X-ED: Mission Creation
The Tactical Officer's
review of
Troy Dangerfield's X-WingŪ Mission and Briefing Editor
Contributed by Scott (A'Kula) Schimmels,
Kalidor 3 (TacO) for Kalidor
Squadron
(continued)
The Flight Groups page is where you can edit all of the parameters of FGs and Objects. On the left hand side is the FG List, showing all of the Flight Groups in the mission, and the Object List, showing all of the Objects.
Changes to the parameters of FGs and objects are multiselectable, i.e. the changes will be made to all selected FGs in the list. Note that in X-ED multi-select does not work for deleting FGs or moving them up and down
On the right is the datapad where you can edit the parameters. Click on a FG or Object in their List and its details will be loaded into the datapad. Note that there are less parameters for objects than FGs.
"FGs" Page
At the top of the FGs page is the mission's "count line":
It shows, from left to right:
- The list number of the current FG and the total number of FGs in the mission.
- The number of Craft in the mission. (Of no real importance - a leftover of the conversion from XvtED.)
- The number of FGs in the mission 30 seconds after it starts (as above)
- The number of Objects in the mission.
The following is a list of the FG parameters in the Datapad:
FG Designation
| FG Waves | The total successive waves of the FG in the mission. All ships in a FG must leave or be destroyed before the next wave can arrive. |
| FG Size | The number of Ships in the FG. |
| FG Ship Type | The list shows all of the Ships and objects available in the game. |
| FG Name | This can be up to 16 characters. You can either select the box and edit the text there, or choose a Name from the drop down list. The list can be customized with your own set of frequently used Names by putting a text file named FGNames.txt in your X-ED directory. The editor will read this file in and use it instead of the default list. |
| Arrive by Hyperspace | This flag determines whether a FG arrives via hyperspace rather than a Mothership. |
| Depart by Hyperspace | This flag determines whether a FG can depart the mission via hyperspace rather than a Mothership. |
| Mothership | Select the Mothership of the FG if it does not arrive and depart via hyperspace. |
| Objective | Like FG Goals in XvT, these are what must happen to a FG or Object during the mission in order for the Player to complete the mission. FGs with mission critical objectives will have a brief description of them as part of their entry in the FG List. |
FG Orders
| Order | Select the orders for a FG to carry out in the mission. A FG can have only one Order per mission, to be carried out on its Primary target, then its Secondary Target. The fourth parameter of an Order represents either the percentage of full Throttle a FG begins the mission at, or the number of minutes of Docking time, depending on the Order. |
FG Craft Designation
| Status | The ship can either be in a normal state, or one of 3 disadvantages: No Missiles, Half Missiles, or No Shields. |
| A.I. | Sets the level of Artificial Intelligence of the FG. |
| IFF | (Identification Friend or Foe)
has the values Default, Rebel, Imperial, Neutral. As far as I can tell, the
"Default" values are: Rebel: X-W, Y-W, A-W, B-W, CRS, FRG Imperial: T/F, T/I, T/B, T/A, GUN, ISD, TRN Neutral: Everything else |
| Color | The color of the markings on the ships, if the ship has markings. |
| Formation | Choose the formation pattern of the ships within a FG. |
FG Arrival Parameters
| Arrival | This is the condition which will trigger the FG's arrival into the mission. You may also set a delay in minutes and seconds between the trigger condition occurring and the FG arriving. |
FG Cargo Parameters
| Cargo | The Cargo you define here is what will be seen in the target display when this FG is identified. The Default cargo is what all craft in this FG will have, however you may have one craft (the "Special" Ship) which will contain the defined Special cargo. The Special Ship# specifies which ship within the FG is the Special ship. |
Player Craft Parameters
| Player's craft | This flag will determine whether the current FG is the Player's ship. There can only be one Player's ship in the mission and it will be marked by a > symbol in the FG list. |
| Player Pos | If the current FG is the Player's craft, this setting will determine which number craft within the FG the Player will fly. |
Start/Waypoint Parameters
| Waypoints (WPs) | With the WP grid you can edit all of the 3
dimensional points used to place the FG and define its movements, although this can also
be done in the Map a lot easier. The grid shows the X, Y and Z co-ordinates (in kilometres) of each WP. Beside the left grid is the Enabled list. You enable a WP by clicking on this list to highlight its name. If a WP is not enabled, it effectively does not exist. The different types of WPs are:
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