Scenario Editor

[Kalliser]

Request: When starting the program, it will ask if you wish to start one from scratch, then type in your scenario name, and it makes all the proper directories for the scenario. I wonder if you can get the help of Adukes, RebBugler, Davinci, or the man himself Norb to see if they can help you get a generic scenario which you can call on to create a scenario from scratch.

Already in my todo list, remember :
1. multi-selection of element on map (or via oob tree) so you can drag&drop a group instead of single element (done in v1.6)
2. add the possibility to manage battlescript
3. add the possibility to manage location
4. add a "new scenario" wizard because editor can currently only modifiy existing scenario.

Request: This is not all of that important but would be for convenience sake, and that is having the editor's window setup be saved so I didn't have to readjust each time I run the program?

This is something I can do easily, in my todo list for v1.7

Garnier OOB are not read ?
I didn't try but it should work

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Hi.

Kalliser, thank you for the above post, I appreciate the work Sir. If I may, I have another question concerning when importing an OOB.

When you import an OOB, you are unable to group select (I haven't been able too) which would make it easier to pull them from the Top Left of the map, will you be allowing this in the next version?

Just a thought. If I start asking too much just tell me to shut up (Not you B) :cheer:

Later.

[Kalliser]

Ok I checked :

After importing an oob all elements are in position 0,0.

You can make CTRL+click on the oob tree then you can displace selected elements, but it hard to see because all elements stay on a stack but after displacing you can unstack the pile.

Remember that because element are stacked you can't see you are displacing more than 1.

But it seems that the right click menu is missing after importing oob, it will be corrected for v1.7

I detected a small bug, sometimes he don't detect that the CTRL key has been released so it made multi-select without pressing CTRL key, not very important because a simple press-release on the key solve the issue. I will try to find a workaround to correct that.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Ok I checked :

After importing an oob all elements are in position 0,0.

You can make CTRL+click on the oob tree then you can displace selected elements, but it hard to see because all elements stay on a stack but after displacing you can unstack the pile.

Remember that because element are stacked you can't see you are displacing more than 1.

But it seems that the right click menu is missing after importing oob, it will be corrected for v1.7

I detected a small bug, sometimes he don't detect that the CTRL key has been released so it made multi-select without pressing CTRL key, not very important because a simple press-release on the key solve the issue. I will try to find a workaround to correct that.

Hi Kalliser.

Okay cool (Importing oob), um one more thing I have noticed. I was working on a scenario (NSDsample), and when you group select, and pull the mouse to give facing, it doesn't seem to work all that well. It looks like they (facing lines) are facing in a semi circle. I know all one has to do is drag much farther away to fix this.

Request: Would you think it better when you have a group selected, the red line (facing) would be better if it only was for the commander, and all troops under him would immediately be showing that facing? (I don't know if I am explaining this properly, sure is confusing the heck out of me, and I'm the one imagining, and writing this :blink: ).

So far things are going well.

Cheers kalliser!

[Olszowy]

First, this is a great idea to automate the redundant functions of scenario development and you have a great start. I will gladly try to help with this although I am not a programmer. You are doing this for free and out of the goodness of your heart and I thank you. I have about 10 years professional experience in software that builds scenarios and perhaps can help.

I downloaded v1.6 this evening and verified I had net4.0. Running Win 7x64. All I did was unzip editor and start trying to do “stuff.” Worked on first try. I tried to be the typical dumb yokel. I do mean all of these to be constructive and give you something to do on a rainy day. I focused on the troop placement menu functions.


Initial Screen and Dropdown Menu Comments

- Spell check your toolbar heading, miscellaneous is misspelled (In English anyway).
- No help file to explain steps of how to take existing scenario or create a blank scenario. Love to help with that once functions are working.
- Rollover on configuration setting does not work.
- I was able to load only one map from the NSD directory and that was Brickyard (which had map I really wanted to play with. Error for two other. Maybe I am doing something wrong but nothing to give me an idea what.



