Mission Creation Woes for a Noob

[Arrow 83]

First off, if anyone can point me to a site where there's very detailed information on the usage of KMD, please provide me the link and disregard the rest of this. I did download the tutorial and went through it step -by- step while building my 1st mission. What I noticed right away is that if I selected the 'Player' checkbox for Flight001 it would uncheck the 'Take off' checkbox after I clicked the [Apply] or [save all] buttons. This of course had the result that once the mission was loaded and flown I immediately crashed on the runway at the start. I did find the Start on Ground setting in the mission file and was able to resolve this, but is this a known bug in KMD?

 

Something else that isn't really clear in the tutorial is whether I can have a wingman by setting the player Flight001 to a size of 2, or do I need to create a Flight002 with a size of 1. The biggest problem I'm having now is that my 2nd flight which is Flight002 won't show up on the runway at the start or at anytime during the mission. I've checked the start time for the Flight001 and Flight002 in the actual mission file and have confirmed that they're both the same. If anyone can give some suggestions as to why this is occurring Id greatly appreciate it.

[+kreelin 2]

...I noticed right away is that if I selected the 'Player' checkbox for Flight001 it would uncheck the 'Take off' checkbox after I clicked the [Apply] or [save all] buttons. This of course had the result that once the mission was loaded and flown I immediately crashed on the runway at the start. I did find the Start on Ground setting in the mission file and was able to resolve this, but is this a known bug in KMD?

 

Arrow,

 

First off, could you confirm you use KMD v 1.07 (Menu ? / About KMD...) ? Because what you described is little bit weird. There is no way to "unchek" Player if you have only one flight in your mission. By default the first flight is for the player. Secondly, if you check "Take off" and your flight doesn't have at least one waypoint, it will show you a msg box telling that there is no airfield to take off from. And that won't "uncheck" Player...

 

Something else that isn't really clear in the tutorial is whether I can have a wingman by setting the player Flight001 to a size of 2, or do I need to create a Flight002 with a size of 1.

 

Wingmen must be on the same flight as the player (like in real life ...). So if you set the flight size to 3, you will have 2 wingies.

 

The biggest problem I'm having now is that my 2nd flight which is Flight002 won't show up on the runway at the start or at anytime during the mission. I've checked the start time for the Flight001 and Flight002 in the actual mission file and have confirmed that they're both the same. If anyone can give some suggestions as to why this is occurring Id greatly appreciate it.

 

It's a game engine limitation. You cannot have sereral Flight starting on the same Airbase on the same time. So if you want your flight 2 to take off form the same AB, you have to delay it (5mins or more. It depends of the size of the player's flight).

 

Hope that will help you...

Edited October 6, 2008 by kreelin

[+comrpnt 16]

Hi Arrow, I don't use KMD - instead preferring to code all my single missions by hand. If you do ever tinker with the contents of the .msn file created by KMD then the following post might help you to understand more what the tags and their values actually mean:

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=29345

 

BTW, to define wingmen you need "Size=n" where n > 1. Also, "Formation=USFighter" or "Formation=USBomber" is also useful if Size > 1.

 

For multiple flights set flight 2 with "Starttime=m", where m > 0 and denotes Seconds elapsed since the start of the mission. For a 4-ship formation allow at least 60 seconds elapsed time between flights, otherwise the 2nd flight will appear on the scene while the 1st flight is still taxiing and lining up for takeoff.

 

If you want to jump in at the deep end download some of my later missions from CA/Single Missions (e.g. a VMFA_531 mission pack) and read through the .msn files. They're annotated so you should be able to follow what's going on.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

[Arrow 83]

Arrow,

 

First off, could you confirm you use KMD v 1.07 (Menu ? / About KMD...) ? Because what you described is little bit weird. There is no way to "uncheck" Player if you have only one flight in your mission. By default the first flight is for the player. Secondly, if you check "Take off" and your flight doesn't have at least one waypoint, it will show you a msg box telling that there is no airfield to take off from. And that won't "uncheck" Player...

 

The version of KMD is v 1.07 and the installations of Wings Over Vietnam and Wings Over Europe have been updated with the September 2008 patch. The problem I'm having isn't with the 'Player' checkbox for Flight001 becoming unchecked, but with the 'Take Off' checkbox becoming unchecked when I click the [Apply] button or [save All] button. However if I set 'StartOnGround' to 'True' in the mission file, when I load the mission again in KMD both checkboxes are checked. When I do choose the 'Take Off' checkbox from within KMD I am correctly notified that my aircraft will take off from Hue Air Base, it's just that the above mentioned mission file entry isn't changed to 'True'. Perhaps it's occurring because I've errantly included a 2nd Flight002 that's taking off from the same airbase at the same time. I can now see where I made my error with the 2nd flight and will change my mission accordingly. Other than that one problem, the KMD tool has been excellent and all the ground object entries I created came off like clockwork. It was amazing for me -remember I said I was a noob- to use the [F7] view to watch my column of M48A3s roll out to the jungle edge near Khe Sanh and for column of enemy T-55's to across the coastal plain there to engage them.

