C&C 95/Tiberian Dawn Mission scripting tutorials

[MattAttack]

I remember waaay back in the 90's downloading ccmap.  I had such big ideas for missions, but didn't even know where to start with the scripting.  I read the old version of what became ccmanual.txt and it all seemed like greek to me.  Of course since then, I'm no longer an impatient teenager and I've become fairly proficient at the scripting process.  Although I've made 30 or so missions, there's still stuff that throws me for a loop!  Anyway, I figured I wouldn't keep all this useless information I've learned to myself, so I made some vids:

C&C 95 mission scripting tutorial playlist

[Nyerguds]

Great stuff

[MattAttack]

Hey thanks, I appreciate your help!  btw I attached 2 maps illustrating what we were talking about regarding the "Production" trigger.  Both have all 10 houses.  The first utilizes the "Time" trigger to stagger each houses' production.  They start every 10 time units. i.e. Badguy starts at 10, multi1 at 20 etc.  Apparently "Production" doesn't work on Neutral.  That was news to me.  The second utilizes celltriggers.  Goodguy entering the celltrigger only engages Badguy "Production." I even made a bunch of different cell triggers to see if that would change anything.  Working on Kilk's map, however, I found that "discovered" is a good substitute....  I hope that all makes sense.....

 

production_tests.zip

[cn2mc]

Neutral can't build at all, I think. If you capture a neutral CY you get no construction options, even though it will speed up your production if you have a 'sided' CY.

[Kilkakon]

Neutral can't build, although other factions can build Neutral's things if they capture a Neutral construction yard.

 

Also, nice work on making some vids Matt

[MattAttack]

If you capture a neutral CY you get no construction options, even though it will speed up your production if you have a 'sided' CY.

 

Exactly true... in fact I always wanted to add a couple of neutral CYs to the "Great Wall 3 vs. 2" for the SW players to do exactly that.  Speed up production but give no mixed tech nonsense!

 

Neutral can't build, although other factions can build Neutral's things if they capture a Neutral construction yard.

Did you have to hack stuff to give them things to build?  Or would you just be able to build huts and stuff? heh heh....

[Nyerguds]

I've seen Neutral build civilians, though, when given a barracks in Multiplayer mode. Neutral can build exactly the things that have the owner set to Neutral. I was kind of surprised the AI built them while I had it set to build soldiers. Multiplayer AI is weird.

 

The multi-houses, in contrast, are "filtered" to either GDI or Nod in Multiplayer, so technically they can build anything.

[Kilkakon]

Did you have to hack stuff to give them things to build?  Or would you just be able to build huts and stuff? heh heh....

In my mod Neutral CYs are used for both Civilian Militia and USA

 

It is a shame multiplayer is so weird. I kind of washed my hands with it when I was doing my tinkering.

[MattAttack]

Okee... So I have lesson 4 up and I was thinking of doing 'autocreate' and Chinooks in the next lesson, but I figured I'd ask for suggestions on what anyone would like to see addressed.  Mind you, this is still "scripting 101" at this phase so I don't want to be too complicated, but I'm open to ideas. 

[Nyerguds]

Haven't watched Ep4 yet, so dunno what you covered, but... Celltriggers, SAM-destroy-to-airstrike mechanic, the 0-1-2 trigger repetition types shown on commonly used triggers?

 

[edit]

 

Oh. Well now. The repetition thing is exactly what this one covers  :laugh:

[Nyerguds]

Oh, apparently the U1 number can go up to 30, so, you could try that?

[Nyerguds]

Anyway, on a next one I suggest you include steel crate pickup mechanics. Be sure to mention that you can hide them below buildings, they're impossible to pick up by the AI (and are, in fact, impassable to them) and that with infantry it's technically possible to touch the edge of a crate and make it disappear without actually triggering the celltrigger.

[MattAttack]

hmmm... celltriggers.. I like this.  And the mentioning of infantry regarding celltriggers is a good idea, I always found that kind of annoying.  Ok, CT's (0,1,2), U1, Chinooks.  I'll save autocreate for another probably.

 

BTW I was curious about the old DOS system of crate pickup=nuke.  I don't know if the oldest versions of c&c still exist out there somewhere or if the stuff is buried in the current versions, but do you think there was a specific trigger linked to this or was it likely something hardcoded into the game?

[Nyerguds]

Nothing trigger related to those. It was somehow counted and stored throughout the campaign process. I never saw any actual code of that, though.

