This tutorial assumes that you have successfully installed and are able to run Cor Dikland's mission editor version 3.0.0. Some people may need to install the updates as well. The editor and all updates can be found at ..Simviation..in the utilities section there. It works best with large font settings enabled on your pc.
The purpose of this tutorial is to hopefully provide you with the ability to generate your own missions with a limited number of headaches. This is the editor I learned on, though it was in its version 2.0.0 form back then. It is essentially the same though, with just a few minor updates.
I intend to provide a walkthrough, helping you to generate a simple one on one dogfight mission along the way. Just follow the steps closely and you should have a good enough understanding of this program to be able to head off down your own path in no time.
Okay First thing is once the program is running, take your mouse cursor to the upper left hand corner of the program and chooseFILE. On the drop down menu it brings up choose new. Now go to the SUMMARY tab and click it.
This is your most basic page that contains the basic information of the mission file, such as Mission title, Time (remember to use military time) Summary, etc...this is all pretty self-explanatory.
Okay go to the Mission Title box and inside the bos where it says 's Mission, run your mouse cursor inside there and left click. It should bring up a bar inside there and you should now be able to backspace and delete the 's Mission letters.
Now type Test 1 in its place.
Okay now in the box to its right that says Type, type in the word Dogfight. This is not a very important part and you can actually type in anything and it won't have any bearing at all on the mission. Same goes for the Tip box to the right of it.
Now lets go to the big box below that says Summary. This is where I always type in my Franz von Baron Productions Trademark. For this example lets just type in. Test mission dogfight.
Moving on to the right we come to the Objective box. This is where you tell your audience what they must do to accomplish their goals, and successfully complete the mission. For this example lets type in YOUR DUTY: Destroy the enemy fighter. Since this is just gonna be a basic one on one dogfight, not much more explanation than that is necessary.
Next lets move on to the Date box. Just type in 07/15/40
Now below that is the Time box. Once again remember to use military time. 18:00 for instance is 6:00 PM. So If you want to make a night mission, this is where you do it. For simplicities sake, and to make sure we can see our enemy easily, lets stick to daylight hours for this example. Type in 10:30
Below that is the reqd% box. This determines the level of accomplishment or failure for a mission. Say to successfully accomplish a mission, you must destroy 50% of the enemy bombers. By entering 50% here and assigning points to all enemy bombers(done on the formations page), you have set the success requirement to destroying half the bombers with points assigned to them. If you assign points to 6 bombers, then 3 of them must be destroyed for the mission to be a success. I have had limited success with 100% requirement, so lets assign 99 to this mission. Just type in 99 in the reqd% box.
Now all thats left on the summary page is basic weather and visibility settings. Lets just leave these as is, which will give us a clear blue sky. I use Bill Potvin's wonderful CFO_Weather available at the CFS Operations website. It will give you much more freedom of options for the weather in a mission. You can make a thick fog and turn a mission into a serious seek mission where you won't be able to see the enemy until you're right on top of them.
Ignore the remaining boxes(airfield, aircraft, map), they will be automatically defined later. Okay lets keep moving right along to the:
The first thing on the Formations page we must concern ourselves with is the Group Info section. This is the groups of units used in the mission. You can use up to 16 I think, which would be a huge mission. You can have bomber groups, fighter groups, land groups, sea groups, etc.. For this mission we are going to be using two groups. You and the enemy.
Ok click the button beside the big white box. This will bring up a smaller window that says Enter Group Name.
Ok now that you have your two groups named, its time to decide some other important information about the two groups. First lets decide what type of formation You will use. ***Make sure YOU is highlighted in blue inside the box.***
Okay in the formation pattern box to the right you can click the little button to the right and a small drop down menu will appear giving you several choices of formation patterns to use. I usually just use Finger Four which happens to be at the top anyway, so lets choose it.
