Creating scenarios & scripting

[rich12545]

Here's my 2 cents. I'm not a programmer. To me scripts might as well be in Greek for all I understand them. I looked and they're a total puzzle. I'm still trying to figure out what a string is. So, as much as I'd like to change a few things, make some infantry heavy scenarios to play, it realistically probably won't happen. In fact I totally agree with Delusan.

I sort of compare BA to Combat Mission 1. For gameplay BA is a dream. I enjoy it much more than CM. But for scenario creation it's a nightmare. For me. With CM, I could go into the random scenario maker, set a few parameters and in a few minutes I'd be playing. Thinking about setting up a scenario in BA gives me a headache. I never made a regular scenario in CM. Even that was more than I could think about. But, for modders, it was so easy it wasn't too much time there were more scenarios around than I could ever play. With BA, it's been about two weeks and I haven't seen one playable single player scenario from a modder. So there's something wrong.

Different games seem to attract more or fewer modders. For example, Empires of Steel at Battlefront is so easy to mod even I've done some. If you understand English you can mod. Even so, there are only a few scenarios, maps and rulesets posted since the game came out last November. The game just doesn't seem to attract modders. Thankfully there is a wonderful random map/scenario generator so it's not a problem.

With BA, when I finish the stock campaigns I will be dependent on modders for future play. Looking at the modding material and seeing comments in threads like this one I'm not optimistic. I really think there needs to be some real changes made. If you'd like some ideas, take a look at Combat Mission 1.

All this is my opinion fwiw.

[delusan]

OK guys ... YOU WIN!

I admit it! ... it was nothing more than a communistic subversive plot for me to suggest that a non-script editing scenario editor would have made it easier for some BA users to create their own scenarios.
I give up! Kamerad!!! It's your company! Do it your way.

Thanks for the support Jugger and Rich12545 - I tried.

End of suggestions.

P.S. I interrupted playing my new Total War Empire battle to post this. (I went with TW Empire instead of Rome).

[pipfromslitherine]

OK guys ... YOU WIN!

I admit it! ... it was nothing more than a communistic subversive plot for me to suggest that a non-script editing scenario editor would have made it easier for some BA users to create their own scenarios.
I give up! Kamerad!!! It's your company! Do it your way.

Thanks for the support Jugger - I tried.

End of suggestions.

P.S. I interrupted playing my new Total War Empire battle to post this. (I went with TW Empire instead of Rome).

- you don't need to touch a script to make a scenario, do don't even need to leave the game.

- a way to extend the editor, thus removing the need to touch scripts even for complex missions, was exactly what I posted.

Every suggestion is useful - keep them up. Mischaracterising every post I make is not.

Cheers

Pip

[delusan]

pipfromslitherine - check out the posts by Rich12545 and Jugger above.

adherbal - it appears that the customers are asking for something.

Question ... shall we get to work on it or try to argue them out of it? The world is watching!

[pipfromslitherine]

Here's my 2 cents. I'm not a programmer. To me scripts might as well be in Greek for all I understand them. I looked and they're a total puzzle. I'm still trying to figure out what a string is. So, as much as I'd like to change a few things, make some infantry heavy scenarios to play, it realistically probably won't happen. In fact I totally agree with Delusan.

I sort of compare BA to Combat Mission 1. For gameplay BA is a dream. I enjoy it much more than CM. But for scenario creation it's a nightmare. For me. With CM, I could go into the random scenario maker, set a few parameters and in a few minutes I'd be playing. Thinking about setting up a scenario in BA gives me a headache. I never made a regular scenario in CM. Even that was more than I could think about. But, for modders, it was so easy it wasn't too much time there were more scenarios around than I could ever play. With BA, it's been about two weeks and I haven't seen one playable single player scenario from a modder. So there's something wrong.

Different games seem to attract more or fewer modders. For example, Empires of Steel at Battlefront is so easy to mod even I've done some. If you understand English you can mod. Even so, there are only a few scenarios, maps and rulesets posted since the game came out last November. The game just doesn't seem to attract modders. Thankfully there is a wonderful random map/scenario generator so it's not a problem.

With BA, when I finish the stock campaigns I will be dependent on modders for future play. Looking at the modding material and seeing comments in threads like this one I'm not optimistic. I really think there needs to be some real changes made. If you'd like some ideas, take a look at Combat Mission 1.

All this is my opinion fwiw.

It's all good feedback, thanks. I think pehaps the depth of what you can do it puttin people off, as it looks as though you have to do it all?

As an online only release thusfar, we're also talking about a very much smaller community at the moment - but we already have a good number of people who have jumped straight into the hard stuff, tweaking the AI, adding complex mission objectives, etc. But I hope it's been clear from our actions that we are committed to improving the docs and the game to help out anyone who wants to try things out.

If you haven't tried out the editor yet, I would recommend you do. Laying out each side's units take just moments, and then you just need to paint on your terrain and objects. For me, the most useful suggestions are of the type "I really want to create X' - then we can look at how it can be done, and whether it's something which could be make easier for everyone.

Cheers

Pip

[pipfromslitherine]

pipfromslitherine - check out the posts by Rich12545 and Jugger above.

adherbal - it appears that the customers are asking for something.

Question ... shall we get to work on it or try to argue them out of it? The world is watching!

Mischaracterised again. My post explicitly states a design to make things simpler and add functionality to the editor, exactly as is being discussed.

