[peabody]

Originally Posted by WarlordATF

Thanks, This is the section of the manual i'm talking about. If i understand this correctly, if its a merchant save as rnd, and if its a warship then save as scripted. Is that what you get from this?

Normal missions are designed to be single engagements with a limited duration in
time. They should focus on limited areas of the map, but there are no limits imposed
to the designer. Missions are run over the campaign engine, so you do not need to
cover the whole world with shipping and units. The campaign engine itself comprises
three layers:
• The Random Layer – includes all the naval traffic, from convoys to local
fishing boats
• The Scripted Layer – includes all the warship patrols, hunter-killer groups,
military task forces and the mine fields.
• The Land Unit Layer – includes the naval bases, the air bases and the coastal
defenses

Once again, Thanks for all your help!

There's a few key points there that can be followed or not. One thing to remember is the manual was written for SH3 and I don't own it, so I don't know how they differ in the way the layers are used. (probably similar). But in SH4 you can save everything as a Normal mission and it will work just fine. You can put ships, planes and land unit in the same mission and save as Normal and everything gets saved.
The only reason for separate mission is simply to make it less of a mess. You could put the entire war into one mission and save it by using the start and end dates for each item. What SH4 does is to use a separate file to load the Layers with a start and end date for loading them (with some overlap of dates) I think I should use 'Layers" instead of missions so I don't get you confused with a "Single Mission" or a "Campaign mission". The layers you write (like you put in your first post) are basically a single mission with no objectives, then you write separate layers with ONLY the objective since the traffic is already done.
So, when they say the Merchant shipping goes into a RND layer, the reason is simple, it is because they usually travel in the same place. They pick up raw materials at point A and take it to the factories at point B. So by using Random Groups you don't get the same ships all the time in a convoy, which is one thing you commented on. And it will send ships ever so many hours/days and they travel along the same route. There is a way to make the route random too, that is in the manual.
Now the Warships on the other hand don't always go the same way, they go "where the action is". But a lot of that can be done using Random groups too. For example ships going from the US to Pearl Harbor or Pearl to Bribane or Fremantle. Or Pearl to Midway etc. Or ASW ships that patrol a certain area. The point to remember is as you look at these files you will see a LOT of Warships are Random Generated Groups, BUT the main point is, if you put any ships, groups of ships or any land units in the same layer, you can NOT save it using RND Layer. If you do only the Random Generated Groups get saved.

So really the bottom line is that the layers don't mean much in SH4. Just be sure if you have a land unit layer you can save it as a Land unit layer, but if you put anything else in there, save it as Scripted or Normal so everything gets saved. Same thing with RND layer. I have not used Scripted layer much if at all (I don't remember doing it) so a good idea is when you do use it, reload what you did and see if everything is still there. You can have more than one copy of the Mission Editor open at a time, so you don't need to lose your work testing it.

The only other thing I use a lot is the Merge menu item. You can start a layer/mission and then "File/Merge" another and there will be a checkmark for Merge as savable, make sure it is unchecked. The two that I Merge the most is Campaign.Loc.mis and Campaign.NMS.mis and sometimes I merge others but those two mostly.
Campaign.LOC.mis contains Locations hence the name LOC. These include the harbors and docks. So if you need to position a ship in a harbor or dock a ship you don't have to guess where the dock is. And the other of course puts in the same names of Islands etc that you see in the game. But remember not to mark as savable, they are already a separate layer so you don't need to save a second copy. Also be careful about moving any docks or things like that, there might be a Random Layer that adds docked ships and you will mess it up.
It is also useful to merge Campaign.LOC to find a location to start "in base" if you write any mission objectives for the Campaign. Just merge the layers such as 'harbor traffic" for the time period of the Objective (mission) and position your sub at a dock. Then use your mouse pointer to find the coordinates to use. But do NOT save the layer with your sub in it. In fact you don't have to save it at all, you only need the coordinates to use.

Well, I am getting a bit long winded here so to answer your question:

[quote}When i edit a Campaign Mission i have options to save it as a RND or SCRIPTED layer, how do i know which to save the file as?

for example...

41a_Jap_Convoys.mis Is this a RND Layer or Scripted?[/quote]

Look over the '41a_Jap_Convoys.mis" it only has "Random Gererated Groups" in it. Unless you have a MOD installed. So if it is stock you can save as a RND Layer. A random Generated Group is a white triangle with a yellow border and a ? in it. Be careful not to change any date, at least at first.

Also be forewarned there is one Major MOD that they had a warning that a lot of it was hand edited (you can open these layers/missions with notepad to hand edit) and if you mess with them you can mess up a lot of stuff. Maybe OM but I am NOT sure on that.

In fact if may help you learn how things are done, if you just start a new mission, add an few items (not a lot to start with) add some waypoint, do a Random Group and a Regualr group, save as a normal mission, so everything saves and then open the .mis file with notepad. That why I said don't add a lot. Look at how the file is set up and it will give you an idea of how this all works. We have used this technique to edit 1.4 versions of mission to convert to 1.5.

I hope some of this helps. Don't take any of this as an insult, I don't know how much you have used the editor so some of this may be stuff you already know.

Remember work on a Backup file!! When you exit the editor it does NOT warn you that it has not been saved. So anything you did is lost.

Just two final points: If you have the Uboat Add on, you will notice the Geraman files are set up quite differnt than the US ones. And some files are in a different location.
Second, if you use any MODs that change or edit ships,planes,land units etc. and you use any of these in the layers/missions you write; the MOD must be installed before you open the mission editor or it will not find it. I made this mistake once, I cloned a sub for an AI target and did not have the MOD enabled (usually the mission editor would crash when i try to open it) but in this case it replaced them with the Iowa BB, and I did not know that. Imagine my surprise when I tested it and thought I was heading for two Porpoise subs and two Iowa BBs showed up.

Ok one more point, if you made it this far.


*******************************************
IF YOU DON'T READ ANYTHING ELSE, READ THIS !!!!!!!!
*******************************************
VERY IMPORTANT:
In the Campaigns/Campaign for the Allied side is a file mixed in with all the files you are changing called Campaign.cfg. Open it with notepad. This is the file that loads the 'layers' into the game. So you can find dates and write single missions during that time period to test if you changes worked. Just write a mission with your sub in it located somewhere near where you made changes. This is where the Merge function comes in handy, you can position your sub exactly in the path of the Group you changed. Let it pass then Time Compress until the next Random Group shows up and see how much different it is, or if it seems to be the same.
BUT, the important part is making sure you are not doing work for nothing. In the Campaign.cfg go to Section 8.
Any line that begins with a semicolon ( is ignored by the computer.

So for [Section 8] NOTE:
;FileName=data/Campaigns/Campaign/41a_Jap_Convoys.mis

FileName=data/Campaigns/CampaignGE/CampaignData/Axis_Convoys_41a.mis

Notice the ; in front of the line that should load 41a_Jap_Convoys.mis.
The semicolon means the mission you were working on in your first post never gets loaded. (unless my install is messed up, but I keep a 'clean' copy on my other computer and it shows the same). The game load the German side data Axis_Convoys_41a.mis instead.
So check the Campaign.cfg file to see what is getting loaded.

Peabody