Now for the takeoff and land flag you have several more choices. Lets choose Takeoff and land for You. For the final box lets leave it as Enemy Fighters for our attack directive, as this is going to be a dogfight mission. Leave the Group ID number at 6000 as it is and leave the suspend box unchecked. When you finish your screen should look like this.
Now go back up and single left click on Enemy so that it is highlighted in blue. For Formation Pattern choose Finger Four as well.
For Takeoff and land flag choose Stay in the air. ***Until you have experimented with these for a while and better understand waypoints its best to stick with Stay in the air for enemies.***
For Attack Directive leave it as Enemy Fighters once again as this is a basic dogfight mission.
Ok the Group ID should automatically read 6001, if it doesn't left click inside the box and make sure that it does.
Also put a check inside the suspend box this time. I have had better luck using the suspend button for enemies than plotting real-time waypoints for them, much less stressful. Once you get within 12 KM of them they will become active. I guess they just hang suspended at a given point until you get within that radius of them.
Your completed enemy formation Group info should look like this:
Now go back up and single left click on You in the Group info box again. Now go down to the Pilot Info section down below and click on the big button to the left of the white box. A new little window will pop up like the Enter Group Name one from earlier. This one will say Enter Pilot Name. It should look like this:
Make sure that You is highlighted in blue above in the Group Info box. Now when you are confident it is, delete what it says in the Enter Pilot Name box and type in Player instead. Now click add and then click close.
To the right is Skill. As this is going to be a player controlled unit, just leave it set at rookie. For the enemies it is best to choose different skill levels for all the ai pilots. You don't want them all to be too easy nor too hard to kill. Mix it up. I usually assign at least 1 ACE per every 4 enemy pilots. And usually a veteran as well.
Now below that is the Level button. Leave this set to rookie as well. ***By changing it to Veteran or Ace will mean that unit will only show up in the level it is set at. If you set it at Rookie, the unit will appear in all levels. On veteran ot will appear in Veteran or Ace level. By setting it to Ace it will only appear at Ace level.*** This is how you can make the difficulty levels variable for all the different levels. If you've played many of my missions, you will know that there is usually quite a difference in the skill levels I set. I think Ace level should be just that......HARD.
Next is the points box I was referring to earlier. Leave it unchecked, but review what it is if you need to.
Now is the Player box. Make sure you check this as this is what determines who the player controlled unit will be.
Player=aircraft name box. By checking this it will name the unit whatever the name of the assigned vehicle they are using is. For example I am going to assign the Bf109e to You the player controlled unit. By checking the Player=aircraft name box it would change our name from You to Bf109e. This is good for enemy formations.
Ok now for the aircraft. Beside the aircraft box is a button to the right that will bring up a drop down menu that lists all the planes currently in the editors database. For this example choose the one on top the Bf109e. As you are scanning the list notice how the allegiance changes on some of them. This is good for those escape style, and steal an enemy plane type missions.
Below the Aircraft box is a box that says Damage. This causes some units to smoke or be on fire. This is a mostly decorative feature, but is kinda fun to play with sometimes. For this example lets leave it on none.
When you finish with this your Formations page should look like this:
Ok now go back up to the Group Info box and single left click on Enemy. You will now need to fill in the Pilot Info Box for the enemy unit.
Ok go back down after Enemy is highlighted in blue in the Group Info Box. You are now ready to click the button by the Pilot info Box. Go ahead and click the button. When the Enter Pilot Name box pops up, change the nam,e inside from Pilot_1 to Enemy then click add and close.
Now in the Skill box select Ace for this enemy pilot.
In the Level box make sure you leave it set to Rookie, or you're pilot won't show up in rookie level, causing an error if you try to play on rookie level.
In the Points box, click inside it and make sure it is checked.
