Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

quote:

ORIGINAL: berto


At latest count, over 120 functions in the new Campaign Series (Lua) Event Engine:

So cool, so much more finesse can now be put into scenario design.

For instance, with the Crisis in Sirte scenario "Prelude", what if the Libyan player just decides to vacate Sirte, saving his troops from losses and thus preventing his opponent to gain additional Victory Points for destructing enemy unis? Gamey tactics, even, if Sirte would be such a key port facility to deny the Brits have access to it in later Sirte scenarios.

How about we give him reinforcements, then, should he succesfully hang into Sirte for the first ten turns? Now he'd have a reason to fight tooth and nail to keep the Brits out!

Something like this perhaps?

-- Early stuff, by the way! The CS Event Engine will be worth both Coder and Developer Diaries in due time, just not quite yet --

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Here's the current function set, then:

quote:

ORIGINAL: berto


LUA EE FUNCTIONS

...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

At this stage, I've already got an initial list of ideas I want to try out. Here they are, in no particular order:

I'd like to give both sides a briefing in the beginning as what their key tasks are.

Later perhaps, I'd like to give the players feedback as how they are doing per achieving those tasks.

quote:

"Commander, the Sirte operation is on! \n \n Your first task is to secure the SAM site, west of Sirte, with the SAS teams already there. Once the SAM battery is out of play, the Air assault can proceed immediately. Otherwise, they would need to approach in a more cautious manner, which takes time that we simply do not have. \n \n Good luck, Commander!"

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

And here is how it plays out. I put the new lua file to the \scenarios folder, fire up the game, and what do you know:

I then added the content to this trigger event, the stuff in the red square in the lua code. First I checked if it is turn one, and if it is, if it is Side A ("a", in lua code). If it is, I pop up a message for the Side A player (UK), if not it must be turn one but Side B (Libya), so he gets a briefing of its own. I will not touch the Libyan side for now, more of them later.

So far so good. We have the player briefing. So what is the conditional Air assault the Side A briefing talks about?

If you're familiar with the current Sirte 1. Prelude scenario, there's no events of course. In this new version, as you can see above, I added an SAS team already on ground, behind a ridge to a new Libyan objective, hosting a SAM Radar, Battery, and an understrength guarding unit.

Obviously, the idea would be that the SAS team captures that objective. But first, let us look at other changes to the scenario. The Air Assault troops are now set to arrive in turn 5 as reinforcements. There's other reinforcements there, too. See:





Attachment (1)

_____________________________

Visit us at: Campaign Series Legion
---
CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 <-- Jan 20th, 2022! --
CS: Middle East 1948-1985 2.0

(in reply to Crossroads)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Obviously, the idea would be that the SAS team captures that objective. But first, let us look at other changes to the scenario. The Air Assault troops are now set to arrive in turn 5 as reinforcements. There's other reinforcements there, too. See:

I set each of the Air Assault Regt reinforcements to take place next turn. set_reinforcement_turn() requires two input parameters, first the reinforcement ID (and this I need to know, see the Schedule Dialog above, the Air Assault reinforcement IDs are 1 through 5), and the turn the reinforcements are set to arrive.

As you see on_objective_capture () does not pass me the current turn, so I had to call the current_turn() action to learn about it. I stored the turn information to a local variable, and create another one for next turn # by adding one to it.

A bit more work this time, but here we are! By the way, I use a programmer's text editor that recognizes the lua syntax and color codes it for an easier read. Recommended, get one such as Notepad++ or JEdit, it will ease things up.

As for the Sirte 1. Prelude, as I managed to capture the SAM site on turn one, the air assault will now begin on turn two. Yay!



Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Crossroads -- 6/30/2017 10:19:49 AM >

_____________________________

Visit us at: Campaign Series Legion
---
CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 <-- Jan 20th, 2022! --
CS: Middle East 1948-1985 2.0

(in reply to Crossroads)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

A bit more work this time, but here we are! By the way, I use a programmer's text editor that recognizes the lua syntax and color codes it for an easier read. Recommended, get one such as Notepad++ or JEdit, it will ease things up.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

And I stop here for now.

