Questions And Answers For Mission Editor Program

Allow me to start this. Maybe we can keep the questions and answers for ENIGMA:Missions in one place to make it easier.

To start off, a tip or two.

SELECTING FACTIONS-

You can select specific factions with the editor but unfortunately for patrols, the game won't abide by them. It still makes a random faction choice. To get around that, when you start the game with your newly-created mission, choose the factions (player and foe) which match the ones in your mission. It helps to have the player faction already pre-selected before you click on your mission name, particularly if the player faction is the IGN (in order for the sub class to remain accurate).

VARIOUS WEATHER-

Note that selecting the sea conditions somewhat automatically selects the type of weather. Usually the rougher the seas, the worse the weather. To chose the weather exactly, you must untick "random" in the game's weather box and rotate the weather control to the desired setting. It is possible to have rough seas with clear weather or calm seas with bad weather this way.

SAILING TIMES-

It's great fun to sail into battle at sunrise/sunset times and makes for nice screenshots with the low angle of light. 1700-1715 is a good choice for sunset, 0645-0700 for sunrise. The clearer the weather, the better solar disk you will see in your shot. Try setting a bunch of tankers against the setting sun - it makes for nice silhouette shooting.

BATTLESHIPS-

Remember you can use battleships tactically in patrols (I don't think the American? one is available at this time). Fun to watch in action. Such power! Steer clear of these babies in battle.

AMMO TOOLBAR-

You can set up the default ammo quantities the way you want. Open the config.ini file and make the changes for each ship/plane and for ammo replenish too. Resave the file and restart the editor. The new values will be in place.

I REALLY MESSED UP THE CONFIG.INI FILE-

Not to worry. Delete the file and restart the editor. It will create a new one for you.

SHIP SPEEDS-

Task groups other than the player basically always have orders (TOs), so it is not mandatory to start a ship off at a speed higher than 0. You can if you want, but the AI will take over and choose the speed for you anyway when it executes the order.

TORPEDO BOMBERS-

It's fun to watch these guys in action. Be sure to set the TORPS ammo to at least 1 for the bomber. Be sure to get out of the way!

TASK GROUP NAMES and OBJECTIVE NAMES-

Remember you can rename task group and objective names. Keep the names short but descriptive. I always use capital letters so the names stand out in the script.

TASK GROUP PLACEMENT-

This is called "ranging" a task group and can be difficult to understand at first. There is a good descriptive writeup in the readme.txt file on this which might help. Remember COMBAT LINE starts you off 3000 meters + the ETA from your range target task group.

TASK GROUP ORDERS (TOs)-

Remember, setting a timer setting of 0 holds the order until it is accomplished. In other words, the next order will not start until this order is completed. At this point I'm not sure this applies to PROTECT orders. Maybe somebody can test this.

-timetraveller

A sunset sail. Well lookie what I found!

Just an F.Y.I-

January 31, 2005

I corrected 3 bugs in the editor this morning. Updates will be in the next build, after a week or so of program shakeout.

1. Corrected subscript out of range error on the first run of the editor, if you click the Objective Groups window before anything else. This occurs because the initialize routine for the newly created config.ini file exited too early before setting last_ammo values. Note: program will run normally after the first run.

2. Corrected a minor problem with assignment of faction numbers for messaging.

3. Corrected erroneous error window when changing a non-player faction "FOE" back to "ANY" when player is already "ANY".

-timetraveller

hi there timetraveler , i made my first mission passed it and it came up as okay, though when i go to run it i ctd every time, now i used the examples put up i think by buxton. so i had garanteed everything else was okay and loading the right way.

however i did edit the examples to allow for an extra mission. i was wondering if you could give it the once over for me to see where i went wrong. i can post it here or send it over to you by mail. or if anyone else has it all sussed would they mind having an look. cheers.

Hi Ronin,

I'd like to have a look. Please e-mail me the mission-x.ems and corresponding mission-x.dat file (as attachments).

