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CHAPTER 4 -
DATAPAD This window is the most important,
as it allows you to modify all things relative to flight groups. The window
displays information on the selected FG (btw, you can select several FGs,
modifications done here affect all selected FGs). Ships Page
Here is the core information about the FG; you can change the number of waves, the number of crafts by wave, the type of craft used in this flight group, and its name. Here is displayed for example a flight group of 3 X-Wings, named White (one single wave). You can change also the following pieces of information: Team: there is a maximum of 8 teams in XWA, Team settings determine who is in whose side. Not IFF. All crafts of a team are friendly, crafts from other teams are considered as enemy unless their team has been set up as an allied team. The player must be in team 1, otherwise you can't use hyperbuoys. Player: it should be either 1 for the player flight group, or A.I. for other flight groups. Ship #: determines in which craft of the flight group the player is located Global Group: Global groups are a very useful feature: you can select all the FGs of the same global group at one time for any condition or order target using Global Group; for example, you can put all enemy starfighters in the same GG (let's say GG#3), and order your own fighters to attack Global Group #3: your fighters will then engage any craft of Global Group #3. FGs in a GG can be from the same Team or not. GG is very useful when you want to set up global goals, like for example disabling a group of ships, and making capture teams arrive only when all the crafts from the Global Group have been disabled. Global Unit:
this setting allows you to build "squadrons". All ships of the same GU
are numbered like being part of the same "unit", for example if you
have a first flight of three three crafts and a second one of two crafts, part
of the same GU, the crafts of the first flight will be numerated 1,2 and 3,
those from the second flight 4 and 5. The numeration depends on the arrival time
in the mission, if they come at the same time they are numerated in the order of
the FGs in the FG list. Crafts of a flight group without GU (GU=0) will not be
numerated (crafts of such a 3-XW flight named Green will all appear as "X/W
Green"). You can disable GU Numbering in the registered version, by
unchecking the little mark on the right side of GU. Status: you can set two 'status' conditions for the current flight group. These conditions go from double load of missiles to invincible or other things like shields added (for T/Fs or T/Is, for example). Condition 22 is "No A.I. Ejection" and prevents the FG from launching escape pods (for capital ships) or ejected pilots (for fighters). You may want to use this condition for all FGs if you don't want your mission filled with ejected pilots and escape pods. Another condition is "already identified" (all crafts of your team are already identified), can be useful in ranged battle for enemy capital ships when obviously the ship is known. A.I.: this determines the skills of the AI pilots of the flight group. Remember that XWA Artificial Intelligence is far better than TIE one, Top Ace starfighters can be deadly and Ace capital ships quite impossible to approach. Capital ships should be set with low AI unless you want accurate turbo lasers shot. IFF: determines which color a flight group will appear in the CMD and only that, does NOT determine if a craft is friendly or not unlike in TIE. Color: determines how the ships are colored in the 3D simulation... Radio: determines which FGs can contact each other by radio. You can select contacts by player or team. "Team #1" crafts can receive orders from the player with the "shift" hot keys, "Player #1" crafts can in addition by commanded with the ingame radio menu. In addition, you can assign these crafts voices to have them speak on radio, when you're close from enemy, when they have problems (like your wingmen would speak in radio). This is different from the radio messages displayed, set on the message page. FGs need in addition to be in the same GU as your FG for the voice feature. Form, Spacing: determines the formation and spacing between ships of the flight group. You can preview the formation with the "view form" button (registered version only)...never use "single point", it collapses all ships of the FG together. Missile: you can choose the missiles you want for the flight group there. Counter: same here for the counter-measures. Beam: same here for the beam weapon. Cargo: you can set up here the FG cargo; you can set up a different cargo ("Special") for one of the ships of the FG, either by its ship number or randomly. Region:
the little icons on the left allow you to select in which region the FG begins. Options Page There, you can set up
some options which apply only to a player flight group; you can set up
alternative choices for the type of craft, missiles, beam weapon or
counter-measures. Highlight the appropriate options in this screen; these
options will appear in addition to the already selected devices, so if the FG is
normally equipped with concussion missiles and if you highlight concussion
missiles here, they will appear twice in the list of choices in the hangar. Role Page Tactical Role: when activated, determines the description which will appear in the CMD like "Mission Critical Craft" or "Primary Target"...used also by hyperbuoy to activate or the possibility of hyperspace...the subject will be dealt with later. Pilot voice
(registered version only): used
to name a pilot and assign the appropriate pilot's voice to the FG. This feature
is activated only if the radio setting of this flight group is set to
