Mission Design

Some hints on how to get your mission started.

Design directives

Objective

Think about the purpose of your mission - what kind of experience are you looking to provide to the players? An intense action thrill ride with lots of explosions or maybe a cold dead-of-the-night hostage rescue behind enemy lines? The first step of designing a mission is to understand what that mission will be like when it's finished.

Length

Objectives separated by long stretches of land, no air transportation available, fighting enemy armored vehicles and even low supplies can drastically inflate the playing time of a mission, so keep these in mind when laying the objectives down. It is also important to remember that a mission that drags for too long will wear out players, who might not just end up bored and feeling no desire to play the mission any longer, but also lose their temper and act reckless and disregard the experience for his fellows.

Replayability

A mission that can only be played a single time is pretty much a waste of effort in your part - ArmA is dynamic in nature and as such implementing anything without randomness should be considered poor form. Thanks to some AI management systems like DAC and ALIVE, it's no longer necessary to place down individual units and plan every viable waypoint, but it's still possible to take the concept even further by manipulating the position of these zones themselves.

Enemies

Enemies are the true stars of every mission -- it's all about getting to meet them in person just so you get to shoot at something. As such it is important to consider what kind of forces the players will be engaging and balance them accordingly: too much enemy armor might make the mission unbeatable due to the lack of anti-tank weaponry; enemies that are too skilled will perform remarkably in forest firefights and likely slaughter the players, who are subject to having their views blocked by foliage. Put careful thought in every aspect of your enemies, from the attachment on their weapons to how many battalions will be present.

Friendlies

It's very important that you understand that every single piece of equipment you give to a player matters, and that every piece of equipment you DON'T, also matters. Deprive players from scopes and firefights will become closer; give them grenade launchers, and it's likely enemy infantry will die out much faster; provide not enough AT weaponry and very soon players will find themselves trapped and helpless against armored contacts. It is essential you understand as much as possible about the equipment available in the game so that you can balance the player equipment in a good way.

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Mission checklist

These are the recommended steps one should go through while making a mission, in the recommended order.

• Conceptualize what the mission will play like.
• Find an appropriate map.
• Create a new folder and name it after said map.
• Install the Framework in the folder and add the map to the mission.sqm dependencies.
• Decide on a side and remove the unnecessary content included by default.
• Remove the extra units and vehicles from your selected side.
• Leave only vehicles relevant to the mission.
• Start editing the Mission Settings file.
• Edit your name, skip the version and the game-mode.
• Edit the values about sides and gear, like factions, side colors and callsigns.
• Modify the endings if necessary.
• Read over the Plugin Settings and modify if necessary.
• If necessary, add new loadouts to your mission.
• Duplicate the Template sheet and modify the existing values.
• Open the faction list and create another case for the faction.
• Modify the DAC_Config_Units file to include the proper vehicles to your faction: replace the BLUFOR/OPFOR with the desired ones.
• Go to the map and lay down named triggers where the AI should be spawned - do not worry about any code.
• Edit the mission_AI file.
• Add DAC Zones targeting the previously placed triggers.
• Create DAC Camps to support said Zones.
• Place Triggers down areas that should be captured and set the appropriate capture condition.
• Make sure the Triggers turn a related variable as TRUE when activated.
• Edit the Tasks file.
• Initialize the capture values as FALSE.
• Create new Tasks and write their conditions as string expressions.
• Open the Params file and change Weather Conditions parameters if applicable. Don't forget to reload the mission.
• Edit whatever other Plugin related parameter if applicable. Don't forget to reload the mission.
• Write down the briefing to all relevant sides.
• Add whatever gimmicks and extra scripts to the mission.
• Make a new loading screen if applicable.
• Edit the Intel of the mission with the appropriate naming standards and version.
• Save for multiplayer and upload it.

Testing

• Your mission contains no unneeded units that come with the Framework.
• Players start at their designated spawn point.
• Players spawn with the proper gear and equipment.
• All your enemies spawn correctly with the proper gear and equipment.
• All objectives can be completed and failed.
• The mission briefing is readable and properly conveys information about the mission.

General tips

• Plan before you act. Planning a mission before you even go to editor will greatly help you on the design of it. List the tasks, main idea or even scripts that you’ll have to create during the process of making the mission. You can do this by putting down a to-do list on the map with markers, make a fluxogram or write it all in a file.

• Blur the line. That means you shouldn’t make "cinematic" missions, with lots of linear "go here now go there and then go there too" objectives - just having the location of an objective randomized already means a different mission every time you play - keep this in mind and let the players plan their own insertion, ROE, evacs, etc.

• Not too hard, not too soft. Although saying this is a bit obvious and hard to abstract, one should always take in consideration the strength of both sides, and make sure neither has an absolute upper hand. CAS support? Make sure to add AAA. The enemy has far superior numbers? Maybe if that’s no longer an advantage if players have NVGs in a night-time mission. Make sure to reward the players if they use the correct strategy, but don’t be afraid to punish them if they don’t.

• Simple and clean. ArmA at its most basic is a game where you can place a couple of units in the map and that’s it - the AI will handle the rest and ensue a different scenario most of the times. Don’t steer away from that principle. Instead of trying to control the events to please your inner Micheal Bay, “Destroy Radio Tower” is a perfectly valid mission and can be a ton of fun.

• Spare the toasters. We know that having an army of enemies fighting each other while your own laser beam with custom particles destroys everything can be an interesting sight to behold, but remember that not everyone has a computer as beast as yours: think of other players and take it easy on the frames. Is the mission too easy and you need to add more enemies? How about making the AI smarter or giving the enemy better gear instead?

• Drop the gimmicks. It can be pretty neat to have a script that does something unexpected or unique to your mission, but be careful not to have your whole mission rely on it: gimmicks get old fast and as soon as it does, your mission is scrap, never to be played again.

• Sensible scaling. Often will be the times where you will want a mission with some form of support - armored or aerial or whatever it may be - but it’s necessary to always consider how many players are you making the mission for: on low player-count scenarios, prioritize infantry over everything else, and then gradually allow for more support roles as they are called upon.

• Design a hornets' nest. Although this sounds a lot simpler than it actually is, this is a principle that should be applied to every mission with multiple objectives that can be completed in no particular order: whenever players attack a certain enemy controlled target, have them counter-attack in some way or another depending on strong the original target was. This way you can drive players through the mission with "easier" targets, working up their way to the bigger ones, and maintaining the flow of engagements.