Some quick answers (still haven't finished your mission, mind):
- The search function on these forums is really quite good! You should consider using it. All scripting commands etc. are backwards compatible, so if there's advice on how to use something for OFP or ArmA, it'll still be applicable for Arma 2 (in most cases).
- The
Beginner's tutorial is currently being revised, but it IS mostly applicable in Arma 2 still (with the exception of the briefing stuff).
-
Mr.Murray's editing guide, although for ArmA, is still almost 100% applicable (waypoints, little script snippets, etc).
- And finally, asking here always works as well!
-> Overview: As Zipper5 suggests, use
ArmAEdit. The syntax for Overviews is unchanged between ArmA / Arma 2. An overview is basically just a html file, so it's not that complicated - if nothing else, steal one from another mission, open it with notepad, and just change the text content + the picture, and shazam!
-> Setting tasks to succeeded etc. is really a polishing feature, not a mission-critical one (although it looks silly if you've just finished the mission and both tasks are still 'unchecked'). The code needed you can find here:
setTaskState (sorry for linking out, but our COMREF doesn't mention the possible task states...). I don't know what the names of your tasks are, but you probably do
You just need to set these as succeeded before the mission ends, but writing it in for instance the On Activation field of a trigger, as such (change YourTask to the name of your tasks):
YourTask setTaskState "Succeeded"
-> Waypoint lines. You probably set the waypoints to "Always Visible" (double-click to edit, bottom of the waypoint dialog screen) -> change this to "Never Visible", and they should disappear from the map.
-> Modules: Many of these are pretty advanced (such as High Command and Artillery) but most work simply by synchronizing (F6, drag line to group member) the module with the player - the Ambient modules for instance function like this, as well as the SOM and the First Aid modules (although with FA, which group you synchronize it to determines which group gets first aid). I suggest experimenting with them, but they're really not necessary in general for a mission to function.
As to the basic underlying principles of mission construction, this is something that is best learnt in the same way as one learns how to write a book: by reading, reading and reading some more, and then writing, writing and writing some more (and hopefully getting some feedback in between). There are tutorials and advice to be given, but ultimately you have to find what you like yourself out there, and then try to emulate that. The Arma 2 engine is an incredibly powerful tool that can do just about anything quite easily. Sometimes the most difficult things are the easiest, and sometimes what looks really easy (like having a helicopter come in and pick up a squad, then land and let them out) can take hours and hours of work
We used to have a lot more tutorials up in the Ed.Depot, but unfortunately over the years database crashes, hackers and other unfortunate things have wittled away our collection :-/
Good luck for now! Guess the answer got a little longer than planned
Wolfrug out.