This post is just for the brand new editor users, it's real basic stuff, just to get anyone interested started. If you've ever used the editor in AA, VBS1, or OFP, then you already know all this basic stuff and probably more.

Again, this is just the basics, if you want to make good or even great missions, then learn the basics then practice, experiment, and learn triggers and scripts.

I am also new at the editor, I have used the OFP and this editor to simply test new add-ons and stuff, but have never made a complete mission...yet. (So we learn together.)

And yes, this information comes from the game manual, back few pages. Just edited for clarity and ease of use.

and BTW... you just may be interested in learning the editor for other reasons, more on that later.



Start your game, click on the play icon, then the editor icon.


"The in-game mission editor is an extremely powerful tool, allowing you to create your own scenarios for both single player and multiplayer game modes."

Select an island



When you select editor from the play menu, you will first be asked for the island you would like to set your mission on. There is currently two maps to choose from Sahrani and Rahmadi. Simply select the island you want to use and hit OK. This will take you to the editor interface screen.



There are several tools that help you make and develop your mission, all accessed by the function keys or using the toolbox in the menu on the right side of the screen:

F1: Units
F2: Groups
F3: Triggers
F4: Waypoints
F5: Synchronize
F6: Markers

Placing units and groups

Units are the primary elements of most missions and you can insert them by pressing F1 and double clicking somewhere on the map. In the pop-up window that appears, you can set a large number of properties for the unit you are about to insert, such as its side, type, health status and azimuth.

You can move units by pressing and holding on them with the left mouse and dragging them to the desired location. Rotating is done by holding your left shift key and moving the mouse until you reach the correct angle.


If you need to place a number of units, typically belonging together, at the same time, you can press F2 and insert a group in much the same way as you used for units. After you place a group you’ll notice that you in fact placed a collection of individual units which are linked together by blue links. You can manually create and remove such links in Group mode as well. This is best for inserting squads or teams of units.




Now realize that when placing units, you have an option to keep them AI controlled, by clicking "not playable", or where any human can pick that slot, mostly for MP games, by selecting "playable", or you can force the player into a role by selecting "player controlled".


Assigning units waypoints

Your unit will be a completely sentient AI being within the game world and it will react to nearby events. Most likely however, you will want the units to move about. This can be achieved with waypoints.

The different types of waypoints are:

Move-move to this location
Destroy-move to the target location and destroy whatever the waypoint is placed on.
Get in-try to board the vehicle this waypoint is attached to or, if synchronized with a vehicle’s waypoint, the vehicle will stop and wait to be boarded.
Seek and destroy- move to this location and start actively searching for enemies.
Join-synchronize this waypoint with another group’s waypoint to join the two.
Join and lead- same as above but now become the leader of the joined group.
Get out- get out of the vehicle.
Cycle- used to create a loop of waypoints.
Load- wait for others to board as cargo.
Unload- wait for everyone to exit the vehicle.
Transport unload-wait for passengers who are not in the same group to unload.
Hold- unit or group will stay at this hold position.
Sentry- hold position till an enemy is detected in the area.
Guard- find a guarded by trigger and protect this area.
Talk- speak a sentence from the effects waypoint.
Scripted- executes a sentence from the script file assigned to waypoint.
Support- wait for another unit to call for support.
Get in nearest- board into any vehicle nearest a waypoint.
Dismissed- units are roaming around this waypoint until enemies detected.











Waypoint synchronization

You can synchronize the waypoints of two different groups by pressing F5 and dragging a link between two of the groups waypoints. Both groups will stop and wait till both waypoints are synchronized.





Creating a patrolling unit

Patrols are very common in military operations, and therefore modeled in game. You can create a patrolling unit in Armed Assault with the cycle waypoint tool.
1. Place a move waypoint at a certain point, we will call A.
2. Place a cycle waypoint at the unit’s original position, which is his first real waypoint.








Simple Triggers:

Triggers are used to set up game play and actions in a mission. Triggers detect what occurs in the game world then reacts in a set way on those occurrences.

Presence detection
A common thing to do with triggers is to detect the presence or absence of units. To do this first place a trigger at the position where you would like to detect a presence, adjust the size of the detection zone using the axis settings.
The activation combo box will let you select what side you want to detect/listen for. Pick a side, or pick anyone.
Next you choose whether you want to check for a presence or an absence. This is done with the option settings in the toolbox.




Mission ending
All missions need to end, the mission ending trigger lets you set that up. You do this by using the type property in the combo box, you can select one of seven endings included.




