Starsiege TRIBES Mission Wizard and Editor
User's Manual
Note: The Mission Wizard and Editor are unsupported tools. Use at your own risk.

I: Overview

The Mission Editor is the in-house tool developed by Dynamix for building missions for TRIBES. If you wish to edit an existing mission or create a new one from the ground up, this is the tool you to use.

The Editor can run in three modes; the Object Editor, which allows you to place and move objects, the Terrain Editor, which allows you to manipulate the terrain, and the World Editor which controls environmental and player features.

Missions themselves are comprised of four different files, each having the mission's name; the .mis file, containing the object and environmental information, the .ted file, which has the terrain information, the .dsc file, which contains the mission description for the setup screens, and the .vol file which has the mission lighting information

The Mission Wizard will allow you to create new missions from scratch. You can set the mission type, number of teams, mission objectives, score limits and the world to use with this tool.

II: Mission Wizard Features

The Wizard consists of the following components:

File Name: The name of the mission that will appear in the host mission dialog box. The name must be a valid Windows file name, i.e. "CoolAsIce" or "Bloody_Vengeance". There should be no spaces or unusual characters in the file name.

Number of Teams: The number of teams for your mission. Every mission type, except for Deathmatch, must have at least two teams. A maximum of eight teams can be specified.

Mission Type: The type of mission set as well as any mission-specific variables, depending upon the type:

Capture And Hold

No. of Objectives: The number of controllable objects

Score: Score required for a team to win

CD Track: CD track to be played when the mission is running

CD PlayMode: Playing mode of CD; either repeating or cycling

Capture The Flag

Flag Caps to Win: Number of flag captures required to win the mission

CD Track: CD track to be played when the mission is running

CD PlayMode: Playing mode of CD; either repeating or cycling

Deathmatch

Fraglimit: Number of kills a player must have to win

CD Track: CD track to be played when the mission is running

CD PlayMode: Playing mode of CD; either repeating or cycling

Defend And Destroy

Score Limit: Number of points required to win the mission

CD Track: CD track to be played when the mission is running

CD PlayMode: Playing mode of CD; either repeating or cycling

Find And Retrieve

Number of Flags: Number of flags in the mission

Score Limit: Number of points required to win the mission

CD Track: CD track to be played when the mission is running

CD PlayMode: Playing mode of CD; either repeating or cycling

World & Sky Type: The type of terrain and sky for your world type, as well as time of day.

Alien | Desert | Ice | Lush | Mars | Mud
Cloudy | Day | Clear Day | Clear Day | Clear Day | Day
Night | Sunset | Clear Night | Night | Cloudy Day | Dusk
Foggy | Clear Night | Foggy | Clear Night | Dusk | Cloudy Night
Starfield |  |  |  | Clear Night | Clear Night

Terrain Type: A pre-generated terrain script from which you can build your new terrain. Several different types have been included for you to choose from:
Flat Terrain: Relatively flat with small rolling hills

Rolling Plains: Rolling low-elevation hills

Rolling Hills: Rolling mid-elevation hills

Moderately Hilly: Mid-sized hills

Large Hills: Large hills

Rough Hills: Large rough hills

Terrain Size: The overall size of the terrain, small, medium or large. A mission like DangerousCrossing is small, CrissCross is large.

Once you have set these options, click on the CREATE button to create the mission. The mission will be loaded and the Mission Editor will be active.

III: Mission Editor Features

There are three distinct features of the mission editor, mentioned previously. They are bound to the following keys:

F1 - Takes Editor screen to full screen mode (in previous Edit mode)

F2 - Takes you to Object Edit mode

F3 - Takes you to World Edit mode

F4 - Takes you to Terrain Edit mode

F5 - Returns you to Play mode

The F5 key will toggle between the Mission Editor and Play mode, but only if you have started in the Mission Editor. You cannot launch the Mission Editor if you are actually playing an on-line game.

Camera Motion

Camera motion is bound to the following keys.

E - Up W - Forward 1-9 - Camera Speed

A - Left S - Back Mouse Rt. Button - Camera Free Look

C - Down D - Right Mouse Left Button - Select object

Note: If you go into a mission and get what seems to be a blank screen, it is because the camera always spawns at zero height. Press 7 or 8 to adjust camera speed and hold down the E key until the camera is back at the height of the terrain.

Also of note: save early and save often. There's nothing worse than working on terrain for half an hour and then losing everything in a crash. Make sure all other applications are turned off when creating or editing missions.

A: Using the Terrain Editor The Terrain Editor is the tool used to edit and manipulate the terrain in a mission. If you need to create a mountain from a plain, or remove parts of the terrain for a building, it must be done using this tool. Press the F4 key to go into Terrain Edit mode.

