[TEC] Campaign layer editing

[Trout]

I assume Tater is the dude to ask..

Would it be possible to introduce a little more "story" into reported ship locations on the map? In other words, when you are radiod with a ship sighting, it might come with a message such as, "this vessel is believed to be carrying an important cargo of X. Make all efforts to sink this vessel". Or in the case of a warship, it could be an important target "this warship is interfering with operations in the area", or "is carrying senior officers to a secret conference", or "has been damaged in combat and must not be allowed to make port"

There might be more points awared for sinking it. Obviously, messages like this would be fairly rare, but they would create an incentive to go out of your way and/or accept greater risk to sink them.

And a related question I suppose, is it possible to add new mission types to the campaign? I find it strange that there is nothing like a blockade mission where you need to patrol a straight and prevent ships from transiting for a certain period of time, nor are there diversionary type missions where you try to draw off enemy ships for whatever purpose.

Thoughts?

Trout

[tater]

Good ideas. I'm already working on beach defenses photo recon (like US subs did at Tarawa, etc.

As for the contact reports... I don't know, I have a couple ideas, but I haven't tested them.

Btter will be triggers I think. I was working on a trigger so that when you got to a patrol area, a TF is generated, but I'm not sure it's possible. The other way is to script a few such interesting targets (which is my current plan) and have a trigger send a message about thei whereabouts---more like real MAGIC: "jap TF is expected 345nm ESE Guam on May 7."

[Trout]

Great idea about the ultra. I envision people dropping what they are doing and racing off (at great personal risk!) to hunt and kill a high value target.

I think this is waht the developers wanted when they introduced the large naval engagments, but the problem is that if you are too far away, you dont have time to get into position to help with the battle. And while you may have the sense of contributing to a much larger battle, that is entirely different than feeling that you and your crew can do somthing extraordinary to effect the war.



Good ideas. I'm already working on beach defenses photo recon (like US subs did at Tarawa, etc.

As for the contact reports... I don't know, I have a couple ideas, but I haven't tested them.

Btter will be triggers I think. I was working on a trigger so that when you got to a patrol area, a TF is generated, but I'm not sure it's possible. The other way is to script a few such interesting targets (which is my current plan) and have a trigger send a message about thei whereabouts---more like real ULTRA: "jap TF is expected 345nm ESE Guam on May 7."

[tater]

With a few exceptions (like not being able to photograph land units), the campaign system was very well thought out, IMO. The campaign.cfg system that allows new content to be added as a new layer, only loaded when needed is a lovely paradign to work in. Kudos to whoever thought of it.

The patrol system is almost equally as complex. The bones are there in both systems, but clearly they lacked the time to do everything with it that it is capable of. They barely scratched the surface, IMO.

There are some "brute force" techniques I was planning on using. If you happen to put into port in narrow timeframes, you could get a mission set that is ONLY good for that time period. Any boat putting into PH such that they'll be out to sea in late june, for example, should have ONE possible mission, deploy as a screen to Midway and look for the japs. I could make another that goes into the mix with others, but only for a short period in June, for example, that is Empire waters, but it's to watch the exits from a major naval anchorage for the jap fleet. Many others are possible. I need to add some for just before Guadalcanal is invaded for the pig boats out of Brisbane, for example. Another set would be in place of (or addition to) the current "Philipines" set for the pig boats at the start of the war. Call them "PhilipinesCloseDefense" The Salmons and Sargos might get some "HarborWatch" missions which would place them in close blockade of places like Camranh Bay.

These are not hard to do, it's just loads of scut work.

Another simple "fix" to the patrols will be to rewrite the briefs. Make them read better to be more immersive. Some missions that are kind of dumb now could be far more compelling with a little back story in the brief. WHY you are delivering supplies to the other side of the Philipines, or whatever.

tater

[Trout]

Too bad they did not make it simple to mod missions and place them within the campaign. The mind reels at all the cool things that would be possible.

I like the idea of being given a fairly small operational area, and working up a full intel profile on it. You create a picture of where the traffic is, how active the enemy air and surface ships are, how they are supporting the ground war. Speaking of which, you never really get the sense that a particular battalion, company ect. is doing x,y, or z on an island, and they are getting supplies and naval support in a way that you can interdict.

[tater]

They did.

You can easily add any single mission to the campaign. You need to delete the player sub, obviously. Also you need to remove the objectives, etc. I'd actually then save as, reload the sucker, and delete all the units, but not the objectives and save it as the new patrol.

Then you have to add it to campaign.cfg. It's in.

If you want a patrol to that area, you would have to add a new patrol objective mission to that folder, plus point to it with the PatrolObjectives.cfg in the UPCData folder.

It's not that hard.

tater

[tater]

You make some really good points about "back story."

I noticed that the missions (maybe it was in campaign.cfg) have a areas that says something like: BriefingMap=NULL

I tried putting my own map tga in there, no dice. Too bad, since the ability to add our own background map where your orders appear could be VERY cool.

Reall, a lot can be done with writing better text for the patrols. Obviously some are generic to the whole war (Patrol Honshu)---though even those need more specific orders to be more immersive (and useful to the player).

As for the more complex interactions in missions---try Ducimus's "New Construction." Even if TM isn;t your thing, it's worth the DL just for that. Very, very well done, and a model for what is possible, even in the campaign.

It's very doable, but it takes HOURS to tweak. We can have missions where you head to your patrol, then get ordered to chase ULTRAs which can pan out, or not. I have some other novel ideas I got seeing how the New Construction worked, too.

tater