Blackdog_kt
01-11-2011, 03:09 PM
I recently got a friend of mine back into flight sims with IL2 and i'm trying to ease his transition from flying Falcon 4.0 back in the 90s to flying WWII aircraft with IL2.
I didn't want to leave him learn the ropes all by himself so we opted to do some multiplayer sessions, but his experience level is a bit low at this point to just jump into a DF server and get blasted to bits (i'm also rusty myself). Long story short i decided to bite the bullet and start learning the FMB, so that we could set up some coops and have some training at our own leisure with customized scenarios for each aspect of the game i want to showcase for him.
By the way if anyone else is having thoughts about learning the tool, i can easily recommend the excellent tutorials by FlyingNutcase at http://www.il2-fullmissionbuilder.com/ , they had me up and running at no time.
So after an hour of alt-tabbing between the FMB and these tutorials i had the basics down, i spent an extra couple of hours and came up with a Malta mission on a modded 4.09 installation. I actually didn't think i'd end up having a working mission for less than an evening's work, but i was pleasantly surprised in that after you learn of some non-intuitive interface quirks the rest of the FMB is pretty straight-forward.
So, on to the questions. First of all, i assume that if i set up two different flights and i don't set the "player" checkbox in the FMB for a specific aircraft, then the players will be able to choose their individual aircraft. Is that right?
As for the particular mission i was fiddling with, iI have a flight of two Spitfires spawning on Malta as the player flight, tasked with bombing a coastal battery on the south side of Sicily (it's just a 3-5 minute hop so we can rerun the mission and focus on practicing gunnery and bombing). For testing i set this flight to AI control, added both a "target->destroy ground" object and a Gattack waypoint so the AI starts shooting and placed a static camera near the coastal battery. This works fine.
I also have two flights of one Ju52 each dropping supplies to the battery (one flight of two didn't work because the second one wouldn't drop, so i changed it and now they both drop supply crates). I have set these as a secondary target by linking them with a "target->destroy" object for the spitfires. However once the Spits start attacking the battery, they pay no attention whatsoever to the Ju52s, even if they are set as a target. I have set the battery as a secondary target to ensure it is of the same priority as the Ju52s (essentially having the mission run only with secondary targets and no primary), but they still don't care.
So, my first question is, does the AI respond to "target->destroy" and/or "target->destroy ground" objects?
The way i understand it, these objects are mission goals for the entire team when running the mission, while flight-specific goals are defined via each flight's waypoint properties. So if for example i had a second flight of Spitfires, the destroy ground objective would also apply to them, is that correct
Another thing that caught my eye is that once the Spits have bombed the battery, they make repeated firing passes with their guns even though their Gattack waypoint command has been already executed (they can been heard issuing the "repeat attack" command over the radio when watching them with the external cameras). This leads me to another assumption i would like to have checked by someone with more experience.
It looks as if the existence of a Gattack waypoint targeted within a destroy ground circle has the effect of forcing the AI to try and meet the destroy ground goals as well (in this case, 50% of objects in the circle). Is this true or not?
Finally, the last question concerns expanding the mission with more flights and objectives. This is where i hit a brick wall.
Initially i wanted to spice things up just a little, so i added a small convoy with a few tankers and a destroyer escort zig-zagging in front of them as they make their way towards the allied harbor in Valletta. I tweaked their rate of fire and added extra flak vehicles for the German battery, since otherwise the ships killed all the axis flak and we would have no challenge at all when flying the mission. Anyway, this was tested and it also works well.
After finally flying the mission with my buddy a few times yesterday, i decided to start building on top of what's already there before making another one. I was thinking of adding an Axis convoy carrying supplies for Afrika korp south of Malta to be attacked by Beaufighters, as this would allow me to demonstrate skip bombing and rocket attacks.
Finally, i also wanted to add a flight of He111s to attack the existing allied convoy between Malta and Sicily in order to train the guy into flying something a bit heavier, demonstrate torpedo attacks and just for a bit of variety as well.
