Mission editor aircraft question

[7499275]

Alright I'm in mission editor and I've made a working mission, it was actually a lot easier then what I had expected, anyway, I have made a random generated group of jap aircraft and make them enter 1 hour before the mission is said to start and if you know what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, I added waypoints for them to follow gave them speed and height, I have followed there waypoints in the game and I end up finding them a good way off of the path of have set and sometimes I don't find them at all.

So in short why are they hard to find and some times not found at all, are they not spawning or what? and will fighters engage one another?
thanks in advance guys!

[peabody]

Alright I'm in mission editor and I've made a working mission, it was actually a lot easier then what I had expected, anyway, I have made a random generated group of jap aircraft and make them enter 1 hour before the mission is said to start and if you know what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, I added waypoints for them to follow gave them speed and height, I have followed there waypoints in the game and I end up finding them a good way off of the path of have set and sometimes I don't find them at all.

So in short why are they hard to find and some times not found at all, are they not spawning or what? and will fighters engage one another?
thanks in advance guys!

Well, there are a few things.

1. Planes are hard to see/find since they are so small. If you are anywhere near an airbase or carrier, the planes you are finding may not be the ones you created.
2. Sometimes when you place waypoints you are zoomed out far enough on the map that they are really farther away than you think.
3. If you place them too low, they could crash into the ocean or if you have them flying over land they could be too low and crash into a hill. (they are not very smart)
4. I have never tested it since I never had a need to, but open the mission in the editor and put a normal plane (not a random generated group) on the map. Now right click open the properties and look at the bottom and you will see a checkbox that says "Evolve from entry date". That means they start moving at the time you set even if it is before the mission starts. But if you look at the properties of the Random Generated Group, there is no "evolve from entry date." So they may not be starting when you think they are.
5. The first group will not spawn until the "repeat interval" amount of time has passed, so you need to subtract that amount from the start time. But as I said I do not know if they will spawn 'before' the mission start" when using random groups.
6. They are not suppose to spawn if you are within 20 miles (or km) from them. I know this applies to ships, I am not sure about planes.
7. Are you sure the spawn probability is 100%?
8. Did you make set "head to waypoint" so they are facing the right way?
9. Did you set the speed and height BEFORE you set the waypoints? If not the waypoints will have the default speed and height. You can click "Update Waypoint Speed" and that will make all waypoint the same speed, but the height will still be the default (I think it is 500m.) Click on a waypoint and check the properties of the waypoint, you may have to planes at a low altitude but when they reach the waypoint they change height.

Hope some of that helps.

Peabody

[7499275]

Well it's an honor to hear from such a master modder on these forums, and it kinda helped, I've left the height for them at the already set 500m and they are never over land.

On my mission there is a carrier in a near by task force, but the group I made consisted of well of 75 planes, and I spotted this group, ( I have never seen a sh4 jap carrier launch 75 planes with in like 2 minutes ) So I'm pretty sure it was my group.
The entry date I had on the group was exactly one hour before the mission was said to start, the "Evolve from entry date" was unchecked
You mentioned zoomed out on the map thinking that I may have put the aircraft farther away then I thought, well I doubt it because I used the scale down at the bottom, about 1k meters away from my start point.

Could you explain "Repeat intervel" thing a little better I think that may help. You said they shouldn't spawn within 20 miles, I had a task force with in about 2k meters and spawn just fine. No I did not set head to way point and finally yes i set the height and speed before the way points

And lastly once the aircraft stuff is done, if I could bug this ever so nice sh4 community with 1 or 2 more questions about triggers and evets :P lol

thanks

[peabody]

Well it's an honor to hear from such a master modder on these forums, and it kinda helped, I've left the height for them at the already set 500m and they are never over land.

On my mission there is a carrier in a near by task force, but the group I made consisted of well of 75 planes, and I spotted this group, ( I have never seen a sh4 jap carrier launch 75 planes with in like 2 minutes ) So I'm pretty sure it was my group.
The entry date I had on the group was exactly one hour before the mission was said to start, the "Evolve from entry date" was unchecked
You mentioned zoomed out on the map thinking that I may have put the aircraft farther away then I thought, well I doubt it because I used the scale down at the bottom, about 1k meters away from my start point.

Could you explain "Repeat intervel" thing a little better I think that may help. You said they shouldn't spawn within 20 miles, I had a task force with in about 2k meters and spawn just fine. No I did not set head to way point and finally yes i set the height and speed before the way points

And lastly once the aircraft stuff is done, if I could bug this ever so nice sh4 community with 1 or 2 more questions about triggers and evets :P lol

thanks

Ok, if you did 75 and saw them then that is not the problem, they are being created. Did you try correcting the "head to waypoint"? did it solve the problem?
When you make a mission, the game will also load the Campaign traffic, is it possible there were other ships in the area that they changed course to attack?

For the distance, you can actually measure, if you didn't know, go left two icons from the hand and click and you can measure right on the screen.

Ok, don't take this as an insult, it sounds like this is your first mission so I think there may be a misunderstanding here.
You said the planes were a "Random Generated Group, they were set for 1 hour prior to the start of the mission and the "Evolve from entry date" was UNchecked.
1. If it is a Random Generated Group, there is no "Evolve from entry date" box to check.
2. If you created a normal group, there would be a 'Evolve' box and you should check it if you want them to start before the mission does. If you do not, they start when the mission starts.
So, did you right click and choose "Create Random Generated Group" or did you drag 75 planes on to the screen and then group them? (I think you probably did the random one.)