The buttons on the main screen are for the following purposes: Level: This button controls the number of terrain "tiles" (1m x 1m squares) that are selected when you click on the terrain. Level 0, the smallest, selects a single tile. Level 1 selects four tiles. It goes up from there exponentially, with Level 8 being the largest. If you are using a slower computer, work with smaller blocks. Anything larger than Level 5 may cause your computer to bog down.

Terrain Type: Determines what type of terrain is laid down; grass, rock, or another selection from the palate. For every world type (lush, desert, etc.), there are at least six different kinds bitmaps that can be laid down.

Selection Action: Selects the action you want to perform on the selected terrain. The list of actions, seen above in the pull-down menu, is described as follows:

Action | Performs:
Adjust Control Point | Selects a single terrain tile and adjusts its height and the height of corresponding tiles accordingly.
Clear Flags | Clears all previously set flags.
Clear Pin | Clears all previously set pins.
Deselect | Deselects selected terrain tiles
Depress | Depresses selected terrain tiles by a pre-set amount (set in the Options screen). This feature will also adjust the height of neighboring terrain tiles to create a smoother appearance.
Elevate | Elevates selected terrain tiles by a pre-set amount (set in the Options screen). This feature will also adjust the height of neighboring terrain tiles to create a smoother appearance.
LowerHeight | Lowers the height of selected terrain tiles by a pre-set amount. Unlike the Depress function, this will not affect neighboring terrain tiles.
Pin | Fixes terrain so it does not morph, or "grow." This will greatly increase the poly count, however.
RaiseHeight | Raises the height of selected terrain tiles by a pre-set amount. Unlike the Elevate function, this will not affect the neighboring terrain tiles.
Redo | Undoes an undo.
Relight | Relights the terrain.
RotateLeft | Rotates a terrain tile to the left (useful for when laying down paths, for example).
RotateRight | Rotates a terrain tile to the right.
Scale | Scales terrain by a pre-set percentage (set in Options screen). If set to 1.5, for example, selected terrain is raised by 50%.
Select | Selects a terrain tile.
SetControlHeight | Sets the control height to a pre-set number.
SetCornerHeight | Sets the corner height to a pre-set number.
SetFlags | Sets all Flags to what is chosen in the Options menu.
SetHeight | Sets all terrain tiles to a pre-set height.
SetMaterial | Sets all terrain tiles to a pre-selected material.
SetTerrainType | Sets all terrain tiles to the selected type of terrain, set in the box to the left of the "Selection Action" box.
Smooth | Smooths out the selected terrain.
Undo | Undoes the last performed action.

There are two buttons you can set actions to, allowing you to switch back and forth between actions rapidly simply by clicking on a button. Each button contains a pull-down menu; simply click on a button and move the pointer to the action you want to perform.

Note: the first button is set exclusively to terrain tiling and cannot be changes.

Relight: Relights the terrain.

Many of the settings here require going into the Options screen. Press O to bring it up.

Values: These fields are for setting values for different Terrain Editor functions: Height Adjust: amount of height added or subtracted from selected terrain tiles, used with the Elevate, Depress, RaiseHeight and LowerHeight functions.

Height Set: Elevation that all selected tiles are snapped to, used with the SetControlHeight and SetCornerHeight functions. Scale Factor: Percentages that all tiles are scaled to, used with the Scale function.

Pin Detail Min: Minimum detail terrain can be pinned to (do not use).

Pin Detail Max: Maximum detail terrain can be pinned to (do not use). Smooth Adjust: Gradation of "smoothing" selectable for when using the Smooth

function. The larger the number, the more smoothing that is applied to the terrain.

Seed Value: The value the terrain generator is seeded with.

Flag Mask: These are used specifically for adjusting individual terrain tiles.

Corner: Sets selected tile as a corner piece.

Empty1, 2, 3: Removes selected terrain tiles from the map, creating a hole. Empty1

cuts out a Level 1 poly, Empty2 a Level 2 poly, etc.

Display Options: Controls how the grid appears on the map.

Paste Mask: Controls how terrain is pasted if you are using cut-and-paste. Both the Height and Material boxes are defaulted to on.

Brush: Controls features of the selector grid.

Snap: When on, the selector grid will always snap to corners. When off, you are

free to move the grid across the map.

Feather: When on, this will automatically smooth terrain when its elevation is changed. If a single tile is lifted up, for example, neighboring tiles will also be raised to smooth it out.

