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Contract Missions

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Mike-MF edited this page Jul 30, 2023 · 55 revisions

This page goes into details on how to make a Contract mission for Theseus.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the #mission-making channel on Discord.

A note to mission makers.

Theseus is, first and foremost an infantry unit. We are not a mechanised unit in any capacity. This should be at the forefront of your mind when creating missions. Enemy vehicles in moderation add to the difficulty, immersion and overall enjoyment of a mission, while overusing these assets will just irritate the people it destroys.

Missions should be designed to be fun and enjoyable for everyone who participates. Most people play one mission per week and if they die to unavoidable circumstances, it's understandably annoying. Keep this in mind going forward.

Initial setup

Start by choosing the terrain you want to make a mission on, and load it through the EDEN editor from the main menu. From your Custom Compositions, put down the TAC - Contract Template composition. This will put down a couple of objects, among them being the player spawn itself, a headless client, a game master module and a few more objects. Put all these at a place where you want the player base to be for when we spawn in. The players should be in a somewhat open space area, and should not be on a road where vehicles may drive be driving. The spectator screen should be in a place that is easy to find. The armory crates should also be in some easy to locate and access area.

Note: The headless client & Game master module should not be placed into layers.

Make sure you also move the Respawn marker (with the variable name respawn_west). This marker is only visible on the map screen in the editor. Ensure this respawn marker is in an open area. Generally you can just put this marker on top of the players. In the odd case that your respawn point is in another location than the original player spawn, make sure that the Spectator Screen object is also moved to the same place as the respawn area and ensure additional armory crates are present at the location.

You've now set up the initial part of your mission. From here on, create your objectives, place down enemies and everything else that is needed in your mission. As always, if you need assistance with anything ranging from scripting, general mission make help or just simply some ideas, feel free to ask in the #mission-making channel on Discord.

Making the Briefing

While contract missions will in most cases have a briefing on our website, it is generally a good idea to also edit the briefing file to include the briefing, as it means that players do not have to minimize their game to check objective details etc. The briefing file is located under the functions folder in the root directory of your mission. Edit this file with a text editor of your choice, for example Visual Studio Code or Notepad++ (do not use regular Notepad). Inside the file, edit each section with the proper information.

  • Situation Describe the overall situation of the mission, and include details of friendly and enemy forces.
  • Equipment Give information on the available equipment, which cars and helicopters players have access to. Any other/special assets that do not fit under "Ground" or "Air" goes under "Special". This could, for example, be drones. If there's no access to certain assets, then leave the assets at N/A.
  • Objectives Give a short rundown of the objectives Theseus has been tasked with, and fill out the primary and secondary objectives in short bullet form. Primary Objectives are for any objectives that are deemed as a requirement for mission completion, while Secondary Objectives are for additional tasks that, while not crucial for mission completion, should still be completed if the opportunity presents itself.

At the top of the briefing file you'll also see a comment section which includes some small extras on how to format your briefing, such as how to make new lines, colored text or map marker links.

Map Markers

It is a good idea to keep the map clear of as many preset markers as possible, so that the map is "cleaned" up for the players to put their own markers.

Generally things like the base marker for where Theseus spawns is fine, however for objective markers, try to use either grid references or marker links instead.

Grid references should be self explanatory, simply write down the 6-digit grid of a location, eg. an objective. If you need something to be more exact, then use an 8-digit grid instead.

For marker links, in the editor, under System you can place an Empty marker. These markers are not visible in-game. Give this marker a variable name, for example task_01. Then in the briefing file, you can add the following: <marker name = 'task_01'>Click me</marker>. Then in-game, in the briefing "Click me" will be a yellow text that when clicked will move the camera to the position of the marker. You can use this method for marking things such as objectives.

In general for markers, it can be summarized that anything inside the AO that could "obstruct" mission planning markers (such as putting big markers on top of the objective saying "OBJECTIVE HERE") should be avoided.

Mission Start Time

In most cases, the Arma server is restarted approximately 1 hour before the start of the contract, and the mission will then be up. This gives people time to join the server and equip their gear, as well as allowing the team leads to discuss plans before the start.

This means you'll have to take this into account when setting the time for the mission, and set the time to be 1 hour earlier in-game.

For example, if you wish the mission to start at 19:45, then in the editor you need to set the mission to start at 18:45. This way, after about 1 hour, when the contract "officially" starts, the time of the mission will be 19:45.