Just to do this in various ways, I first check if the reinforcement is the Gazelle flight who transports the Airborne Bq HQ (Platoon ID P096524 but omit the P and the leading zero), or if not, if it is the reinforcement set to arrive in hex (66,1), the Lynx leader.

Each case gets its own message to display.

And here we go, from previous screen capture I click the UK turn to finish, click over the Libyan turn, and click the UK turn #2 to begin:

[1] There's the command report informing there's reinforcements (aha!)
[2] Schedule Dialog tells me what to expect - see Air assault reinforcements 1 through 5 are now all arriving on turn 2
[3] I click them to arrive one by one
[4] HQ upon its arrival informs me of my next task as the UK player

From Airborne HQ

quote:

"Commander, Air assault is ON! FYI: once we secure one of the Sirte ports, the first elements of the Landing Force will arrive to aid us! Godspeed!"

[5] Lynx flight informs me they can't reload once they're out of ATGMs.

From Lynx Leader:

quote:

"Lynx Alpha Leader to Sirte CP: Alpha One and Alpha Two are now entering the Sirte airspace. We only have ATGM loads for four missions per flight, use them wisely! Awaiting orders..."

Neat, eh





Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Crossroads -- 6/30/2017 10:20:39 AM >

_____________________________

Visit us at: Campaign Series Legion
---
CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 <-- Jan 20th, 2022! --
CS: Middle East 1948-1985 2.0

(in reply to Crossroads)

quote:

ORIGINAL: casebier

ok so far so good.

opens up all kinds of stuff. never tried using lua and didn't know how anyway.

i play another matrix game (Command) that scenario designers can use lua. really makes for some interesting
situations.

thanks for taking time to explain this.

casebier

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

At this stage, I've already got an initial list of ideas I want to try out. Here they are, in no particular order:

Later perhaps, I'd like to give the players feedback as how they are doing per achieving those tasks.

The Brits paratroopers may be used to being surrounded, too, but I'd like to have their supply situation worsen throughout the game play, for one. Perhaps some other difficulties as well?

Losses might have an effect as well. Lose your commander, and everyone's Morale goes down?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

At this stage, I've already got an initial list of ideas I want to try out. Here they are, in no particular order:

I'd like to give both sides a briefing in the beginning as what their key tasks are.

Later perhaps, I'd like to give the players feedback as how they are doing per achieving those tasks.

I want events too, of course. So how about a few events that can trigger the arrival of reinforcements. Given how things go, they might come sooner, or later. Or not at all.

For instance, I'll add a Libyan SAM site to the coast, and have some British SAS troops there to take it out. Only once its out can the Air assault begin.

The Brits paratroopers may be used to being surrounded, too, but I'd like to have their supply situation worsen throughout the game play, for one. Perhaps some other difficulties as well?

Losses might have an effect as well. Lose your commander, and everyone's Morale goes down?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

At this stage, I've already got an initial list of ideas I want to try out. Here they are, in no particular order:

I'd like to give both sides a briefing in the beginning as what their key tasks are.

Later perhaps, I'd like to give the players feedback as how they are doing per achieving those tasks.

I want events too, of course. So how about a few events that can trigger the arrival of reinforcements. Given how things go, they might come sooner, or later. Or not at all.

For instance, I'll add a Libyan SAM site to the coast, and have some British SAS troops there to take it out. Only once its out can the Air assault begin.

The Brits paratroopers may be used to being surrounded, too, but I'd like to have their supply situation worsen throughout the game play, for one. Perhaps some other difficulties as well?

Losses might have an effect as well. Lose your commander, and everyone's Morale goes down?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

At this stage, I've already got an initial list of ideas I want to try out. Here they are, in no particular order:

I'd like to give both sides a briefing in the beginning as what their key tasks are.

Later perhaps, I'd like to give the players feedback as how they are doing per achieving those tasks.

