Mission Editor

[sgt_fresh]

Does this game have a mission editor, like the past iL2 games?

 

I would like to create my own custom missions.

[vonPilsner]

Not at this time.

 

And so would I.  

[Jaegermeister]

It does, but you can't use it.

 

Apparently we are not smart enough to have difficult software like that.

[Trident_109]

Be fair, Jaegermeister. The Mission Editor has not been released yet, but the developers are planning in doing so in the future. I get the impression it will be in about 6 months. I could be wrong, and hope I am.

 

Community created ME campaigns are what I'm looking forward to the most. I think it will (if it is an efficient editor) give us plenty of campaign pleasure for the single player. I'm banking on it.

[Jaegermeister]

I could go back and find the quote where it was stated that they do not want to release the mission builder because it is too difficult to work with if you like. How do you interpret that? Lots of people can make missions in ROF and I downloaded it just to see how hard it actually is. It is not as easy as some others, but certainly not impossible either.

 

Apparently the single player missions are stored on the online server anyway so I am guessing that there will have to be some format changes made before user made offline missions can be distributed anyway.

[LukeFF]

It does, but you can't use it yet, as the team is not yet ready to release it to the general public.

 

Fixed

[Jaegermeister]

Fixed

 

Yeah, that......

[Bearcat]

It does, but you can't use it.

Apparently we are not smart enough to have difficult software like that.

 

This is incorrect information.

 

To the OP ... At the moment there is no Mission Editor but it is being worked on now and is planned for release in the near future. The ME is based on the RoF ME and it was not very user friendly so the devs are trying to correct that for BoS. They are working on an improved GUI among other things.

 

I could go back and find the quote where it was stated that they do not want to release the mission builder because it is too difficult to work with if you like. How do you interpret that? Lots of people can make missions in ROF and I downloaded it just to see how hard it actually is. It is not as easy as some others, but certainly not impossible either.

 

Apparently the single player missions are stored on the online server anyway so I am guessing that there will have to be some format changes made before user made offline missions can be distributed anyway.

 

From my understanding the ME for BoS will be based on the RoF one but not exactly the same. The RoF ME is a powerful one and they want tomake it easier to use.. It has nothing to do with thinking that the community is too stupid to use it.

[vonPilsner]

This is incorrect information.

 

To the OP ... At the moment there is no Mission Editor but it is being worked on now and is planned for release in the near future. The ME is based on the RoF ME and it was not very user friendly so the devs are trying to correct that for BoS. They are working on an improved GUI among other things.

 

 

From my understanding the ME for BoS will be based on the RoF one but not exactly the same. The RoF ME is a powerful one and they want tomake it easier to use.. It has nothing to do with thinking that the community is too stupid to use it.

 

That's great news, because this is the last official thing I read about the Mission Builder.

I was hoping there was an official change of heart.   

 

Don't suppose you have a link do you?

[Gambit21]

It does, but you can't use it.

 

Apparently we are not smart enough to have difficult software like that.

[Trident_109]

I could go back and find the quote where it was stated that they do not want to release the mission builder because it is too difficult to work with if you like. How do you interpret that? Lots of people can make missions in ROF and I downloaded it just to see how hard it actually is. It is not as easy as some others, but certainly not impossible either.

 

Apparently the single player missions are stored on the online server anyway so I am guessing that there will have to be some format changes made before user made offline missions can be distributed anyway.

LOL. I had written a response but Luke's was better so I'll let his comment stand. No offense meant to you. I just didn't want the original poster to be confused by your comment.

[Bearcat]

That's great news, because this is the last official thing I read about the Mission Builder.

I was hoping there was an official change of heart.   

 

Don't suppose you have a link do you?

 

No I don't but consider that post was made 6 months ago and the priority then was to get the sim out. It is out now.

[vonPilsner]

No I don't but consider that post was made 6 months ago and the priority then was to get the sim out. It is out now.

I soooo hope the devs have changed their mind on releasing the mission builder to the public. 

[Jason_Williams]

What do you mean change our mind? There are some really strange perceptions in this thread about our ME plans.

 

The ME will be released this year (90% sure) and it will be the same format as the one for ROF. Very powerful, but not super intuitive. No time or resources to re-vamp the interface right now.

 

We need to strip out the remnants that remain from ROF and add in functionality that is only found in BOS mission tech. There are some differences.

 

If we can find a way in the future we will try to make it more user friendly for novices. If not, everyone will still have it and if they can learn how to use it they can make some great, complex and interesting missions.

