Scenario Design Live Stream - 1500 BST 28 April 2020

[Rory Noonan]

Come join me today at 1500 BST (That's British Summer Time, UTC +1) to take an in-depth look at scenario design; from creating a simple 1 v 1 ASuW engagement to the production processes behind complex, open ended campaigns.

http://twitch.tv/slitherinegroup

[Rory Noonan]

As promised, attached are the scenario design tools from yesterday's stream [:)]

[tiag]

Very interesting video.

[TitaniumTrout]

ORIGINAL: apache85

As promised, attached are the scenario design tools from yesterday's stream [:)]

The facilities tab looks the most tedious to develop. How did you bring together 1,500 lines of facilities, type, and lat/lon?

Thanks for posting it all, really a great resource.

[Tom Konczal]

I must admit I was disappointed. I was hoping for a demo on how to make a small scenario without LUA scripting the entire thing since I know nothing about LUA scripts at the point. I am a newbie to scenario design.

[Joelsi]

I'm also very interested to know how did you get all those coordinates to the Excel file?

[kevinkins]

Yes, how is the lat/lon info (20 numbers for each unit) placed into the spreadsheet and then transferred into the lua script? That seems key to any time saving. If it is done by hand, how does this save time compared to the old fashioned way of just adding stuff to the map with the mouse? Maybe it's about something other than saving time. Seems making a scenario this way could introduce a lot of errors. Once the map is populated via code, the designer is going to have to check it was populated correctly by direct inspection anyway. If this was covered, I missed it. I like using lua, so this is all very interesting.

Kevin

[Parel803]

Nice, thx

[TitaniumTrout]

ORIGINAL: Joelsi

I'm also very interested to know how did you get all those coordinates to the Excel file?

I did some playing around and one can really make an airbase quick using the Stamen Terrain layer.

After that I exported it as an INST file. With that I imported the json into Excel and voila, I've got a nice table with all my data. For the first time it's slow, but I could see it going very quick. Plus once you've got it it becomes easy to use something like the OOB.xlsm that Apache posted to pack it all up for use.

[Rory Noonan]

For the airbases I think--from memory, this was two years ago--I used an overlay and plopped down the appropriate facilities without any real regard for naming them. Then I used Lua to print the data in csv format to the console:

local sideUnits = VP_GetSide({side='playerside'}).units
for k,v in ipairs (sideUnits) do
local unit = ScenEdit_GetUnit({guid=v.guid})
print(unit.name..','..unit.dbid..','..unit.latitude..','..unit.longitude..','..unit.guid)
end

Copy and paste the output into Excel and use the Data > Columns from Text, or copy into a blank .txt file in Notepad and save as .csv.

From there I renamed things as necessary, e.g. from Runway (2600m) to Your Favourite Airport RWY 09/27 or Hangar (Medium) to Your Favourite Airport Hangar #12. Distinct names really help when you get damage reports, or when you're targetting multiple facilities in a single mission/manual weapon allocation. Using the data entry shortcuts, concatenation and flash-fill features of Excel I can make properly formatted names for dozens of units very, very quickly compared to manually renaming them on placement.

To rename them, I would use the GUID and SetUnit:

listOfUnits = {insert your list of units to change here...
for k,v in ipairs (listOfUnits) do
local unit = ScenEdit_SetUnit({guid=v.guid, newname=v.name})
end

Latitude/Longitude co-ordinates for ships were less elegant. I just picked a spot in the middle of the Pacific (with no land around is the main idea) as my starting Lat/Lon, plopped down a few examples of the classes I wanted to add (one of each), and then exported them to CSV as above. Rather than place each unit of each class individually I flash-filled data like the DBID, then used concatenation to cut down on repetitive data entry for things like the designation and pennant number (there's no point in typing DD 101, DD 102, DD 103.. etc when you can have a spreadsheet do the work!) and joined them to the actual ship name. For lat/lon I think I just changed the number a fraction each time, so long as you're not close to land shouldn't be a problem.

[Rory Noonan]

ORIGINAL: Tom Konczal

I must admit I was disappointed. I was hoping for a demo on how to make a small scenario without LUA scripting the entire thing since I know nothing about LUA scripts at the point. I am a newbie to scenario design.

Sorry to disappoint. The presentation was aimed experienced users and pro users who use Command as part of their day-to-day work.

P Gatcomb has some excellent tutorials you may be interested in.

[Rory Noonan]

And since I wasn't happy with the answer I gave to Kushan's question about KeyValues, here is a YouTube video with a much more in depth explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM8m9ntmBng

[Gunner98]

I've got to re-watch the video and play with your scripts. Looks impressive. I usually do most of what you did either by hand the first time or with export/import to re-create. Nowhere near as slick as your scripts.

Thanks

B

[kevinkins]

For lat/lon I think I just changed the number a fraction each time, so long as you're not close to land shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks, I am starting to understand better. But the ships are not being placed tactically within the context of the scenario. Or are they? The designer will still have to do that by hand. Is that correct?

Kevin

[Gunner98]

The designer will still have to do that by hand. Is that correct?

That is my read of it, just dump them on the map and move them around. I do the same with Export import files - not as slick though.

[kevinkins]

Thanks.

[KnightHawk75]

Caught the Vod, thanks for doing the session, was interesting to see your own process.

[Parel803]

Learned a lot playing with the excel sheets. Modified to use for Refpoints.
Could I also add missions and zones in the same manner.
Newby in it all. Cannot copy it couase I don't understand to much about scripting.
The SE Add lines are different in the latter in the fact that they don't use the word "Side" for example.
Hoping this make sense, with regards