BirdDogg 0 Posted December 30, 2003 Will this Sim have true mission editor, not a quick mission builder, but a real editor? BirdDogg. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tucano 0 Posted January 1, 2004 It's a very important Question ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nesher 628 Posted January 1, 2004 yes, JT will have full mission editor and a quick mission editor ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SneakyPete 0 Posted January 4, 2004 I've made at least a hundred missions over the years with many different flight sims, and their are several things I would really like to see. May I make a couple requests/suggestions for the mission editor? It would be very nice if for making multiplayer missions if each client does not need individual waypoints assigned, but will have an option to choose from any given set of waypoints they will follow (waypoints having their own identification/not being tied to a specific flight/squadron). A plane would not need to start at waypoint one, just set its starting alt. or condition (takeoff runway/ship launch) in its properties box. This way I could make 12 different planes in 3 different flights each following the same waypoints at possibly different times if I desired. The opposite of this is the editor in LOMAC which requires every client airplane to have its own waypoints, a serious chore for a mission maker. It would also be really great if planes put in the mission as client enabled, but not selected by a live client still appeared in the mission as AI piloted. (Another LOMAC miscue) One thing LOMAC multiplayer missions got right was the ability for open entry into a mission, so if a guy drops he can rejoin, and a server option to allow respawning. Possibly this ability is the reason you must assign each client plane its own waypoints in the editor in that game. I don't know if it's possible, but if a dropped client was detected by the host it would be great if it automatically returned the plane to AI control as to not unbalance the mission. To go one step further with open entry would be the ability for the dropped (or late arriving) pilot to return to that same plane and take control of it from that AI pilot again. Maybe this is a pipedream, but it sure would be nice. Mission editor Wishlist items, ___________________________________________________________ Ability of AI planes and units to have delayed spawn/start Triggers set by time, waypoint, or proximity to a location Triggers causing random aircraft spawnings, idle unit activation (like AAA), mission goal achievement, random equipment failures, or other occurences Mission goal objectives menu and designation types assignable to units Ability to add sounds/voiceovers via triggers National border designation lines as in IL2 Ability to save custom loadouts to apply to multiple planes Ability to add intelligence screenshot/film(trak file) to mission briefing Ability to track stats of a multiplay pilots missions over his flying career Ability to play multiplayer missions with a single host/client or in single player mode Existing map buildings destructible in editor with paintbrush like tool or individual designation. Weather, Time, Date(Seasons) options Ability to set AI priorities at a specific waypoint A single map system using the entire Field of Combat and the ability to add ground units, buildings, ships to the existing map Option to set sea conditions as it was stated this may be possible in game(wave height, prevailing wind, current?) Detailed mission stats generated at end of mission in game and in a logfile(not really editor related) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tucano 0 Posted January 11, 2004 Mission editor Wishlist items,___________________________________________________________ Ability of AI planes and units to have delayed spawn/start Triggers set by time, waypoint, or proximity to a location Triggers causing random aircraft spawnings, idle unit activation (like AAA), mission goal achievement, random equipment failures, or other occurences Mission goal objectives menu and designation types assignable to units Ability to add sounds/voiceovers via triggers National border designation lines as in IL2 Ability to save custom loadouts to apply to multiple planes Ability to add intelligence screenshot/film(trak file) to mission briefing Ability to track stats of a multiplay pilots missions over his flying career Ability to play multiplayer missions with a single host/client or in single player mode Existing map buildings destructible in editor with paintbrush like tool or individual designation. Weather, Time, Date(Seasons) options Ability to set AI priorities at a specific waypoint A single map system using the entire Field of Combat and the ability to add ground units, buildings, ships to the existing map Option to set sea conditions as it was stated this may be possible in game(wave height, prevailing wind, current?) Detailed mission stats generated at end of mission in game and in a logfile(not really editor related) I agree to you :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ViperBR 0 Posted January 11, 2004 (edited) Humm.. Maybe there should be 2 Mission editors, like Advanced and Basic. Basic: Just for a quick mission flight, set in come fast parameters and GO. Advanced: You can setup all the settings, including this ones below, and make advanced missions, like Operation Flashpoint Advanced mission editor: Mission editor Wishlist items,___________________________________________________________ Ability of AI planes and units to have delayed spawn/start Triggers set by time, waypoint, or proximity to a location Triggers causing random aircraft spawnings, idle unit activation (like AAA), mission goal achievement, random equipment failures, or other occurences Mission goal objectives menu and designation types assignable to units Ability to add sounds/voiceovers via triggers National border designation lines as in IL2 Ability to save custom loadouts to apply to multiple planes Ability to add intelligence screenshot/film(trak file) to mission briefing Ability to track