Mission Builder request!

[WWCephas]

It would be great if this project includes a mission builder with a level of functionality equal to (or better) than IL2: GB but without the random crashing!

That being said if it is at all possible, an undo button in the mission builder would be a godsend.

 

Being able to fly COOP style missions in a Dogfight style mode (once again referencing IL2) would be fantastic.

The WingWalkers host a server that allows A.I. difficulty to fluctuate with player levels in Dogfight mode and it also generates random COOP missions with variable difficulty as well for those players.

 

We are hoping all the best for this upcoming project, this theater of war is hugely anticipated for us.

 

WWCephas (Mission Builder)

Wingwalkers.org

[wheelsup_cavu]

Also stick with standard mouse button operations. Having to right click instead of left clicking to move around the map in the GB map builder is a huge pain since you left click to move around the map in game.

 

Wheels

[Majakowski]

I'd say the mission builder should be made with ease of use in mind (instead of it being just a crude engineer tool that is made to discourage any enjoyment at work) from the ground up so that the entry hurdle for 3rd party content creation is as low as possible.

Also certain features should be possible without the need of complicated trigger webs. Native functions of randomness and certain possibilities of boundaries for this for example so that a mission can be created to be played a thousand times and never play out the same.

For example: Inside an outlined polygon or circle there is a random % chance to spawn a random or certain type and number of unit(s) at a random or certain point of time into the mission. All of it natively within the context menu of a unit or waypoint.

That way you could create a mission built by yourself and afterwards play it without always exactly knowing what is going to happen.

Also airbase "templates" that are setup easily and be equipped with a certain number of units so that depending on what happens in the mission, units can be dynamically spawned and dispatched without micromanaging in the creation process. Just say "airfield XYZ has 20 dive bombers and 12 fighters". If the base is set to react on reports, once an enemy has been found, it scrambles the units based on certain thresholds for activation, if no sighting is made, nothing is going to happen.

 

Oh god I have so many ideas to make a revolution in mission creation tools, this is ridiculous...

[Moro]

Realmente es emocinante, soy de los que cree que la comunidad con sus misiones mantienen al producto vivo. Me acostumbre mucho al editor estilo IL2 - ROF aunque como se dijo mas arriba hay cosas que se nececsitan. 
Pero antes de empezar a pedir, me gustaria saber que ideas tiene para un editor de misiones.
Vamos a tener un ME?
Es el mismo IL2-Rof?
en que momento piensan que estara disponible para la comunidad?

Termino aca porque sino me abuso. 
Nuevamente los felicito por el proyecto
gracias

 

 

-----------------------google translate-------------------------------------------------

 

It really is exciting, I am one of those who believes that the community with its missions keeps the product alive. I got used to the IL2 - ROF style editor a lot, although as said above there are things that are needed.
But before I start asking, I'd like to know what ideas you have for a quest editor.
Are we going to have a ME?
Is it the same IL2-Rof?
When do you think it will be available to the community?

I end up here because otherwise he abused me.
Once again I congratulate you on the project.
thank you

[DBFlyguy]

For the mission builder.... More DCS like, less IL-2 like, por favor!

[Hetstaine]

The original il2 mission builder was awesome, DCS also, very easy to navigate around and make simple missions from the get go..but enough tools to make complex missions...and both are fun. The great battles builder felt like a chore.

[LuftManu]

Yeah, a good mission editor will bring so many hours of fun. I think something like DCS / Old Il-2 would be great 🙂

[SYN_Vander]

Just finished building a mission in GB and one requirement stands out for me: What You See is What You Get. So if you change a setting such as skin, code etc you should be able to see and verify the result in the editor OR be able to very quickly test the mission from inside the editor.

Orherwise mission building is a pain as you will constantly have to start up the game and find that you have missed something small.

[Moro]

Si, las mascaras  son un problema actualmente, teniendo que ingresar al juego para corroborar o en mi caso me acostumbre a  una herramienta externa para ver los nombres de las pieles.
Tambien el texto del brifing tendria que ser un poco mas amigable, ademas de poder incluir imagenes en el.

