Equipment\FX\Campaign Editor - New version 0.9.0

[mgarnett]

Hi Mark. The campaign tree displays perfectly. I can see how to add new entries but how do you edit existing campaign scenario details?

[Edit:] Uh-ha - right-click, edit. Would a button be a good idea?

Yeah, I was being a little lazy!! Another lazy design choice is the flag/nation help screen which doesn't dynamically resize and has a hard maximum number of nations it can display.

I'll definately redesign these going forward and make them look and feel much better. I'm adding double-clicking, so that you can you can double click on entry to edit it rather than having to right click but I think an edit button is also a very good idea and I'll add that as well. Getting the scenario pathing/route code to work was a real pain so I'm glad it's working now. There's also a couple of help buttons in the campaign entry pont edit box that don't do anything yet so I'll be fixing these up as well.

I know I need to re-design the method by which scenarios are deleted, but I'll get to that shortly as well. I wanted to get this version out as soon as I could so it could be tested by the mod community.

Cheers

Mark

[mgarnett]

Hi Mark. The campaign tree displays perfectly. I can see how to add new entries but how do you edit existing campaign scenario details?

[Edit:] Uh-ha - right-click, edit. Would a button be a good idea?

One day - my dream is that a button (the label next to the briefing file name?) will open the briefing file in a text editor of my choice.

Great work, as usual. Cheers.

That's certainly doable, what files are the scenario briefings kept in?

[mgarnett]

Hi All,

A new version has been uploaded giving you the ability to open and edit scenario briefings (for details see the release notes).

Cheers

Mark

[Xerkis]

In the campaign editor; what is the column “label in campaign path” in the top half of the window?
And how does this relate to “ID” in the bottom half? I was at first under the impression it would have been the link.

[mgarnett]

In the campaign editor; what is the column “label in campaign path” in the top half of the window?
And how does this relate to “ID” in the bottom half? I was at first under the impression it would have been the link.

Hi Xerkis,

The "label in campaign path" refers to the line number in the campaign database file and refers to the starting scenario, or entry point, for your campaign. This is how the game finds your starting scenario for your campaign and from there you can follow the chain through to your end scenarios by looking at the "Next Label" values for DV, MV and loss conditions. The ID column in the scenario list is something I'm using for debugging purposes at the moment is a zero based index which will correspond the actual line number if you add one to it.

For example, if the "label in campaign path" says your starting scenario is at line 15, then the first scenario in the bottom scenario list with have an ID of 14.

This is why if you delete a scenario from the list, those campaigns that have an entry point AFTER the deleted scenario have their "label in campaign path" values automatically reduced by one, otherwise they would be pointing to an incorrect line number, or starting scenario. For example, if you deleted a scenario at line 15, then the scenario that was at line 20, would now be at line 19 and so if this scenario is an entry point, then the label in campaign path would now need to point to line 19 and not line 20. This all makes my head hurt by the way!

The game only refers to your starting campaign scenario by line number (label in campaign path) and not by name unfortunately.

I hope this helps

Cheers

Mark

[Xerkis]

In the campaign editor; what is the column “label in campaign path” in the top half of the window?
And how does this relate to “ID” in the bottom half? I was at first under the impression it would have been the link.

Hi Xerkis,

The "label in campaign path" refers to the line number in the campaign database file and refers to the starting scenario, or entry point, for your campaign. This is how the game finds your starting scenario for your campaign and from there you can follow the chain through to your end scenarios by looking at the "Next Label" values for DV, MV and loss conditions. The ID column in the scenario list is something I'm using for debugging purposes at the moment is a zero based index which will correspond the actual line number if you add one to it.

For example, if the "label in campaign path" says your starting scenario is at line 15, then the first scenario in the bottom scenario list with have an ID of 14.

This is why if you delete a scenario from the list, those campaigns that have an entry point AFTER the deleted scenario have their "label in campaign path" values automatically reduced by one, otherwise they would be pointing to an incorrect line number, or starting scenario. For example, if you deleted a scenario at line 15, then the scenario that was at line 20, would now be at line 19 and so if this scenario is an entry point, then the label in campaign path would now need to point to line 19 and not line 20. This all makes my head hurt by the way!

