Conversion of career missions to co-op

[migmadmarine]

I've seen it said on the forums here and there that one can take the Gen.Mission file from data/missions after generating a career mission and convert it via the mission editor into a co-op playable mission. What are the steps to do this? 

[SYN_Vander]

It's possible, but the mission is not designed for co-op so there can be some mission logic problems. I strongly suggest you use my EMG to generate a quick coop mission (with many options) or use Pat Wilsons PWCG to generate coop missions if you want to fly a campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

[migmadmarine]

Yea, well aware of both thanks, and my friends and I have been using PWCG for campaigns for a while now, but have some gripes with it, and got curious about how viable converting vanilla generated missions could be. 

 

[SYN_Vander]

On 12/6/2021 at 4:00 AM, migmadmarine said:

Yea, well aware of both thanks, and my friends and I have been using PWCG for campaigns for a while now, but have some gripes with it, and got curious about how viable converting vanilla generated missions could be. 

 

 

In case you want to give it a try:

 

1) Open the generated mission in the Mission editor. You can find it here: ..\data\Missions\_gen.mission

 

2) Now you need to find the player aircraft. This is usually the one that has a gazillion green lines connected to it, see here (yellow arrow):

 

3) Zoom in and you can identify the aircraft (yellow arrow again). It's in a group of 8 in this example. Now you need to understand that the green lines are related to certain mission commands and triggers. So only this particular aircraft will trigger the events that should happen in this mission. Example: If this particular aircraft gets destroyed you will get a message: "Your aircraft is critically damaged. Press Esc to proceed." This doesn't make much sense in a coop mission, but that's the way it is.

 

4) Select the aircraft you want to make flyable in a coop mission: CTRL+left click on each aircraft to select multiple. Include the player aircraft. You can select all 8 aircraft in this example or only two, that doesn't matter. Right click and select ' Advanced Properties' to show the dialog in below screenshot. Tick the box where it says 'Cooperative Start', click 'OK'.

 

EDIT:

4a) For the player aircraft: Select it, 'Advanced Properties' and make sure to set the AI to 'regular' or 'veteran' instead of 'player'.

4b) Make sure all the aircraft with 'Cooperative Start' ticked have a name (for Career missions they will, for AQMB they may not)

 

 

5) Now set the correct mission type. Deselect the aircraft and in the Mission Properties dialog select 'Cooperative' under Mission Type.

 

6) Save the mission under a new name in the ..\data\Multiplayer\Cooperative folder.

 

Done!

Edited December 30, 2021 by SYN_Vander

[migmadmarine]

At what point should the generated mission file be pulled from the game files to be edited. Say if I am the squadron commander, and tweak aircraft setups in the menu, do those only get baked into the mission file once I click "fly mission"?

 

[SYN_Vander]

20 minutes ago, migmadmarine said:

At what point should the generated mission file be pulled from the game files to be edited. Say if I am the squadron commander, and tweak aircraft setups in the menu, do those only get baked into the mission file once I click "fly mission"?

 

 

I think so.

 

I also added another step, 4a) see previous post.

Edited December 24, 2021 by SYN_Vander

[migmadmarine]

Thanks for the info, even if this results in imperfect missions, could be interesting to try. 

 

[Pennix_LeGaulois]

It should be noted that names are required for planes with "cooperative start" option checked. 

@SYN_Vander, it could be worth it to add a 4b) "naming playable planes" in your post.

 

If cooperative planes have empty names, you will end up with an empty lobby (no planes available for selection) on your cooperative multiplayer server. 

 

I am not sure it could be a problem when converting career missions to coop, but it certainly is when converting AQMB missions to coop.

 

(Took me way too much time than I want to admit to figure out why I was facing this empty lobby thing ?)

[SYN_Vander]

54 minutes ago, Pennix_LeGaulois said:

It should be noted that names are required for planes with "cooperative start" option checked. 

@SYN_Vander, it could be worth it to add a 4b) "naming playable planes" in your post.

 

If cooperative planes have empty names, you will end up with an empty lobby (no planes available for selection) on your cooperative multiplayer server. 

 

I am not sure it could be a problem when converting career missions to coop, but it certainly is when converting AQMB missions to coop.

 

(Took me way too much time than I want to admit to figure out why I was facing this empty lobby thing ?)

 

Thanks for finding out! I have adapted my guide.

[R7-S276]

It would be great if by an update or for the next new production, all the missions of carreer or campaign are duplicate to a coop and/or multiplayer version originale by the creators