Quick Light: A "quick and dirty" terrain lighting option; not as comprehensive as the full mission lighting procedure but not as time-consuming, useful to give you an idea of what lighting is going to look like.

Gen Random: Generates random seed value for the terrain each time you press it.

Press O again to go back to the Terrain Editor window.

B. Using The World Editor

Press F3 to bring up the Object Editor window.

To place an object, have the camera pointed in the general location you want the object to be placed and select it from the menu in the lower right hand corner. The menu on the left contains the object folders, the menu on the right will contain the objects in the selected folder. For example, if you wanted to put a plasma turret in the mission, you would select Turrets from the left menu and Plasma Turret from the right menu.

Once an object has been placed, you can move it around by left clicking on it and dragging it to where you want it placed. A selected object will have a green circle instead of silver. To move the object up and down in place, hold down the control key while moving the mouse. To rotate the object in place, hold down the Shift key while moving the mouse.

You can also move objects by adjusting their coordinate numbers. This is useful for when trying to align objects exactly or trying to move them by small increments. Select an object and press F2. This will bring up the position coordinates for the selected object. You can modify both the rotational and positional numbers from this menu. You may change these numbers, then click on the Apply button to implement the changes.

The Lock button will prevent an object from being selected and moved. This feature is useful when placing and moving objects inside of other structures.

The >>Cam button will take a selected object and place it in front of the camera. The Cam>> button will take the camera and move it to the selected object. The >>TSC will return the camera to the screen center. Groups Most objects are placed in groups (folders) primarily to separate them from different teams, as well as other reasons.

- All objects in a group that require power (sensors, turrets, etc.) must have at least one generator in that group or parent group. If all generators are destroyed, all these objects will no longer function. This can add a strategic element with multiple groups of objects within a base, for example.
- In a Capture-and-Hold style mission, where touching a tower switch will turn a base over to your team's command, all base objects must be in the same folder as the tower switch.

Press F2 to go to the Primary Mission Editor screen. Click on the + icon next to the Mission Group heading to show all the folders in that directory.

Volumes

World

Landscape

Lights

Observer Drop Points

Teams

Mission Cleanup

Volumes

Contains all the volumes of data required to run the mission. You do not need to add or change anything in this folder

World

Contains the palate and mission center information. You can move the mission center elsewhere along the map but it is not recommended. When building a new mission, it is recommended you start at the mission center and work your way out from there to make sure placed objects do not go out of the mission area.

The Extent field controls how large the map is. Compare the numbers in a large mission, like CrissCross, to a small mission, like Peekaboo, to get an idea of how large you want your mission to be.

Landscape

Contains the terrain and environmental art. In the Sky field will be your default sky. Click on it to bring up the Sky menu at the lower right. In the Material List DML field, enter the kind of sky you want, depending upon your chosen terrain set:

lush: litesky.dml lushdayclear.dml lushsky_night.dml

ice: greysky.dml icenitesky.dml

desert: nitesky.dml deserttansky.dml

mars: marsday.dml marsdusk.dml marsdaycloud.dml

mud: mudsky_day.dml mudcloudnight.dml mudusk.dml
alien: aliengreysky.dml alienight.dml aliensky_cloudyday.dml

In the Texture Index X fields, enter 0 through 15 to wrap the sky bitmaps around your level.

If you do not want a sky (for a night mission, for example), leave the Material List DML field blank.

You can also add suns, planets, weather effects and a starfield. Press F3 to bring up the Place Objects menu and select from the Sky menu.

When placing a sun or planet to be your light source, be sure that the Directional Intensity is set to (0.7, 0.7, 0.7) and the Ambient Intensity is set to (0.3, 0.3, 0.3).

Observer Drop Points

These are the points that you can watch the action from before your player spawns in the game. These should be placed in areas where there's a lot of action; entrances to bases, near flags, etc.

Teams

You will need to have a Team folder for each team in the mission. Each team folder will have to contain a DropPoints folder, which in turn will contain a Random and Start folder. These control where the players will spawn in the game; Start for where they initially start in the game, Random for where they spawn after dying. There must be at least 16 Start drop points (for the team maximums), 16 or more Random drop points are also recommended. Look at .mis files in your TRIBES mission directory for examples.

The best way to add additional team folders is to copy (CTRL-C) the existing folder and paste (CTRL-V). Be sure the new folder is part of the Teams folder and not in the Team0 folder.

Mission Cleanup

Controls player respawns and dynamic objects. Do not place any objects here that you want to save, as this folder is wiped clean after each restart.

B. Adding Buildings And Objects

When adding structures and other objects to a level, first create at least one new Group folder in the appropriate Team folder to place these in.

