You probably know the BattleBuilder in Single Player, but can you also create briefings, WX reports and images on the briefing MAP?
We will try to tell how, so you can share the fun of showing and trying good games with the other mates of 1st BHS.
If you have any questions, suggestions or ideas for this part, feel free to send us an E-Mail. The input might enter the Unofficial Gunship! FAQ
Hellfires aimed at tanks. Fire and forget.
One versus One is a deathmatch between choppers
Did you ever make a custom mission and wondered that there is a briefing screen but no briefing and nothing to see on the map?
We found out how to edit the briefing text and to set sprites and even text (so called lables) on the map.
It is a little difficult. But imagine your friends eyes when they read their names in the briefing in your multiplayergames.
And now you can Download rudi's Guntool and make it easy to convert or make your completely own Briefings. This is a step forward we had not expected and as rudi is still improving the tool, it will be of great use to you as Battlebuilder. Download it from Download frame.
If you want you can edit the Briefing text and the Sprites and lables on the Map and as you can see, in your own language also. Here in German.
To edit the briefing text after you have build your mission you have to leave the game.
Just openMicroprose\Gunship!\Data\Battles\Player.
You will see the Single Player mission text files.
The files called"battle00.txt", "battle01.txt"and so on are the ones you have build.
Of course you can rename them as you want by rightclick > rename.
Now open your customed mission by double click. You will see some text blocks. Every block is one Unit you have integrated in the mission and it's waypoints and orders. You should not change that unless you are familiar with those orders.
Now scroll that page down to the last line set the curser behind the last character and make a free line by pressing Return twice. Then open a mission text of a standart mission and scroll that down to the blocks that start with
"[Blue Briefing 0]"
Use copy and paste to copy that whole block to your mission. Between the Last "Unit, Order, Waypoint" block and the one you paste there should be a free line.
Now the explanation what lines mean:
First line: The briefing screen is shown as an Multifunctional Display (MFD) as it looks in a real Chopper. On the right site you have the five buttons with which you can change the chapters like "Mission", "Operation", "Friendly Forces" and so on.
If in the first line of the block there is [Blue_Briefing 0] it means that this text will appear when the first button is activated. If you it would be [Briefing 1] it would appear when the second button is activated. So you can add up to five Blocks each for one button on screen.
You can also make different briefings for Russian and Nato side in Multiplayer. For that it would be [Blue_Briefing 0] for the Nato briefing which could only be seen by Nato player, or [Red_Briefing 0] for Russian briefing which would be seen by Russian player. If you make different briefings you can add up to ten blocks. Five for each side.
Second line: On each button there is this big yellow heading. The only thing you may change in this line is everything behind the "=" sign. The nine is the Characters size. you can change the size on a scale from 1 - 9. After the "," You can edit the Heading.
Always let one free space between the "," and the edited text!
Third line: May not be changed.
Fourth line: After the last "," and a free space u can edit the text here. \n means that there will be a free line in the text. Remember to let one free space between text and that. The next lines are for the sprites, lables, waypoints, arrows and phaselines. If you don't want to have those from the mission you copied the text file from, delete them. How you can make your own images will be explained in the next chapter.
Last line: Time Out = 15 would mean that after 15 seconds the next button would be activated automatically. You may edit the time depending on how long you need to read the text.
After you have edited the briefing, simply save it. And then... good hunting.
If you want to integrate Images on your briefing Map you should not delete the lines below your briefing text. Or, if you alredy have, recover them by copy them again. The block should look like the one above.
Here comes the explaination on an example:
Sprite 0 = images\uahb.pcx, 25, 231, 0
Sprite 0 = images\
Means that this will be the first image on that map. Every folowing will be Sprite 1 = images\, Sprite 2 = images and so on...
uahb.pcx,
that is the code for the symbol that will be shown on the map. In this case it would be a blue Attack choppers symbol. an red one for example would be rahb.pcx. Click here to view a list with codes.
25, 231, 0
the meaning of the three numbers from left to right:
1. The first number is the width (W-E) on the map. it can be from 0 - 300.
2. The second number is the height (N-S) on the map. It is also from 0 - 300.
3. The third Number is always 0. We couldn't figure out what it is for maybe a z axis there are lots of stuff prepared but not used in Gunship!.
The text after the PLATOON: number, is what you wanted in the Battle Builder, and should only be changed if you know what you are doing. Well - go ahead and try, some changes are straight forward.
