A few Editor questions...

[ladlon 10]

1) What is the Vehical Lock feature in the Units menu? The manual helpfully says that this is how you set the vehicle lock (...moan). I'm assuming it doesn't mean the DOOR locks... or does it?

2) Am I right in assuming the date of the mission does not result in snow or colour changes?

3) Can you set the time, weather, fog, forecasted weather and fog to be random? (Not meaning continually, but just that the initial settings for each are random)

4) What exactly is 'Info Age'? I don't understand the explanation given. Does it apply to my own team's units as well, or just units other than mine?

5) Embarrassing question: How do you view the settings screen for an existing unit? It seemed to be double clicking on the unit while in Unit mode, but in the case of my existing support helicopter (ambulance), doing do creates another unit. (Man, I REALLY hate all these shared key/mouse commands!!!)

6) Is there a known bug regarding the Friendly Tag feature? I have it set as disabled (edited Recruit mode), yet it always is active, unless I go into the Difficulty settings again, activate it, then deactivate it again. Can difficulty settings be assigned in the Editor as part of the scenario, or is it always the players choice (his own settings)? (I'm trying to get rid of the green/white circle put on friendly/neutral units)

7) Is the only way for me to get in a copter that is currently flying, to tell it to disembark, get in, then get the pilot to get back in? With my other team members, I can select them and point to the copter (flying) and tell them to board, and the copter conveniently comes down (without the pilot going for a cigarette break!) and allows them to board. Is there no such feature if I ALONE want to get in a copter? (Tell it to hover low so I can jump on)

Edited January 18, 2010 by ladlon

[W0lle 182]

1) It locks the vehicle (for human players), simple as that.

2) No

3) Yes there are several scripts around for that

4) Info Age is such a thing that maybe never has been fully explained in all the years. It's purpose is to set how old the information about a placed vehicle/unit is when the mission starts. Like the information about a placed tank is x hours old when mission starts. But what exactly it does I think no one exactly knows. :)

5) Not sure what exactly you mean here.

6) Possible that in the editor preview the difficulty settings are set differently than playing the mission. Not sure if you can force certain settings in a scenario, you can definitely on a dedicated server though (the server settings are set for anyone who joins the game).

[ladlon 10]

@W0lle:

1) Oh, so you mean it just makes it 'undrivable/unenterable', right?

2) Do you mean 'No, it doesn't affect the visual look (snow, leaf colour)', or 'No, I'm wrong in assuming it doesn't'? :)

3) Well, that's good to hear. Where would you actually apply the script? There's no script window in the weather settings window. (Sorry, very new to this whole scripting thing)

4) Ya, I was thinking it would mean the chance of the unit being away from that point, or that spot is not necessarily fully accurate.... but then again, the Placement Radius takes care of that. I guess the difference is this is intended for units actually marked on the map?... Meh, ya, I'm confused. I'll just ignore it....

5) What I mean is how do you 'revisit' the settings window for a unit. Seems to work fine for infantry (double click on them to access the settings), but when I try and do it for the support ambulance helicopter I put on the map, it insists on creating a new unit there, rather than opening the settings window of the existing unit (my helicopter). Maybe the 'hit zone' is in an odd place on the icon of the helicopter? (Again, the shared key/button thing throughout this sim is driving me crazy....)

6) Well, all I know is I can't seem to get rid of the white/green highlight circle put on friendlies and neutrals, despite my Friendlies Tag setting.

[Rayers12 19]

7. The only way to get a choppa to land is to order a disembark whilst ingame. If ineditor, you can use the "land" command in the Init Box.

I primarily use it to GET TO DA CHOPPA!

[W0lle 182]

Exactly, locking a vehicle means that any human player can not enter the vehicle at all.

No means: No changing the date to december doesn't covers the landscape into snow. Changing the date only has an affect on sunrise etc.

You can start such a script in several ways: The easiest would be in the initialization line of the player unit. You also can start it using a trigger or in the init.sqs/sqf file (which you must create first in your mission folder).

You can revisit the parameters of a placed vehicle as well, you just need to place the cursor exactly on it. An indication for hitting the right spot is when the description of the vehicle is shown near the cursor. Especially with helicopters you need some experience to find that spot.

When you play the mission as SP those indicators go away if they are disabled in your profile. They also might go away if you disable the entry in all 4 difficulty options.

[Taurus 20]

Here is the Arma* mission editor article on the wiki.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Mission_Editor

Its really good.

*There's no such article for the arma 2 editor, but hasn't changed much part from the modules so it works.

[ladlon 10]

@Taurus: Yep, was reading that last night. It gives really good definitions of most of the settings (rather than the frustrating 'Axis Filter Unifier = Unifies the axis filter' type explanations in previous manuals/articles I found! It also finally had some of the general keyboard controls, and explanations on mouse interaction.

So, ya, the Editor interface is now quite clear to me... What is still lacking is a simple explanation of the coding syntax itself.

For example, I seem to be able to make triggers (the task name appears in my radio window, and can be selected)... but nothing happens when you do, as I think my coding syntax is wrong or lacking in something. For example, when I radio alpha, I have 'RequestApache=True' in the On Activation field.... and the Apache's first waypoint (Join) has 'RequestApache=True' in the Condition field..... but I have no idea if this is even valid syntax, as I haven't found a basic explanation of Arma2 coding syntax yet, so I'm just doing it based on my own twisted theories. I'm not sure if the variable RequestApache is has a value of 'Nul' or 'False' if nothing is specified at the start... and I even tried setting 'RequestApache=False' in my Player unit's init field... but again, not sure if that's where it's supposed to go, or if the code is even valid.

Are there any introductory coding tutorials? The manuals I've been reading are great for examples of scripting, but seem to assume you know the syntax and WHERE things are supposed to be embedded. Half the time, I'm not sure if the sample code is going into waypoint code fields, or in the external script files (which I still have to figure out).

Sorry for the confusion... I know this will make sense soon.