Overview
Welcome to my guide, we will take a look at Custom campain editorIts very awesome thing, you can create your own very campain with your own factions !But its alot of work to make campain worth the time of other people since they can be shared trough Workshop
1) Getting Started
Lets start with clicking on PLANET EDITOR
Assuming you didnt switch to another planet, you will recive pop-up that you get your own idendifier
Why so ? : Devoleper created this to prevent corrupted saves by editing Neter
Since you get new idendifier, you are safe to modify it as you want !
Lets mop up everything so we will start with empty world
You will be tasked with somethings
say yes to all, and…. done, you got empty planet from terrain, but not factions, you can delete them manualy so your factions can take a place ! Same with instances, you will want to delete them all so you can replace them with their own
For now its just ball of water, but we will change that later !
Before we proceed to terrain editor, we need to look at important options
2) “Important” options
Make sure to check these stuff, they are critical in proper campain, they are mostly self explained
Be aware that wacky number can lead to weird aftermath, Like setting wind speed to above 9, your sail ships will turn in to racing boats
Air Density is that things you instantly notice on Neter, where your hight speed aircraft will get stuck.
Numbers depend on you but in general you should make it large eneugh for normal aircraft to fly without complications but it shouldnt be too large else the player might exploit it and make ultra alt aircraft that are out of reach of most non-airborne units.
Terrain setting will mostly define how LARGE will be the planet terrain/section (Keep low for making Helicopters and Airships with static flight altitude)
3) Terrain
I think i’ll let you play in the sandbox for while
Terrain enables you to model the planet surface
I’ll will not explain what each thing do, you can check it out by yourself
But some points:
1) You can change the size of the terrain “Pallet”
2) You can change type of biome (Left/Right) with Biome Paint Pallet
Biomes
4 = Lava
3 = Snow
2 = Desert
1 = Forrest
0 = Oceanic surface (Eh, that stuff that is on bottom of the Ocean)
NOTE’s*
For now, biomes dont do ANYTHING
You can drag wooden raft on leash around in Volcano surface where the Lava is visible without fear to burn down
Water dont freeze in Frozen biome
Desert dont generate a heat
Snow/Ice does not impact land vehicle movements
*Note to Terrain
It is indestructible, but dev said that it can be turned on one day……
4.1) Faction Creation (Or Wipe)
Wohohoo here comes the hard work part (With designs of course)
You wont have these factions there, they are mine (I will advertize my campaign at the end of this guide)
Some important stuff:
1) There MUST be a Player Faction !
– It does not need to be named player, but it need to be configured in Instance menu (Will get to that later)
2) For your factions to come in place, you need to remove the old ones from game, for good !
3) Place as much factions as you like, but more factions means more work
I stick up with 8+1+1
Example:
Eight of them are enemy, one is you, and one is a faction that i will add later in game’s devolepment stage
4.2) Faction Setting
Lets use Iron Armada as our example
1) On the Top you can write your factions lore
2) Down you can edit messages you will see when the realitionship changes
Like if you are -100 with Iron Armada, well… war, war never changes
3) At the bottom, there are fleet and team colors
4) On the side you can set faction flag, one is used on vehicles and another one is used on Global map
By posting Pictures URL
I find that UED flag is very fitting to Iron Armada Flag
5) At the very top you can set name and shortcut (Iron Armada = IA)
4.4) Special Fleets
Here comes something you 100% Noticed in game
Coffin Armada anyone ?