The idea of it all is for him to be able to practice most of the main ground attack and gunnery tasks just by restarting the mission and choosing a different flight. I assume that vacant spots are taken over by the AI, so even when i'm not available to fly with him he could host the mission without anyone else joining and practice by himself.
Since i was bored to set up the ships for the German convoy, i decided to set up the torpedo attack on the existing allied convoy by the He111s. Since the ships are moving i can't set a "target->destroy ground" circle, so i will probably have to use Gattack or a "target->destroy" object for each ship separately.
This means i will have to designate each and every merchant ship as a target, but the He111s can't sink all 5 of them so the mission is unwinable if we fly for the blue team. So, first of all, is there a way to set percentage values for individually targeted units? Is there another way to set up torpedo attacks and i'm completely off? I know there's some funkiness involved in how the FMB gets to bind certain actions to certain objects (for example, setting up a carrier take-off), so i wouldn't be surprised if i need to take a special sequence of actions.
I think a "merge objects" function would help loads here, if i could place the ships and designate them as a user made object (eg convoy1) then i would be able to set a "target->destroy" object and specify a reasonable percentage. By the way, isn't this the way it works with the pre-made vehicle columns that i see in the FMB?
Finally and most importantly, i can't seem to make the targets correspond to the right team. If i just add the He111s, give them waypoints and then add their target object to make them attack the ships, the target properties show "applies to red", meaning that the red team will need to attack the red ships. If i check the "player" checkbox in one of the heinkels and then add the "target->destroy" objects for the ship, then the target properties correctly show "blue" in the drop down "applies to" option. However, this also changes the initial mission target (the coastal battery).
In short, it seems like i can't have target objects applying to each team separately. Also, is it possible to have separate briefings in a coop depending on the team? For example, i select the aircraft from the arming screen and instead of "fly" i press "back" to go back to the map, can i make it so depending on the team selected a different briefing is diplayed?
I'm sure i'll come up with more if think about it a little longer, but that's enough questions for now. Thanks in advance :grin:
I didn't want to leave him learn the ropes all by himself so we opted to do some multiplayer sessions, but his experience level is a bit low at this point to just jump into a DF server and get blasted to bits (i'm also rusty myself). Long story short i decided to bite the bullet and start learning the FMB, so that we could set up some coops and have some training at our own leisure with customized scenarios for each aspect of the game i want to showcase for him.
By the way if anyone else is having thoughts about learning the tool, i can easily recommend the excellent tutorials by FlyingNutcase at http://www.il2-fullmissionbuilder.com/ , they had me up and running at no time.
So after an hour of alt-tabbing between the FMB and these tutorials i had the basics down, i spent an extra couple of hours and came up with a Malta mission on a modded 4.09 installation. I actually didn't think i'd end up having a working mission for less than an evening's work, but i was pleasantly surprised in that after you learn of some non-intuitive interface quirks the rest of the FMB is pretty straight-forward.
So, on to the questions. First of all, i assume that if i set up two different flights and i don't set the "player" checkbox in the FMB for a specific aircraft, then the players will be able to choose their individual aircraft. Is that right?
As for the particular mission i was fiddling with, iI have a flight of two Spitfires spawning on Malta as the player flight, tasked with bombing a coastal battery on the south side of Sicily (it's just a 3-5 minute hop so we can rerun the mission and focus on practicing gunnery and bombing). For testing i set this flight to AI control, added both a "target->destroy ground" object and a Gattack waypoint so the AI starts shooting and placed a static camera near the coastal battery. This works fine.
I also have two flights of one Ju52 each dropping supplies to the battery (one flight of two didn't work because the second one wouldn't drop, so i changed it and now they both drop supply crates). I have set these as a secondary target by linking them with a "target->destroy" object for the spitfires. However once the Spits start attacking the battery, they pay no attention whatsoever to the Ju52s, even if they are set as a target. I have set the battery as a secondary target to ensure it is of the same priority as the Ju52s (essentially having the mission run only with secondary targets and no primary), but they still don't care.