Troop Placement Pane Comments

- Loaded new OOB and it stacked all the units in a pile in one corner, if that is supposed to happen that is quite a pain to move the entire OOB. Anyway to move whole units?
- I would recommend drag and drop of a unit and when you right click you get attribute list like the current properties pane instead of having a pane open all the time. I think you could get a bigger map size or rather more viewable area.
- You current panes are not adjustable in size.
- No way to drag and drop units from OOB onto map.
- When zooming in and out from map, editor locked and crashed. I have 8GB RAM and a decent video card. I was going fast and clicked another zoom level before first was loaded but it crashed to desktop as a result.
- Did you mean Confederate instead of Confederation under hierarchy?

- It would be nice if you could link the SDK manual numerical definitions to things that can be changed such as fatigue and morale. Maybe a user defined link to the SDK manual so numbers can be referenced?

- Is there someplace that defines what direction the number means? For example if I know that .45 equals 45 degrees it makes it faster and more simple than just seeing this .3453

- I could move units around and manually change things, but no idea how to change unit facing other than manually if there is a way at all.

- If you are going to allow editing for morale and fatigue values I would also recommend allowing editing of Row U through AA and probably AE and AF as well. Unit experience and capabilities are HOTLY debated among others.

- Scrolling on map and SLOW zoom in worked well on maps, however, your units and leader icons always remained the same size, very small. I know resizing is hard as you zoom back and forth to program, but for me the icons are a little hard to see, is it possible to have at least a larger size as an option?

- How do I load a new map?

- No explanation of how to save.

Scenario.ini comments
- Link to SDK manual would be great for this the various values.
Battlescript editing Did not see this at all. Am I missing something? That would be really neat to have the battle script commands broken into movement, attack, defense sets.

Again, this is great progress and I hope you can continue building the editor.

[born2see]

Olszowy -

That's good stuff. I think we're all excited to see what Kalliser can come up with. He needs these kinds of observations.

Haven't heard from him in awhile so I hope that's because he's been working on improving the editor.


B

[Kalliser]

Lot of nices ideas

- No help file to explain steps of how to take existing scenario or create a blank scenario.

You right, it's because I want to implement a "new scenario" wizard, at this time the editor is only able to modify scenario. I will improve that.

- Spell check your toolbar heading, miscellaneous is misspelled (In English anyway).

:sick:

- Rollover on configuration setting does not work.

What do you mean by rollover ? the configuration setting is ignored if game path is found in the registry

- I was able to load only one map from the NSD directory and that was Brickyard (which had map I really wanted to play with. Error for two other. Maybe I am doing something wrong but nothing to give me an idea what.

Error can happen if the scenario has invalid csv file (ie, value in the file are not allowed value by sdk) I try to manage them as I discover new problems but sometimes it's impossible, can you says me what are the scenarios who failed ? so I will check and corect if it's possible.

- Loaded new OOB and it stacked all the units in a pile in one corner, if that is supposed to happen that is quite a pain to move the entire OOB. Anyway to move whole units?

Oob has no troop placement information, so I have no idea where to place them, they are placed in 0,0 by default, I will manage to improve that, I will make a sandox like placement.

- I would recommend drag and drop of a unit and when you right click you get attribute list like the current properties pane instead of having a pane open all the time. I think you could get a bigger map size or rather more viewable area.

Right click is already reserved to the direction drap&drop but I can make minimizable panel.

- You current panes are not adjustable in size.

I think I can change that

- No way to drag and drop units from OOB onto map.

In my roadmap

- When zooming in and out from map, editor locked and crashed. I have 8GB RAM and a decent video card. I was going fast and clicked another zoom level before first was loaded but it crashed to desktop as a result.

Will make more test, I had already corrected a crash cause in this functionality

- Did you mean Confederate instead of Confederation under hierarchy?

:sick: My

- It would be nice if you could link the SDK manual numerical definitions to things that can be changed such as fatigue and morale. Maybe a user defined link to the SDK manual so numbers can be referenced?

It's already done but I forgot to display the tip area :S

- Is there someplace that defines what direction the number means? For example if I know that .45 equals 45 degrees it makes it faster and more simple than just seeing this .3453
- I could move units around and manually change things, but no idea how to change unit facing other than manually if there is a way at all.

Values are in fact cos and sin of angles, but in order to change angles just use the direction drag&drop by using the right click it's a lot more efficient.