Seria bueno que jason y el grupo nos digan por donde va a ir el editor y si es posible que nosotros demos algunas ideas, que despues deberan ver si se pueden implementar o no.
Porque recuerdo que en GB el editor fue todo un tema de discucion largarlo a la comunidad

 

-------------------------Google Translate----------------------------------

 

Yes, the skins are currently a problem, having to enter the game to verify or in my case I get used to an external tool to see the names of the skins.
Also the text of the briefing should be a bit friendlier, in addition to being able to include images in it.

It would be good if Jason and the group tell us where the editor is going to go and if it is possible for us to give some ideas, which they will then have to see if they can be implemented or not.
Because I remember that in GB the editor was a whole topic of discussion to release it to the community

[IckyAtlas]

It is important that the mission builder is designed from the beginning as a tool that will come with the game release.

Not like IL2-GB where it was finally  delivered under pressure and multiple requests and as is with no real support.

Regarding the interface and the ease of use I leave it to you. I am very happy with it. Any complex tool has a steep learning curve and you need to accept that if you want to master it. The more complete the tool is and the more complex mission design it allows and inevitably the more you will need to learn and so it is an investment worth doing.

Personally the IL2 mission builder is the best in terms of what you can do and and I hope we get something at least as good but completed with what is lacking.

Here a brief but not exhaustive list of topics I think as a heavy user of the editor should be covered:

-1) We must be able to create layers on top of the map to help with the decluttering of the display. The actual object filters, and the link display management etc. all that is perfect and should stay. The search function is also excellent and should stay. But we should be able to create layers at will and so to be able to work on a selected layer. Then you can combine the layers (some or all) according to your need. There also should be in the Link management functions to have the circles defining an area to be displayed or not in a selective way. 

-2) All static objects (to be clear, a house is a static objects) that are used to make and populate the environment should be manipulated in X,Y,Z or all three spatial coordinates. That means we can translate along the three directions and we can rotate it also around the three axis. This gives full power to exactly position objects as they should be, along a slope as an example. In addition the function of setting the object on the ground should remain.

-3) Static objects must ALL be deletable, spawnable, destroyable. There should be a static version of all the dynamic objects (vehicles, planes, artillery) with no exception. For the ships it is a little different. There are no static ships except when they are destroyed and either sink completely, or partially. This is why you should have destroyed static ships that you can have either put partly on the shore or just in shallow waters so that it is indeed static. You had many of these landing crafts of all types destroyed on shallow waters.

-4) Link management is good in IL2 except that you cannot display a list of all the objects that are linked (target, object or event) to a given selected object. By that I mean that when you select an object you do have in the parameter window the list of all the objects to which it is pointing to. But we should also have the list of all the objects that point to it. This is extremely useful in large complex mission design and lacking in the present editor.

-5) In your editor there should be a command that gets a key value from the player (hitting a key sequence on the keyboard) and based on that to carry out an action in the mission. Or said in another way you cannot directly send a signal into the mission script and have something happening based on that.

-6) We should also have more possibilities to change parameters during the game.

-7) On bombers the pilot action parameters and gunners action parameters should be separate. Waypoints should be adapted to allow this.

-8) You should be able to detect when a plane is at an altitude of More than a given value or Less than a given value.

-9) We should have the IF THEN ELSE logical branching possibilities in the coding of a mission. This means to be able to do conditional tests. It can already be done in a certain way but maybe this could be improved.

-10) We should be able to rigidly link an object to another one. Example, if I link rigidly an ammo box on the carrier deck, then if the carrier moves the ammo box moves with it.

-11) Whole flights should be spawnable.

-12) We should be able to severe or generate the link between a wingman and a leader. We should be able to create on the fly a link between a leader and one or more wingmen. Example: four independent planes (or remaining flight planes after a combat) find themselves and decide to continue flying together one becoming the leader. 