Open one of the .mis files in your TRIBES mission directory for examples of how this is done.

Options

Press O to bring up the Place Objects Options screen.

The Show Edit Objects box is defaulted to on. It shows the objects in the mission that can be edited. The Show Grab Handles box controls whether or not you can see the handles (the green dots), it is also defaulted to on. The Use Plane Movement box is off. If on, objects will not hug the ground when moved with the mouse, rather, they will move along a flat plane unless you use a keyboard modifier.

The Grid Snap box will constrain selected objects to being able to move only in the selected declinations when selected. If the X and Y axes are set to one, then selected objects would move in those planes only one meter at a time.

The Rotation Settings box controls what axis you can rotate objects in; it is defaulted to the z-axis. Setting the Snap Rotations box on will, similarly to the Grid Snap functions, allow objects to be rotated only in 90-degree declinations.

The Drop Objects box controls where objects are dropped in the level once added. They are presently defaulted to the screen center.

The Motion Constraints box can assign constraints on moving objects in different axes. If selected on, objects will not move in the selected axes.

C: Using the Object Editor

Press F2 to bring up the Player Editor window:

This tool is used primarily for editing individual objects in the editor. Fields such as the object's position, rotation, team designation and name can be edited here.

Options

The Object Editor's Option screen is identical to the Place Options screen.

V: Editing An Existing Mission

To edit an existing mission, first host the mission you wish to edit. Once started, press the tilde (~) key to bring up the console script and enter the following:

exec(editor);

This will bring up the Mission Editor. Press the tilde key again to remove the console script.

If you press F5 to return to Player Mode to run around the world you're editing and need to go back into the Mission Editor, press the tilde key again and enter the following:

MEmode();

This will put you back into the Editor.

For further instructions on editing, see Section VI.

VI: Advanced Topics

A: Creating A New World Let's say you have just created a mission called "CoolAsIce." You have restarted and hosted the mission.

Step 1: Create Terrain

Go into the Mission Editor and press F4, then click on the Landscape button. This will bring up the PLS window. Review the PLS document on how to create a terrain map, or use one of the existing default .pls files (Q: Scott, are we going to include some of these?).

To add objects, press F3. The menu on the left in the lower right is a list of all the folders containing objects you can place in the game:

Mission: Contains Groups, Markers and Drop Points

Sky: Contains environmental art and weather effects

Objectives: Flags and tower switches

Stations: All the various stations

Generators: All the generators and solar panels

Turrets: All the turrets

Panels: All the panels that are placed with various structures

Weapons: All the weapons

Ammo: All the ammunition

Packs: All the packs

Comms: Different types of antennae and dishes

Sensors: All the different detection devices

Base: Ancillary objects for placement inside structures

Doors: All the different types of doors that can be placed in structures

Environment: Different types of plants

Test: Forcefields and electric beam effects

Platforms: Different kinds of elevator platforms

LushRocks: Different kinds of rocks to be placed in a mission

HumanBase: Large, hollow structures

HumanBigAss: Really large, hollow structures

HumanBridge: Bridge pieces

HumanBunker: Smaller, hollow or open-air structures

HumanCargo: Different crates, unique to four major tribes

HumanComboHall: Modular structure

HumanDropShip: Different dropships, unique to four major tribes

HumanExterior: Simple exterior shapes for placement in missions

HumanFlagCrash: Unique modular structure of a crashed floating building

HumanFloatBase: Floating buildings

HumanFloatingPad: Floating platforms, unique to four major tribes

HumanFuncTank: Medium-sized hollow structures

HumanHall: Underground hallways

HumanListeningPost: Similar to HumanFuncTank

HumanLogo: Modular objects forming TRIBES logo

HumanMiscObj: Miscellaneous objects for placement in missions

HumanOutpost: Imperial outpost structure

HumanPipeCon: Modular structures, originally to be used with dam structures

HumanStandAlone: Bunkers and floating buildings

HumanTest: Test objects, do not use

HumanTower: Different towers

HumanWall: Walls for forming a base

Doors, Elevators and Force Fields

There are basically three parts to an elevator, door or forcefield: the group that contains it, the SimPath group that contains the markers that "mark" the path the object takes. Note: for each door, elevator or forcefield, each must contain its own markers in a SimPath folder. Two doors, for example, like the ones in Citadels, need to have their own markers.

instant SimGroup "Elevator" { ß The Group with the objects

instant SimPath "Path1" { ß The Group with the markers

isLooping = "False";

isCompressed = "False";

instant Marker "Marker1" { ß actual Markers

dataBlock = "PathMarker";

name = "";

position = "-324.094 204.632 140.197";

rotation = "0 -0 -2.67991";