[Rosseau]

We would love it if delusan and adherbal would post some of their BA creations, so we could analyze and learn from them. I think only two people have posted scenarios so far, and neither said they could program in C like you guys!

[adherbal]

Look in any of the game's campaign folders for some of my scenarios

I suggest you take a look at this post:
viewtopic.php?t=18289&start=20

It includes a scenario script in the format I used in all the game's scenarios. I tried my best to hide all the more complex script commands and pack them into easier-to-use functions such as "MoveTeam" and "CheckVP" - the first sending AI teams to AI points/destinations, the latter dealing with the entire VP placement and capturing logic. If you really want to dig into the scripting you should take a look at how those functions work in the Functions.BSF script. But for most basic scenario designs you won't ever have to.

[pipfromslitherine]

Adherbal built most of the missions in the game .

Cheers

Pip

[delusan]

You guys are playing games with us. Look at the editors of the games Rich12545 and I have noted ... that's what we're talking about - thats what we're suggesting, and you darn well know it.
And pipfromslitherine - if its so easy to post your new file shuffling "fix" here - why not just stick it into the editor and let the editor do it all.

Thats it. Im finished with this. Let the guys who are having trouble with the "editor" fend for themselves.

Total disgust. Best of luck to you.

[Rosseau]

Thank you, Adherbal. I will use your script in a new scenario and experiment.

Also, I was easily able to create Axis scenarios from scratch. But I see you cannot just throw the Sides and ICONS files in an existing scen and expect it to work. Understandable.

[pipfromslitherine]

You guys are playing games with us. Look at the editors of the games Rich12545 and I have noted ... that's what we're talking about - thats what we're suggesting, and you darn well know it.
And pipfromslitherine - if its so easy to post your new file shuffling "fix" here - why not just stick it into the editor and let the editor do it all.

Thats it. Im finished with this. Let the guys who are having trouble with the "editor" fend for themselves.

Total disgust. Best of luck to you.

It was a design for a new feature that I would build into the game. As was obvious from the post.

[MesaDon]

I have tried creating a battle with the editor. I personally do not like having to go into files and script out the battle, did that with "Secret Weapons over Normandy" some time back and determined I really did not want to do that again. This editor is much more difficult then for instance the one in Field of Glory which I oculd create and then use the FOG multi-player mode to play relatives and friends. I can't do that with BA. I hope taht a middle ground can be found as the creation of even simple battles can be complicated for non-modders or script writers. There has been some added detail supplied the previous week and this helped some but still the terrain tiles and then adding overlays becomes time consuming hopefully another easier way can be found as in FoG. I like the game but the above frustrated me and has made it hard to convince friends and relatives with less computer experiance to buy the game. Otherwise you guys do a good job.

[IainMcNeil]

The point is you dont have to do any scripting. Just lay out units and terrain and you have a map you can fight. The scripting allows you to do much more but you don't have to. It does what FoG does and much more but if you dont want to do more just do what FoG does! It cannot do all the extra stuff without asking you to do more. Its logically impossible!

[MesaDon]

The point is you dont have to do any scripting. Just lay out units and terrain and you have a map you can fight. The scripting allows you to do much more but you don't have to. It does what FoG does and much more but if you dont want to do more just do what FoG does! It cannot do all the extra stuff without asking you to do more. Its logically impossible!

The maps need overlays over tiles two steps instead of the one I have seen in other games. I know that more detail wold need to be scripted but some of thinks could be simplified. Without the download and the templete I couldn't get the Axis side to move. It seemed the Editor was not creating one of the files needed, I have had to use the two files from Pip's Template to get it to work ...... ugh. A nice simple idiots guide would be nice. If I ask real nice and ship bunchs of chocolate to the UK will that help.

[pipfromslitherine]

You would need to give the AI some orders, otherwise they will pretty much just react to enemy units. All units default to team 0, so setting up some orders (probably seek and destroy) will get them off their marks. It's probably true that ideally they would default to that behaviour.

I see what you mean about the overlays - although I'm not sure how to make it simpler, as it's designed to allow overlays to work on any type of terrain. But perhaps there is a way to simplify it.

Thanks for the feedback

Pip

[MesaDon]

what I found frustrating was figuring out rivers for example where you have to place the river tiles and then place the banks having ot rotate etc. Heck while I am on rivers maybe a longer bridge to a two / three piece bridge which brings me to the fun of I placed the water tile, put in banks, and then when I tried to place the bridge that overlaw erased my bank overlay ........ I know you all will figure it all out.

[insidius]

The bridges are placeable objects if I recall and should not delete your overlays.

If you want longer bridges, just place multiple bridges in a row to elongate them.

[jomni]

I have tried creating a battle with the editor. I personally do not like having to go into files and script out the battle, did that with "Secret Weapons over Normandy" some time back and determined I really did not want to do that again. This editor is much more difficult then for instance the one in Field of Glory which I oculd create and then use the FOG multi-player mode to play relatives and friends.

But FOG has a generic gameplay (no objectives what so ever except to kill the enemy) and an AI that does not know to use terrain and forces properly because they are not scripted. Scripting enables the game to have flexibility and an AI tailor made for the scenario.

I guess we're used to old wargames that are easy to mod and create scenarios. Just create a force and put objectives. Scenario making and modding for this game is more in line with how modders do it in the more mass market commercial games of today. But I sure wich it was easier...

[MesaDon]

The bridges are placeable objects if I recall and should not delete your overlays.

If you want longer bridges, just place multiple bridges in a row to elongate them.

All I can say is some multiple bridges look like ..........