-13) The MANUAL. A comprehensive manual should be part of the release. We lost so much time to understand how things worked in the editor and what were the side-effects etc. that basically this has killed a lot of goodwill from those that wanted to build something. So this time we should have this information upfront. Maybe Jim should be hired to do the job 😄. But I am not sure he will pitch for it again.

-14) UNDO Button a must have.

-15) Allow for longer character strings for naming all objects be visible on the map display. Say 64 chars.

-16) When displaying the mission tree, have the window size vertical and horizontal to be freely set so that we can display easily all groups and sub-groups with their names completely. Same for the Properties window with all the object names in the Target or Object Link list.

-17) Two points here related to Link Management.

a) Make dedicated functions to allow connecting Object, Target or event links between multiple objects that are in various groups.

b) In the event table displayed as advanced properties the event links are displayed with their event name and the object number to which they are connected. Please display also the Object Name. The number is useful when multiple objects have the same name (can happen but should not be) bit otherwise they are not manageable when you have large and very complex missions. Nobody remembers numbers (and they change at each new editor session) but names are the right way to go.

-18) ......

 

Voilà I think this covers the major things, considering that all what exists already as functionality in the IL2 Editor will be also available here.

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by IckyAtlas

[Ribbon]

Something like Arma3 editor would be superb

[Moro]

What I would like would be a mission log that is as simple as possible, to be able to take data and those who dare to develop a dynamic campaign.

[Hetstaine]

1 hour ago, IckyAtlas said:

 

Regarding the interface and the ease of use I leave it to you. I am very happy with it. Any complex tool has a steep learning curve and you need to accept that if you want to master it. The more complete the tool is and the more complex mission design it allows and inevitably the more you will need to learn and so it is an investment worth doing.

 

The issue with it being so complex was that unlike the original il2 fmb, you had hardly any people building missions and campaigns compared. Il2 had thousands upon thousands of sp and mp missions and many hundreds of campaigns. Il2GB has not come anywhere close to that. It just simply wasn't any fun, for most, to use and see a good result.

 

As we see already there are a plethora of posts here hoping that a mission builder will be far more user friendly 🙂

[IckyAtlas]

2 hours ago, Hetstaine said:

The issue with it being so complex was that unlike the original il2 fmb, you had hardly any people building missions and campaigns compared. Il2 had thousands upon thousands of sp and mp missions and many hundreds of campaigns.

True and I designed many with the original IL2 fmb. But with that editor I would never have been able to make missions like the ones I made with the present editor.

I do not say that they should not make a better interface and more intuitive, user-friendly etc. Sure they should try definitively as it can really be improved. But still a lot of functionalities and capabilities means a lot more to learn and more time to devote. You cannot avoid that. But you still made a point here and I corrected my list adding point 13).

[JG1_Vonrd]

I'm with the "make it more like DCS and old IL2 crowd". Please, not like ROF / GB with all those MCU's, complex triggers that need links, etc. and the resultant steep learning curve.

Edited May 20, 2023 by JG1_Vonrd

[JimTM]

9 hours ago, IckyAtlas said:

...

-13) The MANUAL. A comprehensive manual should be part of the release. We lost so much time to understand how things worked in the editor and what were the side-effects etc. that basically this has killed a lot of goodwill from those that wanted to build something. So this time we should have this information upfront. Maybe Jim should be hired to do the job 😄. But I am not sure he will pitch for it again.

...

 

Create a Mission

1. Open up ChatGPT.

2. Tell it what ya want.

3. Fly the mission.

There! 

[ÆþelrædUnræd]

On 5/20/2023 at 3:13 PM, IckyAtlas said:

-5) In your editor there should be a command that gets a key value from the player (hitting a key sequence on the keyboard) and based on that to carry out an action in the mission. Or said in another way you cannot directly send a signal into the mission script and have something happening based on that.