};

instant Marker "Marker1" {

dataBlock = "PathMarker";

name = "";

position = "-324.091 204.629 146.198";

rotation = "0 -0 -2.67989";

};

instant Marker "Marker1" {

dataBlock = "PathMarker";

name = "";

position = "-324.091 204.629 152.204";

rotation = "0 -0 -2.67989";

};

};

instant Moveable "elevator_4x41" { ß The moving object

dataBlock = "elevator4x4";

name = "";

position = "-324.094 204.632 140.197";

rotation = "0 0 -2.67991";

destroyable = "True";

deleteOnDestroy = "False";

delayTime = "761.149";

Status = "up";

stopWayUp = "1";

stopWayDown = "1";

When placing doors and elevators, it is advised that you set the rotation to 0,0,0 if possible and use whole numbers, not decimals, for the position numbers. This will make your job infinitely easier; trust us, we know. C: Determining Mission Type At the end of every .mis file is an information tag that determines how the mission is categorized and victory conditions. A sample is below:

//--- export object end ---//

$teamScoreLimit = 200;

exec(objectives);

$Game::missionType = "C&H";

$cdTrack = 11;

$cdPlayMode = 1;

The $teamScoreLimit function controls how many points are required for victory. For a Capture and Hold mission, the number will be high, for CTF and other similar missions, the number will be lower.

The exec ( ) function also controls mission type. Exec(objectives) means that it is an objective based mission…more here, research:

The $Game::missionType function tells the game what category the mission falls under. Your choices are C&H (Capture and Hold), DM (Deathmatch), CTF (CaptureTheFlag), D&D (Defend and Destroy) and MT (Multiple Team).

The $cdTrack function determines which track of the CD is played. To play different CDs, consult the FAQ.

The $cdPlayMode function determines if a CD is to be played--if set to 1, it is, if set to 0, it is not.

Depending upon the mission type, different values must be assigned to the Objectives. Open the .mis file using WordPad or similar tool and locate the objective items. Here is a sample of code:

instant StaticShape "Switch" {

dataBlock = "TowerSwitch";

name = "West Switch";

position = "21.3966 -229.133 48.0886";

rotation = "0 -0 1.0799";

destroyable = "True";

deleteOnDestroy = "False";

objectiveLine = "14";

rotates = "False";

collideable = "False";

count = "0";

objectiveName = "the West Tower";

deltaTeamScore = "12";

Each objective must have a unique objectiveName (in this case, "the West Tower," and a deltaTeamScore value. For flags, this should be one. For switches, this should be twelve (as they measure points per minute, and it keeps the numbers even).

In a D&D-style mission, where you are trying to defend and/or destroy objects, you will have to go into the .mis file using WordPad or similar program and add script to make these objects objectives. Here is a sample before adding objective code:

instant StaticShape "PortGen1" {

dataBlock = "PortGenerator";

name = "Secondary Generator";

position = "589.314 235.375 57.7352";

rotation = "0 -0 0.979983";

destroyable = "True";

deleteOnDestroy = "False";

And here is a sample after:

instant StaticShape "PortGen1" {

dataBlock = "PortGenerator";

name = "Secondary Generator";

position = "589.314 235.375 57.7352";

rotation = "0 -0 0.979983";

destroyable = "True";

deleteOnDestroy = "False";

objectiveLine = "13";

scoreValue = "2";

objectiveName = "Secondary Generator"; VII: Creating a .dsc File

The .dsc file contains what you see on the Create Server screens, providing a brief synopsis of the mission. These are created using WordPad or a similar program. Below is a sample .dsc file:

$MDESC::Type = "Capture the Flag";

$MDESC::Text = "<s3><f1>Mission Type: <f0> Capture the Flag" @

"\n<f1>Planet: <f0> Deus Sanguinius" @

"\n<f1>Weather: <f0> Clear" @

"\n<f1>Time of Day: <f0> Midday" @

"\n<f1># of Teams: <f0> 2" @

"\n\n<f1>Briefing:<f0> The <vServer::teamName0> and <vServer::teamName1> battle each other at close range with their massive flying bases. Each team must grab the other's flag and successfully bring it back to their base, touch it to their own flag to capture it. The first team with 5 captures shall be the victor!";

The easiest way to create a new .dsc file is to copy an existing one, rename it and change the settings as required. The <vServer::teamNameX> settings refer to the default team settings; 0 is Blood Eagle, 1 is Diamond Sword, 2 is Children of the Phoenix and 3 is Starwolf. To insert a custom-made team's name, use their name instead of the <vServer> name.