Arma 2 Editor

Been playing Arma 2 a lot lately, great game although buggy, but I've said all that before. The last 2 days I've been playing wit the mission editor, it's much easier to use than Op Flashpoints editor and very open to pretty much any scenario you care to invent, I figure I'm going to create a massive mission that covers much of the 225sq KM map and add all the things I wanted to play with in the single player.
Of course the first test mission I created was sniper based.
I set up 20 enemies and built them a little base type of thing with some sand bags etc for them to cower behind.
Then I set myself up near a radio tower, climbed the tower and pulled out my M107 .50 cal sniper rifle. Obviously for a sniper mission I want distance.... so it's set up so the bad guys are 1000-1400m away from me :-D
Line it up... fire... wait....and watch em drop :strong
Great fun, I also set up a couple of guys at 2600m but unfortunately the game needs to be set on highest graphics to draw a unit at that distance which I can do but I get lower FPS (about 18-20) which is not good when trying to hold a sniper rifle still and firing at a target te size of a garden pea lol

Just thought I'd share that and see if anyone has played with the editor, if you like the game then I strongly suggest you check out the editor if you havn't already.

 

Ok so it's not quite as simple as I thought :-D
It is and it isn't, placing units and setting waypoints and triggers for AI is fine.
But when you get into your own waypoints and tasks and calling specific supports it gets a bit trickier. It's not too bad but the in depth stuff requires script editing, which again is not that hard but much more time consuming.

I have managed to set up the first couple of tasks of a custom mission with waypoints, triggers and support without editing any scripts. But it's simplified, I used the trigger notifications text to tell you what your objectives are, the fallback is you only get to read them once, they are not stored in your journal. The waypoints I've yet to figure out how to delay waypoint change after a trigger (lets say I've cleared a town and want the waypoint to then move to next objective), the way I'm doing it , it changes instantly so you get a waypoint telling you to go somewhere before you've completed the task..

So I guess I'm going to start looking at the scripting.

BTW I've moved up to Operation Arrowhead, the editor is the same but the game is more stable and a much larger selection of units and weapons.

 

Ok, so now I'm getting the hang of it :-D

So far I've created about half of my "Open World" mission.
See, I wanted to create a mission that you could play how you want, so my mission goes like this (so far)...

You start off near an air base which is currently in enemy hands but only a hand ful of soldiers are guarding it (as if they just took it and are waiting for reinforcements)
Mission one, choose a silenced weapon and clear the air field.
If you are detected by the enemy it's game over (giving a back story that if they see you they will blow the base having rigged it with IED's)

Once the air base is clear I set up a repeating dead trigger that tells you to select a mission.
To impliment this I set up several tents with triggers inside them (so as not to be triggered accidently).
You now have the choice.

Convoy = Move to location and set up C4 traps on parked cars along the road, wait for convoy and...BOOM!... awesome explosion especially since it's very early morning and still darkish.

Bombing Raid = Jump in the A-10 and fly to waypoint, take out air factory and surrounding guards/tanks

Sniper = Go to waypoint and take out officer and his 9 guards from 1000m away (I put a secondary trigger on this so once they are all dead you will be ambushed from behind by a squad of enemies, approx 10 of them and you have to take them out before they reach your position)

Chase - I set up a truck to drive a route, your job is to chase him and destroy him, pretty simple but not all that easy.

Plough The Road = Freidnly convoy moving through enemy territory, you must take an Apache and escort the convoy through several road blocks.

So thats it so far, 5 missions. Around 16 hours to place and code and these missions will take around 1.5-2 hours depending on your skill.

Bare in mind that I have quite a lot going on outside the missions, for example: Once the airbase is clear, the allied forces will move in and take up defensive positions. (this actually took longer to set up than each mission lol)... setting it up so each foot soldier goes to and mounts an MG nest and each vehicle sits on guard at specific locations.

So all in all I'm really getting the hang of it, realistically I've only scratched the surface of possibilities, since you can add your own cut scenes and voice overs... but that can wait until I've got the actual gameplay down pat.

If you have the patients, try it, seriously, it's fun

Don't be put off by the coding, it's mostly copy and pasting and then changing numbers, then typing your own descriptions etc. Little by little is the trick to it, don't try to make too much, make a task and test it, rinse and repeat

At some point when I have some time I'll post a mini tutorial about the basics, this will be how I've done it which isn't perfect but very effective.

 

Well I put the game away for a while and just picked it up again, had some error so had to reinstall it and in order to get my custom missions working had to reinstall all the mods and addons again, which was a pain in the rump.