Actually, there is a way to do that. You need to have some programming skills though, and I don't think it'll work in multiplayer. If you really need such a thing, I'd be glad to help 🙂

I don't think custom key presses are suitable though; let's say someone has mapped the X to the bailout action and you require the user to press X. The only two possible solutions are that either the user cannot bailout while you're waiting for the keypress, or the user will always bailout whenever he presses X. (Note that IL2 has reserved the Win+0-9 keys for user interaction).

Other than that, I agree with most of your points though.

23 hours ago, Hetstaine said:

The issue with it being so complex was that unlike the original il2 fmb, you had hardly any people building missions and campaigns compared. Il2 had thousands upon thousands of sp and mp missions and many hundreds of campaigns.

And most of them were rubbish. The fact that the IL2 editor requires a certain minimum skill means that only those who are prepared to put some real effort into it will ever publish a campaign, which IMO has positive effects for the average quality.

If an easy to use editor for the "uninitiated" can be done alongside (or perhaps merged with) a full editor with all bells and whistles, then all the better. But if a choice has to be made, choosing the easy-to-use editor will have disastrous effects on what can be accomplished by experienced mission creators and hence the quality ceiling of the more popular campaigns.

Personally, I much prefer quality over quantity.

[Blue 5]

Reach out to the great mission builders from GB. Get their opinions. Make it according to their feedback.

Simples.

[Majakowski]

@ the guy with the unfindable letters....

As nobody forces you to download "rubbish" missions and not everyone who creates mission intends to publish them, trying to gatekeep mission building through torturous software is an unnecessary evil. I have to work with software that consists of suffering and pain and I don't regard myself as an "elite" because I have to get something done in it but I am annoyed and unwilling to use it. Then, when I do something for a hobby, I don't want it to be a chore, I am willing to learn but it has to make sense, a deliberately badly designed piece of software that only the developers understand, makes no sense.

The Il2 GB mission editor has held me back very much because everytime I had some idea for a complex mission that covered some parts aside from two groups meet and make plain dogfights, I was discouraged and left it when I had to do some insane mind acrobatics just to get a simple function done. Randomizing the path of a ship to make recon missions be realistic instead of "go there, you will find your target 100% at that place at that time with that speed and that course" comes to mind. I want to make missions that have a replayability and I don't want to make a simulation of quantum physics while doing that. At least not for each and every unit.

I also have never heard that people complained about the Silent Hunter editor being too easy just because you could randomize a waypoint placement without creating a finite amount of single waypoints that then have to be switched through logic gates to see which one activates (if at all, because at one point into your hours of doing the chore, you forgot an object link). You just set a radius and it was done. No pain, no suffering, a pleasure to use.

I also like quality but then I don't download the rubbish missions. Easy as that. Il2 1946 is still alive and maintained by enthusiasts after more that 20 years and has possibilities unseen in Il2 GB. Quality will in the end show itself through the feedback in the community so you don't need to be bothered with what you call "rubbish" if you just get those missions that are rated well by the community.

[Ribbon]

3D editor like arma with user friendly UI, where u drop the unit/object and ajust its values, same with waypoints, triggers, sync between them.

Organized and user friendly UI with ability to use editor inside game and test missions without starting game every time.

Here's an example, beginner friendly yet very powerful for advanced users.

 

[Hetstaine]

20 hours ago, ÆþelrædUnræd said:

Actually, there is a way to do that. You need to have some programming skills though, and I don't think it'll work in multiplayer. If you really need such a thing, I'd be glad to help 🙂

I don't think custom key presses are suitable though; let's say someone has mapped the X to the bailout action and you require the user to press X. The only two possible solutions are that either the user cannot bailout while you're waiting for the keypress, or the user will always bailout whenever he presses X. (Note that IL2 has reserved the Win+0-9 keys for user interaction).

Other than that, I agree with most of your points though.

And most of them were rubbish. The fact that the IL2 editor requires a certain minimum skill means that only those who are prepared to put some real effort into it will ever publish a campaign, which IMO has positive effects for the average quality.

