Stahlins Sudden Guide 4

for Sudden Strike Resource War Single Player Mapping

With examples for RWM 8.0, RCM 2.7, WWM 0.5, MWM 2, RWG 0.8,

AXPRM 2, PWM 2.0, LRM 5.1, WZ 2, CWC and VP 1.2 Mod,

but usable with whole SuSt 1 + 2 family

( best viewed with 1024 x 768 or bigger )

Sudden Strike Resource War

Single Player Map

A new version with further Mods and many little corrections. Sudden Strike, Sudden Strike 2, Resource War, RWM, RCM, WWM, MWM, PWM, LRM, Warzone, CWC, Vietnam Project or another mod, they are all similar.

Sometimes in the forum Sudden-Strike-Maps.de there are questions how to create a SP map. There have been some tutorials over the years, like that from Irrlaeufer for MP Maps and the guide for SSRW from Gareth. But what i have made here i havent seen. It is useable for all Sudden Strike mods, but sometimes little changes, especially at the units, may be required. Not for all Mods the example "Four Nations" is fully converted. Please dou changes if necessary.

In this Version there are Maps for RCM 2.7, RWM 8.0, MWM 2, RWG 0.8, PWM 2, LRM 5.1, WZ 2, CWC, VP 1.2 and WWM 0.5 included.

In Switcher you can start Map-Editor directly. But not always works correctly.

For Map-testing choose Map with "Select Map". Then you can start each further test directly with "Bootstrap".

Lets start from the beginning. Create a new map. Or copy "Map.253" and/or "Map.254" to your MAPS.SRC folder.

And a new mission. Best both always together.

Lets start with an airport. With terrain asphalt we create 3 places for hangars and in a distance one for liftoff.

Over that we put the yellow airfield territory. Number isnt important now.

But now the airfield number becomes important. Hangars and liftoff points are placed. On the lower left and in the squares you see the 3.

The landingpoint goes to the end of the rollfield. The small squares are turned as shown.

Now hangars and rollfield become connected with asphalt and territory.

Building the hangars.

With Unit/add new "Fieseler Storches" are set. For the groups it is the best to have a scheme. Helps to keep overview. I use A for player, J for enemy, 0 for simple troops, 9 for officers. Dont forget morale, experience and lives.

IN and Crew are selected. Again IN or Crw ends it.

OK and the fieseler storches can be turned with the . and , keys. Then we set 3 of them on the red hangar points (show with F5). As they belong to player they appear green in the table on the lower right.

Now a street.

A piece is marked for load/save. Be careful when scrolling out of window. Here is one main bug who can lead to crash. First scroll with the scrollbars, then mark more. Only mark connected areas like rectangles, otherwise you maybe cannot load it later.

And save.

Load and place with alt+control+leftmousebutton. Can save much time.

The street goes to the hangars.

Now the gates for reinforcement are placed. On the lower left A-Z (at SSRW, in other versions less). Left mouse sets entering point, right click direction.

Another gate for the train.

And one for the ship.

The red flag must be in the middle of the railway.

Again with block save/load the railway is builded across the whole map.

Now with terrain water a channel for the ship.

Streets and railway get bridges.

Now set locations. We need them for scripting.

In the table we see on the black numbers which locations are in use. Click on the number jumps to location.

Station and location is placed.

Now an enemy camp.

For that russian infantry is used.

They are standing in line.

In front an officer is placed with group J9.

With edit existing mark all and choose enemy on the lower left (easy to forget). Now they are red in the table, allies are yellow, neutral blue.

The german camp must be guarded too.

They belong to player and appear green in table.

# 1. Single Player Map

The most important parts of the map are ready now. Save again. Now we begin scripting.

First victory condition.

Here it is.

Now we make life easy and simply copy that.

and paste it.

The upper i change a little.

and so i have created a looser condition.

Now we could save and generate a singleplayer mission. The map is playable, it is possible to win or loose.

Now something for optical structure, it doesnt affect game.

It becomes moved.

Now we get reinforcement on the map. Open a new trigger and click on reinforcements. Or in menu MISSIONS.

Here we can edit reinforcements. Group A1. Moral and experience shpuld be at least 50. Otherwise they do a lot of nonsens. Lives should be at least 1 because otherwise they may die quickly. With IN and CRW passengers can be edited.