- If you are going to allow editing for morale and fatigue values I would also recommend allowing editing of Row U through AA and probably AE and AF as well. Unit experience and capabilities are HOTLY debated among others.

Sorry but "Row U through AA and probably AE and AF" don't mean anything for me, I don't understand your meanings.

- Scrolling on map and SLOW zoom in worked well on maps, however, your units and leader icons always remained the same size, very small. I know resizing is hard as you zoom back and forth to program, but for me the icons are a little hard to see, is it possible to have at least a larger size as an option?

Zoom is slow because of the number of element on the map, with big oob there are thousands of them, I made some optimisation but .net framework have limition I can't accelarate zoom and map loading
For ican size it's probably not very hard to do.

- How do I load a new map?

Currently by changing the map in the scenario.ini, save and reload scenario (by switching from one to another) Will improve that t have an autoreload on map change.

- No explanation of how to save.

There is a save button in the top left corner, the software ask for a save if you try to quit the scenario without save.

- Link to SDK manual would be great for this the various values.
Battlescript editing Did not see this at all. Am I missing something? That would be really neat to have the battle script commands broken into movement, attack, defense sets.

Probably the harder to do, I think a lot of how doing that properly.

[Olszowy]

Lot of nices ideas Again, I do not mean to be picky, my developers have more colorful langauge for me!

- No help file to explain steps of how to take existing scenario or create a blank scenario.

You right, it's because I want to implement a "new scenario" wizard, at this time the editor is only able to modify scenario. I will improve that. RGR, standing by

- Spell check your toolbar heading, miscellaneous is misspelled (In English anyway).

:sick:

- Rollover on configuration setting does not work.

What do you mean by rollover ? the configuration setting is ignored if game path is found in the registry When you hover the mouse over a button a small descriptor usually pops up explaining the function and hopefully prevents the user from pressing a button they should not press.

- I was able to load only one map from the NSD directory and that was Brickyard (which had map I really wanted to play with. Error for two other. Maybe I am doing something wrong but nothing to give me an idea what.

Error can happen if the scenario has invalid csv file (ie, value in the file are not allowed value by sdk) I try to manage them as I discover new problems but sometimes it's impossible, can you says me what are the scenarios who failed ? so I will check and corect if it's possible. I will load up a bunch and test each and send you response on this.

- Loaded new OOB and it stacked all the units in a pile in one corner, if that is supposed to happen that is quite a pain to move the entire OOB. Anyway to move whole units?

Oob has no troop placement information, so I have no idea where to place them, they are placed in 0,0 by default, I will manage to improve that, I will make a sandox like placement. Hmmmmm, not sure you need to place them at all. How hard would it be to just leave units off map in the OOB. If you could allow entire unit placement all you would need to do is place a leader and click which type of formation you wanted and then whole foramtion could be autoplaced. Other folks chime in here please.

- I would recommend drag and drop of a unit and when you right click you get attribute list like the current properties pane instead of having a pane open all the time. I think you could get a bigger map size or rather more viewable area.

Right click is already reserved to the direction drap&drop but I can make minimizable panel. Hmmmm, I thought right click was zoom and missed this. Something the pending help file will resolve

- You current panes are not adjustable in size.

I think I can change that

- No way to drag and drop units from OOB onto map.

In my roadmap woohoo, again if you can link formations to leaders that would save some time.

- When zooming in and out from map, editor locked and crashed. I have 8GB RAM and a decent video card. I was going fast and clicked another zoom level before first was loaded but it crashed to desktop as a result.

Will make more test, I had already corrected a crash cause in this functionality

- Did you mean Confederate instead of Confederation under hierarchy?

:sick: My

- It would be nice if you could link the SDK manual numerical definitions to things that can be changed such as fatigue and morale. Maybe a user defined link to the SDK manual so numbers can be referenced?

It's already done but I forgot to display the tip area :S

- Is there someplace that defines what direction the number means? For example if I know that .45 equals 45 degrees it makes it faster and more simple than just seeing this .3453
- I could move units around and manually change things, but no idea how to change unit facing other than manually if there is a way at all.

Values are in fact cos and sin of angles, but in order to change angles just use the direction drag&drop by using the right click it's a lot more efficient.