Intel

To tweak the mission name, description, time of day, and weather you can click on the Intel button in the top left corner of the editor. You’ll find four different types of weather sliders.



Markers

Insert markers to identify parts of the map, or staging areas for your units, these markers can appear on the players map in game.





Texture view

Click the texture button to view the terrain for more tactical unit placements.



Mission Management

Loading
After you select your island, you can click load to load up any mission you have saved for that island.

Merging
This lets you merge two missions into one, use a different name and the original missions will not be affected.

Saving
There are four options to save your mission. Always save it as a user mission file so you can re-load and edit it later if you find a problem.
You can also export it as a completed single player mission and export it as a multiplayer mission.
Finally you can compress and e-mail it to your fans.




Playing the mission

Click preview to test your mission, just make sure you are marked as one of the players first. Then change it back to playable, if there will be other options in the final.






The basics... feel free to add your comments and suggestions for your fellow editor wanna bes, like me.

probably should of made a video of it instead with narration, lol, maybe later.

Very good Magnum. If ya make a video, submit it to OFPEC.

I think when I started editing in OFP, I had to go thru about 4 different tutorials to get what you just presented. The screenies help alot.

I am gonna try to make us a couple of MP Missions, with a big enough squad that we can all join in on one team. I might try and mod that horribly hard capture the town one we got creamed in. I've only made single player missions in OFP. I'll try to have something good for next monday night.

A little arty prep would be nice.....then an airstrike.

does anyone know how to have respawns for multiplayer missions i create in the editor

when you place the units on the map make the ones you want to be able to spawn to "playable". then in your mission folder you need a file named description.ext where you can specify the type of respawn.

read this page at the bistudio wiki about the description.ext file.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Description.ext

mate, this has to be the best intro to mission making I've ever seen. Thank you.

I think the stickum on this sticky is defective.

I think I can add something to this little Mission Building Primer.

Adding some Variance or Randomness to your missions

First we are gonna make a simple patrol around an airfield an Airfield you have to sabotage or attack. You know, the ones where you play the mission once or twice and you know where the patrols are gonna be???

Let's fix that.

First off we are gonna make a patrol leader. If you don't know how then you are skimming and need to go back and look at the basics.



I've named him patrol1 and the only other thing I have changed is the Probability of Presence. I moved the slider left, that setting corresponds with a 63% chance that the leader of the Patrol will be there at the start of the mission.

Now we make his team members



He's gotta have his Corporal so will give this guy a 100% Probability of Presence. He'll be there BUT only if the Patrol Leader, patrol1, is alive. The Condition of Presence, which is normally true, has been changed to alive patrol1. This means that if patrol1 doesn't meet the "roll of the dice" and isn't present, than neither will his Corporal be present, or any team members with alive patrol1 as the Condition of Presence.

You should do the same do the same with all the patrol members, adjust the Probability of Presence as you see fit. Want a 10 man patrol for sure? Then Don't put in any conditions and leave the Probability of Presence at 100%. Lots of variations possible here. Want a 50/50 chance there is an AA soldier in the patrol? Easy, adjust the slider for that unit.

A Caveat here, once you change the Condition of Presence in a unit, the next unit to make is gonna have the same thing. Cool if you are adding to that team, not cool if you forget and populate a mission with a hundred guys with that same Condition of Presence, unless you want it that way, of course. Same goes for all the sliders in a unit box.

Random waypoints

It's possible to make them really random with scripts, but I am trying keep this just basic. You can still introduce some Randomness fairly easily.

Let's make the Patrols (patrol1) first waypoint.



I only have the leader and the corporal on the map, K.I.S.S.




Ok Nixer, what's so random about that?? lol nothing so far. But wait...those are chicks on the beach! And like good soldiers everywhere, they are gonna check em out. Let's edit that waypoint by clicking on it.



Ok, what we've done is set the Patrols Behaviour, Speed, Combat mode and Formation. We have also put some numbers (in seconds BTW) in the Timeout boxes. The Patrol will check out the chicks for a minimum of 60 seconds, a maximum of 180 seconds or a median time of 120 seconds. Some amount of time between 1 minute and 3 minutes. Cool huh??

Ok so the chicks are kinda ugly......

Now, the slackers move out again. To where?? Lets add a little randomness by changing the Wapoints Placement radius, from 0 to 100m. This means that the patrols next waypoint will be randomly chosen some where in that 100 meter circle.




So...with just waypoints you add some replayability and a random element using


1. The Timeout Boxes

2. The Placement Radius



Couple that with and Unknown amount of patrols, of unknown composition, and the next time you play that mission, you might just be in for a surprise.

