[TEC] Mission Editor, Triggers, and Time

[propbeanie]

KaleunMarco and I have been bouncing ideas around, wondering WHY the triggers are so squirrely...

It looks like your mission is all set-up, ready to go, so you go to test it, and NOTHING HAPPENS from your triggers. I do remember reading about this issue somewhere before, and "time" is at the root of all evil in the Silent Hunter games. Not only does it count from "zero" instead of an actual date, but it counts in seconds / minutes / hours depending upon which aspect of the game you are modding.

With this little kernel of memory irritating me, I decided to experiment with the Mission date, as listed in the mis file header, the CfgDate= line of the involved "target" of spawning from a trigger (a ship, plane or sub), the GameEntryDate= and GameEntryTime= lines versus the AvailStartDate= and AvailStartTime= lines.

So, CfgDate HAS to be after Mission Date, and it has to be the first of a month. Mission date can be any valid date. For example,
[Mission]
...
Year=1944
Month=1
Day=1
Hour=0
Minute=0
means that your CfgDate can be no earlier than 19440101. Likewise though, the GameAvailabilityDate and Time cannot be before the same date and time as the mission.

Then the "revelation" (of old info from someone else), your actual GameEntryDate and Time, which are dated later than the mission for the purpose of being "spawned" by a "Trigger", can be NO LATER than 120 days later. Not 120 days and one second, but no more than 120 days, which is 2880 hours, or 172,800 minutes. NOT 172800.016666 minutes... your "target" will not spawn after 172,800 minutes, or 120 days... You can "go around the corner" from December 1943 into February 1944 no problem, but say you use "19431216" as your Available, your actual GameEntry should be no later than "19440414", else the trigger fails to cause the spawn...

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

KaleunMarco and I have been bouncing ideas around, wondering WHY the triggers are so squirrely...

It looks like your mission is all set-up, ready to go, so you go to test it, and NOTHING HAPPENS from your triggers. I do remember reading about this issue somewhere before, and "time" is at the root of all evil in the Silent Hunter games. Not only does it count from "zero" instead of an actual date, but it counts in seconds / minutes / hours depending upon which aspect of the game you are modding.

With this little kernel of memory irritating me, I decided to experiment with the Mission date, as listed in the mis file header, the CfgDate= line of the involved "target" of spawning from a trigger (a ship, plane or sub), the GameEntryDate= and GameEntryTime= lines versus the AvailStartDate= and AvailStartTime= lines.

So, CfgDate HAS to be after Mission Date, and it has to be the first of a month. Mission date can be any valid date. For example,
[Mission]
...
Year=1944
Month=1
Day=1
Hour=0
Minute=0
means that your CfgDate can be no earlier than 19440101. Likewise though, the GameAvailabilityDate and Time cannot be before the same date and time as the mission.

Then the "revelation" (of old info from someone else), your actual GameEntryDate and Time, which are dated later than the mission for the purpose of being "spawned" by a "Trigger", can be NO LATER than 120 days later. Not 120 days and one second, but no more than 120 days, which is 2880 hours, or 172,800 minutes. NOT 172800.016666 minutes... your "target" will not spawn after 172,800 minutes, or 120 days... You can "go around the corner" from December 1943 into February 1944 no problem, but say you use "19431216" as your Available, your actual GameEntry should be no later than "19440414", else the trigger fails to cause the spawn...

great work testing , PB, however it is after 6 pm here and my eyes started counter-rotating in the middle of your second paragraph.

i am going to try reading through this again in the morning when my brain is fresher.