But I got it all sorted and thought I'd play my mission.
I'm now 3 missions in and about 2 hours of gameplay, I had pretty much forgotten most of what I did, I remembered the jist but forgot the details so it was almost like playing it with no prior knowledge of the missions. I must admit I didn't do a bad job, still not totally happy with the actual mission outlay as they are a little arcade like it setup but they are fun and more importantly easy to navigate.
One of the things I worried about was clarifying what your actual task is and making sure all triggers executed when they were supposed to and that they were well laid out.
So far, so good.

Only drawback is it's been quite a few months so now I want to start a fresh with my custom missions I kind of have to relearn how to do it lol, but in my infinate wisdom I made myself a little notepad outlining the script usage and of course kept the script templates..... so...... here we go again :-D

 

Spooky in da house!!! :-D

For a week I tried approx 1.5 hours per night and a few extra on days off, to get an AC-130 script to work.

I KNEEEEWWW it was something incredibly stupid I was missing, I searched the web, I'm a good web searcher when I want to be, I can find most things but I could not find the answer I needed.

I feel really quite stupid for missing the point.

Installed the mod all fine etc but I kept getting an error saying "LDL Logics missing"
I edited files and moved things around to no end, when it finally dawned on me.

In the editor, you can place modules such as "Simple Support" which allows you to call airstrikes and motar etc at will.
What I missed was in the instructions it says

"Place the LDL Logics (Editor: LDL Logics)"
I kept thinking it meant place a file or place a line of text in a file.
Nope.

So, in my explination I'm going to put this so anyone else who makes the same stupid mistake can easily find a cure.

LDL Logics Missing Fix (although not a fix because nothings broken, you have not finished installing it yet :-D )

In editor, place your AC-130 on the map, then place your man/men that you will be controlling.
You need to have placed a live unit before you get the following option.

Now, click "Units" (F1)
Drop down bar (Usually set on BlueFore), drop the bar and select "Game Logic"
Under that drop bar in another, in this bar select LDL (can't remember other word but it's only 1 LDL option)
Now goto the drop bar on the right and choose "LDL Logics"
Then click ok and you will see a blue "Module" incon on the map.

Job done, your AC-130 will now work.

Anyone reading this thinking "OMG this guy is an idiot"..... Yes I know that, BELIEVE me, I wasted a lot of time totally missing the point.

But anyway, if you have any questions about this or anything else I've posted and you can't find answers, I'm willing to help if I can. I check this board everyday.

But don't be thinking I'm some sort of expert... obviously :-D

So anyway, this AC-130 is fun, I created a mission where you spawn, drive, then get in a RHIB, go up river, this is at night by the way.
Make your way through a small town, killing some guys on the way, then you have to take out 6 AA emplacements, then head to the airfield, kill the guards, steal the AC-130, fly it to the enemy military base and rain down fire and brimstone on it.

Gonna add a fair bit more to this mission yet but I got the AC-130 part working and I'm just stoked about it :-D

 

By the way, I realise I'm alone in this thread and probably seem quite sad :-D
But even since my first post in this thread, a link to it has frequently shown up in the top 3 results in google searches for this game, so I figure I'll just share my experiences in case someone has the same problems I have and maybe it will help someone, member of the board or not.

 

Update - Although I havn't played for a week now because I'm working too many hours lol, I did start setting up a new mission.
I wanted to see what it would be like to be on the ground when this AC-130 rains down.

So after some testing I started making a mission.
I'm trying to get it so when mission loads you are either in a crashing aircraft and have to eject or you are already falling with parachute.
Thats been tricky to set up so as is atm you start in a back yard of a small secluded house.
Pitch black dead of night, no night vision so visibility is vitually zero, all you have is a pistol.
When you spawn you get a message that says "Move Slow and quiet"
You soon notice you are surrounded by several platoons of foot soldiers and a crap load of tanks as close as 65m.
I set the AC-130 to options where you can call it in and AI will do the rest.
I tell you when this thing starts raining down explosives all around you that close .... it's spectacular!.
This is without having it on high graphics too, I would love to see what it looks like maxed out.

But yeah, being down on the ground is loud and bright, some awesome lighting fx.
Although 65m is pretty close it's best not to move too much because of slightly off target 105mm shells being fired at these tanks, I got some backlash from the shells a couple of times.

With a bit of tweaking I will get this initial part of the mission down pat.

After the AC-130 has cleared the area you will have to search the area (now lit up by lots of burning tanks) and find yourself a weapon from dead enemies.

Thats as far as I have got, but I figure I will make it a survival mission where you will have to reach extraction using whatever you can find on the ground.

This one will probably be the hardest to set up without making it mega hard to complete.

Remember, this game is ultra realistic so if you come across a handful of enemies and pick 1 lone one off with your pistol, all the others will hear the shot and come looking for you, so you will have to grab an AK47 or whatever the hostile you killed is carrying and high tail it out of there.
No heroics in this mission.... just survival.