Missions And Bases

[vs322]

First off: I know that there is always more to learn about the s3 editor and the game mechanics themselves, so any additional tips please give them. Also all this info is for s3; it may work with the original, but some things, like mission blocks are defiantly put.

 

Oh, and you will crash your computer doing this at least a few times. You may even lose your mod, make it so the game crashes as soon as you start- I recommend backing up often- especially when changing things related to the mission blocks, and make sure you are not doing this stuff to the original game.

 

Also I got a lot of this info in the editor manual that comes with the gold edition; it is very useful, not too clear, but it gets you started.

 

About making stories; you will most likely want to make a new base specific for your story. After all the missions (but not random encounters) the party is transported back to the base.

 

The base must be made as a mission in the Scenario you are making; As far as I know you must have all your missions be in the AddOn/Main scenario for it to work in S3. The things I'm talking about are all in the Scenario tab in the editor. (Under ScenarioGlobals in the Recourses Layout window(the one that lets you chose your tabs in the tree window) you'll probably need all of the items; a quick rundown:

Chapters- are actually the region maps- this is where you place the missions you have made on the map..

GlobalMaps-To place Chapter / Region maps on the Global map, you also declare what mission you want as your base and as the one that loads up when you start a new game here.

Scenario-I'll get back to it in a sec.

ScenarioZones-This is supposed to be where all your missions are supposed to be selected from, but it does not work quite right. If you want to make missions that are not part of scenario blocks do it here.)

 

OK,

Back to Scenario; You will have to work with the AddOn/Main one, this is the SSS scenario and you will probably delete all the Blocks in it once you get comfortable(But if you delete the AddOn/Main scenario you will not be able to make another one, I'm serious-you will lose it for good- the game looks for its ID not its name and all user Ids start at 1,000,000)

 

Blocks-

DBLclick on Main- then in the properties section click on blocks. SSS is set in a much more liner fashion then SS- the blocks go in ascending order and you have to complete a set number of missions in each block to move to the next one. If you want your mod to just have a bunch of missions right after each other(no choice in the matter) then you will need a block for each mission.

The game automatically completes each block when the needed number of missions is completed. The game will also crash if you finish a block and there is no next one, just a gap, it doesn't matter if there is a block after that- It will crash. To stop this I recommend having a dummy block with a mission that is not actually on any region map as your last block- that way a player can go around doing random encounters or missions that are not connected to specific blocks if they want.

For each block you assign an order and the number of missions you need to pass to move onto the next one- then you can bring up the missions screen to set up the missions you will have in each block.

 

Missions-

The mission window looks deceptively like the scenario block window, but you have missions on the left rather then Blocks. All the things for the Missions are pretty obvious; some important ones: The Templates- here you chouse the template that your mission will take place on- you can have up to three templates per mission, they are connected by 'passage objects' Any you can travel freely back and for the between them. SmallDescription- how you refer to this mission in a script. Scenario-must be set to AddOn\Main. PWLImageID- is for having a custom loading screen, you must set this image up as a UI Texture. PhotoID-image that is shown in the mission selection screen; also needs to be a UI Texture.

Most important is the Goals tab- It brings up another window(very similar looking to the scenario block/ mission windows)

 

Goals (and tasks)-

You've got your goals on the left and all your properties on the right (again) Each goal can have up to 6 sub tasks (starting at 0, so 0-5) . Once again most of the parameters are pretty obvious; BlocksLeavesZone-you're leave button will stay red(can't click it to leave) in game until the goal is complete if this is true. CompleteImmediatly-true: the goal is completed as soon as the last task is completed, false: you must leave/return to base before the goal is completed. VisibleByDefault-if true the player can see the goal right away on the objective screen, false: the goal must be made visible with a ScenarioSetGoalVisible call in the script. GoalType- determines what you need to interact with to complete the goal/ conclusion means that it is completed by script. The PersID and ObjectID are for setting the ID of an object or person that you need to interact with, if you plan to use script to complete goals then you don't need to use them.

Tasks-brings up yet another window (the last layer thankfully) These are the up to 6 sub-goals that you can have, you need to have at least one. Tags-this says what you must do to complete the task- when it refers to an item or person it used the PersID and ObjectID from the Goals window, or you can (as I tend to do) use complete by script.

 

--In most of the windows you could setup Journal entries- these are added to the player's journal when they complete the Goal/Mission that it is listed under. All the descriptions for the goals and tasks must be made as strings. Strings can have remedial html in them for formatting, color etc.

To add an Item to any of the windows discussed above by using insert.

Ok- Now lest say that you have your missions set up. Each mission must be placed on a region map no more than once (if it is not on the region map it will not be playable without being triggered by a script)

In the chapters tab, bring up a map and place a new sector on it by right clicking and picking new sector. If it is going to be a mission (rather than a random encounter) don't worry about the number of segments. Now right click on the edge of your new sector and chose 'sector properties' - The sceneriozone button will let you pick a mission that you have already set up in either from the blocks, discussed above, or if you want one unconnected from the blocks then from the sceneriozone tab.- The description links to what appears when you moue over it in game. A word on scenarios unconnected to the block system: once you have set up the mission you will need to call it via an ScenarioAddVisibleZone('zonename') call inside a script for it to be playable.

 

Next time: More on the Base.(start by looking at the script for the s3 one- it has quite a lot of features)

Hope this is all helpful.

-vs

[KoMik]

GREAT post vs! I'm sure that helps the beginners a lot and maybe we will see some personal campaings in future (not just wait some 'official ones').

Keep good info coming up!