Mission building

[Foxendown 0]

Season's greetings to all. I hope everyone's had a great Christmas.

 

I've been working on a new mission for FE using Kreelin's KMD. After trying out a couple of test missions with air starts (sort of "instant action" missions which went well), I'm trying to put together a realistic high altitude patrol mission for the SE5a. After that, if all goes well I was thinking of trying to create a set of 6-8 linked missions for the SE5a based on real life incidents. I'm thinking about basing these on the career of Edward Mannock, but not sure if this will work yet. Because FE has no means of writing briefings to accompany missions, I plan to create a separate set of briefings as linked HTML documents. Assuming I ever finish all this I would want to make the missions generally available, However, there are some things about the structure of mission files that I don't understand at the moment and having done a few searches, I don't seem to be able to find the answers I need. I may well have missed something but if anyone can point me in the right direction to get a detailed explanation of what makes mission files "tick" I would be really grateful. A lot of it is obvious but I don't understand for example why there is a true/false flag for waypoints and how the ALT N trigger works (what is an "encounter"). I am also a bit mystified by the fact that the game edits out some of my waypoints and sets up a flightpath direct to the IP and by how the scoring system works. Certainly the hardest part so far has been to get flights to run into one another, though I seem to be getting the hang of that now.

[+Brainless 1]

Season's greetings to all. I hope everyone's had a great Christmas.

 

I've been working on a new mission for FE using Kreelin's KMD. After trying out a couple of test missions with air starts (sort of "instant action" missions which went well), I'm trying to put together a realistic high altitude patrol mission for the SE5a. After that, if all goes well I was thinking of trying to create a set of 6-8 linked missions for the SE5a based on real life incidents. I'm thinking about basing these on the career of Edward Mannock, but not sure if this will work yet. Because FE has no means of writing briefings to accompany missions, I plan to create a separate set of briefings as linked HTML documents. Assuming I ever finish all this I would want to make the missions generally available, However, there are some things about the structure of mission files that I don't understand at the moment and having done a few searches, I don't seem to be able to find the answers I need. I may well have missed something but if anyone can point me in the right direction to get a detailed explanation of what makes mission files "tick" I would be really grateful. A lot of it is obvious but I don't understand for example why there is a true/false flag for waypoints and how the ALT N trigger works (what is an "encounter"). I am also a bit mystified by the fact that the game edits out some of my waypoints and sets up a flightpath direct to the IP and by how the scoring system works. Certainly the hardest part so far has been to get flights to run into one another, though I seem to be getting the hang of that now.

 

First download the help tutorial here. Look in Downloads Utilities/Editors then WOVQMD/KMD Tutorial. Reading this should help a good deal. Then it's mostly trial and error. There is also a new mission builder/editor from French-six the Le Missioniere also a tutorial for that programme is availble here. Personally I like the KMD but that's just my opinion.

 

As for writing scenerios I haven't a clue about this. As far as I know this isn't possilble with the Thirdwire series but I may well be wrong. Someone better qualified than me here may be able to help with that.

 

You need to set the right sequence for the waypoints. Take off, depart, IP, Objective ,approach, landing line up and landing. Good altitudes are take off wpt No.1- 0 mtrs, wpt No.2 say 750-1500mtrs for depart, IP 3000, objective 3000, approach 1500, land line up 500. These are just starting figures to play with as many different altitudes can be set. Some take off headings can default at the opposite direction but start by setting the T.O direction you want first and then see what happens in the sim. You can always alter it later.

 

AI flights tend to default directly to IP but setting a marshall point between the IP and objective point can sometimes help if you want a flight to head away from the IP first.

 

Sequencing flights can be achieved using the distance and time facilities available with the KMD programmes right click on the map to bring these up. Timing is difficult as the correct default a/c speeds need to be set in all the watpoints. These vary from airplane to airplane. Again this is trial and error but you'll soon get a feel for it.

 

Hope this helps to get you started. No doubt other members more qualified than me will help you if you post further queries.

 

Best of luck.

[Foxendown 0]

Thanks for your help, Brainless. I had read the KMD guidance but missed the need for a depart waypoint, which is where I think some of my problems lie. Also, as I'm trying to set a realistic altitude for an SE5a patrol, the player flight needs to go up to 5000m and I probably wasn't giving the a/c enough distance to climb to that height. I've found the time and distance tools in KMD, but have still had a lot of trouble getting flights to meet so I've resorted to setting collision courses so the flights had to meet somewhere along a leg of the flightplan. Not sure if thst's how others do it but it seems to work. As you say it's trial and error. Next I want to see if making the size of waypoints very small will allow me to simulate artillery spotting aircraft. They flew figures of eight not circles but I really doubt if that can be done!

Edited December 27, 2007 by Foxendown

[+Brainless 1]

Thanks for your help, Brainless. I had read the KMD guidance but missed the need for a depart waypoint, which is where I think some of my problems lie. Also, as I'm trying to set a realistic altitude for an SE5a patrol, the player flight needs to go up to 5000m and I probably wasn't giving the a/c enough distance to climb to that height. I've found the time and distance tools in KMD, but have still had a lot of trouble getting flights to meet so I've resorted to setting collision courses so the flights had to meet somewhere along a leg of the flightplan. Not sure if thst's how others do it but it seems to work. As you say it's trial and error. Next I want to see if making the size of waypoints very small will allow me to simulate artillery spotting aircraft. They flew figures of eight not circles but I really doubt if that can be done!

 

 

Good to see you're getting the hang of it. Some errors I just noticed on my first post about this. The French Mission Builder is Check-six not French-six and the Marshall point goes between the depart point and IP point not between the IP point and Objective point. Although there's no reason why waypoints couldn't be set like this. Not sure excatly what would happen though! AIs would probably go to the Marshall point first I guess. Some say Marshall points don't work but it's the way I do it if I want the AI flight to fly a route that's not straight to the IP point.

 

Yes I set the enemy flight along the route flown by the friendly flight to get an intercept. Once you get the timing right you can shorten this back and then make necesssary adjustments. You need to set the targets for at least one flight. I find this helps if your timing is not exactly right!

 

I think you'll find all the waypoints need to be False except the objective point which is True and the size needs to be set above 1. I use 200 as a default. I think you can use bewteen 100-1500. This seems to be the most baffling in my view as when increasing or decreasing this value it's hard to see at what point a set number kicks in to make a difference. When you find this out let me know!

 

Have fun

Edited December 27, 2007 by Brainless