 

Many thanks for your response Kreelin.

[Arrow 83]

Hi Arrow, I don't use KMD - instead preferring to code all my single missions by hand. If you do ever tinker with the contents of the .msn file created by KMD then the following post might help you to understand more what the tags and their values actually mean:

 

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=29345

 

BTW, to define wingmen you need "Size=n" where n > 1. Also, "Formation=USFighter" or "Formation=USBomber" is also useful if Size > 1.

 

For multiple flights set flight 2 with "Starttime=m", where m > 0 and denotes Seconds elapsed since the start of the mission. For a 4-ship formation allow at least 60 seconds elapsed time between flights, otherwise the 2nd flight will appear on the scene while the 1st flight is still taxiing and lining up for takeoff.

 

If you want to jump in at the deep end download some of my later missions from CA/Single Missions (e.g. a VMFA_531 mission pack) and read through the .msn files. They're annotated so you should be able to follow what's going on.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

 

The response and link are much appreciated comrpnt. Annotated mission files are a good thing and I'll definitely be downloading them. I'm still going to stick with KMD because I really like the map and the ease of waypoint placement. As well having a built in reference for friendly and target location coordinates is a real plus for me as I really don't know my way around NAM. As I soon discovered, knowing the structure of mission files is a must for QA'ing/proofing missions, so those annotated mission files should really help. Based on yours and Kreelin's posts I recognized my mistake in the creation of flights. What I was really wanting to do was give Flight001 a size of 4, so I'll be making that change today.

[tank03 1]

I've never been able to get a handle on how to use KMD, so I've been using "Le Missioneur" for the last several years. If you haven't tried it yet you may want to give it a look. I found it much easier and intuitive to use compared to KMD. It's available at Check6, and has an English language setting.

[Arrow 83]

I've never been able to get a handle on how to use KMD, so I've been using "Le Missioneur" for the last several years. If you haven't tried it yet you may want to give it a look. I found it much easier and intuitive to use compared to KMD. It's available at Check6, and has an English language setting.

 

KMD is good enough for me and I'll be sticking with it for now. I've resolved most of my issues thanks to the excellent feedback here. The only problem I'm having now is that the 4 wingmen in my flight and I are being assigned taxi positions on the opposite end of the runway. My mission is at Hue airbase which has a runway that's oriented on 0 and 180 deg's. Originally when I was a single flight I could take off with a north heading. Now my wingmen and I are being placed on the north end of the runway and being lined up for a 180 deg. takeoff. Is this normal, i.e. is there only 1 direction in which a multiple aircraft flight can take off from? Or is this possibly occurring because I have enabled the 'Adjust start heading' checkbox?

[+comrpnt 16]

KMD is good enough for me and I'll be sticking with it for now. I've resolved most of my issues thanks to the excellent feedback here. The only problem I'm having now is that the 4 wingmen in my flight and I are being assigned taxi positions on the opposite end of the runway. My mission is at Hue airbase which has a runway that's oriented on 0 and 180 deg's. Originally when I was a single flight I could take off with a north heading. Now my wingmen and I are being placed on the north end of the runway and being lined up for a 180 deg. takeoff. Is this normal, i.e. is there only 1 direction in which a multiple aircraft flight can take off from? Or is this possibly occurring because I have enabled the 'Adjust start heading' checkbox?

For launches with more than 1 aircraft (that is, with at least one AI wingman), the direction of departure can be affected by changing the direction of the wind. For example, with StartWindDirection=0.0 AI aircraft will take off facing one direction. With StartWindDirection=180.0 they line up and take off facing the opposite direction.

 

See if this fixes the problem.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

[Arrow 83]

For launches with more than 1 aircraft (that is, with at least one AI wingman), the direction of departure can be affected by changing the direction of the wind. For example, with StartWindDirection=0.0 AI aircraft will take off facing one direction. With StartWindDirection=180.0 they line up and take off facing the opposite direction.

 

See if this fixes the problem.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

 

OK, I'll give it a try.

[Arrow 83]

For launches with more than 1 aircraft (that is, with at least one AI wingman), the direction of departure can be affected by changing the direction of the wind. For example, with StartWindDirection=0.0 AI aircraft will take off facing one direction. With StartWindDirection=180.0 they line up and take off facing the opposite direction.

 

See if this fixes the problem.

 

Regards, comrpnt.

 

Yup, that fixed it. Many thanks again.

[+kreelin 2]

You can change the wind direction in "Advanced MTO" section ;-)

[Silverbolt 104]

Hi all, i did something with print screens..... i hope it be usefull .

 

i think i'll atualizate it some time....

 

 

 

BTW, afeter do any change, apply with buttom "Apply"!!!

Edited October 8, 2008 by Silverbolt

[marianoranchos 1]

From where I was download the KMD v1.07 ?

[Arrow 83]

From where I was download the KMD v1.07 ?

 

Didn't see you reply earlier in this thread. KMD 1.7 can be downloaded here at Combatace:

 

KMD 1.7