Mission editor

[Muddy]

If there is a new theater coming to this sim, then I would like to submit my request for a DIFFERENT mission editor.

Ya Ya some of you think its the bee's knees, however in reality it is not user friendly at all.

 

Example.

How many steps does it take to have a four ship take of, fly four waypoints and land. {oh and have a briefing and lines course displayed on preflight map}

This takes about a minute everyplace else, not here  50 lines connected to everything just a mess.

 

This is a joykiller, straight up.

 

Muddy.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Yep... I'd love to see something happen here. With the old IL-2 I authored hundreds of missions and dozens of campaigns for both single and multiplayer. I tried to get into this one but its a pain to use... doesn't really encourage me to be very creative with it. So its just not something I'm doing with this version.

[Jade_Monkey]

I've learnt it and it's not too bad, but definitely the most complex and time consuming of all the ones I've tried.

 

It's clearly not designed for the masses, just for people who really want to get into it.

 

Something more streamlined and intuitive would be awesome but I doubt they have time to work on that.

[VBF-12_Stele]

I like that the current editor is pretty dynamic, which gives its a little more options than the old IL2. However, the complexity can be a bit much, sometimes. One editor I've learned to use quickly, and is still very dynamic and flexible, is the Arma 3 editor.

[Juri_JS]

Learning to use the games mission editor takes some time, but after working with it for one and a half year, I would never want to go back to the old Il-2 mission builder. The editor is vastly superior when it comes to building complex missions. There are very few things that can't be done with it. Once you've understood the underlying concepts it's not too difficult and time-consuming to work with it.

[LLv34_Temuri]

Plus, once you've made that "four ship" with their takeoffs and waypoints, you can use it over and over again by importing the group to the editor. I agree that the ME is not the most user friendly thing there is, but it has quite nice features.

[No601_Swallow]

Indeed. If you've already got a "Flight taking off from runway" group ready to import, it takes about the same amount of time as the old IL2 FMB. 

 

Getting into the logic of how the ME works is difficult (at least it was for me), but once you get there, it's actually fun (weeeell, you know what I mean) to be able to see a "flow chart" of triggers and orders graphically, right there on the map, linked graphically to the units they apply to.

 

I look at it as all the power of the dreaded C++### (or whatever the language is) scripts in CloD without having to be a computer science PhD. 

 

Honestly. Give it a go. There are some great learning tools (I picked up the basics from Bob Vanderstock's RoF tutorials here.)

Edited September 5, 2016 by No601_Swallow

[Gambit21]

I designed many, many missions and a few campaigns back in the day with the old ME.

As fast and intuitive as it was, I still spent up to 8 hours in a single mission testing, adjusting, adding things, and testing again.

 

I first took a quick glance at this new editor a few years ago with RoF. I took one look at a written guide, saw the apparent complexity compared to

what I was use to with the old editor and wrote it off. I even made a few posts like the ones here about how the editor needed to be re-written.

 

However recently I decided to commit to learning it, and guess what - not only is it not that bad, but I can do things that I always wished I could

do with the old editor. Simple things like getting the AI to taxi from a parking area, or taxi to that area after landing are a breeze, not to mention other

more complex behavior, timing, scripting of things during the mission itself. Much of which I still have to experiment with and learn, and ask

more questions of the helpful peeps that frequent the mission editor forum here.

 

Took me a very short time to be able to get a basic mission put together though, and now I'm working on getting a handle on the more complex behaviors.

No - you're not going to do very well with it if you're a dolt, but I haven't seen very many people on here who fit that description so most of

you should do just fine if you put the time in.

 

Yes there are a few things that really should be 'under the hood' functionality still. For instance when I place the first waypoint of a flight, I then

also have to put a timer on that first way-point and pipe it into the activation timer for the flight, I also have to pipe in another "report took off" node

so that the flight does what it's supposed to. That's a long ways from simply placing the waypoint and forgetting about it with the old sim.

 

The good news is, as was said above, I really only ever have to do this once if I want, because I can copy and place that group forever.

I'm rebuilding groups from scratch each time right now so that I really get the logic under my skin, but it's not necessary strictly speaking.

 

I'm still learning, but the basics took me no time at all frankly and I realized I was complaining about nothing all this time.

[Lusekofte]

In old IL 2 , COD and DCS you can make a mission just fr fun, and very fast. You might spend time doing it once started, that is mainly because you get inspired in the process.

The ME in this game is not that bad when it comes to make a single mission, sure not like the above mentioned, but the worst part is you aint getting inspired while doing it, I think tedious is the word I am looking for. How to make the superb multiplayer missions we got in this game, I have absolutely no idea, but they show me it is not a bad ME looking on the finished product

[No601_Swallow]

...However recently I decided to commit to learning it, and guess what - not only is it not that bad, but I can do things that I always wished I could

do with the old editor. Simple things like getting the AI to taxi from a parking area, or taxi to that area after landing are a breeze, not to mention other

more complex behavior, timing, scripting of things during the mission itself. Much of which I still have to experiment with and learn, and ask

more questions of the helpful peeps that frequent the mission editor forum here.

 

Took me a very short time to be able to get a basic mission put together though, and now I'm working on getting a handle on the more complex behaviors.

No - you're not going to do very well with it if you're a dolt, but I haven't seen very many people on here who fit that description so most of

you should do just fine if you put the time in.

 

Yes there are a few things that really should be 'under the hood' functionality still...

 

Gambit, I've read what you've stated in the ME forum about the drawbacks of the ME GUI (or lack of!), and I completely take your point. The ME often feels like what it is - a tool that the devs never really wanted to release to the public (unbelievably), and so there are plenty of quirks and kinks in it to get to know, hate and find work-arounds for. But as you say, once you start getting into it, and seeing what other mission makers are doing (and stealing their ideas), mission building becomes a game in itself.

 

(Like I said, I think of the MCUs forming a sort of visual flow chart of the mission logic, doing the same sort of thing that scripts are needed to do in CloD. I think about this, because often when I was working with CloD, I'd think, if only Luthier's crew had thought to find a way for us to "program" the FMB without having to get into this dreadful coding thing, with all its semi-colons and square and curly brackets and typos and "calls" and... and... and so on. And when I think about it, I think that's what the devs of RoF and BoS have actually done.)

 

Once you get over that hump of grasping how things are put together and how the elements interact, the inspiration really does flow (together with that "Now, why didn't that work?" need to work out what went wrong with a mission build and put it to rights). In my own squadron we (and by we, I mean our resident mission building genius) have built up a little library of mission elements (AI flights, ground convoys, AAA emplacements, etc) that you can honestly just slot together like like Lego. Pull the waypoints around a bit, adjust the timers and - ta-daa! Everyone thinks you're a genius, when really all you did was cut and paste and then test!

 

I also take heart from the fact that sometimes (every 4th or 5th patch) the ME gets a bit of love from the devs, and they make it gradually and incrementally easier to use.

 

It's all good!

Edited September 5, 2016 by No601_Swallow

[BlitzPig_EL]

Shamrock and Muddy, I feel your pain.

 

I used to make a lot of missions for old IL2 for the BlitzPigs, but, no more.   I tried to figure it out, but I'm sorry, it's just more than I'm going to mess with,  I already have a day job.

Fortunately we have in our merry band a retired programmer/IT guy that has figured it out, because he understands this stuff, and has the time.

 

However, I cannot help but wonder how many more good missions would be out there if the editor was more accessible to people who are not formally trained IT folks.

[Gambit21]

It's not about IT experience at all Blitz - I don't know the first thing about that stuff.

To be fair however I've learned  a few very complex 3D programs, so the logic

in the editor, basically plugging in nodes to each other, is familiar to me. Not that it's

exactly the same in a 3D program. Not the brain twister to me that it might be to someone

not used to messing around with more complex software however.

 

That said, I've hardly cracked the entire mission editor in the last 2 weeks, just well on my way is all.

 

 

Swallow, I'll be building my own library, but if you want to share any of your groups let me know.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Gambit21

[Jade_Monkey]

No need for IT or programming experience. It's all about triggers, and understanding what events trigger your commands.

 

It can look complex with all the arrows and MCUs but once you take a look, it's not that difficult.

 

If anything, i would say its tedious to manage so many targets/objects.

[Gambit21]

Managing those things is twice as difficult as it should be/would be since there's no proper drag and drop grouping/parenting/ functionality in the mission tree.

Also took me a minute to realize that from an organizational standpoint, groups have to be things that interact with each other via triggers and commands, and not based on what they are.

 

. 

[Jade_Monkey]

You can group anything by selecting the squares. I dont think they need to be linked.

[wtornado]

If there is a new theater coming to this sim, then I would like to submit my request for a DIFFERENT mission editor.

Ya Ya some of you think its the bee's knees, however in reality it is not user friendly at all.

 

Example.

How many steps does it take to have a four ship take of, fly four waypoints and land. {oh and have a briefing and lines course displayed on preflight map}

This takes about a minute everyplace else, not here  50 lines connected to everything just a mess.

 

This is a joykiller, straight up.

 

Muddy.

 

 

Yep... I'd love to see something happen here. With the old IL-2 I authored hundreds of missions and dozens of campaigns for both single and multiplayer. I tried to get into this one but its a pain to use... doesn't really encourage me to be very creative with it. So its just not something I'm doing with this version.

 

 

Shamrock and Muddy, I feel your pain.

 

I used to make a lot of missions for old IL2 for the BlitzPigs, but, no more.   I tried to figure it out, but I'm sorry, it's just more than I'm going to mess with,  I already have a day job.

Fortunately we have in our merry band a retired programmer/IT guy that has figured it out, because he understands this stuff, and has the time.

 

However, I cannot help but wonder how many more good missions would be out there if the editor was more accessible to people who are not formally trained IT folks.

I too think it was not made for th3 general public..

 

Fiddled around it for quite a few hours and it feels more like a job

than a hobby to make missions anymore.Too time consuming I

would rather play than do that.

 

I could easily put out a complete co-op mission flyable in a few

hours the research into the place,planes,time and Sqdns took longer

than to make the mission.

[Gambit21]

I could put a CoOp together in a few hours (or faster) with this editor as well, after a matter of hours playing with it so far.

Nothing fancy, but a few flights, some enemy AC and some ground units. I'm still learning the more involved functionality, just

scratching the surface really and I still have to ask questions.

 

Honestly it's the little touches, like placing static objects, building bases/adding 'life' to the base, and testing took me the most time in the old editor, and I think

it will be the same with this one.