Mission Editor "Play" Tutorial... maybe

OK folks, attempt number one two three four five at a "Tutorial" on "Playing" a Campaign (or any other) MIS file in the Mission Editor... cdrsubron7 will find this very useful.

1. Be sure you're updated to the latest of the latest FotRS U...
1a. double-check any necessary "hand edits" you might have to make, such as changing the CAMogami.cfg UnitType=18 to ="7". s7rikeback is working on that. That's in the Game Folder / Data / Sea / NCA_Mogami / NCA_Mogami.cfg file.

2. Download and enable via JSGME the ProposedUScampaign file (see forsu.freeforums.net/post/324/thread). There should be the MOD directory, with the Data folder below that, and the Campaigns / Campaign folder below that. No changes have been made to the GE campaign. Yet.

3. Start the SH4MissionEditor.exe - it should be in the same folder as SH4.exe
3a. If you get errors and can't get them resolved, let us know. The last one I was getting was about the Mogami, which was set to UnitClass=18. Change that to 7, and it'll work. If you get an error about the "Bismarck", the spelling is incorrect, and should be "Bismark" - the ship... The Sea is Bismarck... s7rikeback has updates for that and others, though it does break the Mogami, as noted above.

4. You should have a "blank" ME, like this:



5. For this example, click on the "File" menu item, "Open (Normal Mission)..." and point the dialog at the Game folder / Data / Campaigns / Campaign / 41a_Jap_CoastalTraffic.mis file. Click on "Open", of course.



If you accidentally hit something, do NOT save the file. You should have a "world" view, like this:



The little yellow doo-dads are the RGG in this particular file. Some files will have little Red groups, which are not Randomly Generated, but show when they're supposed to show. Zoom in with the mouse scroll wheel. If you hold the mouse just above Borneo for the first bump, then about halfway between there and Japan, you should be able to fit the majority of the RGG yellow markers in the screen. Use the "Hand" tool to move the display if necessary. You should be able to get to something like this:



You can zoom in as close as you want, for that "detail" work, but for what I'm after here, just seeing it "Play" is sufficient.

Now to set-up for the play. If you click on the "plus" sign (+) next to Random Groups in the Explorer over in the Tools Panel, you'll see the Groups used listed. Right-clickiing on the first one, 41a_CoastalTraffic_000 and then Left-clicking on Group Properties yields this:



Notice in the "Entry" section, Entry Date is 1941, 12, 01 at 0000 hours. When we go to "Play" this, none of them will actually start (usually) right on the mark, but rather about 24 hours later. Let's get to that.

Up top of the ME window, as you can see in any of the above pictures, is the "Players" parameters, even though that's not very well documented anywhere. Where it says "Time filter start" up there, to the right of the "Hand" tool, change that Year from "1938" to read "1941" with the drop-down box, and change the Month from "1" to "12". We're set...



Now we'll use the VCR style controls to the right of that, and hit the "Arrow" button to "Play". The Square box "Stops", and sometimes re-sets, but usually messes something up, the double vertical lines is the "Pause" button, and usually does work. If we let things go like that, it "Plays" the Mission is Real Time... very boring, and we don't have enough time, so hit the Red circle dealie with the "+" sign above and to the right of it, and we'll do some Time Compression. The little Blue one with the minus (-) sign by brings the compression back down. To the right of that, you'll see a "YYY:MM:DD HH.MM" designation. That'll show the time as it progresses...



a setting of 16348x (seven hits to increase) is OK once you get going, but is still rather slow when looking at these campaign files, especially the longer playing ones. It does much better with the Single Missions. You do have to watch it though, cause time does literally "fly" here... The little Lime Green dealies are the Yellow RGGs that have actually "spawned" and are out and running.

Now, if there is any lag while either loading a file, or playing a file, that indicates something is wrong with the file. If you end up with a blank ME screen after choosing a file, there is something wrong. Please notate that, and let me know. Usually, it's an issue with either a ship or a plane call in the file. Usually. Also, if you can zoom in part of the way, but it stops zooming after two or three steps in, there's an issue with something in the file. If you click on the assets in the Explorer, and try for the properties, those sometimes won't open, or take forever to open... there's an issue...

I should also mention that, with the RGG, they'll play until they're done. So with some of the 41a files, you'll see stuff play beyond March. As an RGG "finishes" it's last spawn, you'll see the Green group indicator reach destination, it'll turn off, and the yellow RGG icon will turn off. Some of the files have "Stop and Go" stuff in them, so you'll see some of the Green generated groups sit still for a while. Kind of cool... don't know how much of a resource drain that is yet. I cannot recall enough about my programming days to remember how to look for things like that either, and if I'm remembering correctly anyway, it's much easier to see things like that in the code itself, which we do not have access to... Anyway, enough rambling...

Oh, I did forget to mention one really kind of important point about the Mission Editor, besides it's not being a user-friendly kind of app, and that's the fact that it does NOT turn loose of resources, especially if you run into a MIS file that bombs - you have to use the Task Manager to close it sometimes. Also, even if things don't get that bad, just loading two or three mission files in it has a tendency to make it start to hiccup on its own, so close it every few "Plays", even if it seems OK, but especially after you have one not run real well. "Refresh" it's sitting in the computer's memory by closing and then re-opening it.

Sorry if you already know this, but this is another way to check the MIS files' validity.

Well, that bombed... shtinking fotobuckitt - I don't know if they seriously think someone would actually buy pictures from them with "service" issues like what they have, but I won't. I used to, but all they are now is an ad garbage dump... Anyway, even emailing the links to me didn't work, so I just had to get two or three at a time, and then clear the IE cache and try again... Later.