How do you make a campaign nowadays?
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Good luck. My overall memories of trying to mess with tacedit was that stuff would break, for no apparent reason - and that following the same set of steps would occaisionally yield different results, depending on when I last saved. I also remember redoing the same stuff, over and over…
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One of the things I haven’t mastered in BMS is making campaigns from scratch. How do you do it? ANy good tools/applications?
I basically want to make a 1970s campaign for the Israel Theater.
I seem to remember in allied force you could rename a TE to a campaign or something, and it would work somehow - but ivaguely remember it, and i’m probably wrong. Any advice?
I also vaguely remember editing a saved campaign with Tacedit - and then resaving it somehow. My brain sucks.
Without editing the DB is not possible.
Good luck. My overall memories of trying to mess with tacedit was that stuff would break, for no apparent reason - and that following the same set of steps would occaisionally yield different results, depending on when I last saved. I also remember redoing the same stuff, over and over…
Sometimes may can happen. This is why I did carefully. I placed only about 15 battalions. I saved launched the game and waited the next 0:05:00 hour update. If it did not crashed it worked. This is how I created my MOD.
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In E111 we had some successful experiences converting especific TE into a Campaign, with the only purpose to give it the “RANDOM” touch of the Scrambles and additional non-prepared sorties…
The problem is that in TE you normally mess with controlled áreas and such things… We had to find the most suitable Save1,2,3.cam file to match the TE.
Sometimes it Works …sometimes it doesn´t. Anyway, you can always créate a new SAVEx.cam refference. The way to do it is re-arrange Sqns and Objectives owners, and set it as a refference.
Each saved snapshot of any campaign are linked to its original SAVEx.cam file. Your TE will become a snapshot of a reffenced SAVEx.cam… as I said, to an already tweaked existing SAVE1,2,3.cam file, or even to a new SAVEx.cam (SAVE4.cam …or whatever).
Reference SAVEx.cam have NO flights. Only Sqns and Units… but no planned actions (flights, packages). But your snapshot (ols TE) will.
This way, you can have that snapshot, with the planned (the old TE) flights that you want to happen for sure, and random sorties according to the Campaign Engine… specially the QRA ones.
It´s a Little bit more complicated that all this… but, I hope I gave you enough hints to keep working on it. As Molni said, sometimes is time consuming.
The fact that it crashes after 5 minits is that the TRI file is reviewed every 5 minits… and the Campaign engine reacts to it. So if there is something wrong (not because of the TRI file, but with the rest of the situation), the Engine will crash.
In Pillars of Hércules (POH) we expent years to figure out why Campaign files didn´t work. It was such a stupid thing: North Africa, and Iberian Peninsula… Blues and Reds… they were not linked. There is the mediterranean sea in between!! (no road/links were settled)… so the Basic Test was to put some units over Spain, let them move a bit, and fly arround… but it always crashed. Well, it seems that Campaign doesn´t like IMPOSSIBLE TASKS, and if there is NO link between BLUE and RED teams, it will hang up and Crash.
So, whatever changes you do into an existing theatre, make sure, there is a WAY for the engine to go from BLUE Team Objectives, to RED Team Objectives (normally teams 2 and 6).
Also, take care while exporting the units/flights from the TE no put them into the so called Snapshot of the SAVEx.cam you are developing…just because of the TEAMS. TE allocates different TEAMS positions that the usual Team 2 and TEAM 6 for BLUES and REDS… so you will have to fix them accordingly. The same goes to third party players (Neutral teams or so).
Keep exploring, because I can assure you that a “Campaignilized” Tactical Engagement is just ANOTHER WORLD.
Finally, keep in mind that TE has its own scoring definitions and such things, that cannot be included in the Campaign TRI file. I wish we could use conditional rules about attrition into a specific batallion or Sqn, or objective… but we cannot. (developers… pleeeease ).
If you have no succes or need more hints, don´t hesitate to ask. I´m rather busy trying to advance with the POH campaign…but I´ll do my best. (also when you stop messing with this things, sometimes you forget how to redo it again).
Keep it up!!!
Regards,
3Balls -
@Cloud:
TOTALLY incorrect!!!
C9
Aham…
In this case pls explain how you set a '70s ground unit rosters with appropriate GUs, SAMs, AAAs, weapons on AC, role scores according to different weapons etc.
I have made so far 2 times major mods for FF and BMS4. You can’t do it without it. Just ask who tried or played my MODs…
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Thanks all!
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Thanks to you, for all your Vids and sharing.
Keep it up!
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errr whre exactly are the vids you mention?
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I was just talking about the prolific amount of training tutorials and missions shared by Krause on YouTube.
You and your “List” (Big time thanks as well to you) know better that me.
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Thanx m8… I though I missed something important.
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Is there any documentation on the file structure of campaign files?
Saw this thread and have decided to actually ask this question too (as it has been on my mind for a long time)
From Googling this a while I’d say the answer to my question is , “No”, but had to ask anyway.
I ask cuzz, well, I’m an old retired guy now (which means I have the time); have written a few ‘middle-ware’ geographically-based GUI apps for aviation ‘stuff’ (all from scratch; it seems it’s all I ever do - I have a lot of code for this already written). Was going to work with someone on another sim but had to pull out (death in the family and months of ugliness associated; that sim also had no “legs” IMO; yadda, yadda, but I digress)…
And yes, I’m probably crazy - I know this would be a big task. I’ve no intentions of writing a tool for theatre creation. Only interested in campaign editing. Seems there are no tools for this, specifically that is.
Any background would be appreciated.
I’ve enjoyed this sim since it was in 4-color mode (on a Tandy 1000, I think it was); love what BMS has done (thank you again, and again) and would like to give something back.
JR
PS: Somewhere, way-back, I found a copy of the Falcon source code: the .mak file is dated 1999 so I’m sure that’s obsolete (but may help); would like something more applicable to BMS.
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well if there is something it will be here:http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=falcon4
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well if there is something it will be here:http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/doku.php?id=falcon4
Thanks Arty,
Think I’ve seen that site before but assumed the info was not applicable to the BMS version.
Feels like there’s something that I’m unaware of, concerning modding this sim; beyond the obvious issue that it wasn’t designed to be [easily] modded.
Maybe because it’s just such a niche product; I’ve recently written some tools to pull apart Microsoft FSX/P3D BGL files for use in a GUI tool and it felt similar - takes a bit of digging and such; without someone doing the initial Yak-shaving (to come up with the file structure) I doubt I’d be able to do it in any reasonable time…
Anway, so here’s the ‘plan’:
- Crawl into the rabbit hole of binary file parsing (using the info provided by that site Arty listed)
- When I feel I have enough to do something useful, come back here and see what people want from a campaign editor (still have yet to examine the tools at that site)
- Go back in and try and do it.
Smooth Rides,
JR -
Well I didn’t say it applies to bms. It applies to Falcon, and since there aren’t any newer reference or documentation, it’s the best we have for now.
Sent from TapaTalk
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Well I didn’t say it applies to bms
No, you did not. The link was very helpful, thank you again.
So, after an initial look at TacEdit today, and given that it was compiled 13 years ago, surprisingly - it worked! Or seemed to. Whomever wrote it did a great job but I’d like to improve things if I can. With that…
[Starting a new thread]
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Mission Commander by Falcas.
DL’d it, learn it, use it……;)
As far as DBase inconsistency it is pretty resilient. BUT make sure you have your Groundwork correct…i.e. paths, links etc…!!!demer
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Thanks. Checking it out…
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make sure you have your Groundwork correct…i.e. paths, links etc…!!!
Yes, from a quick look a TacEdit today it appears the original authors used what I know as a Navigational Graph, with weighted edges - and I’ll be that setting that up is a finicky bit. Thanks again.