When you create a 'Random Generated Group", and have it spawn more than once, it will spawn then wait the time in "Repeat Interval" and spawn another group, then wait that time and spawn another group, until it has reached the number in "Max group Instances created",which is 1000 by default. So they will just keep coming. I hope that makes sense. An example if you set Repeat Interval to 24 hours, they will spawn once every day for 1000 days. (of course you can change those numbers)

Next the spawn within 20 miles (or KM, I don't remember). If you place a ship 3 feet away from you at the start on the mission, it will be there when the mission starts.
What I mean is anything that is there at the beginning of the mission will show, but after the mission starts nothing else 'should' spawn withing 20 miles. (I say should because the game does not always do what it is suppose to). This is to prevent ships from suddenly appearing in front of you out of thin air.
And Random generated groups with a repeat interval is not the only way to spawn them. You mentioned another which is to "Trigger" a spawn, but it won't happen if you are within 20 miles.

So to get back to the original problem. I think it is one of three things.
1. The 'Random Group" did not spawn until the time in "Repeat Interval had passed, so you need to set the "Entry date/time" backwards the amount of time in "Repeat Interval".
2. They changed course and attacked something else.
3. The "Head to Waypoint" caused the problem.

Yes, I would be willing to help with Triggers. Just be aware, there are "Objectives", "Events" and "Triggers". And there are a million ways to combine the three to make things happen. Do you have something specific you want to do? Or just a general knowledge of how 'Triggers" work?

Peabody

[7499275]

As you said the random generated groups don't have an evolve check box, correct but I tried with a random group and then a group of 20 planes and there was only one carrier in the vicinity, and considering I had my gun trained on the carrier the whole time I doubt it could have unless it wouldn't show a plane leaving the flight deck.

And I take no offense what so ever this is indeed my first mission, and I honestly hope after I get decent at this to maybe release a mission.

About the repeat interval, so if I set the groups point 20 miles/km out side of where my ship is, and have it set to 1 hour and i have them spawn one hour before me they should end up spawning when I join the mission?

And the original location was south of pearl, and the new location is at Alaska so it is very possible they could have went to attack regular traffic patters.

About triggers, well there is something specific I would like to do, have a jap task force on a way point path when they reach a certain waypoint have a American fleet spawn and move in and begin firing, I tried and well the American fleet spawned when I joined the game at there end waypoint which is near the jap fleet at the beginning.

Thank you ever so much your honor!

[peabody]

As you said the random generated groups don't have an evolve check box, correct but I tried with a random group and then a group of 20 planes and there was only one carrier in the vicinity, and considering I had my gun trained on the carrier the whole time I doubt it could have unless it wouldn't show a plane leaving the flight deck.

And I take no offense what so ever this is indeed my first mission, and I honestly hope after I get decent at this to maybe release a mission.

About the repeat interval, so if I set the groups point 20 miles/km out side of where my ship is, and have it set to 1 hour and i have them spawn one hour before me they should end up spawning when I join the mission?

And the original location was south of pearl, and the new location is at Alaska so it is very possible they could have went to attack regular traffic patters.

About triggers, well there is something specific I would like to do, have a jap task force on a way point path when they reach a certain waypoint have a American fleet spawn and move in and begin firing, I tried and well the American fleet spawned when I joined the game at there end waypoint which is near the jap fleet at the beginning.

Thank you ever so much your honor!

First, the carriers do not actually launch aircraft. They spawn in the area around the carrier and airbases. In fact if a planes that actually flies touches the carrier deck, water, or land it will explode.

Yes on the 1 hour but you may want to set it to only spawn once. If you spawn 75 planes every hour, you will end up with a LOT of planes which will slow the game to a crawl.

You are the only one that can trigger a zone. Other ships can not. But there are few ways around it.

1. You are writing the mission, so you can use a time trigger. In the mission editor you have play and pause buttons, so you can see what time they will reach the point where you want the task force to spawn and set a time trigger to spawn them.
2. You can be searching the area and enter the zone and spawn the task force.

The task force needs to be set to a time in the future or they will do exactly what happened, they will appear when the mission starts. You set them to a time in the future and then spawn them with a trigger.

Peabody

[7499275]

Alright the triggers that's gonna help big time, I just got one more problem, I'm setting up a random group of jap zero's now and I want them to spawn 3 times every HALF HOUR, what kinda value do I enter in the repeat interval, and once you give me a answer to that and i test the mission I'll make a report with any more small problems I may encounter.

[peabody]

Alright the triggers that's gonna help big time, I just got one more problem, I'm setting up a random group of jap zero's now and I want them to spawn 3 times every HALF HOUR, what kinda value do I enter in the repeat interval, and once you give me a answer to that and i test the mission I'll make a report with any more small problems I may encounter.

:o:o:o 3 times every half hour? Hope you have a lot of ammo.

The mission editor will not let you enter a value less than 1. So that is one group per hour. The only way around that is to make 6 groups each one starting 10 minutes apart and then respawn each hour.
So:
12:00
12:10
12:20
12:30
12:40
12:50

and set repeat interval to 1 hour for each group.

Peabody

[7499275]

:o:o:o 3 times every half hour? Hope you have a lot of ammo.

The mission editor will not let you enter a value less than 1. So that is one group per hour. The only way around that is to make 6 groups each one starting 10 minutes apart and then respawn each hour.
So:
12:00
12:10
12:20
12:30
12:40
12:50

and set repeat interval to 1 hour for each group.

Peabody

Haha if I didn't state the fact I've lowered the plane numbers plus I got a Montana class plus some of the us fleet so I think we can handle it! and alright I may do the 10 minute thing or just keep it at one hour but thanks

[7499275]

Alright I got the planes spawning perfectly thank you so much, now just a little about triggers? :oops: