Mission Possible: Exploring the Mission Builder in Jane's F/A-18 - By Tom "Saint" Launder
The following article is
a combination of personal testing insights and specific questions answered
by Matt Wagner, a designer on Jane's F/A-18. I want to personally thank
Matt for his time in answering the questions I submitted to him. I also
want to acknowledge two other Jane's F/A-18 team members Scott Elson
and CJ Martin who also have been good friends and are a blessing to the
flight-sim community.
Intro
Mission building in Jane's F/A-18 is like becoming reacquainted with
an old friend. Sometimes old friends reappear after the years and you
notice some gray hairs and a few extra pounds, but this old friend, like
a fine wine, has aged well. If you remember making missions in Jane's
F-15, and if you enjoyed the experience, you are going to love what you
find in F/A-18.
For those of you who are new, the primary use for the mission builder
is for the making of missions that you will fly offline or online. These
missions will be saved to the missions directory which you access through
the "Single Mission" feature of the sim. Some of you may have heard about
an undocumented feature called the "Campaign Builder." With this feature,
you will be able to make single missions that you string together to
form a campaign. I asked recently about this and was told "With the exception
of the movie compression tools, all the tools used to make the default
campaign will be available." This is great news! This will open a whole
new world to F/A-18.
I. What's New on the Interface?
In many ways, what we find here in F/A-18 is Jane's F-15 coming of age.
With a simple glance, you can see that the mission builder interface
is comfortably similar in appearance and function to the mission builder
found in F-15. It only took me a few minutes to pick back up where I
had previously left off.
So what are some of the new items on the interface?
1. Add Ships.
Since F/A-18 is all about "boats," you will notice that one of the additions
to the interface has to do with adding ships. Here you will find a whole
range of naval craft for you to place in your missions. One problem you
may find is that if you are not familiar with the Navy, you are going
to have to do some research to figure out what ship does what in the
fleet. I'm an Air Force veteran, and I can tell you that I still don't
understand the specialties of each craft.
2. General Mission Information and Briefings
There are some modifications to the mission briefing process, so now
briefings and mission information are segmented into smaller parts. What
is great about this new briefing style is that you get to add your own
.bmp image files and .wavs. Whereas with F-15 you only had a choice of
animation styles to add to your initial briefing, now you can add your
own pictures, music, sounds, or voice.
The approximate dimensions you will need to make your images are:
1. Load Mission Image = 483 x 187
2. Objective Image = 383 x 243
The order of playback for .wav files when you enter the mission briefing
is
1. Briefing speech
2. Objective Speech
3. Map Speech
4. Flight Speech
Another thing to notice is that you have a little speaker icon next to
each section that has a sound file. By clicking this icon, you can replay
the sound as often as necessary.
3. Overview Area
This is a nifty feature. You click the button and then place on the map
the location you want this blue outline box to appear. What this does
is designate an area on the map that will be displayed in the main briefing
mission map area when you load the mission to fly it. There is another
important use for this feature. The overview area must be placed for
the "mission checklist" feature to work properly on the mission map display.
More on that below.
4. Add GPS
With the addition of weapons like the AGM-84H SLAM-ER, AGM-154 JSOW,
and the GBU 29/30/31 JDAM family, there is now a need to place GPS markers.
Simply click the button and then select your target. You will then see
a little satellite/gps icon on the target. Pretty simple, but necessary
to have the weapons function correctly while a player is in the sim.
5. Add Weapon Goal
The manual states that this feature "is unique to the delivery of certain
weapon types such as mines. The goal tracks the quantity of the designated
weapon dropped in the indicated area" (pg. 6-168). When in the builder
and you select this button, you will get an interface box that allows
you to select various weapons to track. I have yet to use this feature.
Maybe someday?
6. Mission Checklist
This is a helpful graphical animation that you see when you are in the
main briefing area after starting a mission. Have you noticed that neat
step by step outline that appears on some missions? This allows you to
make one of these as well. Place the overview box mentioned above somewhere
on the map and then click on the mission checklist. You will then be
given a box that will allow you to chose checklist items 1-10. Place
each checklist item within the overview box and you are done. When you
save and then load this mission, you will see it go through the checklist.
Some have wondered how you can change these checklist points after they
are placed? All you have to do is click on "remove mission label" and
then click your checklist item. It will then be removed from the map
and you are free to make another in its place.
7. Fence - In
With this feature, you are able to select which country's borders will
be active and called out when a player is flying in the sim.
II. What's New in the Previous Features?
Along with these new buttons, there are also some new features to be
found within some of the old buttons.
1. Add aircraft options and waypoint actions
The interface is basically the same, but you will find a few new things
for you to chose from. You now have the ability to chose from "one, two,
and three" for each callsign designation along with the ability to assign
an aircraft to a particular carrier or ship. There is also a "briefing
group" designator that allows you to put aircraft into various groups.
You'll find this helpful when you come to making multiplayer missions.
You will find that every aircraft flight that gets designated "human"
control will automatically be assigned it's own group letter (A-H).