 

Jason 

[Feathered_IV]

I think VP was referring to the earlier reports by some of the team, saying that the Mission Editor would be only made available privately to individuals who first demonstrate a knowledge of the RoF editor.

[vonPilsner]

What do you mean change our mind? There are some really strange perceptions in this thread about our ME plans.

 

Sorry, as I said it was the last dev post I read on the mission builder. Not sure how I read it or perceived it wrong, Jason.

 

Thanks for posting some good news in this thread.

 

:/

[Jason_Williams]

I think VP was referring to the earlier reports by some of the team, saying that the Mission Editor would be only made available privately to individuals who first demonstrate a knowledge of the RoF editor.

 

Yes and we said that was a temporary situation. Always said that.

 

Jason

[BlitzPig_Bill_Kelso]

Well to be honest Jason was rather clear in what He said regarding the FMB. Depending on how well BoS sells will determine if 777 can spare the resources to make an easier to use FMB.

[[KWN]T-oddball]

What do you mean change our mind? There are some really strange perceptions in this thread about our ME plans.

 

The ME will be released this year (90% sure) and it will be the same format as the one for ROF. Very powerful, but not super intuitive. No time or resources to re-vamp the interface right now.

 

We need to strip out the remnants that remain from ROF and add in functionality that is only found in BOS mission tech. There are some differences.

 

If we can find a way in the future we will try to make it more user friendly for novices. If not, everyone will still have it and if they can learn how to use it they can make some great, complex and interesting missions.

 

Jason 

 

will there be any limits put on the amount of planes or objects that can on the map at any given time or will they be up to the author to determine playable balance?

[Vaxxtx]

will there be any limits put on the amount of planes or objects that can on the map at any given time or will they be up to the author to determine playable balance?

Thats the million dollar question there. Will it be robust? Or will it be small scale? And how will it work with unlocks? Will it be spawning planes, or able to make actual flights? Can it be dynamic?

[Dakpilot]

This a quote from some-one who built an early MP mission

 

^^The ME interface is exactly like what I've seen from RoF ME, though I have not created any missions for RoF. From what I've been told by caryatid, as we were working together as he was porting his RoF dynamic mission structure to the BoS mission I created , is that BoS could support a lot more mission objects (AI, buildings, etc) than RoF could by a longshot. I've never had any experience with RoF other than playing it so I can't comment on that, but the latest mission I had on a 60 player server supported the following:

 

• 200 German AI armor pieces advancing to four different VVS airfields (50 at each base with a two hour travel time from the west)
• 240 AAA pieces (24 at each German/Russian base)
• 2 locomotives with a route spanning halfway across the play space of the map (~Stalingrad to Kalach) with a supply/repair function
• ~11,500 destructible city/village/town buildings, bridges, railroad stations across the map
• ~200 destructible tents/bunkers/aircraft/fuel dump mission objective oriented objects at each airfield
• ~500 MCU/mission trigger type objects, timers, and check zones (that could be bigger, I haven't counted...other than the complex triggers, I'm not sure if they take significant resources)

Mission objectives included:

 

• AI tank formations attacking airfields, rendering them neutralized if successful.
  -Neutralized airfields had triggers that allowed specific player flown He-111's to land and capture the base for use by German players.
• Destruction/disabling of airfields based on player flown missions for airfield attack/static aircraft destruction.
  -Resupply system based on truck convoys and railroad routes to re-enable disabled airfields
• Objective counters for both teams
• Aircraft resupply system allowing He-111 players to act as a transport/supply role to front airfields

My last tests on the fully populated server of 60 players included all of this and 18 AI bombers and fighters running patrols and base-disabling carpet bombing missions without a hitch. Was going to expand on this but ran out of time.

This was achieved on a virtual private server provided by NFO, which was a ten core Nehalem CPU @2.26Ghz (dserver running on two cores) with 10GB of RAM and maintained CPU usage under 13% with dserver simulations per second (sps) at ~35sps (50sps is baseline/optimal, 20sps is when things start visually lagging), so it was very playable and had room to expand. This is not an ideal powerhouse of a machine (bit of a budget box), but it served our purposes just fine. A dedicated box with a better, higher frequency CPU (dserver was not made to run on multiple cores, apparently) would probably allow a lot more in the mission and allow for higher player numbers (70 players was our all time max, but I was too busy playing and didn't look at server metrics, so I'm not sure if the server was choking)...but that is a bit of conjecture.