Yes, now this is the part where people get reckt since they are not “Special” by just name
First of
– Special fleet can spawn by its chance
Example:
23. Airborne
12. Naval Army
Coffin Armada
Special fleet have chance to spawn instead of regular fleet
1) Type
– How will faction use it, completly working feature
2) Blockade distance factor
– Since you can engage battle at your desired distance, this lost lot of its power
– This determind how big the battle ring will be
– Keep it low for fast melee vehicles, by fast i mean realy fast that even human cannot spot them first (Think of super sonic jets)
3) Formation
– Special fleet ships can spawn in formation
4) Special Fleet Members
– These set designs will always spawn
(1 Panther Gunship + 2 Orifika Bombers)
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Summary of Special Fleets:
– You meet designs that you wont meet in regular ranks trough special fleets
Possible usage:
– Mercenary battlegroups (Non-factional standart units)
– Sub faction units (From time to time you might fight with factional minor armies, like for Iron Armada you can find Spear of Tithan battalions, they have diffrent ships than IA)
– Tottaly out of place units (Units that might nooooot be lore friendly if spotted too often, think of stolen vehicles or experimental units)
– Some factional elite units that you could only encouter trough special fleets
4.3) Faction Designs
Lets start
1) Name + Lore
2) Diff. of the the design, hexagon dont use it so all vehicles are set to easy
3) Vehicle Type
They are :
Ship, plane, Thrustercraft, Helicopter, Space Craft, Submarine, installation, Drone/target and Building
For categories only serve as managment helper, they DO NOT affect game by anything which is kinda sad
4) Corporation
Does nothing in game, only helps people to unite units visuals
5) Spawn Chance
– Keep it low if design is powerfull
– You can add additional spawn chance for diffrent regular fleets
– By default all units are subscribed to the default regular fleet
(Generic = Regular)
Example if you dont get it:
Lets say we got jet called Floh
It got 20% Chance to spawn in Generic fleet
It got 10 % chance to spawn in Generic Jet army
It got 0% chance to spawn in Generic Submarine pack
6) Fleet Power
Define how much does design take space from fleet power
Panther is 50, so if AFU generate 80 Fleet power he will take 50 points and the 30 will be used on other designs to fill the budget
7) Seen After X Hours
– Set to prevent seal clubbering
8) Seen Before X Hours
– Can be used to dis-able weak units in late game so faction wont waste resources on them
9) Broadside
– Vehicle spawn at X Broadside when battle start
10) Spawning Height
– Set above 100 for Aircraft so they dont need to lift from water
– Somewhat cannot be negative, so no subs spawning underwater m8….. (Till Dev fix this) forget it, it works with subs
11) Folder
– Path for your vehicle, be carefull with this !
12) and 13) are settings that AI faction will obey and use units that are good at certain targets
– Panther is gunship so he is VERY good at destroying ground objects, so if you are attacking with ships, faction will smuggle this on you
14) Patrol rating
– The bigger the number is, the more likely faction will send design to patrol
15) Repair factor
– Not realy, or even i even wonder if this works in campaign ?
– I assume faction will use designs that have big number to repair damaged units
16) Harvest Factor
– Bigger the number is, more likely the design will be send on harvest job
– I havent experimenced factions (yet) trying to reclaim resource zone with harvester in the fleet so they can harvest resources
* 17) + 18)
– Not working
– I assume this will come with localized resources
Now lets skip the obvius stuff
Only important thing you need to do here is to make sure that units stats are reloaded (Can cause crashed or lag if not !)
4.5) Generic (Or regular) Fleets
Only few notes here
1) You can randomize fleet names, it should be reflecting faction lore
2) I havent set any additional stuff for AFU since i dont have eneugh designs for that
4.6) Corporations
You can create here
1) They dont do anything
2) Without access to editor you cant even read their lore
3) Only used (If even) as visual unity
aka vehicles from that x corporation will have spikes everywhere !
I only hope in future, that corps get some game changing element
It would be cool if you could take out the corporation HQ on planet so they cant produce certain units
I personaly have them just… to be there
Or i put their factories directly on the map, too bad nothing happen when you pillage it to the ground
5) Areas
This enables you to chop your planet to “Biomes”
Each Area can have diffrent weather (I will talk about it later in guide)
– You can do whatever you want with it, but it should be responding to the faction that dwells the territory the most
Examples:
New Olomouc
Territory of Earth Federations
Just like on old Earth !
Now comes the serrius stuff
Territory of dreadfull Vasori Empire, air is flocking with radiation and vision is very limited
And here is some eyes hurting enviroment !
6) Weather
I will not guide you trough everything, its sandbox, go and play and test, i will only teach you some basics point:
While its non-standart in CC editor, weather actualy does something in game !
Fog, in desolation ruins your vision, so player controled weapons are blind
Or in some other weathers, big winds etc…. can flip and sink your ship
Especialy wave height, it can capsize your ships if they are not very balanced
Bellow you can set colour changes, like red water, black skies etc…….
If you create a weather you can add it to certain area.