Now go ahead and choose a plane for this unit. Let's go over and click the button by the Aircraft box and in the drop down menu, lets choose a Spitfire_MkI. Choose the second one listed of the three. The first is carrying three bombs. I am not sure what if any difference there is between the 2nd and 3rd ones listed, they appear to be the same. This should do it for the Formations Page for now. We will have to come back later and select our Paths after we plot our waypoints. But for now we are through here. When you finish it should look like this:
Now we move on to the Ground Units page. This is where we define our airfield, as well as the enmies airfield. We will also have to flip between this page and the Waypoints page to define our waypoints. Halfway down the page is a box and button titled Airfields in the Available Units section. We will set these first. Ok hit the buttton and it will bring up a menu listing all the available airfields in the database. For this example lets choose Calais. Now click the button next to the Airfields button that says Airfield Layout Types. Choose Luftwaffe Grass Airfield. It should now be listed above in the Mission Units section towards top of the page. There are three little radio buttons below it. Point they are All Units, Defaults, and none. Make sure the one that says none is clicked. What this does is assign points to the units in the field when Defaults or All Units are checked. By choosing none you are saying that no units need to be protected. This is not a defend or attack an airbase mission so no point assignments are needed for these units. This is great for those type missions though. If you want to attack an airbase and set the reqd% to 50% (on the summary page), then you would have to destroy 50% of all he ground targets that had an *Asterik* around their name. When you see ground units names it is because they have been assigned points.
Ok since we chose Stay in the Air for our enemy there is no need to pick an airfield for them. We will simply plot a n interception waypoint somewhere in the channel.
The other section Landscape Layout Types features some bundled units that are good for placing as scenery or units to attack/defend. There are some Convoy's, armored divisions, etc....here. We won't use any, but to use em you just click on the one you want and then run your mouse cursor over the map to where you want it. To place it just click on the spot on the map where you want it to go. ***Notice how when you run the mouse over the map it tells you the LAT/LON in the lower left hand corner. Sometimes its a good idea to write down these final coordinates on paper as aligning these waypoints is far from an exact science.
There is also a button at the bottom right that says Map. You can choose from several different ones available, though I don't know of any way to import different ones. ***Keith Bedfords Editor (CFSME) will let you import maps and is in fact a better tool for editing existing missions. But for creating from scratch missions I think this one is best. Lets leave the map on Map1Bob for this exercise.
Now in the bottom left corner is a table of buttons. Make sure the number 0 circle button has a dot in it. This will be the Players unit waypoint. Now go to the map and run your mouse across it. There should be a big colored dot where your airbase is located (Calais). This is your starting point. Now we must go to the final page to place our waypoints. So go up top and click the Waypoints tab. This is what your finished Ground Units Page should look like when its done:
Okay first thing we need to do on this page is choose Calais for the Airfields Start and End buttons. We are now set to takeoff and land at Calais. Calis should be visible as a Colored dot on the map. (Blue on my PC)
Lets place our first waypoint in the O where it says Dover on the map for simplicitys sake. Now we need at least one more waypoint. (Each group must have at least two waypoints for a mission to run). Lets place our second waypoint over the e in Dover on the map. Altitude is automatically set to 4000 and speed is at 400. You can change these later manually. Trying to change them in the boxes sometimes causes a crash so be careful if you attempt to change em that way. It can be done but it doesn't always work. You can at this point highlight one of your waypoint and name it or give a tip (like Heads Up!!!) if you like. I usually just leave em blank myself, but they can sometimes be useful.
Now go to the bottom left hand corner again and put a dot in the number 1 round button. Also click in the square number 0 button. (This will show you the waypoints of the group that used waypoint 0, in this case You. Now choose a start and end location in the Airfields section above. The group won't actually start and end there, but you have to choose an airfield to get your waypoints set. Choose Biggin Hill for the enemy airfield. Now try and match up your first waypoint for the enemy with the first waypoint of Yours. Like I said earlier this is far from an exact science, just try and get em as close as you can. You may have to edit em manually with word/notepad later. Its not that difficult to do.
Try and set your first waypoint inside the o of Dover on the map. This is why I did that to try and give you a better point of reference for matching these waypoints.
