Isaac's Mission Man Guide
For those of you who know me, I am known online as the Copernican_fLEET. Anyway, I am writing this document for those of you who have Mission Man, are itching to make a level, but just don't know how. This document is much improved beyond the original and will fully explain the basics of MissionMan. Please be aware that although this is an improved document, it isn't perfect. Also, I would seriously consider reading the original manual because it emphasizes on how to build a level, even though it doesn't tell you how to run it. If you have any questions E-mail me at frenchtoast@mail.com and I will do my best to answer your questions.
· The very first thing to know that may aid in the understanding of MissionMan is that it is actually not required to build missions. Also, Mission Man itself is not used by Homeworld, it is merely a stencil to make mission making easier (as long as you know how to use it). What it does is generate the data into several text documents, which the Homeworld game then understands. This is what MissionMan looks like:
I. Getting Your Mission To Run Properly Within The Game
A. The first problem I ever encountered in MissionMan was getting my map to at least show up in the listing. The solution to this problem is quite simple, the sub folder, mission name, and level name must be exactly the same.
1. The sub folder is the folder in which the MissionMan document is stored, you will find it at C:\\Sierra\homeworld\multiplayer; an example of a sub folder would be 01cl2, where you found this document.
2. The mission and level names are in the MissionMan document. In order to name missions and levels, you must right click on mission/level and enter the mission/level name.
3. Another thing you will notice in the mission/level name dialog box is the mission/level info. It is only necessary to fill that information out in the level name dialog box, so forget mission info. When you fill out level info its format should be similar to this: Level Name (amount of players), for example Map (2-4).
4. Then you will need to generate the mission.
5. Once you have completed these steps there should be your map in the listing.
B. The second important factor that the original guide does not even touch on, is how to make a map with multiple players.
1. If you, for example, want to make the level Map (2-4), you will need to make three levels. The first level will be Map2 the second will be named Map3, and the fourth is Map4.
2. Because each map is a different level, it is a good idea to copy and paste data from 2 into 3, and 3 into 4, and so on to have more accurate maps.
C. The next problem I encountered was attempting to run my mission in the game.
1. If you followed the steps in part A, you should have no problem with this, but I will emphasize it anyway.
2. If your game crashes when you attempt to load a mission, it is a good idea to check in the sub folder for extra mission or resource spheres. There should only be mission spheres from 0 up depending on how many players you want in your map. As for resource spheres, there should only be 1, resourcesphere0. Just simply delete the extras and the problem will be solved.
3. Be sure to check that the player number and mission spheres match in the mission man document.
4. Be sure to match the resource distribution files correctly. (Go to section II A 3 for more information.)
II. Resources
A. What is a resource distribution file?
1. A resource distribution file is a file that contains a .dist extension, an example of one is curtain.dist in the curtain2 sub-folder.
2. As complicated as this sounds, it is quite simple, all you need to do is copy a .dist file and modify it to your needs.
3. They look similar to this:
; Relative frequencies of asteroid types
Asteroid0 0
Asteroid1 0
Asteroid2 5
Asteroid3 5
Asteroid4 10
4. In the Mission Man document, it asks for the amount of resources from your area of resources (sphere, rectangle, big, small, etc.) It also asks for the distribution file, which you will need to place in your sub-folder.
5. Let's say for example, somebody (see example above) wanted to put 20 resources in their area, they will have to distribute those 20 among the 5 different types of asteroids. As you can see they chose 0 for Asteroid0, 0 for asteroid1, 5 for asteroid2, 5 for asteroid3, and 10 for asteroid4. IF YOU HAVE 20 RESOURCES THEN YOU MUST HAVE A SUM OF 20 IN THE DISTRIBUTION FILE.
6. This rule also applies to dust clouds and other asteroids- if you want more than 1 type of resource, for example dust clouds and asteroids, then you will need 2 different distribution files.
7. Some distribution files will contain two sets of numbers, I don't know what they are so, erase it and just continue to modify the file.
B. Regenerating resources
1. The way you regenerate resources is by expanding a resource object in MissionMan, and changing the properties to 2048.
2. The second thing to do is to set the speed to regenerate by typing the numbers 1-7 for propertiesparam, 1 is the slowest, and 7 is the fastest.
3. Resource 0 such as asteroid0 is unharvestable, so when you regenerate resources, eventually all resources will become resource0- the best way to get rid of this problem is to 1) add the resource generation speed in a third column in the .dist folder
; Relative frequencies of asteroid types
Asteroid0 0
Asteroid1 0 3
Asteroid2 5 2
Asteroid3 5 4
Asteroid4 10 7
Or 2) you can simply not use resource 0
C. Space Dust
1. This feature may not be important, but it is good if you want dust pockets in your map
2. In order to do this, make an asteroid area, but in order to make it all dust, you must put all of the resources in the distribution: Asteroid0.
III. Derelicts And Backgrounds
A. What is a derelict?
1. A derelict in the Homeworld game is a useless object, cool, but useless- it just sits there.
2. An example of derelicts would be a dormant ship, a planet, or space junk.
B. How to use derelicts in the game
1. In MissionMan, the way to add a new object as a derelict the same way you would build a ship.
2. VERY IMPORTANT- you must put your derelict in a mission sphere not just anywhere, or else it will not show up in the game.
3. When using planets, it is a good idea to a) make them extremely large and very far away (if the planet gets bigger as you go closer, it is not out far enough -try to get the distance into the millions, but make sure the planet is big enough to be seen), b) rotate the planets so that the light matches the background, and c) sometimes wen you go into your level and you will either see a ring or see nothing at all (this means that you are seeing the back of the planet, and it doesn't have one), to fix this, rotate it so that it shows the front.
C. Background and light source
1. The way to put a background into your game is simple, put the name of the background where the MissionMan document says Background. The names of backgrounds are from ez00-ez16 (ez01 and ez03 are the same background).
2. Some of you might notice that sometimes the light source doesn't match the background in your missions.
3. To fix this problem, you must put a degrees in with the background, for example ez01, 135. The amount of rotation is usually in the range of 90-180 degrees.
IV. Sensors Manager
A. It Is More Important Than You Think
1. The reason that adjusting the sensors manager is important is because if you don't, your ships may try to fly into the area, if it is too small, and if your mission sphere is larger that the world size, your game will crash.
2. What you need to do is adjust the attributes for sm in the MissionMan program to match the size of your map. Look in the original MissionMan document that came with mission man program for the information on how to adjust the sm attributes.
V. Color Schemes
A. The Truth About Color Schemes
1. Unfortuately, it is impossible, to the best of my knowledge, to make ships within specific mission spheres certain colors. For example, all ships in mission sphere 1 red & black, and all ships in mission sphere 2 blue & purple- YOU CAN'T DO THAT. Yes, I know, it burst my happy bubble too.
2. You can, however, change the colors of races. For example, all Taiidan must be purple & orange, and all Kushan must be black & white. This works for those other races too.
B. Setting The Colors
1. First you must understand that there are 8 color schemes. Color scheme 0 is default Kushan colors, color scheme 1 is default Taiidan colors, color scheme 2 and 3 are default Multiplayer colors, color scheme 4 is default Turanic Raider colors, 5 is default Kadeshi colors, 6 is default Council colors, and 7 is default Traders (Bentusi, Research Station, etc.).
2. In order to set the colors, you must change the color scheme. For example, if you wanted color scheme 1 to have a purple base color and a red stripe color you would say:
BaseColor: 1, #, #, #
StripeColor: 1, #, #, #
The "1" refers to the color scheme number, and the # refers to the color grouping (look in the paint program to find the numbers of colors, such as 255, 255, 255- white).
C. Using The Set Color Scheme(s) In The Game
1. After you have set your color scheme, you need to place it on your ships. For example, if you want all of the Turanic raiders to be your color scheme 1 then it would look like:
AvailiableColorSchemes: P1, ALL, 1
2. It is also possible to use a color scheme for only a ship or group of ships, instead of the whole race, to do this, replace ALL with the ship name.
3. In addition to that, it is possible to use multiple color schemes for multiple races.
I certainly hope that this document aided in the use of the multiplayer creator program known as MissionMan. I also hope that you now understand how the program works, so that you can become an expert at homeworld mission making. Have fun with missionMan and good luck.
This page is Copyright © 2004, Isaac Fenell
