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MISSION BUILDING ACADEMY

Basic Operations and Ship Functions in TFW (contd.)

This page is a continuation of the first four lessons of "Basic Operations and Ship Functions in TIE Fighter Workshop." This page is divided up as follows:
Earlier Lessons
Lesson 5 - Mission Objectives
Lesson 6 - In-Mission Messages
Lesson 7 - Global Mission Variables
Lesson 8 - Briefing Questions
Specifications for Missions

Briefing Building

Lesson 5 - Mission Objectives

Up until this point, there has been no way for the mission to actually happen. Sure, you have your different flight groups and they will attack their targets, but the game has no way of determining whether or not the player was successful. If you have noticed, in the flight group properties there is a tab labeled "Win Conditions" (it's the 2nd tab if you have not noticed it). It is here that you assign what significance the flight group in the mission. Now, keep in mind, this is where you assign the SELECTED flight group's significance. If you want a ship to be captured, you set that in the ship that will be captured's properties, not the craft that will be boarding it. This is very easy to get confused so just remember to check the mission goals before you save the mission for testing.

The actual process of setting a victory condition is fairly simple. First, you select one of the quantities on the left (100% of, 50% of, etc.) and then set what they must do before that objective will be counted as complete (For further information on objectives and how to set them to produce complex results, please take the Advanced TIE Fighter course). Please note that these just set the flight group goals, if you would like to set a generic goal, like "100% of Rebel Craft Destroyed", please see the section on Global Mission Variables.

You'll notice that there are four different regions to choose from. The Primary Goals in the normal TIE Fighter game were the ones that were given by the Flight Officer. These are also the goals that determine the success and failure messages displayed (especially in debriefing). Secondary Goals are the goals that were handed out by the Secret Order during the original game. Bonus Goals are goals that reward players for being especially efficient in combat (i.e.-wiping out whole squadrons of enemy fighters, destroying major capital ships, inspecting targets before they're destroyed, etc.). For these you also have to specify the amount of points completing that goal is worth. The section marked "Secret Goal" means that the goal is hidden from the player, however, none of the LucasArts missions that have been examined ever make use of this feature. The "Good Work! Secret mission objectives complete!" messages comes when the BONUS goals are completed.

The mission, as said above, doesn't have any objectives for the flight of TIE Interceptors, so their lives are more or less meaningless at this point. So to give them a purpose, let's set the following objectives:

Set both Rebel victory conditions to "100% must be destroyed" and set the platform to "100% must survive" (if you have problems finding these conditions, scroll up. The default setting is actually in the middle of the available list, not the top)

While this might not be a very complex mission, it now would be flyable by a player. Now that the basic concept of the mission is complete, it's time to add the parts that make the mission more entertaining than just a plain old dogfight. The following lessons allow you to tell a story in the mission rather than just fly and fight.

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Lesson 6 - In-Mission Messages

The In-Mission Messages are the best way to convey the feeling of "being there" to the player. While you cannot add custom voice messages (for a variety of reasons), you can have your own text messages displayed. This is a crucial portion of the mission as a squadron flying without any sort of radio chatter as new targets appear is simply ludicrous. This is also the best way to draw the player's attention to events that they might have missed in the heat of battle. Common examples of this are a friendly capital ship under attack, a new set of hostile craft, encouragement as the player advances towards a drawn-out goal (dozens of fighters to shoot down), or, (as is taught in ITOD Design and Planning) story advancement.

To modify the in-mission messages, you must click the "Messages" tab on the screen (it should be the middle tab). Then click the "New" button to add it in. After it has been added, double-click on the new entry (or highlight and press enter) to bring up the message properties. The Message box is where you type the message. If you have a long message to type, break it up among several staggered messages. It's a good idea to keep the message shorter than the box (TFW will only display in the list box what will be displayed in the mission, but it won't stop you from typing too much). If you want to give the player notice that the message is continued, simply put an ellipsis (...) at the end. The Short Message is not something that you need to be concerned with. The only instances that have been seen is to have TFW display alternate text for the message in the Messages tab.