If an easy to use editor for the "uninitiated" can be done alongside (or perhaps merged with) a full editor with all bells and whistles, then all the better. But if a choice has to be made, choosing the easy-to-use editor will have disastrous effects on what can be accomplished by experienced mission creators and hence the quality ceiling of the more popular campaigns.

Personally, I much prefer quality over quantity.

I much prefer quality as well 🙂 I just don't believe one needs to jump through so many hoops to get there. Regardless of how basic or complex an editor is does not make a mission or a campaign good. That comes from the persons ideas and creativity, and if you shut out the entry level you shut out many more people willing to sink time into a project that may possibly have been great.

 

I get where you are coming from, but, imo.. it's similar to only having a full sim mode option only in the game and shutting out arcade mode. If you can get in at the entry level, which nearly everyone does, knock out some basic stuff easy enough and see results you are more likely to delve deeper without feeling like it's such a pain to work with.

The il2GB editor, again imo, just wasn't a nice editor to use. Sure, it was powerful but it was also unituitive and clunky. All i'm hoping for is something far more user friendly, learning curve is as always totally expected.

 

We can agree to disagree though, all good 🙂

 

 

[ÆþelrædUnræd]

5 hours ago, Majakowski said:

@ the guy with the unfindable letters....

As nobody forces you to download "rubbish" missions and not everyone who creates mission intends to publish them, trying to gatekeep mission building through torturous software is an unnecessary evil. I have to work with software that consists of suffering and pain and I don't regard myself as an "elite" because I have to get something done in it but I am annoyed and unwilling to use it. Then, when I do something for a hobby, I don't want it to be a chore, I am willing to learn but it has to make sense, a deliberately badly designed piece of software that only the developers understand, makes no sense.

The Il2 GB mission editor has held me back very much because everytime I had some idea for a complex mission that covered some parts aside from two groups meet and make plain dogfights, I was discouraged and left it when I had to do some insane mind acrobatics just to get a simple function done. Randomizing the path of a ship to make recon missions be realistic instead of "go there, you will find your target 100% at that place at that time with that speed and that course" comes to mind. I want to make missions that have a replayability and I don't want to make a simulation of quantum physics while doing that. At least not for each and every unit.

I also have never heard that people complained about the Silent Hunter editor being too easy just because you could randomize a waypoint placement without creating a finite amount of single waypoints that then have to be switched through logic gates to see which one activates (if at all, because at one point into your hours of doing the chore, you forgot an object link). You just set a radius and it was done. No pain, no suffering, a pleasure to use.

I also like quality but then I don't download the rubbish missions. Easy as that. Il2 1946 is still alive and maintained by enthusiasts after more that 20 years and has possibilities unseen in Il2 GB. Quality will in the end show itself through the feedback in the community so you don't need to be bothered with what you call "rubbish" if you just get those missions that are rated well by the community.

I'm not trying to gatekeep mission building. My point is that by limiting the options and possibilities of the Mission Editor in order to make it accessible, you're setting an upper limit on the quality of all future missions. Many of the popular campaigns in IL2 GB, both official and free, would not have been possible with the editor of 1946.

The possibilities with the IL2 GB editor are *almost* endless, if you know what you're doing and are willing to spend some time (even though there are some critical flaws and "missing features" as IckyAtlas rightly points out).

And please, cut the dramatics. The IL2 mission editor has a steep learning curve, absolutely. And its UI can get clunky with target/object links all over the place. I'll also gladly admit that it sometimes unnecessarily complicates relatively simple actions and relatedly, as IckyAtlas also mentioned already, it could do with a couple of pre-defined logic blocks (IF-ELSE, RANDOM, etc.). But its basic event-based operation should be immediately obvious to anyone with a bit of programming experience. Whatever way you slice it, creating missions *is* a form of programming/scripting since you're pre-determining which actions an AI should take under which circumstances. The fact that you need some slight knowledge of programming is therefore not at all an unreasonable requirement. Representing IL2s editor as a "deliberately badly designed piece of software that only the developers understand" is hence a blatant misrepresentation of the truth.