 

I remember reading in some interview with a WW dev that it was taken out because, on top of some savegame related issues with it, starting a mission from the New Missions list is obviously treated as a new blank slate "campaign", meaning that without the required amount of crates being collected "in previous missions", player nukes refused to work in The Covert Operations XD

[MattAttack]

vid #5 is up. celltriggers, buildings destroyed & amphibious assaults.  Apparently "player enters" with a loop of 1 doesn't work.  I feel like I already learned that and forgot it.. lol.  Autocreate is next and maybe placing Chinooks on the map.  U1 is going to require a lot more research to cover properly.

[Nyerguds]

Placing chinook is a useful skill, especially since all available map editors seem to dumbly have them in the available units, which doesn't work at all.

 

Anyway, interesting research on the 1 repeat status for Player Enters!

 

Have you experimented with using Player Enters for commandos bombing stuff? I remember it working too...

[MattAttack]

Placing chinook is a useful skill, especially since all available map editors seem to dumbly have them in the available units, which doesn't work at all.

Yeah, it's stuff like that which I think hinders any potential map-makers from getting serious.  You think that you're doing something wrong, but in reality the map editor is kind of misleading.

Anyway, interesting reseatch on the 1 repeat status for Player Enters!

I should've been writing all of this stuff down over the years, because I'm pretty sure I learned this and forgot it.  I happened to look at the .ini for "crate robber" in preparation for the video and was going to use it to illustrate some examples, but I was shocked to see the complicated mechanics I had made for it. The celltrigger activates c-17 money plane for multi house, activating a credits trigger which created teams.  It's hard to remember what I was thinking, but I think it was a workaround for the lack of a '1' loop. 

Have you experimented with using Player Enters for commandos bombing stuff? I remember it working too...

I do not believe commandos can activate 'player enters' by bombing a building.  After many attempts, I have not successfully gotten this to work.  Is it possible this has been confused with a 'destroyed' trigger?  Destroying AND capturing will activate this.  Anyway, thanks for the input!

[MattAttack]

video 6 is up... this time it's Autocreate, DZ at 'z', & some weird refinery/harvester details.  Also see a c-17 freak out and do weird circles around the airstrip...... still trying to figure that one out!

[Jacko]

Also see a c-17 freak out and do weird circles around the airstrip...... still trying to figure that one out!

 

I've only recently started seeing that in multiplayer as well. No idea why it happens.

[MattAttack]

Yeah, what's strange is that it's the campaign/new mission .exe and not the one updated by cncnet.  I am, however, using the "extended sidebar" .exe Iran (I think) sent me eons ago.  I even tried changing the Nod edge from north to east and weird shit was still happening.  I've started looking at the map edges just outside the border in the original missions for clues.

[Tschokky]

From RA95 mission scripting (might be the same in C&C95):

 

It was new to me that if I created a team that looked like this: APC, 2 rifle infantry, 3 grenadiers, 2 mammoth tanks, the mammoth tanks would also unload from the APC and there was no crash because of going over the capacity of 5 for the APC.

[cn2mc]

Not sure about the APC in TD, but it's very likely it can unload other vehicles. I've certainly seen many missions with chinooks unloading mammoths and whatnot in them.

[Jacko]

From RA95 mission scripting (might be the same in C&C95):

 

It was new to me that if I created a team that looked like this: APC, 2 rifle infantry, 3 grenadiers, 2 mammoth tanks, the mammoth tanks would also unload from the APC and there was no crash because of going over the capacity of 5 for the APC.

 

Yep. I know this is a thing in RA

I once put a whole team of about 10 vehicles and 5 dudes (duh) with an apc. And ALL of them were stuck inside that one apc.

 

There is no limit afaik (its pretty high if there is one) to the storage size of reinforced transports/apc/choppers.

See the Allied mission scg07ea "sunken treasure" where the devs put 7 units in one transport.

 

I've seen a few custom (and uninteresting) TD missions with tanks (usually mammoths) unloading from helicopters.

[Nyerguds]

The 6-mission demo actually contains the only instance of Westwood doing that; you have a helicopter unloading a stealth tank in one of the Nod missions

[MattAttack]

Yeah I guess I didn't mention that in the tutorials because I hate when I see that stuff... In fact, I guess I missed a great opportunity to say how I equate it to sacrilege   Once in a while I'll play some of the huge collection and as soon as I see a Chinook/apc unload 5 tanks and 20 infantry I abort mission and move on to the next one....  (everytime I see a Nod mammoth tank, too)