Where are PAK id's stored?

[sthalik]

Hey,

Where are PAK id’s stored inside campaign files?

I’ve done some preliminary testing and changing PAK priorities can be automated – unless there’s a hardcoded limit to trigger rule count or individual rule length. Even in the former case it can be made into a single spaghetti rule.

After changing a few PAK priorities – guessing them from other occurences in .tri file, the Korea campaign performs more to my liking.

The basic idea is to autogenerate the .tri file content, preventing suicide missions.

Guessing wrong makes the sound to skip momentarily and the process freezes on campaign exit. But this is preferable to silently ignoring wrong id occurences.

sh

[Cloud 9]

@sthalik:

Hey,

Where are PAK id’s stored inside campaign files?

They are the objectives with a priority of 80 or above in the campaign files. 80 and above are Primary Objectives.

If you intend to change them…be wary as removing a Primary Objective to less than a priority of 80 will scramble/mess up the PAK Map and the names will not show correctly.

C9

[sthalik]

There’s a trigger command to change PAK priority. These are the id’s I need to recover from campaign folder.

[agalnov]

You can find those ID very easy on MC or TACEDIT.
-Load on any of them your campaign.
-On TACEDIT got to POL tab, and on the options above (top of the window), go to Objectives and there select Create POL. This will show you the actual list of ID and City names.
-On MC is similar: Go to POL/PAK tab. Select the button CREATE NEW POLITICAL LIST. And the same will hapen.

Those are the numbers you will need to use the “#CHANGE_PRIORITIES” command on the TRI file.

Still, In my experience… when you set new values using the TRI, they will show up on the PAK screen… but will not have effect until either: you save-close-reload the campaign, or you go into 3D (to fly, or just for a few seconds), and come back to the 2D UI.

I tested this way ago, and I haven´t try it again on 4.33.1 or 4.33.2 … Unless they fix this, I expect it to behave in the same way.
The way to test it is easy. Put ALL PAKs to “0”… eventually, after a Little while, the ATO should STOP fragging missions. Check it out.

Another side effect is that once you setup those manual values (using TRI), they will become Kind of “hardcoded”… and if you revert to SET BY HQ, the AI will not change those new values… they will get stucked there. I haven´t tested this so deeply, so it maybe vary a Little from what I wrote, but it was something like this IIRC.

Keep it up

Regards,
3Balls.

[sthalik]

I see #CHANGE_PRIORITIES being used with country id, not PAK id. In the .tri file, you can see stuff like

#IF_CONTROLLED 2 A 680 260
#PLAY_MOVIE 103
#SET_PAK_PRIORITY 6 399 100
#SET_PAK_PRIORITY 2 399 100

On the other hand, these are country id’s

#CHANGE_PRIORITIES 6 2
#CHANGE_PRIORITIES 2 1
#SET_TEMPO 255
#DO_EVENT 1

What gives?

[agalnov]

Sorry mate… I was writting by memories… my bad.

I was always talking about the first one: #SET_PAK_PRIORITY [team] [camp_id] [number]

I never used the second one, and although outdated, it is documented to be no longer used… If anyone knows more about the second command (#CHANGE_PRIORITIES) , it will be great to know.

[demer928]

@sthalik:

I see #CHANGE_PRIORITIES being used with country id, not PAK id. In the .tri file, you can see stuff like

On the other hand, these are country id’s

What gives?

Not Countries….Teams…i.e. Team 2 vs. Team 6… the .tri is not concerned with what you name your country.

Cheers,
tired demer

[agalnov]

I think he used “Country” meaning “Team”… it probably was a way to name it.

Nice to see you around Demer. Does then #CHANGE_PRIORITIES work?, and if so… what it does?

Kind regards,
3Balls

[sthalik]

All good so far. But I need to process .cam and haven’t done the work yet.

[demer928]

Here, I hope a picture helps:

What is High Lited in Green is most important….the Ohhh not Zerohhh means that all those Objectives (straight CT #) must be CONTROLLED to trigger further events in the next line. Remember this is a simple And\Or Not\Nor Else\If logic file that is read in.

One BIG thing I’ve encounter over the many years and many iterations of Falcon Theater building is the misconception of the word CONTROLLED for an objective.Just like Cities and Towns can only be Primary\Secondary objectives per CODE…Armored units are the only ones that can CONTROL an Objective.
We can Occupy an objective with a lesser unit type, but we will not trigger a change until the Armored unit moves to the objective…SEE???

@ 3Balls, I believe #Change_Priorities is working now, but I would question the BMS devs. on that one??? I would think that all your Syntax in the file should be correct.See above…

trying to be nice…
tired Demer

[agalnov]

Thanks Demer.

I will experiment a bit before jumping on the forum again with my questions to Devs. If I “see” any effects I’ll post them.

[agalnov]

Well… no luck whatsoever… But I must confess… I don´t know what to expect from this command… so maybe it is working, but it doens´t make any difference in POH campaign…