When you generate your player's unit waypoints, the editor should have automatically put checks in the Map, ACT, and CAP buttons in the waypoints for 5000 box. See that it did. It also should have placed checks in the Map and ACT buttons for the players second waypoint. Check to make sure.
There doesn't need to be any checks in those boxes for the enemies waypoint path, they should be blank.
Ok almost done, it should look like this when finished after the players waypoint placement:
And like this after the completion of the enemies waypoint:
Ok now we neeed to go back to the Formations Page and click the Paths button in the bottom right hand corner. It will bring up a window that looks like this:
Click on You and make sure it is highlighted. Now click in the box that says 5000. It will then put 100 in the bigger square bos beside it. This is the percent of the time you will use this waypoint. For this experiment we will leave it at 100. It is possible to plot I think up to 16 waypoints.
Now click on Enemy and make sure it is highlighted, then click in the box that says 5001. It too will now have a 100 in the box beside it. Leave this one as is as well.
Now click the button that says Close.
Now hit the file button in the uppermost left hand corner of the program and choose Save as Where it says file name, type in Test1.mis and click save.You can now hit the x in the right uppermost corner of the program and leave. A small window will pop up when you hit the x asking you are you sure you want to exit. Click yes.
There should now be a mission file in your CFS/mission folder named Test1 if all went well and everything was installed and running right. There should also be a text document named Test1 there as well. It is unimportant as far as I can tell and you may delete it if you like.
If the mission file is there, start up CFS and run the mission to see if it works.
Okay mine worked fine so I assume yours did as well. If not go back and double-check your work, just like a math problem :-)
Ok you should be able to double left-click on the Test1 mission file and open it up with either Notepad or Wordpad. It looks way more complicated than it actually is, so don't panic. Most of it is the ground units at your airbase in Calais.
If the mission ran but you didn't engage any enemies, your waypoints are probably off just a bit. They should look something like this:
See how the first waypoints are. They read: N51 12.19 E01 32.86 for [waypoint_path.0] id=5000 (players waypoint) and: N51 12.56 E01 32.86 for [waypoint_path.1] id=5001 (enemies waypoint) These are actually a bit too close together. As long as you stay within 5 minutes or so of each other they should be ok. Say change the enemies waypoint_path to N51 17.34 E01 34.12 and try that. It should be ok. Remember that since we chose to suspend the enemy, he will not activate until we come within 12 KM of his position. Experiment at your own leisure.
Change planes manually. The [unit_types] section is what governs which planes are used in a mission. Don't worry about changing the numbers, they don't need changing unless for a specific reason, say you want a plane that carries bombs. All you really need to worry about is changing the name to match a folder name in your CFS/aircraft folder or a name in one of your aircraft.cfg's found in each and every one of the planes installed in your game. Some aircraft.cfg's contain numerous titles (Like the Jamcraft Spit V Study Pack for instance) and if you choose a folder name for one of these kind of packs, it is gonna automatically choose the first listing in that aircraft.cfg. So more often than not it is better to just use the name given in the aircraft.cfg instead anyway.
Where it says name=Bf109e......just change that to the name of the plane you wanna use. If this won't work, try another plane, or look in the aircraft.cfg and use the name given there. IT DOES WORK, I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE. There is not a plane I've seen yet that can't be made to work. Unless it has an AI only airfile and you are trying to use it as a player controlled plane.
The tool bar is pretty user-friendly, just check it out and give it a whirl. It has some options settings you can choose from and other things. Also make sure you give a read to the original documentation that came with the editor. The purpose of this tutorial is aimed more at generating missions quickly and efficiently than harnessing the full power of this particular editor. It has a lot of tricks up its sleeve for you to discover so work it over. It has some drawbacks and limitations, but all in all it is a wonderful editor to learn on, and will produce some very good quality intricate missions. Just use you imagination and run with it. Enjoy!!!
Michael Brookshire
a.k.a
Franz_von_Baron