I want events too, of course. So how about a few events that can trigger the arrival of reinforcements. Given how things go, they might come sooner, or later. Or not at all.

For instance, I'll add a Libyan SAM site to the coast, and have some British SAS troops there to take it out. Only once its out can the Air assault begin.

The Brits paratroopers may be used to being surrounded, too, but I'd like to have their supply situation worsen throughout the game play, for one. Perhaps some other difficulties as well?

Losses might have an effect as well. Lose your commander, and everyone's Morale goes down?

I still need to finish the final to-do item of an event triggered by a unit loss. There's a trigger function already for that too, called on_unit_kill (), which is called by the game engine every time a unit is reduced to 0 strength and removed from map as a total kill.

There's a new version of it coming that I need though, so that will have to wait for the next week.

Meanwhile, any questions or comments let me know!

quote:

I want events too, of course. So how about a few events that can trigger the arrival of reinforcements. Given how things go, they might come sooner, or later. Or not at all.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crossroads


I still need to finish the final to-do item of an event triggered by a unit loss. There's a trigger function already for that too, called on_unit_kill (), which is called by the game engine every time a unit is reduced to 0 strength and removed from map as a total kill.

There's a new version of it coming that I need though, so that will have to wait for the next week.

quote:

ORIGINAL: berto


In today's release, I have added trackid as a parameter to these on_unit_*() functions:

on_unit_kill (x, y, trackid, pid, name, side, nation, oid, orgname, points, strength, HQ, Leader)
on_unit_reinforce (x, y, trackid, pid, name, side, nation, oid, orgname, points, strength, HQ, Leader)
on_unit_release (trackid, pid, name, side, nation, oid, orgname, points, strength, HQ, Leader)
on_unit_remove (x, y, trackid, pid, name, side, nation, oid, orgname, points, strength, HQ, Leader)

If you have used any of those functions in your <scenario>.lua files, you will need to edit in those trackid references.

Sooner or later, I will have to mass edit the scenario placeholder .lua files to do the same (also to introduce the on_startup() function).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Deepstuff123

Really liking the "events" enhancements being worked on. i like to create scenarios, and i can envision how this can take scenario creation to a whole new level.
Will it be fairly easy to edit the messages from HQ for a scenario? I think it would be cool to create a scenario and be able to edit the messages a player will receive depending on triggers and how the scenario unfolds. For example, in Eastern Front III, if the Germans are not doing well in a scenario then messages might say things like "we're falling behind in reaching our objectives. You don't want to disappoint the Furor."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Deepstuff123
In the messages, could it be possible to list the player's name? For instance a player can type in the name they want to use for the scenario, say Major Gerhard Schneider. Then as the scenario is played, the player will see messages referring to him as "Major Schneider" in the scenario.

quote:

ORIGINAL: berto

The Campaign Series Lua Event Engine is now up to 164 functions, and continues to grow in expressiveness and capability.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mheard

Is the Event Engine contained within Middle East Version 2.00? If not, will it arrive as V2.01 or?

Many thanks...

quote:

ORIGINAL: athineos

Thanks for the info. I would like dedicate a little time in the future to learn more about .LUA files as the only programming language I was ever exposed to was COBOL back in college. I have played very little of ME so far. Most of my gaming time goes to JTCS.

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

quote:

ORIGINAL: athineos

Thanks for the info. I would like dedicate a little time in the future to learn more about .LUA files as the only programming language I was ever exposed to was COBOL back in college. I have played very little of ME so far. Most of my gaming time goes to JTCS.

Go ahead, give it a try, start simple, perhaps copy one snippet from a scenario file that already has Events in place, and try it out. I know COBOL too, a special favourite of mine (with emphasis on word special, it is a very unique language). Anyone familiar with Basic, for instance, or Java, or what not in fact, should be able to get into these.

Berto did a great job in abstracting most of the stuff, so typically you'd just need to understand which Event Function you want to be called, and what parameter it takes. Good luck!