Thanks.

timetraveller@bellsouth.net

Hello All,

Can anyone explain how to get a Player Submarine to replenish the ammo on the boat from a supply sub. I have attempted to place a TO order and added the task group action with the resupply -1 in the torpedo location in the ammo toolbar. I have been unsuccessful in reloading the torpedoes. I only have the player submarine task group 1 and a resupply milchcow submarine task group 2 with the player submarine ranging to the resupply sub.

I am looking for suggestions?

Thank,

JL007

Hi JL007,

I see a couple of things here. That particular kind of OA (resupply, which is a target task group type of OA) is not the type of OA that can be triggered by a TO order. Only the target objective# type, (the lower one in the ENIGMA:Missions Objective Groups frame) is the type triggered by TOs. That may not be totally clear in the window and I'll make sure I change the wording on that.

If you set up a DOCK or perhaps a RENDEZVOUS order as the main objective on the Objective Groups window and also include your resupply OA, the resupply should trigger automatically when the main order completes successfully. Beyond that, personally I have not tested the -1 values for resupply. Enigma uses that value in some of the missions (also for resupplying health, etc.). East has told me that basically it means to resupply back to the original starting figure.

Additionally, I have played some with giving the player task group TO orders but have only had limited success. TO orders are usually given only to task groups other than the player group since the player group is busy accomplishing the goals of the mission (by you, the player).

Hope this helps.

-timetraveller

Hello Timetraveller.

Thank you for your response. What I have noticed is whenever I add the OA action to either my Player sub, or the milchcow sub, the program will not run. i.e, my mission information will not show in the mission section under options. It's blank. I re-edited the mission and removed the OA action and I am able to run the mission but I am unable to get the results that I want which is to resupply the Player sub. I have attempted to run the supply sub with the orders DOCK and I am unable to dock with the supply sub because it continues to sail. So I have ordered the supply sub to Rendezvous and the Player sub to Dock. I also noticed when I spawn the game the Player sub begins to dock immediately. It appears to only dock with itself. I.e., UB-2 and never docks with the supply sub UB-1.

I have also reloaded the mission editor and the game. My antivirus s/w is off.

The preprogrammed Midnight Rendezvous mission works fine and the player sub ammo resupply works. So I am sure the s/w is doing it's job.

I am not sure what else I may try?

JL007

JL007,

I also noticed that your merchant ship is an "enemy" (a foe). You would want to switch that to a friendly for resupply in any event.

Maybe I can come up with a docking example. I'll have some time to play later today or tomorrow.

-timetraveller

JL007,

Also note that different merchant ship types will only resupply certain items.

Tankers - fuel

Merchants - ammo and repairs

Oilers - ammo, fuel, and repairs

Michcow - fuel for sure. Ammo I doubt.

Traditionally, from what I've read, the Milchcow did not resupply any ammo. I suspect it is the same in the game.

-timetraveller

Aha! The best layed plans of mice and men....

I also found a bug in the replenish ammo field values for the resupply OA (Objective Action) if you change any ammo value from the default.

Note the ending period in your ammo replenish, after the 50.<----

OA 0 2 1 14.4.150.250.0.500.400.300.1000.500.2000.50. 100 100 100 100

It shouldn't be there. It's a bug in the program and also causes a crash to desktop. Until I get a fix out in a day or two, remove that period at the end after you save your mission (in the .EMS file).

All things that I suggested in the other replies still apply. Also, one more thing. Be sure to assign a doable timer value to the DOCK order in the main Objective Group. Seems that if you assign a very high value (like 10000), the dock may never complete. I'm having success with values of several minutes (like 360 or so, 6 minutes). It gives you time to get there and get the resupply done.

I'm also using the "HEALTH" Ratio Target on the main objective for the docking order. I believe Health is all-encompassing, meaning it applies to fueling too. Not sure what would happen if "GROUP COUNT" was used for the Ratio Target instead for a resupply. Some experiments need to be done.

-timetraveller