I hope this helps somebody. I discovered it awhile back thru trial and error. Lots of errors.

great add in...I un-stuck it because i thought old news by now and no additional input, but will stick it again for a while longer.

Thanks Magnum. Our discussing the Beach Assult mission made me think of it.

A little random movement, placement and composition of forces goes a long way in improving replayability.

These tut's are a lot of work.

And mine was simple.

Top notch tutorials guys! The screenies add a lot. As soon as I get tired of shooting at people in this game I plan on trying my hand at some simple missions.

I for one would love to see this stickied forever, I'm still in the basics but this was one of the best resources I've found. Currently I'm running into undiscovered territory with each addition in the editor I make. Right now(kinda got the hang of triggers,switch is your friend)I can't seem to add a playable EMPTY RHIB that I can drive and put others in.
Regards.

Disregard the last part about the empty vehicles, I got it.

How did you do it Picstr? I was trying to make a mission where I could just put empty aircraft in and fly them around but I couldn't figure out how to make them empty.

Hey Biff, actually its mind numbingly easy, Make sure you create your player character first, then when you make your 2nd unit you'll have the empty command available in the side catagory.
Hope that is understandable.
Regards.

BUMP - for new U.S. players

Thank you very very much!!

Arma Editing Tutorial

Infantry as Passengers in Vehicles and Helicopters

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm posting this from work (and from memory).


SIMPLE METHOD

Suitable for any armed ground vehicle such as a M113, Humvee with gun, BMP-2 etc. The vehicle will stay with the infantry. Not really suitable for helicopters or unarmed vehicles.


1. Place an infantry group.

2. Place a vehicle with enough *passenger* spaces to hold the group.

3. Use the F2 Group command and drag a line between the vehicle and the infantry. This makes the vehicle part of the infantry group.

4. Place a LOAD waypoint near the starting point.

5. Place an UNLOAD waypoint near the target.

6. The infantry will get into the vehicle near the start and get out near the target. The vehicle will then remain with the infantry as they manoeuvre and will use its weapon to cover them.


INTERMEDIATE METHOD

Suitable for any ground vehicle or helicopter, because the vehicle/helo can act independently afterwards and thereby retire to safety or whatever. I also use this method where I want the transporting vehicle to take up an overwatch position rather than accompany the infantry right onto the objective.

1. Place an infantry group.

2. Place a separate vehicle with enough *passenger* spaces to hold the group.

3. If it is a helicopter, set it "Flying" rather than "in formation".

3. Do NOT group them together. Ungroup if necessary.

4. Near the start place a GET IN waypoint for the infantry.

5. Right next to that place a LOAD waypoint for the vehicle. If it is a helo then place an "invisible H" (see Empty>Objects) under the LOAD waypoint to get it to land where you want.

6. Draw a "synchronise" line between the GET IN and LOAD waypoints.

7. Place any intermediate journey (MOVE) waypoints for the helo/vehicle.

8. Near the target place a GET OUT waypoint for the infantry group. This should be the next waypoint after the GET IN.

9. Next to it, place a TRANSPORT UNLOAD (not UNLOAD) waypoint for the vehicle/helo. Again, place an "invisible H" where the helo should land.

10. Synchronise the GET OUT and TRANSPORT UNLOAD waypoints.

11. The infantry can now have further waypoints for their mission and the vehicle can go off and do its thing or retire to a place of safety (trucks, MH-6, Humvee etc).



ADVANCED

This method is used where you want the infantry already loaded in the vehicle/helo at the start of the mission. This is especially useful if they are starting off island in a boat or helo. It is also useful for ambush scenarios - "we were driving along when ..."

1. Place a vehicle or helo. Let's use a BMP-2.

2. In the name box, call it bmp2. Dead imaginative, I know.

3. Place an infantry group.

4. In the init field of each (!) soldier write: this moveincargo bmp2

5. Place any intermediate journey (MOVE) waypoints for the helo/vehicle.

6. Near the target place a GET OUT waypoint for the infantry group.

7. Next to it, place a TRANSPORT UNLOAD (not UNLOAD) waypoint for the vehicle/helo. Again, place an "invisible H" where the helo should land.

8. Synchronise the GET OUT and TRANSPORT UNLOAD waypoints.

9. The infantry can now have further waypoints for their mission and the vehicle can go off and do its thing or retire to a place of safety (trucks, MH-6, Humvee etc).

YOUTUBE editor tutorial - triggers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojDSZczYvF8