Putting facilities in missions

[mongoose]

Shows how long since I last did all this. I am starting to test out what some facilities I have do/look like so want to place them in test missions. However I note they are not in the mb list of facilities called up. I forget how to get those not on the list; for instance one called "concentrated_smoke".

 

[Pa11ssage.Flyer]

In my experience the MB won't list facilities that don't have a type. Also, I believe facilities must have a valid "flags" entry. I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

 

[mongoose]

I am looking more at what are called ETO"Specialty Facilities" including Frestorms. smoke, and airfield lighting. Now I know I could place them into the gsl or use gmax but first I want to see what they look like in a test mission, hopefully avoiding gsl/gmax use!

 

[Daiwilletti]

how about Richard Eikeland's Mission and Facility editor? Being a GMax luddite I really like this programme, and with a bit of practise you can do things much more quickly than GMax. You can do things like take the locations of facilities from a mission and port them over to the relevant airbase facility.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?action=jump&catid=159&id=15412

 

[mongoose]

Not sure it's what I need but many thanks anyway as I couldn't get my missions editor to work until I downloaded it from your link and reinstalled it! Note it's a bit short on instructions so will play by ear!

 

[Daiwilletti]

It's a bit temperamental but very quick and easy to reinstall. When first opened, make sure it is pointing to the correct install. In these days of big monitors, you can blow up some of the quite complex facilities, to a scale where accurately locating buildings/objects is easier. Trying to do it on a 1024x768 screen would be difficult!

With a bit of fiddling around, you can find how to click on the desired bit of the groundplane, then select from the dropdown list of buildings/facilities/objects, and insert quickly at the desired orientation (possibly at a different altitude too, I don't remember).

Another real trap is if you open an existing facility, for example to develop/improve as a renamed stand alone facility, the editor tends to remove the # wildcard symbol when you save your work as an xml file. I don't know if it is a recent bug (Thank you again, MS, for Win8 and Win10 ) or always was like it, but if you want to keep the wildcards, you need to go back in Notepad and reinsert them.

 

[mongoose]

Thanks! I'll play around with it. I've been off CFS3 for a couple of years with real life commitments; seems retirement even less time than working!

 

[Pat Pattle]

Also, I believe facilities must have a valid "flags" entry.

This is the answer James, temporarily add an "isfactory" to the header and your facility will show in the MB list.

 

[mongoose]

Thanks Clive; I'll try that!