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Egan · 04-18-07, 08:31 AM

For some of you used to making missions with SH3 a lot of this information is probably not that new, seeing as how mission objectives were used in single missions. For myself, though, who spent more time editing campaign files than single missions, I wanted to go through the various options to see whether I could understand them.

I thought I would post this information for the benefit of those who are still figuring this side of mission editing out and also to allow those veterans amongst you to weigh in with your own discoveries. Some I have tried and they work fine, others I have had problems with. Hopefully we can get a discussion going on how it all pulls together.

So far this is just a list of the Objectives, triggers and events available in the mission editor.

Objectives

1: Patrol: Stay within the set radius of the marker for 48 hours.

2: Deploy: Get to your patrol area and receive new orders, usually sink merchies but I think Life guard duty can be given by this too.

3: Photo recon: Get within a few miles and take photos of enemy shipping.

4: Special Ops: Get within the radius of the objective and launch the raft. I know you are supposed to surface before this triggers but I managed to do this without having to be underwater first in a test mission I did. Mind you, it crashed straight afterwards but I don't know whether that had something to do with landing British Commandoes rather than US ones.

5: Life Guard: Rescue the airmen. Simple enough if you can get to them before they drown or get attacked by enemy units.

Now, one top of this there are other ones I haven't really looked at yet;

Generic: No idea what this one does.

Destroy unit class: Probably more for single missions I would think although If it could be made very, very rare, there is no reason why being ordered to intercept and sink a particular battleship couldn't happen. And, yes, I just watched 'We dive at Dawn' this morning...

Base stop: Logically I would expect this one to activate if we are ordered back to base or as the primary objective when transferring with your boat to a new flotilla (undertaking a war patrol on the way.)

As well as this both primary and secondary objectives can be hidden - usually for when you need to sunk a set amount of tonnage.

Triggers
The triggers can be used to do all sorts of cool things. To trigger an event you can use these options:
Objective
Unit destroyed
Class destroyed
Tonnage
Probabilistic (Simple % chance of the trigger firing.)
Patrol area (not entirely sure how this one works.)
Time (activates at a certain time and date,)
Reach zone (the boat has reached a location specified by the mission editor.

And as if all this stuff wasn't cool enough, here's a rundown on the Event command:

Events

There are four types of event:

Update Objective: Activates a specific Objective if one is available. Can also be used to tag an objective as complete, or even better, failed..

Message: sends a radio message to the payer.

Update Instance: What this seems to do is allow you to spawn groups when one of the triggers activates.

The possibilities of this are endless. You could have a pick up mission set to trigger a sub chaser coming around the headland and steaming straight for you when you complete the pick up. You could have it set to spawn a specific capital ship in a specific harbour and create an objective where you have to sink that specific ship. All you do is place the ships( or random groups etc,) as normal and then set the event to either spawn them or even delete them. Well, perhaps it's a little bit more complex than that but only in relation to making sure that the life time of the ship as set in unit properties matches up.

Intelligence received: I haven't found any use of it yet but it would seem to send you a contact report on a specific unit or group. Brilliantly you can assign an error radius to it, thereby giving a slightly (or very) misleading idea of where to search.

So, a lot of interesting features. Some of them don't seem to be used yet and I really hope than means that they aren't buggy in use. So far I've been trying to get the 'update instance' event to work with mixed results and I'm not sure the 'Intelligence received' event works at all.

Anyway, feel free to jump in with your own discoveries or information as you see fit!

04-18-07, 08:31 AM	#1
Egan Admiral Join Date: Sep 2001 Posts: 2,019 Downloads: 15 Uploads: 0	[Tec] Objectives, triggers and events. For some of you used to making missions with SH3 a lot of this information is probably not that new, seeing as how mission objectives were used in single missions. For myself, though, who spent more time editing campaign files than single missions, I wanted to go through the various options to see whether I could understand them. I thought I would post this information for the benefit of those who are still figuring this side of mission editing out and also to allow those veterans amongst you to weigh in with your own discoveries. Some I have tried and they work fine, others I have had problems with. Hopefully we can get a discussion going on how it all pulls together. So far this is just a list of the Objectives, triggers and events available in the mission editor. Objectives 1: Patrol: Stay within the set radius of the marker for 48 hours. 2: Deploy: Get to your patrol area and receive new orders, usually sink merchies but I think Life guard duty can be given by this too. 3: Photo recon: Get within a few miles and take photos of enemy shipping. 4: Special Ops: Get within the radius of the objective and launch the raft. I know you are supposed to surface before this triggers but I managed to do this without having to be underwater first in a test mission I did. Mind you, it crashed straight afterwards but I don't know whether that had something to do with landing British Commandoes rather than US ones. 5: Life Guard: Rescue the airmen. Simple enough if you can get to them before they drown or get attacked by enemy units. Now, one top of this there are other ones I haven't really looked at yet; Generic: No idea what this one does. Destroy unit class: Probably more for single missions I would think although If it could be made very, very rare, there is no reason why being ordered to intercept and sink a particular battleship couldn't happen. And, yes, I just watched 'We dive at Dawn' this morning... Base stop: Logically I would expect this one to activate if we are ordered back to base or as the primary objective when transferring with your boat to a new flotilla (undertaking a war patrol on the way.) As well as this both primary and secondary objectives can be hidden - usually for when you need to sunk a set amount of tonnage. Triggers The triggers can be used to do all sorts of cool things. To trigger an event you can use these options: Objective Unit destroyed Class destroyed Tonnage Probabilistic (Simple % chance of the trigger firing.) Patrol area (not entirely sure how this one works.) Time (activates at a certain time and date,) Reach zone (the boat has reached a location specified by the mission editor. And as if all this stuff wasn't cool enough, here's a rundown on the Event command: Events There are four types of event: Update Objective: Activates a specific Objective if one is available. Can also be used to tag an objective as complete, or even better, failed.. Message: sends a radio message to the payer. Update Instance: What this seems to do is allow you to spawn groups when one of the triggers activates. The possibilities of this are endless. You could have a pick up mission set to trigger a sub chaser coming around the headland and steaming straight for you when you complete the pick up. You could have it set to spawn a specific capital ship in a specific harbour and create an objective where you have to sink that specific ship. All you do is place the ships( or random groups etc,) as normal and then set the event to either spawn them or even delete them. Well, perhaps it's a little bit more complex than that but only in relation to making sure that the life time of the ship as set in unit properties matches up. Intelligence received: I haven't found any use of it yet but it would seem to send you a contact report on a specific unit or group. Brilliantly you can assign an error radius to it, thereby giving a slightly (or very) misleading idea of where to search. So, a lot of interesting features. Some of them don't seem to be used yet and I really hope than means that they aren't buggy in use. So far I've been trying to get the 'update instance' event to work with mixed results and I'm not sure the 'Intelligence received' event works at all. Anyway, feel free to jump in with your own discoveries or information as you see fit!