The game only refers to your starting campaign scenario by line number (label in campaign path) and not by name unfortunately.

I hope this helps

Cheers

Mark

I’m following you – and my head always hurts; so I’m good there.


Just wanted to make sure because what you described is what I was seeing. But I was thinking that the “label in the campaign path” and the ID was supposed to be the same and it obviously isn’t (by what you described) so I was a bit concerned.

… And by the way; this is getting to be way past a “nice little utility” you have going here. I usually have it open when I am playing the game too. So that way I can quickly compare stats.
Thanks again for all your work.

[mgarnett]

Thanks!

One other user here has given me a great idea to incorporate the scenario briefings (general, MV, DV and loss briefings) into the scenario edit dialog in the campaign module. That way you can not only see and edit your scenario details, but all of your briefings as well, so that's what is being worked on at the moment.

Once I've got these features in, I'll look at fixing up some of my lazy design choices (especially the flag help dialog which looks really quick and dirty).

Cheers

Mark

[Sigil23]

i have a question concerning the editor. I changed some unit stats with it but somehow they don't show up ingame so i must have made an error somewhere in the process. I opened the equipment file, selected the graphics folder, entered new data, selected commit unit and then save equipment file. Where did i go wrong ?

thanks in advance

[mgarnett]

i have a question concerning the editor. I changed some unit stats with it but somehow they don't show up ingame so i must have made an error somewhere in the process. I opened the equipment file, selected the graphics folder, entered new data, selected commit unit and then save equipment file. Where did i go wrong ?

thanks in advance

Did you then copy your newly saved equipment file into your game data folder? If you didn't then the game will still be using the original equipment file rather than the new one you just created.

Cheers

Mark

[Sigil23]

i have a question concerning the editor. I changed some unit stats with it but somehow they don't show up ingame so i must have made an error somewhere in the process. I opened the equipment file, selected the graphics folder, entered new data, selected commit unit and then save equipment file. Where did i go wrong ?

thanks in advance

Did you then copy your newly saved equipment file into your game data folder? If you didn't then the game will still be using the original equipment file rather than the new one you just created.

Cheers

Mark

Uhm...no, wasn't aware of this. Where is this newly saved equipment file to be found ? Is it also called equipment.pzeqp ? This slightly confuses me for when i open the editor again and open the equipment file of the game i do see the changes i've made, they just don't show up in the game. Anyway, thanks a lot for your reply, your help is much appreciated.

[mgarnett]

i have a question concerning the editor. I changed some unit stats with it but somehow they don't show up ingame so i must have made an error somewhere in the process. I opened the equipment file, selected the graphics folder, entered new data, selected commit unit and then save equipment file. Where did i go wrong ?

thanks in advance

Did you then copy your newly saved equipment file into your game data folder? If you didn't then the game will still be using the original equipment file rather than the new one you just created.

Cheers

Mark

Uhm...no, wasn't aware of this. Where is this newly saved equipment file to be found ? Is it also called equipment.pzeqp ? This slightly confuses me for when i open the editor again and open the equipment file of the game i do see the changes i've made, they just don't show up in the game. Anyway, thanks a lot for your reply, your help is much appreciated.

At the bottom of the equipment editor dialog form, you will see a button called "Save". When you have finished making the changes to the equipment file, you need to click the button. When you do that, a standard Windows dialog will pop up asking you where you want to save your new equipment file. Now, you can choose to save this anywhere, either to a seperate location or over the top of your current equipment file which is stored in the "Data" directory in the folder where you installed the game. If you want to use your new equipment in a game, you will need to put your new file in this directory by "dragging and dropping" it into the "Data" folder, or saving it over the top of your old file when you click the "Save" button.

Think of it as editing a document with Microsoft Word and then saving the document using the "Save As" command, it's the same process.

Most people make a backup of their original equipment file before using a new equipment file, because if you make some mistakes you can always revert to the default installed file my simply copying it back into the game directory. This is also the reason why no edits are made to your original file by the editor, if you make a mistake, its very hard hard to undo the mistake, so make a backup of the equipment file first.