As you can see i still have old Neter weathers there since i havent focused on that much
7) Phases
An extension to weather, it mainly configure how phases of day looks like
You can make bliding sun, or dark one
I didnt messed up with this very much since Hexagon is regular Earth like planet so some sort of freacking sun blinding everyone wont happen under my watch
8) Garrisons
This option enable you to chose where enemy forces appear when you engage the grid with them
By default its in the middle but you can configure it by clicking inside the grid (The spawn point will move where you click)
They are marked by that red thing
9) Unlocks
Enable you to lock things up, like the in the past Neter did
It can be either locked by
1) Level
2) Mission
Realy simple
10) Instances
Well… instance is hard to explain
Diffrent options per invibidual instances ?
Each Instance can have totaly diffrent set-up (Everything that is on the second tab beyond INSTANCE) ?
Example:
Another instance can be : Entire planet is under control of Vasori Empire
Down bellow you can create missions, multiplayer maps, designer instance and Campaign Instance
STORY MISSIONS
Whatever instance you create you will get that tab with configurations
This will enable you to customize mission flow
You can test it by clicking at LAUNCH MISSION SELECT GUI
And it will throw you to this menu, just like if you would select it by yourself at main menu
10.1) Instance – Faction
So let me assume you got campaign instance ready
On the second tab you will see
Here you can configure factional resources, if they are presented in instance and if they are player or AI controled
! There must be atleast one player controled faction in campaign/mission instance, for missions the player controled faction must be coresponding faction !
! There must be 1 spawn point !
10.2) Instance – Faction Territory
1) Enable you to give faction territory (You chose faction down bellow)
2) Enable you to set historical lands (Territory that was once beloging to other faction, faction armies will prioritize them over new ones)
3) Tool that increase/decrease grid strenght
10.3) Instance – Faction Relationships
This enable you to configure how faction are pissed/happy about you
Negative values makes them enemy
Positive only gives you ability to pass trough their territory and you dont get attacked by them
Update: No longer the case, being at green with enemies only prevents them from raiding your fleets, you cannot pass through their titles anymore or else they will get angry.
For custom campaign, use only 1 starting enemy if you dont want to overwhelm the player.
CC and campaign is in general, BROKEN Abit…
(Will get to that later)
10.4) Instance – Fleets (Faction HQ, harvest job, one time existing fleets and so on…..)
Very critical part !
Lets select instance that is campaign (Or story mission)
But i chosed Campaign
Place fleets directly on planet surface
Now on the picture:
1) Fleets can chose designs from Special Fleets (Coffin Armada as example)
Its optional, you can still manualy select what composition is it
2) Fleet Orders
There must (In case of campaign) be atleast 1 factional HQ and harvesters (AI does not realy have boundless resources)
If no HQ presented, faction will not produce fleets to attack you, if no harvesters are presented, AI cannot build fleets (Or can, but at horific rate like one fleet per entire campaign)
*Note*
Faction HQ does not need to be fortress or building, it can be ship, aircraft, whatever you want
*Note*
I think AI does not cheat with resources, but i am not 100% sure
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Fleet orders give orders to fleet what they should do
Should they sit and wait ?
Should they patrol ?
Should they attack enemy territory (Works only against player, will get to that problem later)
1O.5) Instance – Resource rings
This enable you to place resource points on planet
You can configure:
Resource Storage
Like 8000/8000
Resource Growth
Like 10 (Resource storage will replenish itself by this rate)
Ring Size
Will define how big the ring will be
For Campaigns:
Its recomended to let player to start atleast with one resource ring (Or if you want you dont need, and let player to scavage for resources by himself)
*Note*
Ring cannot ussualy run out of resources, it will last forever but if its resouce storage hit the 1/8000 the mining job will get hell of slower, thats why massive resource gatherer blobs are not effective
Update: You can set zones to be finite
Aka it can run out, for good.
This is best countermeasure against player camping in starting location till he build up….
10.6) Instance – Markers (Way Points)
This is mainly for story missions
This can be used as victory condition (Aka escape from there, come here etc….)