1 hour ago, Hetstaine said:

I much prefer quality as well 🙂 I just don't believe one needs to jump through so many hoops to get there. Regardless of how basic or complex an editor is does not make a mission or a campaign good. That comes from the persons ideas and creativity, and if you shut out the entry level you shut out many more people willing to sink time into a project that may possibly have been great.

I get where you are coming from, but, imo.. it's similar to only having a full sim mode option only in the game and shutting out arcade mode. If you can get in at the entry level, which nearly everyone does, knock out some basic stuff easy enough and see results you are more likely to delve deeper without feeling like it's such a pain to work with.

The il2GB editor, again imo, just wasn't a nice editor to use. Sure, it was powerful but it was also unituitive and clunky. All i'm hoping for is something far more user friendly, learning curve is as always totally expected.

We can agree to disagree though, all good 🙂

Similarly, I can get where you're coming from 🙂 Indeed, a bad mission writer won't create a good campaign on the best mission editor in the world, while a good mission writer will be able to chunk out something fun even if using some pretty spartan tools. I can agree there. But only a good mission writer using a powerful tool will be able to create a true marvel 😉

Anyhow, it seems the clause in my previous post wasn't as clear as it could have been. I'll re-iterate it more explicitly:
Ideally, we get a mission editor that's at least as powerful as IL2's while at the same time easy to use. Although I personally think a separate "full" mission editor à la IL2 GB and an in-game "light" mission editor à la IL2 1946 may be a better option as it caters to both user bases.

In practice I doubt this is realistically achievable. If a choice needs to be made between the two, I think choosing the easier "IL2 1946" editor will hurt the quality of future produced content as it effectively puts a ceiling on the complexity of a mission.

[SYN_Vander]

I concur that there will be demand for two type -or levels- of mission building tools:

One is a mission generator that anyone can use and will always create a valid, working mission. This will have an intuitive GUI where you can do more advanced/detailed configuration and move waypoints etc. This I think is what people want if they recall the original IL2 mission editor

The other is a full blown mission editor or perhaps an SDK in combination with a graphical "level designer", because for me it might as well be a programming environment that is used as tool. Drawing lines and double clicking on small icons is not the most efficient way to create complex, event driven missions.

Edited March 10 by SYN_Vander

[Gambit21]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:13 AM, Hetstaine said:

The issue with it being so complex was that unlike the original il2 fmb, you had hardly any people building missions and campaigns compared. Il2 had thousands upon thousands of sp and mp missions and many hundreds of campaigns. Il2GB has not come anywhere close to that. It just simply wasn't any fun, for most, to use and see a good result.

 

As we see already there are a plethora of posts here hoping that a mission builder will be far more user friendly 🙂

The IL2 editor is easy enough to use if you bother to spend a bit of time with it. There are things I like better about it than the DCS editor and I know both inside and out. Both have their pros and cons.

A good builder will take the time to learn the tool - the end. 

Yes the old 1946 editor was easy to use but it lacked much of the functionality I wanted even at the time. I don’t want to revisit that.

It’s interesting that you can tell who did and did not take the time to really learn the IL2 (or DCS) editor based on what he lists as a “problem”

Often these so-called problems don’t even make the list of a builder who’s actually bothered to learn the editor and knows how powerful it is.

Yes a QMB as well as a ‘real’ editor would be desirable. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

[HerrMurf]

Non-techie here. The only thing I’d request for a QMB is to be able to program 4 AC x 6 flights, for twenty four a side, and two separate altitudes. For example 20 bombers at 20k and 4 fighters as cover at 24k or 16 attackers and 8 cover AC. Opposing up to 24 AC on the other side. ‘46 was good at 16 per. BoX left a lot to be desired in the QMB. I’ll let those more skilled than me program big involved missions an an FMB.

Edited May 22, 2023 by HerrMurf
Cellphone typing errors