Taking A Swing At Mission Editor, Whew

I've gotten part way through creating a custom Mission by modifying the index.pkg, localization.txt, and making a custompatrols.cgn.

I stopped there to test. Game opened, found my mission, when booting to the mission the program crashed. Are those three files sufficient to make a playable patrol. If so then I've made a syntax error or I haven't created all the necessary files. I tried a regular mission and it booted up fine.

My question

I've been playing the game as SleepD so I can drive the Hood. With the changes I've made so far the Hood is no longer on the list. What do i need to do to correct this? This is important because my ambition with the mission editor is to create a couple of battleship lines and watch em duke it out. Is this a realistic goal with mission editor?

I know, I know, it's childish, but that's the thing I day dreamed about doing for more years than I care to admit.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Charlie

I am also making missions.. I had crashes.. I discovered that the instructions mention more than once that the data fields are to be seperated by tabs, not spaces..

However, if you apply that rule to the file localization.txt where it shows the following modification between the blue and purple words.. you only want a space, not a tab or it will crash:

PATROL_LABEL_0_TOGGLE Training

PATROL_LABEL_1_TOGGLE Combat

PATROL_LABEL_2_TOGGLE Tactical

PATROL_LABEL_3_TOGGLE CustomPatrols

I stopped there to test. Game opened, found my mission, when booting to the mission the program crashed. Are those three files sufficient to make a playable patrol. If so then I've made a syntax error or I haven't created all the necessary files. I tried a regular mission and it booted up fine.
My question

I've been playing the game as SleepD so I can drive the Hood. With the changes I've made so far the Hood is no longer on the list. What do i need to do to correct this? This is important because my ambition with the mission editor is to create a couple of battleship lines and watch em duke it out. Is this a realistic goal with mission editor?

I know, I know, it's childish, but that's the thing I day dreamed about doing for more years than I care to admit.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Charlie

charlie3,

Yes, those files are sufficient to test a mission (of course you need your test mission-x.ems file in your mission folder too). Make sure your mission files start at mission-1.ems and are numbered sequentially in the folder, 1,2,3,4, etc. Note that you cannot simply rename a mission-x.ems file to any number you want. There is a mission number internally in the .EMS file that must agree with the external mission name. If you need the mission to be a different number, just reload it into the editor and resave it with a different number. In any event, any syntax errors in your .PKG, .CGN, or localization.txt files will cause the program to crash. If you are creating a mission manually with a text editor, I strongly suggest you try the editor. The manual method is highly prone to typing and logic errors.

I've been able to create a couple of battleship lines with the editor and have them play it out. Can't recall if the Hood was in there or not. I believe it was. I'm not able to drive it though, because I haven't finished the proper campaigns yet. I gather that's the key to being able to drive a battleship.

Hope this helps.

-timetraveller

i noticed something interesting to be known....

i had some crashes like you , and i noticed that i had entered some HDG courses that were not template (for exemple , i manualy entered a HDG of 32 degres....)

that was (my) reason for the crashes

we have to enter HDGs dividable by 5 (35 worked)

i hope it will help someone

Thanks for the response.

My goal for a first mission was to produce something that would be allowed by the mission test function, otherwise it isn't possible to save the mission. I am assuming that if the test to function allowed saving the mission then the problem has to be in one of the three configuration files, otherwise there is a bug in the mission builder.

Charlie

Hi charlie3,

The mission editor doesn't look at any of the other Enigma files. It just creates the mission-x.ems file and saves it if it doesn't find any glaring errors in the mission.

In the editor, be sure to use the drop down box values. Do not type your own values into any drop down box. It may cause the mission to be not not readable if you want to edit it again.

-timetraveller

1. I'm not finding the .dat files whch allow editing mission files. Mission builder doesn't seem to be creating these for me. What am I missing?

2. Is it possible to edit missions that come with the game? With that I could create most of the missions that interest me and at least starting with something that works. This would be far less prone to error than starting from scratch.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Charlie

will

(One mission I'll create when I'm able is "wet feet" with each of the various fighting ships, empty of weapons and fuel, added to the line with the freighters. Besides target practice this would teach how much firepower it takes to finish the various ship types with the weapons available.)

1.  I'm not finding the .dat files whch allow editing mission files.  Mission builder doesn't seem to be creating these for me.  What am I missing?
2.  Is it possible to edit missions that come with the game?  With that I could create most of the missions that interest me and at least starting with something that works.  This would be far less prone to error than starting from scratch.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Charlie

will

(One mission I'll create when I'm able is "wet feet" with each of the various fighting ships, empty of weapons and fuel, added to the line with the freighters.  Besides target practice this would teach how much firepower it takes to finish the various ship types with the weapons available.)

Charlie,

The .DAT file (mission-x.dat) is just the binary equivalent of the mission-x.ems file you have created and saved. They are both saved as a pair at the same time you save the mission-x file, to the mission editor \saved_missions folder (not in the ERT game folder). Another copy of the .EMS mission file gets saved to the ERT game folder if you choose to do that at save time.

It's not possible to edit game missions, sorry. Only those you have created using the editor.

-timetraveller