Starting out help please?

[MasterChief]

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a recruit when it comes to scenario design. I'm interesting in setting up a couple simple scenarios to get the hang of it. How do you start? Is there a step by step on how to set one up? How do you pull up the map area you want? Waht are the other basics. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

[hermanhum]

Take a look at the Harpoon 3 online manual at the Wiki here. It lists the procedures for creating maps and some basic uses for the Scenario Editor.

Personally, if you want to see how the Scenario Editor [SE] runs and what it can do, I suggest that you take a pre-existing scenario and run it in the SE and play around with the various functions to see how they operate.

After getting comfortable with operations, you might try inserting some units, making some missions, etc. in a nice controlled and established test environment. Drawing maps and other functions are dead easy once you get started.

There are a number of different sites around the web that can help you out with Scen Design

StrategyZoneOnline

ScenShare

HarpGamer

HarpoonHq

all have sections dedicated to helping scenario design.

Ask a question on Matrix or any of these sites and you are GUARANTEED an answer.

Welcome aboard, shipmate! [8D]

[MasterChief]

Thanks hermanhum,
 
This will obviously take awhile to get used to.  Got the map idea down... you have to define longitude and latitiude parameters.  Adding units for one side is going ok but adding units for both sides and editing units is kicking my but though.  Guess I'll keep playing with it.

[hermanhum]

Guys are eager to help you. If it's one thing that the Harpoon community is known for, it's a surfeit of opinions.

However, some things are easy to figure out if you just do a bit of experimentation. It will probably be faster than the time it takes you to post a question and receive a reply. [:)]

However, don't hesitate to ask if you just can't figure it out. We all want to see new designers and have new scenarios to play. Personally, there is no such thing as a 'bad' scenario. [:)]

Now, if you are trying to figure out how some designers create mission orders, you might want to take a look at some of these scenarios:

Remain Calm - Sandstorm with the PlayersDB

Matchplay #4 - Battle of Britain II with the PlayersDB

Because Freek Schepers and I work closely on scenario design, we tend to try and write missions as clearly as possible with the expectation that someone else is going to have to try and decipher our intentions. So, we pack as much information into our Mission Names as possible and not use the generic names created by the game (i.e. Green Thunder).

This is NOT to say that these two examples are good / bad scenarios, they are only meant as samples so that you may see how we layer missions, delay them, coordinate, position, etc.

Klaus Behrmann has also taken pains to put detail into his orders in these two examples:

Kola with the DB2k

The Battle for Western Europe with the DB2k

The detailed orders are for the Europe_R.SCN, IIRC.

Take a rummage through them and see if you can follow the designers' train of thought. [8D]

[hermanhum]

Now, there is a big question that I obviously overlooked.
[blockquote]Which version of the Scenario Editor are you using? 
Are you using the Harpoon3 v3.6.3 version? 
Or the Harpoon3-ANW version of ScenEdit?
[/blockquote] This is not to recommend one over another.  This is simply meant to point out that if you design a scenario with the SE v3.6.3, it can be played in either Harpoon v3.6.3 or ANW.  However, if you use the ANW SE to design a scenario, only owners of ANW will be able to play it. 

[rsharp@advancedgamin]

Hi MasterChief,

Many good points and resources have been posted but I will add that if you intend for a scenario to be played with H3 ANW, then you should use the H3 ANW Scenario Editor. Any other combination is not only not supported by Matrix or AGSI but has several known issues such as Victory Conditions inconsistencies.

Regards,

Russell Sharp
Advanced Gaming Systems, Inc.

[mikmykWS]

Sorry Rusty but for now we got to maintain scenarios for both games as we've got to support both 3.6. and 3.7 users (the 3.6 scenedit files work on both for the most part). No expectation for AGSI or Matrix to support that really...its our problem. However why not fix those VC's so the files work? Seems like having hundreds of working scenarios is better then hundreds of not working scenarios. Thank you.