stats of a multiplay pilots missions over his flying career Ability to play multiplayer missions with a single host/client or in single player mode Existing map buildings destructible in editor with paintbrush like tool or individual designation. Weather, Time, Date(Seasons) options Ability to set AI priorities at a specific waypoint A single map system using the entire Field of Combat and the ability to add ground units, buildings, ships to the existing map Option to set sea conditions as it was stated this may be possible in game(wave height, prevailing wind, current?) Detailed mission stats generated at end of mission in game and in a logfile(not really editor related) Edited January 11, 2004 by ViperBR Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Dante-JT 6 Posted January 11, 2004 (edited) I've made at least a hundred missions over the years with many different flight sims, and their are several things I would really like to see. May I make a couple requests/suggestions for the mission editor? I've made at least a hundred missions over the years with many different flight sims, and their are several things I would really like to see. Very good suggestions, SneakyPete! May I ask to you what was the flight sim, over these years, with the best mission editor capabilities? The one in IL-2 IMO is pretty good, people do fine missions with it. Another decent one I remember was from Janes F-15, well I remember downloading user-made missions for it. I think Janes F-18 followed in these footsteps. One thing LOMAC multiplayer missions got right was the ability for open entry into a mission, so if a guy drops he can rejoin, and a server option to allow respawning. Possibly this ability is the reason you must assign each client plane its own waypoints in the editor in that game. Well spotted, possibly this is indeed the reason. I don't know if it's possible, but if a dropped client was detected by the host it would be great if it automatically returned the plane to AI control as to not unbalance the mission. This is a seriously interesting suggestion. Afaik all online flight sims I've played, when a player drops, his plane just despawn after a bit of warps here and there. It'll be indeed great to fit an AI there if somehow the program detects the player's connection as definetely dropped. But, wouldn't this lead to some form of cheat - layers dropping on purpose and returning after the AI did the dirty job or something like that? National border designation lines as in IL2 People in Argentina demand that we go further: to have a layer of designation names for locations in the map for their names according to the British and also another layer that can be swapped, with location names according to spanish / argentina (for example, West Falkland is 'Gran Malvina' there, they know and want to read it in that way, Peeble Island is Isla de Bórbon and so on.) Ability to save custom loadouts to apply to multiple planes How this should work? Is there another flight sim out there with this feature in the mission editor? Ability to add intelligence screenshot/film(trak file) to mission briefing IIR Flight Of The Intruder (an ancient A-6 Vietnam sim) had similar feature, of course just low res pics could be included (CGA times) :) But the trak file playback to mission briefing is clever! A single map system using the entire Field of Combat and the ability to add ground units, buildings, ships to the existing map Yep this is on the cards, the JT's campaign is based in a single huge map covering the islands and a big part of south argentina. Detailed mission stats generated at end of mission in game and in a logfile(not really editor related) Like, generated in a log ready for printing in a separated .doc or something like that? Edited January 11, 2004 by Dante-JT Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SneakyPete 0 Posted January 11, 2004 (edited) WOW, thanks for responding in such detail. I will try to respond to your queries and clarify some of my earlier statements. Very good suggestions, SneakyPete! May I ask to you what was the flight sim, over these years, with the best mission editor capabilities? The one in IL-2 IMO is pretty good, people do fine missions with it. Another decent one I remember was from Janes F-15, well I remember downloading user-made missions for it. I think Janes F-18 followed in these footsteps. IL2's mission editor is pretty good, one major disadvantage is it's lack of triggers for events, like random airplane generation, or mission goals, or even random equipment failures (random gen. of aircraft was impossible in IL2 multiplay until they fixed the late sspawning of aircraft in a FB patch, since only the host would see the late spawning craft). Il2 also does not support the insertion of wav/mp3 files into a mission or screenshots for the briefing.Jane's WW2 Fighters was great for its triggers and Jane's F18 map builder was also pretty good with the ability to add sound files. Also in IL2 I can only put 4 planes in a squad which is a normal squadron size, but when I want a formation of 20 planes it gets tedious making 5 waypoints routes. As I mentioned earlier making waypoints a separate entity any plane or squadron could follow (with time offsets allowed, and possibly even alt/speed offsets) would make large mission generation so much easier. This might pose AI problems though from many planes sharing a common waypoint, and mission targeting would have to be set in a squadrons properties (although their targeting objectives could be triggered by the waypoint) It'll be indeed great to fit an AI there if somehow the program detects the player's connection as definetely dropped. But, wouldn't this lead to some form of cheat - layers dropping on purpose and returning after the AI did the dirty job or something like that? In squadron play a pilot would be booted from the squad for pulling cheats. On online servers I can see this being exploited possibly. Generally though in the example you gave I'd much rather go against most AI planes than a decent pilot. You could make this a variable that can be enabled by server, if this is even possible, and perhaps also bind the ip of the client to that plane for the mission, although this might increase precious bandwidth. People in Argentina demand that we go further: to have a layer of designation names for locations in the map Hahaha that's great. Ability to save custom loadouts to apply to multiple planes How this should work? Is there another flight sim out there with this feature in the mission editor By this I meant that the custom loadout would be for the same plane type. (I just wanted to be sure you understood that part) LOMAC has this feature but it is badly broken, overwriting previously saved files, and not saving properly quite often. The LOMAC arming screen is quite inefficient too, one more like Jane's F18 with a drag and drop interface of weapons onto valid pylon stations is much quicker. IIR Flight Of The Intruder (an ancient A-6 Vietnam sim) had similar feature, of course just low res pics could be included (CGA times) But the trak file playback to mission briefing is clever! I am pretty sure F/18 had the briefing pic too as well as a couple others over the years, it's really nice having an idea what the target looks like. A trak file could accomplish this to an even greater extent and remain a small file. Detailed mission stats generated at end of mission in game and in a logfile Like, generated in a log ready for printing in a separated .doc or something like that? Both an after mission report after exiting the mission and a log file in the games root dir that can be parsed if someone so desires. Quite often squad members think they scored a kill in the heat of battle when it was someone else or the plane actually escaped. It makes for interesting reading and helps for compiling squad stats. _________________________________________________________________________ Anything that can be done to reduce the number of steps it takes to make a mission would be welcome. Like the earlier request I mentioned for saved loadouts, or possibly my suggestion to assign multiple flights to a waypoint entity, instead of the waypoints set being an integral part of a particular plane/squadron's stats. One other thing that makes using an editor better is when it remembers and defaults to whichever side and type of unit you are placing. It is really annoying (like in LOMAC once again) when everytime I add a unit, it defaults to the Russian side, and I have to reset every stat on each plane every time I add one. You generally build a mission by doing one side at a time, and flight by flight, so it makes sense that the editor should remember what the last side you picked was and default to that side for the next object. If the last object was a certain type of plane, their is a good chance the next one will be the same type, so it should remember. When the editor does not become tedious, you can spend more time adding things to a mission that increase the immersion (within the graphical limits of the game engine). The more I think about it, the more things pop into my head so I ought to just stop writing since this is a ton of stuff already, but I though I would also mention an auto save feature that saves to a separate file name (like Autosave/date). It is so aggravating to lose a mission due to a a crash, or hitting the wrong button and overwriting your work. (I've done this three times in LOMAC already :( ) Edited January 11, 2004 by SneakyPete Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Fates 63 Posted January 11, 2004 Also in IL2 I can only put 4 planes in a squad which is a normal squadron size, but when I want a formation of 20 planes it gets tedious making 5 waypoints routes. As I mentioned earlier making waypoints a separate entity any plane or squadron could follow (with time offsets allowed, and possibly even alt/speed offsets) would make large mission generation so much easier. This might pose AI problems though from many planes sharing a common waypoint, and mission targeting would have to be set in a squadrons properties (although their targeting objectives could be triggered by the waypoint) Perfect Idea. Call the whole thing a ROUTE. Thus is you a plane, tank, ground troops, etc...you follow the waypoints of the route, with Altitude depending on your componets ability to acheive it, thus a tank can't start out at waypoint 1 @ 20,000 Feet. (of course an over-ride feature would be nice....hehe....tank drops...smashes building...hehe) F-15, F-18 and USAF had great mission editors, and they had ICON that you could click and drag...blue ones and red ones depending on side....couldn't get that messed up, and didn't have to deal with LOMAC's unpleasant way of doing it either. :D Fates Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
scary_pigeon 0 Posted January 15, 2004 I don't know if it's possible, but if a dropped client was detected by the host it would be great if it automatically returned the plane to AI control as to not unbalance the mission. To go one step further with open entry would be the ability for the dropped (or late arriving) pilot to return to that same plane and take control of it from that AI pilot again. Maybe this is a pipedream, but it sure would be nice. I have been pondering this issue. I imagine the server might define what to do in this sort of situation - maybe a selection of AI quality to use. Perhaps aircraft should return to base if player drops connection or fight on. the choice of the server. - perhaps a plane that has a player drop just fights on and nobody can spawn into it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tucano 0 Posted January 18, 2004 The Mission Editor of the F15 Janes is the Best of the Best ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
uhoh7 0 Posted February 5, 2004 One great feature of IL2 FMB is that when you place an object, you can go to 3d mode to view how the object appears from any angle. Also il2 alows the placement of over 300 "objects", trees, buildings, etc Lomac has niether of these features. What Lomac does really well is weather. You have all kinds of variables. Another fan, uhoh7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