So, my first question is, does the AI respond to "target->destroy" and/or "target->destroy ground" objects?
The way i understand it, these objects are mission goals for the entire team when running the mission, while flight-specific goals are defined via each flight's waypoint properties. So if for example i had a second flight of Spitfires, the destroy ground objective would also apply to them, is that correct
Another thing that caught my eye is that once the Spits have bombed the battery, they make repeated firing passes with their guns even though their Gattack waypoint command has been already executed (they can been heard issuing the "repeat attack" command over the radio when watching them with the external cameras). This leads me to another assumption i would like to have checked by someone with more experience.
It looks as if the existence of a Gattack waypoint targeted within a destroy ground circle has the effect of forcing the AI to try and meet the destroy ground goals as well (in this case, 50% of objects in the circle). Is this true or not?
Finally, the last question concerns expanding the mission with more flights and objectives. This is where i hit a brick wall.
Initially i wanted to spice things up just a little, so i added a small convoy with a few tankers and a destroyer escort zig-zagging in front of them as they make their way towards the allied harbor in Valletta. I tweaked their rate of fire and added extra flak vehicles for the German battery, since otherwise the ships killed all the axis flak and we would have no challenge at all when flying the mission. Anyway, this was tested and it also works well.
After finally flying the mission with my buddy a few times yesterday, i decided to start building on top of what's already there before making another one. I was thinking of adding an Axis convoy carrying supplies for Afrika korp south of Malta to be attacked by Beaufighters, as this would allow me to demonstrate skip bombing and rocket attacks.
Finally, i also wanted to add a flight of He111s to attack the existing allied convoy between Malta and Sicily in order to train the guy into flying something a bit heavier, demonstrate torpedo attacks and just for a bit of variety as well.
The idea of it all is for him to be able to practice most of the main ground attack and gunnery tasks just by restarting the mission and choosing a different flight. I assume that vacant spots are taken over by the AI, so even when i'm not available to fly with him he could host the mission without anyone else joining and practice by himself.
Since i was bored to set up the ships for the German convoy, i decided to set up the torpedo attack on the existing allied convoy by the He111s. Since the ships are moving i can't set a "target->destroy ground" circle, so i will probably have to use Gattack or a "target->destroy" object for each ship separately.
This means i will have to designate each and every merchant ship as a target, but the He111s can't sink all 5 of them so the mission is unwinable if we fly for the blue team. So, first of all, is there a way to set percentage values for individually targeted units? Is there another way to set up torpedo attacks and i'm completely off? I know there's some funkiness involved in how the FMB gets to bind certain actions to certain objects (for example, setting up a carrier take-off), so i wouldn't be surprised if i need to take a special sequence of actions.
I think a "merge objects" function would help loads here, if i could place the ships and designate them as a user made object (eg convoy1) then i would be able to set a "target->destroy" object and specify a reasonable percentage. By the way, isn't this the way it works with the pre-made vehicle columns that i see in the FMB?
Finally and most importantly, i can't seem to make the targets correspond to the right team. If i just add the He111s, give them waypoints and then add their target object to make them attack the ships, the target properties show "applies to red", meaning that the red team will need to attack the red ships. If i check the "player" checkbox in one of the heinkels and then add the "target->destroy" objects for the ship, then the target properties correctly show "blue" in the drop down "applies to" option. However, this also changes the initial mission target (the coastal battery).
In short, it seems like i can't have target objects applying to each team separately. Also, is it possible to have separate briefings in a coop depending on the team? For example, i select the aircraft from the arming screen and instead of "fly" i press "back" to go back to the map, can i make it so depending on the team selected a different briefing is diplayed?
I'm sure i'll come up with more if think about it a little longer, but that's enough questions for now. Thanks in advance :grin: