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Offline nuggetz

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Help with file structure?
« on: 04 Nov 2008, 22:24:50 »
Dont flame me for such a noob question. I checked the sticky and it said to read the FAQ first yet the link is dead. Anyway, I've downloaded a lot of guides that go into editing in great detail but what I'm missing is a simple primer on what makes up a mission in plain terms. I dont really want to create new missions from scratch persay, but I would like to take an existing mission and add things like artillery support, reinforcements, etc. Problem I'm having is figuring out what each of the files do. At the very least, I'd like to understand what it takes to add mondo's bombs addon to another mission. I see a lot of addons that you can download which are supposedly easy to add to another mission but I feel like I'm missing some basics here. Can someone help me out? I wouldn't even know what to search for. Thanks!

Offline bedges

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Re: Help with file structure?
« Reply #1 on: 04 Nov 2008, 22:41:22 »
Welcome to OFPEC. You'll find we cater for all levels of editing skill, and 'flame' is not in our vocabulary: everyone starts as a noob.

The FAQ section is undergoing redevelopment to make it more useful. Meantime, read through the Beginner's Tutorial by Cheetah. It explains what each of the files does, and is a very good start on the road to an intermediate grasp of editing.

The learning curve for editing can be seen as a Z - there's a steep bit to begin with as you figure out what everything does. Then you reach a plateau, because that basic knowledge can take you pretty far. There's then a final steep bit when you come to the advanced stuff - one step at a time though  ;)

Once again welcome.
« Last Edit: 04 Nov 2008, 22:46:30 by bedges »

Offline nuggetz

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Re: Help with file structure?
« Reply #2 on: 06 Nov 2008, 02:02:14 »
Thanks for the warm welcome. I've checked out the Beginner's Tutorial by Cheetah and there's some good stuff in there. Maybe I'll have better luck with just asking what I'd like to do. I can probably start figuring out things on my own but I need to do it once first. For example, say I wanted to incorporate a script into an existing mission file, where do I place the script and how do I call it? I imagine that scripts would have dependencies on certain objects too. Say for example someone wrote a script that allows me to use the command menu in the game to summon a chopper to pick me up at my location. Would the mission file that I'm trying to edit need to already include an instance of the chopper or would the script be responsible for defining the chopper and the pilot? I guess this is the sort of scenario I'm trying to understand the logistics of. Maybe if I can get an answer to this and maybe a really quick primer on how to incorporate scripts into existing missions I could be on my way to figuring out the rest.

Offline myke13021

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Re: Help with file structure?
« Reply #3 on: 06 Nov 2008, 14:11:43 »
Most of the scripts (especially those present on ofpec.com) usually comes with a well written readme, a sample mission to demonstrate how they work and how they are used. Thos sample missions are usually free of objects or other scripts that doesn't belong to the provided script(s).

Also open the scripts themselves. Pretty often the author added a lot of comments inside the script, giving further informations about the use of it and explaining the use of certain variables to adapt the script to your very own personal needs.
And finally, if you got the scripts from ofpec.com, chances are good that theres a related thread in the forums where you can ask questions when you're stuck and the script author can give you direct help.

And finally, here's the answer of one of the most asked questions i always read through all possible Forums:
   Where do i put the scripts?

As all scripts used in a mission are packed together with the mission, making it to one single .pbo file, all scripts and related files goes into the mission folder your currently working on.
The path on WinVista is:
Desktop\WINDOWSNAME\Documents\ArmA Other Profiles\YOURARMANAME\Missions\NAME OF YOUR MISSION

In this last folder goes all files. Remember that this last folder doesn't exist as long you didn't saved your mission in the arma editor at least once.

This should give you a good point to start with. For further questions, just come back here. There are a lot good people around here, always willing to help a beginner to make his first steps.

And i second what bedges said: 'flame' is not in our vocabulary.