Stating that more than 50 objects in one area is not possible in BoS is a misconception and false...also, the BoS engine is capable of placing and playing thousands of objects in a mission. "Objects" being a bit of a blanket statement, I'd clarify those to be buildings, AAA batteries, and static aircraft/airfield assets. Additionally,  you are under the impression that a specific type of aircraft could not be limited by how many are in the air/spawned at a time, which is very possible using "OnKilled"/"OnSpawn" triggers in conjunction with a variation of <this object group> and naming the type of plane you want limited (just one way to do it). I didn't make that group, but was able to leverage the community to have it sent to me in template form so it was easily portable (click, click, done) from RoF to BoS.^^

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Juri_JS]

It seems the limiting factor will be mostly the users hardware and not the mission editor.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Juri_JS

[Yakdriver]

It does, but you can't use it.

 

Apparently we are not smart enough to have difficult software like that.

frustration and all that - me too was shocked at similar news half a years ago.

But since then we have come a long way.

 

I must say that discouraging new users in this manner shocks me even more. i thought that slowly but surely we would have gotten over the "missing" stuff, and were all looking forward to a FMB, Skinning option and a ded.server.

Gotten over the Bumps and going with the knowledge that we WILL get ALL these things in a near future.

 

and if Things pan out, the FMB might be here in time for X-mas or silvester.

So i could dig into that instead of sitting here all alone and miserable while the world has great family get togethers, half of  them going wrong with people ending up hating each other.

[=LD=Hethwill]

Given Jason's replies in this thread we better start learning the RoF workflow.

 

Workflow is more like Lego Mechanics rather than classic Lego as IL-2 1946 was.

[Yakdriver]

then they fail.

this sposed to be my past time occupation. not work.

[A-E-Hartmann]

What do you mean change our mind? There are some really strange perceptions in this thread about our ME plans.

 

The ME will be released this year (90% sure) and it will be the same format as the one for ROF. Very powerful, but not super intuitive. No time or resources to re-vamp the interface right now.

 

We need to strip out the remnants that remain from ROF and add in functionality that is only found in BOS mission tech. There are some differences.

 

If we can find a way in the future we will try to make it more user friendly for novices. If not, everyone will still have it and if they can learn how to use it they can make some great, complex and interesting missions.

 

Jason 

 

 

Yes and we said that was a temporary situation. Always said that.

 

Jason

 

Thank you for your clear answer .

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

The ME will be released this year (90% sure) and it will be the same format as the one for ROF. Very powerful, but not super intuitive. No time or resources to re-vamp the interface right now.

 

Very good news Jason!

[senseispcc]

I did use the ROF FMB and the COD one also and must say that the difficulty in both of them i to make each component interact with each other the correct way (plus in COD the weather system is a shame for such a great game) this two FMB's are not complicated in themselves but to make the reactions of the two sides be realistic and constant is a challenge!

 

And because in ROF the planes are placed individually it is time consuming. I must say that the AI in my build mission did some strange things! In COD It was a little better but the effort to make a mission was great and the results seemed so little that only few were made. I still thank the not so many people how made helping modules to help the setup of missions.

 

I hope this time for a FMB , maybe less realistic but more easy to use like in the original IL2-1946.  

 

[Bearcat]

Guys the thing we need to keep in mind with all of this is... this team has a plan and that plan does not involve them dropping the sim in a year. It also involves US. While I have not, nor will I probably ever be satisfied with every decision they make, for me if the past 2 years have taught me nothing else about this team, it is that they have planned their work and they are working their plan. As long as the sim works and is entertaining warts and all, I for one will continue to support it. The team's plan centers around delivering a product that can appeal to a broad spectrum of players while at the same time shortchanging no one. That means that some folks will be disappointed and that things will have to happen on their time frame not ours so we need to just be patient and look at what their actions indicate we can expect.

Kinda reminds me of that old Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes tune.....

 

If you don't know me by now........

[avlSteve]

What do you mean change our mind? There are some really strange perceptions in this thread about our ME plans.

 

The ME will be released this year (90% sure) and it will be the same format as the one for ROF. Very powerful, but not super intuitive. No time or resources to re-vamp the interface right now.

 

We need to strip out the remnants that remain from ROF and add in functionality that is only found in BOS mission tech. There are some differences.

 

If we can find a way in the future we will try to make it more user friendly for novices. If not, everyone will still have it and if they can learn how to use it they can make some great, complex and interesting missions.