Vehicles

For Contract missions, we have a few standard vehicles that we utilize.

All our vehicles can be found under the Theseus Inc. faction.

  • Regular day-to-day operations, we use the Arcadian GT
  • For more offroad based operations, we use either the Polaris DAGOR or Offroad
  • For transport or logistics operations, we use either the HEMTT or Van Transport/Cargo
  • For helicopters, we usually have the Little Birds (AH-6M, MH-6M and OH-6M variants from MELB mod) as our standard helo.
  • For medium transport or utility, we usually prefer the AW159 Wildcat.
  • For large transport or utility, we prefer the AW101 Merlin.

Note: There is a composition with the most commonly used helicopters.

That said, for contracts, do make sure the helicopters are fully AFM (Advanced Flight Model) compatible. You can see a list of helicopters and how well they support AFM here: https://github.com/Theseus-Aegis/MissionTemplate/wiki/Helicopters

Ensure that when you incorporate helicopters into a mission that there is an alternative vehicle/route in the unlikely event no pilots are available to attend the mission.

Note: AFM support is only important for player used vehicles. What the AI uses does not matter.

A final note on all vehicles that we use is that you need to clear the equipment storage. Either double-click a vehicle, or right click and hit Attributes to open the attribute window. From there, expand the Object: Equipment Storage section, and press the CLEAR button.

Zeusing

If a mission requires some roleplaying aspects by the mission maker, Zeusing is allowed, however there are ground rules.

First, it is important to note that when zeusing, you are not building a mission, but controlling it. That is to say, you're not putting down bases, filling locations with enemies etc. All of this should already have been done when making the mission. Instead, when Zeusing you'll mainly be responsible for ensuring the players have fun through smaller interactions with zeus controlled units, as well as making sure that the AI doesn't pull any shenanigans that can result in odd behavior.

And again, you're not making the mission, and this includes things such as additional reinforcements. If you want units spawned in later, look into using the Reinforcements function instead of spawning units with Zeus. Of course, spawning AI is acceptable in some cases such as if it's to correct something an AI did (An example could be that the AI reinforcements drove off and killed themselves).

Additionally, it is required that you ensure your mission is fully playable without an active Zeus at all. You use triggers and waypoints etc. to control most of the mission, rather than jumping into Zeus to start moving AI around.

Reason for this is that occasionally we may have low numbers in the mission, and any additional contractor on the field can be a help. Someone being in Zeus means one less player on the field.

Actively utilising Zeus to kill players directly by remote control will result in you never being able to Zeus again. There is a difference between suppressing and immersion building and outright killing players because you can.

Campaigns

Theseus Campaigns is a series of contract missions telling a shorter collected story. They are usually all on the same map, but not necessarily always. As campaigns are made up of contract missions, most of what has been mentioned already is the same, however there's some slight changes to a few points.

  • Naming The names of campaign missions differ slightly, as explained in the Naming Convention. For campaigns, you'll name your mission the following: tac_ca_CampaignNameXX_MissionName where "CampaignName" is the name of your campaign, XX is the number for the mission, and "MissionName" is the name of the mission. For example, you're running a campaign called Operation Mars, and you're making the third mission in the campaign called Martians. The name of your mission will then be: tac_ca_OperationMars03_Martians
  • Lobby It is a good idea to have a "lobby" mission that can be switched to in-between campaign missions. This lobby mission will have no AI placed, and very minimal objects placed (generally only objects within the Theseus FOB should be placed). This gives a small mission that is quick to load, so players can quickly log in mid-week and change gear, without worrying about potential AI running about etc. The name of lobby missions should be the following: tac_ca_CampaignName00_Lobby where "CampaignName" once again is the name of the campaign.
  • Persistence Often in campaigns we'll be utilizing persistent vehicles. This basically means that our vehicles have been added to Chronos, and the vehicle position is saved on the server, and across the campaign missions. When on the server, you can add vehicles to Chronos by opening Zeus, and under Modules\TAC you should see an Add to Chronos function. Put this module on the vehicle you wish to add. It can also be noted that objects such as item crates can be added to Chronos, and any items within the crates will then be saved as well. Important: Objects saved to Chronos will not be in your mission when you're editing it with EDEN. You need to take note of where vehicles are parked (it is usually a good idea to have a clear parking space for players to park), and ensure nothing is in the area. If there's objects in the area where vehicles are stored, there's a good chance the vehicles will get stuck inside the object, and in most cases explode.

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