If you are still having trouble please drop me an email using the email address in the "About" box and I'll take a series of screenshots to walk you through the process.

Cheers

Mark

[mgarnett]

Hi All,

A new version has now been uploaded.

Cheers

Mark

[Xerkis]

I just downloaded the Spanish Civil War mod by Rezaf. When I try to load the e-file I get an “Index was outside the bounds of the array” error. Not sure if it’s the e-file or the editor (6.0) that is the issue.

I’ll post the details of the error if you are not able to recreate it – it’s a bit long.

[mgarnett]

I just downloaded the Spanish Civil War mod by Rezaf. When I try to load the e-file I get an “Index was outside the bounds of the array” error. Not sure if it’s the e-file or the editor (6.0) that is the issue.

I’ll post the details of the error if you are not able to recreate it – it’s a bit long.

Which file are you trying to edit, equipment, efx or campaign? If you could email me a copy of the file that's causing you troubles I can have a look at it for you.

Cheers

Mark

[rezaf]

mgarnett: To try to avoid collisions with other equipment mods, I set the unit ids to start at 10000 for the spanish units ... maybe that's the problem?
_____
rezaf

[mgarnett]

mgarnett: To try to avoid collisions with other equipment mods, I set the unit ids to start at 10000 for the spanish units ... maybe that's the problem?
_____
rezaf

I found the bug, the loading code didn't cope with variable length lines in the equipment file very well, so I added in some additional error checking and now your equipment mod file loads fine.

I've uploaded a new version fixing the bug.

Cheers

Mark

[Xerkis]

mgarnett: To try to avoid collisions with other equipment mods, I set the unit ids to start at 10000 for the spanish units ... maybe that's the problem?
_____
rezaf

I found the bug, the loading code didn't cope with variable length lines in the equipment file very well, so I added in some additional error checking and now your equipment mod file loads fine.

I've uploaded a new version fixing the bug.

Cheers

Mark

That did it.
Thanks for your quick work

[Xerkis]

yeah it's me again


Using the campaign editor from scratch for a new campaign.
* Added the campaign on the top part. Didn’t seem like any issues there.
* Went to add the first scenario entry on the bottom part. Got an error, but allowed me to keep going. It was a security error to the C-drive. No idea why that would have been an issue.
* Then I made my entry for the first scenario and saved everything.
*I checked the file through Excel to see what it did (because of the error) and it seem to make the entries that I wanted – but my new scenario entry is the first one on the list. I think it should be the bottom one, because now all the other entries are pushed down out of place.

[mgarnett]

Hmm, that security error is strange, it doesn't actually write anything to drive until you save and it seemed that the file was already loaded......I'll have a look to see if I can track that down.

Also, I'll have a look through the second issue tonight when I get home to see whether it's a problem caused by the security issue, or whether I am just doing something out of order.

Cheers

Mark

yeah it's me again


Using the campaign editor from scratch for a new campaign.
* Added the campaign on the top part. Didn’t seem like any issues there.
* Went to add the first scenario entry on the bottom part. Got an error, but allowed me to keep going. It was a security error to the C-drive. No idea why that would have been an issue.
* Then I made my entry for the first scenario and saved everything.
*I checked the file through Excel to see what it did (because of the error) and it seem to make the entries that I wanted – but my new scenario entry is the first one on the list. I think it should be the bottom one, because now all the other entries are pushed down out of place.

[mgarnett]

I've uploaded a new version which fixes the scenario ordering issue, but I'm still not sure what is causing that security warning.

yeah it's me again


Using the campaign editor from scratch for a new campaign.
* Added the campaign on the top part. Didn’t seem like any issues there.
* Went to add the first scenario entry on the bottom part. Got an error, but allowed me to keep going. It was a security error to the C-drive. No idea why that would have been an issue.
* Then I made my entry for the first scenario and saved everything.
*I checked the file through Excel to see what it did (because of the error) and it seem to make the entries that I wanted – but my new scenario entry is the first one on the list. I think it should be the bottom one, because now all the other entries are pushed down out of place.