The message color section is used to denote what color the transmission will apear as. The way you should associate this is that if the message is from a Rebel ship, it's green. Imperial is red and the other colors if it's from a ship of that IFF color (see Lesson 7 for more details on IFF colors). The conditions area of the menu is exactly the same as the objectives, making it very simple to have a message displayed when an objective is completed. If you are going to use messages that are broken up among two or more, make sure that you set the delay for each far enough apart so that the player has time to read them as they appear. If you want a certain part of the text to be highlighted, place brackets (the [ and ] keys) around the text you want to stand out. This is normally flight groups or ship names.

Try to avoid using non-military jargon in the messages as it's beyond the imagination that a highly trained fighter pilot who is a veteran of numerous combat missions would say "DUDE! This kicks butt!" (and we're saying this about people who will readily believe they are flying a fighter in space...it's not like they aren't accomodating enough on realism). Remember, these messages are supposed to represent orders from military organizations, make the messages accordingly (NOTE: This really only applies when flying for the Rebellion or the Empire. Undercover operations where the player flies with pirates and other non-standard units like militia or police could, and probably should, have messages like that as the pirates might not have the discipline and hierarchy of a Regular Navy unit).

Going back to the mission that we're creating, it's time to add in the radio chatter. We will have eight messages in this mission that will be created here. First, click the "New" button until eight "New Message"s are in the box. Then, do the following (all messages will be red):

When all these are completed, your screen should look like this:

Your mission now has a small, but effective, amount of radio chatter. As you add more flight groups to the mission, you should also add more radio messages. This is a good rule to remember, however, do avoid going overboard with this as too many messages makes the mission more of a book than a mission.

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Lesson 7 - Global Mission Variables

Prior to this lesson, the emphasis has been on using the main screen of TFW. In this lesson, we will be concentrating on the menus above that window, mostly in the menu option marked "Mission..."

The first stop after opening this up is one that must be set before a mission can be saved, "Player's Flight Group". To set a flight group as the player's, simply use the list box to get to the appropriate group and then specify which numbered craft the player is in the position region. (obviously, setting this to 0 is not the best idea). If you want him to be the next to last ship in a five ship group, you would set this to 4. The ejection results are really kind of a fluff affair and should be set according to what you think would happen in the mission should the pilot eject. Here, if the pilot's squadron is on the offensive, they should be captured. Naturally, if they're on the defensive, they should be resuced. As with most "rules of thumb," these guidlines can be ignored if you feel that it makes the mission more like you want it to be.

The next section we will look at is the end of mission messages. These are a special set of messages that aren't dependent on individual flight groups. Rather, they are triggered by the completion (and sometimes failure) of certain objectives. The first and third regions are obvious as to their purpose. Fill in a message (shorter than the text box) and that will be displayed when the appropriate objectives are complete. The Primary Mission Failed messages only need to be filled in if there are objectives that cannot be met if certain events occur. These include a target leaving the mission area, a critical installation or ship is destroyed, etc. Do not set these goals if there is no way for a mission to be failed short of the player being shot down.

The IFF Code region is where you can set the names to be associated with the various IFF colors. These names will be displayed in the TFW box rather than "IFF 3" or whatever number. Please note that you cannot change the Rebel or Imperial IFF. This box also prompts a good point. In missions, you'll be designing it from the Rebel standpoint, not the Imperial. Therefore, rather than reversing roles (making Imperials Green and Rebels Red) assign IFF 5 the name "Imperial" and make all the enemy ships that IFF. Leave the rebel ships as they are and try to avoid using the same class of ships on both sides. This way, the mission will look like it's should and will also allow you to keep kills and losses reporting simple.

Next is the Global Goals region. Here is where you can set goals like "100% of all Rebel Ships Destroyed" and other goals that apply more to a side or class of ship than to one flight group. This will keep the exact amount of work to be done secret from the players. However, this is something that must be rigorously tested as sometimes global goals for some reason or another will not work. Make sure you can complete the global goal at least three times before you decide that it can stay.