 

Jason 

 

Great news.  Very anxious for this one.  I just went through a few old tutorials on the ROF ME, it looked like there was a lot there, but the individual tasks didn't seem overwhelming so far.

[BlitzPig_EL]

then they fail.

 

this sposed to be my past time occupation. not work.

 

This is where I am at as well.

 

I have tried many times to figure out the RoF mission editor, and it's simply beyond me.  Over the last decade + I've had a great time using the original IL2's FMB, and creating missions for our merry little band, then hosting them on our own machines for our own enjoyment.

 

Seems those days are over as it takes, or will take, a very expensive/powerful dedicated server to run missions in BoS, even if I/we get beyond the very complex mission editor.

 

Things gained and lost I guess, but there are lots of smaller groups of players, like the BlitzPigs and our fellow travelers, who are going to be left out because there is no longer a way for us to play the sim together, they way WE like, with OUR settings, etc...

 

A "second tier" mission builder that was less full featured would be a great help for us smaller groups, but that still leaves the hosting issue.

 

Will there be a way for smaller groups to host their own?

 

How about the many private squad vs. squad "wars" or "campaigns" that used to be very popular in original IL2?  Will that be possible?

Edited November 15, 2014 by ElAurens

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Thanks for the reinforcement of intent Jason.  Looking forward to the ME release.

[[KWN]T-oddball]

This a quote from some-one who built an early MP mission

 

^^The ME interface is exactly like what I've seen from RoF ME, though I have not created any missions for RoF. From what I've been told by caryatid, as we were working together as he was porting his RoF dynamic mission structure to the BoS mission I created , is that BoS could support a lot more mission objects (AI, buildings, etc) than RoF could by a longshot. I've never had any experience with RoF other than playing it so I can't comment on that, but the latest mission I had on a 60 player server supported the following:

 

 

• 200 German AI armor pieces advancing to four different VVS airfields (50 at each base with a two hour travel time from the west)
• 240 AAA pieces (24 at each German/Russian base)
• 2 locomotives with a route spanning halfway across the play space of the map (~Stalingrad to Kalach) with a supply/repair function
• ~11,500 destructible city/village/town buildings, bridges, railroad stations across the map
• ~200 destructible tents/bunkers/aircraft/fuel dump mission objective oriented objects at each airfield
• ~500 MCU/mission trigger type objects, timers, and check zones (that could be bigger, I haven't counted...other than the complex triggers, I'm not sure if they take significant resources)

 

Mission objectives included:

 

 

• AI tank formations attacking airfields, rendering them neutralized if successful.

  -Neutralized airfields had triggers that allowed specific player flown He-111's to land and capture the base for use by German players.

• Destruction/disabling of airfields based on player flown missions for airfield attack/static aircraft destruction.

  -Resupply system based on truck convoys and railroad routes to re-enable disabled airfields

• Objective counters for both teams
• Aircraft resupply system allowing He-111 players to act as a transport/supply role to front airfields

 

 

My last tests on the fully populated server of 60 players included all of this and 18 AI bombers and fighters running patrols and base-disabling carpet bombing missions without a hitch. Was going to expand on this but ran out of time.

 

This was achieved on a virtual private server provided by NFO, which was a ten core Nehalem CPU @2.26Ghz (dserver running on two cores) with 10GB of RAM and maintained CPU usage under 13% with dserver simulations per second (sps) at ~35sps (50sps is baseline/optimal, 20sps is when things start visually lagging), so it was very playable and had room to expand. This is not an ideal powerhouse of a machine (bit of a budget box), but it served our purposes just fine. A dedicated box with a better, higher frequency CPU (dserver was not made to run on multiple cores, apparently) would probably allow a lot more in the mission and allow for higher player numbers (70 players was our all time max, but I was too busy playing and didn't look at server metrics, so I'm not sure if the server was choking)...but that is a bit of conjecture.

 

Stating that more than 50 objects in one area is not possible in BoS is a misconception and false...also, the BoS engine is capable of placing and playing thousands of objects in a mission. "Objects" being a bit of a blanket statement, I'd clarify those to be buildings, AAA batteries, and static aircraft/airfield assets. Additionally,  you are under the impression that a specific type of aircraft could not be limited by how many are in the air/spawned at a time, which is very possible using "OnKilled"/"OnSpawn" triggers in conjunction with a variation of <this object group> and naming the type of plane you want limited (just one way to do it). I didn't make that group, but was able to leverage the community to have it sent to me in template form so it was easily portable (click, click, done) from RoF to BoS.^^

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

thank you Dak, do you know where I  might download this mission? I would like to  study the structure, thnx

I did use the ROF FMB and the COD one also and must say that the difficulty in both of them i to make each component interact with each other the correct way (plus in COD the weather system is a shame for such a great game) this two FMB's are not complicated in themselves but to make the reactions of the two sides be realistic and constant is a challenge!

