trigger that sets a flag to a random number between say 1 and 3, and then have 3 more triggers that say "if that flag is 1, activate this group", another one that says "if that flag is 2, activate that group", and a third one that says "if that flag is 3, activate the other group".

 

You could do the same thing with the AFAC, i.e. have several different "instances" of it and just activate the one corresponding to the enemy groups you've activated.

 

An alternative approach which might give you more variability is to have lots of different enemy groups, which are activated independently of each other, each with their own flag. That would give you lots of different combinations. You can then use the "START CONDITION" dialog in the tasking parameters for the AFAC to require a particular flag be set in order to enable that particular FAC assignment.

 

I think the target assignment should just skip groups that are already dead, so you could also experiment with using the random % in the start condition, and repeat the same task a few times. That way you can be assigned the targets in a random order. Note however that the conditions in those fields are "or'ed" together, so if you set "flag X must be true" and "random 50%" then that tasking will always be assigned if flag X is true; and if flag X isn't true, it'll be assigned 50% of the time. Either condition being true will satisfy the requirements.

 

And what could be a good option to end the mission? Ive set an "end mission" trigger for both blue and red. When blue at airfield are "destroyed" the mission ends in a fail. When all red "destroyed" the mission ends in a win. I still haven't checked if the triggers work since there are A LOT of enemies.

Normally mission goals are based on particular tasks that can be achieved by the player+wingmen (if applicable) in a single sortie. e.g. taking out a tank platoon or similar. But in that case you wouldn't want to end mission as soon as all the tanks are dead, as the player will be in the middle of maneuvering and be upset at having the game suddenly end.

 

For this reason, most missions don't use the end mission trigger, as generally players prefer to end it themselves when it suits them, rather than booting them out of the game (they might still be landing, or wanting to go through a shutdown process, etc.). So, my advise is simply not to bother.

[Cibit]

There was a thread with examples of random spawn but it needs searching for and I am posting from my phone so cannot copy links. Search through Druids posts will find it

[mwd2]

If i remember, their are two subforum about this:

 

Use some FLAGS to make some random event line

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=71134

 

or use some script event to choose one event line

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=72336

[maxmax]

Thanks for all the tips! I'll try it out asap. Some of these game logics can be quite tricky if you're not used to thinking in these terms.

[maxmax]

Trying out the tips now. One more question though. Is it possible to drag a box around several groups/units and move all at once? A whole group is of course possible, but several groups?

What about copy+paste? Would be a nice way to quickly create several groups and then individualize them.