User Guide

Delta Force – Black Hawk Down Mission Editor Manual – Copyright Novalogic 2003
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2. Extraction area should be obvious (landmarks are good)
3. Don’t try to kill the player at this point, the last fight can be thrilling, but
shouldn’t be deadly
E. Finish
1. The player should feel accomplishment and not wonder “Why’d I win?”
Details
Don’t get wrapped up in triggering small details or events. Often times, you can spend too much
time on one scene than should be spent. People won’t sit and watch the AI move around for long.
They’re more likely to just shoot whomever they spot. So it’s not as much a matter of what the
AI is doing, as where the AI is.
Waypoints
1. Use the “move timer” in waypoints to have enemies pause during their patrols.
This is a simple way to give them a little more character.
2. Set up large patrol loops and you can put multiple enemies on them.
3. Remember to use area triggers instead of waypoint triggers to set off events when
the player reaches a destination.
AI attributes
1. Set higher minimum engagement distances on some enemies. This makes them
more likely to fire than approach.
2. Vary the weapons the enemy uses, don’t just give everyone the same gun, give
some pistols, some rifles, some sub machineguns, etc. And change their accuracy
to reflect the gun they use.
Triggering
1. Trickle bad guys out of hiding by triggering one to run out if a buddy of his dies
outside
2. Replace sentries, like guards in towers, by using events to have someone run up
and replace them if they die.
3. Send out “search parties” of 1 to 3 enemies if the player fires from an area or
kills a sentry looking over the area.
4. Redirect some enemies to run to cover when they go red alert.
Other Hints and Tips
Plan out your mission before trying to create it in the Mission Editor. Having a good idea of what
you want your mission to contain will make your work go much more efficiently.
1. For your first mission, open the Sample.mis file and begin tweaking aspects of it.
This mission was created to give you a head start on creating a mission. Looking
at how a mission designer lays things out may help you understand specific
portions of a working mission.
2. For ease of viewing units, use the Height Map view (F2 key). The items will
stand out more against this background, especially on snowy terrain.
3. Using the layering functions can help save a lot of time when fine tuning
missions. Putting items in Layers may seem like a hassle for smaller missions
but when more and more items are added, you will really wish that you had done
it.