 

And because in ROF the planes are placed individually it is time consuming. I must say that the AI in my build mission did some strange things! In COD It was a little better but the effort to make a mission was great and the results seemed so little that only few were made. I still thank the not so many people how made helping modules to help the setup of missions.

 

I hope this time for a FMB , maybe less realistic but more easy to use like in the original IL2-1946.  

 

 

While watching the tutorials on ME  I learned you can create "templates" does this not include plane placement as well?

[Y-29.Silky]

To the OP ... At the moment there is no Mission Editor

Then how did AbortedMan and Syndicate create custom missions for their online servers?

[SYN_Haashashin]

What Bearcat wanted to say, most probably, was that there is no public access to the ME. Indeed the BoS ME exists and it's been used and worked on, not only by SYN but by other groups and individuals.

[Yakdriver]

not available to the wide public.
 

[Jason_Williams]

Then how did AbortedMan and Syndicate create custom missions for their online servers?

 

Because we gave them access so they could help us test functionality. The Syndicate guys do a great job and have been great partners over the years as have others in the community. Other servers will come.

 

Jason

[Bearcat]

Then how did AbortedMan and Syndicate create custom missions for their online servers?

 

 

What Bearcat wanted to say, most probably, was that there is no public access to the ME. Indeed the BoS ME exists and it's been used and worked on, not only by SYN but by other groups and individuals.

 

Duhhhh. I thought that would be fairly obvious since if it was "out" it would be.. well out.. Thanks for clearing that up Haash..

[Jaegermeister]

 

Well, I seem to have kicked over a hornet's nest, so let me explain my comments.....

 

Excuse me for being blunt. I could have said the same thing in a more politically correct and positive way, but I chose not to. Saying that it will be released in good time is nice and all, but sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the oil. At least we all know a little more about when we will see the Mission Editor than we did yesterday so you are welcome.

 

I am not calling anyone "stupid". I just said the devs don't think we are "smart enough" to use the FMB without them getting a lot of negative feedback and this has been plainly stated in Jason's quote that vonPilsner was kind enough to locate and post. There is a big difference between being stupid and being able to use a non-intuitive and not user friendly piece of software. I do that at work all the time just like the people working on this sim. There is a mission builder and it is being withheld because the devs do not want to deal with all the negative comments about it. That is their decision and I am OK with it, but there is a ME, we just can't use it (yet). That means Jason will get the occassional comment from someone like me instead of getting hundreds of them from the people who are not willing or able to use it. Maybe they made the right choice there, but I can still say what I think. That's what a "forum" is for.

 

Being frustrated would be an easy excuse for my comment, but I am not. I have built hundreds of missions in various flight sims, and I am a very patient person in general. Slightly aggravated would be a better description, because there have been some times I would like more variety than the campaign mission generator can or does generate. It gets kind of monotonous dive bombing the same 4 artillery pieces with 2 fighters overhead, intercepting 4 PE2s trying to land with 2 Laggs in tow or intercepting 4 IL2s with 2 Yaks covering them. I am sure you all know what I am talking about. 

 

Jason, I am very pleased to hear that there are plans for releasing these tools in whatever form. I appreciate the update. I have sent you a PM on this subject, but never got a reply. I took your silence to indicate that you were busy with other things, and I get it. I work 60 or 70 hours a week and don't have time to answer every e-mail I get either. Maybe your co-workers are right and I won't produce anything for the community because I don't have the time or motivation. The point is that I would appreciate the option to use it if and when I can. We have already discussed in another thread that putting out a user's manual is probably not necessary because the community will publish information on how to use it just like they did for ROF and IL2 FB. 

 

If you guys do make a more user friendly ME, that's great. If you don't have the resources, that's OK too and I am sure we could get by with what is there now. I personally would rather see the effort put into modeling a JU52 that is painfully absent from the "Air Bridge" campaign. That would be way more useful at this point.  

 

Thanks again for the update and the best flight sim there is right now or in the forseeable future.

[Bearcat]

I hope that someone in the community can come up with a DCG/UQMG/MM kind of deal to enhance the FMB with a more user friendly GUI in the interim.