- If you are going to allow editing for morale and fatigue values I would also recommend allowing editing of Row U through AA and probably AE and AF as well. Unit experience and capabilities are HOTLY debated among others.

Sorry but "Row U through AA and probably AE and AF" don't mean anything for me, I don't understand your meanings. Ah sorry, in the OOB file along the top you know where each row is defined. Starting at RoW U which is "command" those key unit attributes run through Row AI "calisthenics". I think the old TCM2 editor, was it Pakfronts? Allowed you to change all variables in the OOB.

- Scrolling on map and SLOW zoom in worked well on maps, however, your units and leader icons always remained the same size, very small. I know resizing is hard as you zoom back and forth to program, but for me the icons are a little hard to see, is it possible to have at least a larger size as an option?

Zoom is slow because of the number of element on the map, with big oob there are thousands of them, I made some optimisation but .net framework have limition I can't accelarate zoom and map loading
For ican size it's probably not very hard to do. I love maps of all types. Mapping and imagery are both hobby and profession. We use geospatially correct maps down to 1M resolution and icon resizing as you zoom in and out is handled three ways. One is to keep the icons the same size regardless of map scale, the other is a ratio resizing as the map zoom changes. However, even with that we found that users wanted more customization based on eyesight/eyeglass/presentation issues and we gave them a way to resize/recolor icons based on personal desires. Fairly typical capability in the geospatial world. I realize that is WAY beyond the call of duty, just throwing ideas out there.

- How do I load a new map?

Currently by changing the map in the scenario.ini, save and reload scenario (by switching from one to another) Will improve that t have an autoreload on map change. k another help file issue we will await with baited breath.

- No explanation of how to save.

There is a save button in the top left corner, the software ask for a save if you try to quit the scenario without save.

- Link to SDK manual would be great for this the various values.
Battlescript editing Did not see this at all. Am I missing something? That would be really neat to have the battle script commands broken into movement, attack, defense sets.

Probably the harder to do, I think a lot of how doing that properly.

I believe, no, I KNOW this is the heart of scenario development. The map is the map and everyone knows the map. OOB can be memorized and abused. But you can never memorize the enemy intent. You can guess, you can send out scouts to see where and what the enemy OOB is doing and that is part of the fun. If we can make the rest of scenario development so quick and easy it allows scenario designers TIME to focus on complete and clever battlescripting you will have game that lasts a lot longer before people get bored. Battlescripting or a good opponent makes for a challenging game that you have FUN playing. I think even Grognard settings have more to do with challenging AI and command and control(locking commanders to their horses saddles and force them to use messages) than any amount of opponent attribute increases. I have many years military experience,study the ACW, and develop scenarios for live training, and I bet I could build a scenario here that would blow your mind, but I have NO TIME to understand the SDK and manually create one. Your effort here would go a long way to opening up a lot of good ideas from players. Probably a lot of bad ones to :laugh:

[born2see]

I'm loving this interaction.

From a scenario designer who shall remain nameless:

Until it can make a scenario from an OOB, and can build a battlescript and maplocations, I can't take it seriously.

B

[Olszowy]

I'm loving this interaction.

From a scenario designer who shall remain nameless:

Until it can make a scenario from an OOB, and can build a battlescript and maplocations, I can't take it seriously.

B

Agree entirely, whoever it is, is wise. That is the trick isn't it, but I think it does not start with the OOB, it starts with the doctrinal mission. I have seen some software that knows what type of terrain units can and cannot be on. It knows by percentage how well terrain is suited for a particular type of mission. It knows LOS and it knows weapon ranges. It knows doctrinal frontages for various types of units. Most of this is already known inside SoW. So, menu pops up and asks what mission do you want to conduct. Say corp defense. You give center mass marking for defense on a map along with direction of defense and hit build. Easy in concept, won't tell you how much it cost. :sick: However, I am pretty sure the detail level and standards would not need be so high. I could also see reusable macros of battlescript to execute more complex missions. Same thing for offensive set ups, but once an attack starts to move it becomes very, very hard to program. The sandbox builder already has a lot of functionality. If you were to give it some deeper understanding of doctrine, terrain, etc I bet you could do with within SoW.