"Player #1", and if the FG is in the same GU as your FG (or is
your FG). You can put there Aeron, Emon, Emkay and Rebel Pilots 1 to 12 (RP1 to
RP12). This way, you will have this flight group speak on radio, with the chosen
voice, for a variety of tactical messages, like "I'm attacked " and so
on. It's a good idea to use this feature for your own Flight Group or your
wingmen. Arrival/Departure Page There you can set the arrival/departure method ("via"), either by hyperspace or a mothership, and the alternative way if the main method is not possible (for example if the Mothership is destroyed). The arrival/departure is conditioned by several condition strings... How do these strings work ? Each condition string can hold the value true or false; these string are used quite everywhere in the mission editor, either for arrival condition or to set up goals; they are all under the form: (Proportion) of (Type) (identification) (must, must not) (action, state) Proportion can be 100%, 75%, at
least one... etc Some examples: The several condition strings can be combined with the AND/OR options... beware of the Always true/Never true condition strings when using and/or... Things like "Condition#1 AND Never true" are always false, while "Condition #2 OR Always true" is always true, whatever conditions #1 and #2 are. In the registered version, condition strings can be stored into a buffering file ( '+' button) and reused (double click a condition or goal to select from a list already stored conditions). Flight groups with the two first arrival conditions strings set up as "100% of Flight group (1st FG of the list) must always true" will appear in the "mission crafts" list (the one displayed before the animated briefing). This is the default condition string in the registered version. Some features are only available in the registered version, like: - Difficulty
level: you can condition the arrival depending on the
difficulty level, like harder than easy, medium only etc. FG Goals page On this page, you can set up primary, prevent and bonus goals relative to the edited FG. You can set up to 8 FG Goals per FG. a primary goal will use "Must", a bonus goal "BONUS must"/"BONUS must not"...prevent goals can be set up with "must not". For each goal, you can edit manually what will looks like the goal string during the mission (Incomplete/Failed strings are only working for primary goals). You can set up for which team the goal is activated (XWA is single player, so only Team 1, which should be the player's team, is to be used there), and how many points you will get for the completion of the goal. The box under the
"must" selection box is labeled "Active sequence #" in the
registered version; it allows you to create dynamic goals: goals numbered 0 or 1
will appear at the beginning of the mission, when goal numbered 1 are completed,
goals numbered 2 appear etc. This feature is extremely useful, it can be used to
display primary goals one to one, as far as the older ones are reached, rather
than displaying them all at the beginning of the mission (which can be annoying
if you plan to introduce some unexpected event to the player in the middle of
the mission, for example to destroy a CRS which were not supposed to come when
reading the briefing. A little tip, you can label goals the way you want... ). Orders page
Another very important page... this page
allows the edition of the current order selected in the order-region selector.
When editing/adding an order, make sure you edit the one desired.
You have plenty of different orders available; most will need targets, such as "Attack", "Disable", "Board to capture". You can define primary and secondary targets, and you have two strings per type of target; these strings can be combined with the "Link targets" flag. For example, for an "Attack" order, if A is "Team = Rebel" and B is "Ship Type = X-Wings" with the flag on, the current FG will attack Rebel ships which are X-Wings. Without the flag, the FG will go after ships which are Rebels or X-Wings (it acts as a AND/OR operator). Additional information can be asked for, depending on the order; for "hyper to region", you will have to provide the region number where the FG must hyperspace, for "board and capture" you will have to provide the number of docking operations needed and the time of each docking operation. It can be noted that the "Attack" order allows you to select which part of the target must be attacked. The % throttle of the FG for the current order can be edited as well, and in the registered version you can even specify a custom speed when throttle is set to 100% (and make funny things like cruisers flying at 150 MGLT :P). The registered version allows you to change the original CMD description for that order.
Important note: orders beginning with SS are intended for Starships
only. Don't use "Attack" orders with capital ships, and don't use
"SS Patrol and disable" orders with starfighters for example; you
would see weird things like cruisers chasing you like starfighters :P Jump Page There, you can
specify conditions for the FG to jump directly to the current order selected.
Can be useful if you want to change the orders of a FG upon a particular event.
Anyway, the use of jump conditions may not work sometimes, depending on the
orders used. Global Goals Page This screen allows you to set up global goals, with four goal strings for each type of goal (primary, secondary, prevent). You can set up an amount of points for the completion of these global goals as a whole too. They can be used for dynamic goal sequences in the registered version. text strings are available for display/completion/failure of each goal string. Introduction
- AlliED Interface - Mission
Making - FAQs |