There are some new waypoint actions that have been added as well. You
will find new actions like Anti-Ship, ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare), Attack
Specific Target, Drone, Release Chutes, and Set User Flag. I have spent
some time with the release chute function and found that this only works
when you have paratroopers loaded. The other options that say "fighter
pack" and "cargo pack" do not release anything. When aircraft like a
C-17, C-130, or MV-22 are loaded with paratroopers, you can then set
a waypoint with the release chute action and you will see the chutes
release. I also appreciate the new ability to have an aircraft set a
user flag when it reaches a waypoint. Adding another trigger option allows
for even more exciting mission building.
2. Add Ship and Moving vehicle actions.
The new feature you will find here is the ability to select the attack
priority of both ships and ground vehicles. You can now have the object
fire at anything along its path, or you can specifically choose a target
for it to attack and destroy. In my testing, I have found that you will
get different results from different ground objects. Some are quite aggressive
(SA-15, HUUMV Avenger AAA/SAM) and some are quite passive (SA-8). Experiment
with this feature and watch the ground battles. With some time and effort,
you can have a nice ground war going.
I specifically asked Matt about the best way to get ships and ground
objects to fire and he responded back saying,
"There are three ways to set moving vehicles to engage other game entities.
In all cases you first must give the vehicle a waypoint. At that waypoint
you can select from three options. The first option is to select the
"attack enemy targets along path" option. When this is selected, the
unit will engage enemy units as it moves between its waypoints. Use this
option when creating offensive actions. The second option is the "fire
weapon while waiting" check box. When this is selected, the unit will
stop at the selected waypoint and fire on any enemy units within range
of its weapons. This is handy for setting up defensive actions. The third
and final option is the "attack specific target" option. Once this is
selected, you must use the map controls to locate the target you wish
the unit to attack and click on it. This will tell the unit you want
it to only attack this specific target. This is particularly useful for
designating land targets for Tomahawk attacks by ships or for designating
long range Harpoon shoots against ships by aircraft."
Mission Events
As many of you already know, this is the heart of the mission builder.
Here you are able to set up various actions based on user flags and goals
you have determined to be in the mission. One new feature they have added
is the "moving area event." What this allows you to do is to make an
air, sea, or ground object the source of an event. If the object moves,
the area event moves with it. You have the option as well of setting
the distance at which the approaching player will trigger the event.
I've put them on the carrier and other ships to trigger intercept aircraft.
III. Multiplayer.
I have spent more time actually flying online in F/A-18 then I did in
over a year of beta testing Falcon 4.0. This now opens up a whole new
realm of mission making fun for the wise mission builder. You have the
ability to assign human control for up to eight individual flights of
aircraft numbered A-H. While F-18 will only allow 8 players to fly at
once online, you can put one human player into each flight, but most
missions like to keep all or most of the players in group A.
Another interesting feature is the ability to fly any aircraft. This
is a limited ability since the only thing that changes is the outer skin,
but you can then fly in a package of F-18's, F-14's, and any other aircraft
you desire. I've flown the C-17 and MV-22 tiltrotor to test this and
it works well. With the cargo aircraft that are capable of being loaded
with paratroopers, you will find them under the A/G mode. You then drop
them by pressing pickle button #2 for each trooper. One odd thing I noticed
was that they jump out and then head toward the ground fairly quickly.
They seem to act like little bombs? Go ahead and test it for yourself.
Another thing to note is that when you decide to fly online with your
friends, it is best to have the mission already on your machine before
joining to fly. You will find that this will cut your load times down
significantly.
Here is a tip that you might find helpful when making multiplayer missions.
Besides doing co-op missions, you can also set up teams to oppose each
other. This has come to be known as "force on force." One thing that
might be confusing is how the simulation treats the blue and red forces.
What you have to remember is that F/A-18 always treats blue team as friendly
and red team as enemy. So, if you want to trigger an event for red team,
you have to select things like "when enemy enters" or "when enemy leaves"
even for their own red carrier! This might seem confusing, and I had
to think it through myself when I first made missions, but red team is
always treated as enemy even for their own carrier actions (which you
might be tempted to say should be friendly).
Perhaps an illustration will help. Let's say I want to have an action
occur when the red team aircraft get 20 miles from their red carrier.
I select the moving area event and then choose "when enemy exits." This
will trigger the event when the red team gets 20 miles away.
Conclusion
As you can see, the F/A-18 mission builder is a powerful tool and one
that will take some time to master. The only limitation is your creativity.
Below you will find a mission that I created specifically for online
"force on force" flying. It's entitled "Crush the Carrier!" The objective
is simple: sink the other team's carrier. In this mission you will find
many of the features that I discussed above implemented. I also want
to thank the men over at VFA 14th Tophatters who helped me test this
mission online and offered valuable feedback. I hope you enjoy it.
There are many excellent features in this mission builder for you to
explore. The only thing for you to do now is to jump in and get your
feet wet. With a little time and effort, you will soon be making missions
for yourself and others to enjoy both online and offline.
Happy mission building,
Tom "Saint" Launder
Download the example mission from this article by clicking HERE
random irc quote: <Saghn1212> lawn is such a m0m0 for missing 9 hours of trance <fish2002> he hass enough trance already <Saghn1212> nobody has enough trance