Can be configured:
Elevation
Shape ? (Only Ring for now)
Triggered event ? (Aka this circle can appear after x objective is complete)
If ring dis-appear when its reached (Y/N)
10.7) Instance – Victory Condition (Objectives)
Objectives, for both missions and campaign
1) Full (Primary)
If this condition is meet, win/loss scenarion will appear (you can configure which faction will be affected)
2) Group (Victory condition list)
– If all Partial are meet, this Group will trigger
3) Partial
– Partial objectives are linked to Group
– If all partial objectives are completed, Group victory condition will trigger
– Used in Campaign (You need to wipe out all HQ to win)
– Used in missions too (Like need to wipe out half of the fleet to win the day)
*Group + partial, you can mix it up like you want, you can create massive ammount of this, so mission/campaign will have multi-ending
Missing/Broken Features of CC Editor
Let me give you a list what is not working (aka not made yet)
So i will warn you before you start creating campaign, to prevent a discovery in middle of work that feature dont work yet
Lets start
1) Diplomacy is broken (Gona be fixed)
2) Faction dont fight with each other
3) Factions are braindead (No special tactics)
4)5) Were fixed
6) Factional AI dont know how to use land vehicles (They do now)
7) Ships spawn on land if engaged on land (Fleets no longer do that)
8) Biomes dont do anything at all
9) For now, allies attack each other if all mustered to one battle (Fixed i think)
10) Subs always spawn on surface, there is no other way to let them spawn underwater till its fixed/added (Fix, not a issue, i was looking at old versions)
11) Making too mountainous terrain will render helicopters/aircraft/everything useless (Since they cannot change their attidute automaticly)
12) Land units will spawn underground
13) There is no Land AI and working wheels in game, Land Campaigns are only possible trough jets propeling tanks, and Tank LUA to drive them (And LUA have its own set of problem)
Land was fixed and tanks use wheels.
12) PvP campaigns are impossible, because of few things
A) You cannot have more than one player faction doing their own things (Only one guy can be in play while everyone else is out) B) Multiplayer code is weak
13) Locks and Unlocks still doesnt work
Kinda a problem for low-tech themed campaigns, you can lock blocks to prevent them from being used, like particle cannons vs sail ships.
There are 3 ways to piss around this, one is so easy that its bordeline outrageous
14) Terrain as a obstacle isnt accounted for AI targeting systems, this means anything but flatland terrain will result in tanks shooting the ground if theres enemy behind it
15) You can forget about story driven campaigns with the current event system.
What is Possible with CC editor
– Campaigns simmilar to Neter
– RTS campaigns like WW2 Dangerous Waters or my Zrytix
– Campaigns that are focused on Historic Event
– Campaigns that are focused on certain unit type (Only airships, only sail based vehicles)
– Campaigns of any scale, but bigger it is, more work you will got
– And Campaigns that are only story missions, aka story campaign
Now Existing Campaigns + Last words
Here is list of FTD Forum known (By me) Campaigns
1) Hexagon
Creator: Me
*1) Zrytix land-based RTS
My current project, based in Hexagon Universe but as Land-based RTS
2) Terrus Asunder
Creator: ABYAY
3) The Resource War
Creator: DieMango
4) A World Divided
Creator: Savaage
5) Descendant: The elemental world of Prism
Creator: Majyst
6) Myerph ?
Creator: Herobrineofnotch
7) Consolidated Black Sun Syndicate mission pact (Not working very well)
Creator: ExRedux
8) The Azarian Desert: Rebooted
Creator: FireDune
9) DWG homeworld
Creator: chp2001
10) Age of Sails
Creator: ciaranhappy
11) Dangerous Waters, WW2 Comunity project
Creators: Anister, Mech Romancer, Knoox, Me and others (Visit us on forums)
We are now in base game
12) WW2 Lite
Created by: Goduranus
Aviable on workshop
13) Soliana
Created by hedgehogsrevenge
14) Tension High
Created by Fuzzah
15) Battlefleet Gothic 40k Warhammer
Created by Mech Romancer
16) Changing Tides
Created by Stahl Sentinel
17) Universe At War
Created by Lemming, Ciaranhappy and Termin8ter
Here are few examples
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Last words:
Devolepment of CC is very, VERY slow, especialy if you are only one guy
Neter got advantage that its very showed to publics (And have own subforums)
Thats why the blueprints flow like water
When the other “major (The first 5 i think ?)” campaigns get own forums i assume their devolepment will sky rocket up
If you got some additional question/need help go to discusions