The last two regions are information that has already been discussed, so their overview here will be cursory. The "View Mission Goals" simply displays all the goals in the mission for the author to examine. Make sure you go over all the goals and ensure they are there and correct. The Mission Map, as mentioned in an earlier lesson, is a useful tool for setting the positions of the ships. To move a point, it is a simple matter of drag-and-drop. TFW will automatically update the unit's navigation table based on where you put the point on the mission map. Keep in mind that there are many different angles viewable in the mission map and that your ships in missions should have all three coordinates (which requires angle shifting or using the table in the flight group's properties). Only points that have been enabled will be displayed (enabled meaning their checkbox in the flight group properties has been checked).

For the mission we are creating, do the following:

After you have completed this, you will have all of the mission itself done. All that remains to complete our simple tutorial mission is to add in a briefing to let the pilot know what they are to do. In the basic course, this will only cover the briefing questions section.

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Lesson 8 - Briefing Questions

The Briefing Questions is the only section on briefings that will be covered on this section as it is the bare minimum to create a viable mission. TFW can edit the briefing map of the mission and make it like the briefings in the LA missions, but that is covered in the advanced course. Note that like the mission messages, you cannot edit the speech files.

The first step is to decide what officer's will give briefings. In the majority of missions for RS, it will only be the Flight Officer (in the TIE Fighter game, the one who wore an Imperial Navy uniform) although there will probably be times when the Secret Order officer should give a briefing as well (undercover missions will usually have this). To set this, click on the "Briefing" menu (in the bar at the top, not the tab) and select "Options." Then use the box to select the appropriate option, but remember that odds are you will have at least one officer present.

Once the officers that will be present have been selected, click on the Briefing menu again and select "Briefing Questions." Here, you select which officer you want and what time these questions will be available (Pre- or Post-mission). In the Post-Mission questions, you can further specify questions displayed when the primary or secondary goals are successful and when they are failed. After all those parameters are set, select which question you wish to edit (one, two, three, etc.) and type your question in the box marked "Question." This is what the player will see displayed. Next, in the big box, type the answer to the question. As with mission messages, enclosing something in brackets (which are the [ and ] keys) will cause it be highlighted green in the game. A good idea is to actually fly the mission before doing the "Are there any special instructions?" question (and you should do one, even if the ITOD is a one-fly mission) so that you can determine what might cause the mission to fail. If you know things ahead of time, feel free to add that in too (This is just to point out that the game is really too random for you to accurately predict what the main problem for the players will be without flying the mission).

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON ANSWERS: The answers editor is what is refered to as a WYSIWYG (said wussy-wig) editor. WYSIWYG means "What You See Is What You Get." In reference to TFW, it means that if any part of the text (even the smallest part of one letter) is beyond the side of the box, TIE Fighter will not display that portion of the text. As there are no automatic returns, you will have to pay careful attention to make sure your text does not run over the end. Pushing return will move down to the next line.

Since the mission we've been working on has been fairly simple and straightforward, we will only need the Flight Officer for the briefing. After you have set this option, add the following questions and answers. The first part is the question and the second (after the / mark) is the answer.

After you have completed this, you will have built a complete (if very simple) mission. You will now have all the tools to tackle bigger and better projects and hopefully attain the status of TIE Fighter ITOD Maker. If you have any comments or suggestions about this course, please email them to PBFCO@rebelsquadrons.org.

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Specifications for missions

The first mission will be scored based on how it conforms to the guidelines listed below. ANY deviation, even improvements, from the mission outline will be scored lower. The two made from scratch missions will be evaluated and scored based on 1) meeting the requirements and 2) the skill for storytelling/realism in the mission. If your score is sufficiently high enough, you will be awarded the TIE Mission Maker Medal.

Mission Built In Courses:

Flight Groups:

Messages:

End of Mission Messages:

Briefing Questions:

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