As passengers 14 ss soldiers.

Crew is already preselected and no need to change.

Add and it appears in the right window. Type in name on bottom and OK. Now the train.

Its always the same. Dont forget EXP and lives.

The wagon gets 16 ss soldiers.

And some of these wagons appended at the train.

Now the ship. Here i have forgotten morale, can be changed later.

We borrow from americans. Replace crew with germans.

Put in 20 ss soldiers.

The 3 reinforcements are ready. Check in overview if there are 0 units somewhere. With the scores it is possible to create balance. Dont forget OK. And saving.

Now we get them on map. First truck 1.

The script is again copied and altered.

Truck 2

Now the train.

And the ship.

Ready.

Save and generate sp mission to test.

Dir is: YourSSRW Dir>\MAPS\SINGLE

Start the Game and load your mission.

The Fieseler Storch can be started manually.

He spies the russian camp.

Meanwhile ss has left wagons and attacks.

But thats not enough. There must be something special. So we change the location at the station a little.

Then we need 2 messages.

And with two clever scripts we mark the station as in german hand or not.

Cell C_8 is a flag. Is station conquered it is 1, else 0. We need that so that the message is displayed only once every time the station is conquered. Otherwise it would be displayed again and again forever.

The scripts now look like that.

When saving and testing we see its relatively quite on map. Sudden Strike AI is lazy. If we want something going on we must create it ourself.

For that now our special construction comes. 60 triggers will be switched in random order. In the triggers we could put everything we want. This here is only a demonstration of the method. Can be altered after your ideas.

First we need some further houses, locations and markers according to the game plan. BTW: in SSRW we now have an undo! With alt+control+Z we can undo, and this with over 100 steps! You can use the symbols beneath the disc symbol, too.

Now i set some location 33 on places where player will pass.

Location 33 is used to produce a random value. SSRW has no random function and till now i have no better idea how to create one.

New in this version to increase C_33 from the beginning continously from 1 to 60.

Then for each party a small value is added or subtracted, so that C_33 always has another value. even if the player don't move.

Because C_33 would grow eternally we must limit that.

Then we produce an irregular timer.

If one of the three timers is elapsed our random value goes to the triggervariable.

Be careful with this window. Easy to make mistake. Dont mismatch variable and number. Click on variable.

We can begin to create the 60 triggers which will be executed randomly. "exclude this condition" is replaced by setting C_30 to 0 again in each trigger. That way we can use each trigger as often as we want without continual execution.

Copy the trigger 9 times.

Then alter them.

Nr. 3

Nr. 4

All 10 ready.

Now copy 10 for enemy.

Triggers become altered.

10 enemy triggers ready.

Save again. Rest of triggers i fill with howitzers.

Set in map.

Trigger 21 becomes altered.

Copied 9 times.

Copies become altered.

Better use a system to not become confused. Here i use for location triggernr minus 20.

The last howitzer.

The first 30 triggers are ready. Then we create 30 more, 60 total. To find a special trigger later, we can add a comment to the end of title line, what happens in this trigger.

Save again and test. Testing is most time, 90% of development. Because you need to test every possibility if you want to test good. Always keep the last working version as backup. Sometimes it is very hard to find mistakes, then you may want to reach back to your backup.

Now a few tanks.

To show something with the blocked fields. If tanks would drive now, the fence would be destroyed. That would look like some idiot tank drivers.

So i set blocked fields. The red are not changeable

At diagonal touching fields like on the corner infantry can pass. Infantry needs 1 field, vehicles 2.

Part 2, from now on MAP.253 ("(S) WWM 0.5 Four Nations" is described. I have added further Houses, Gates, Zones, Marker and Units. In big empty areas i have drawn with Terrain to achieve a realistic impression and to use not to much Objects. Because the number of Objects and Units is limited.

Left in the West the german Camp, right in East the enemy Russians, in North neutal Americans, in South the allied Italians, in North the industrial area, In West Houses.

Cows added. Party Neutral, Behaviour: "Move randomly in area". Be careful, some are declared Enemy. But they are killed soon.

The Scripts are changed to have better Reinforcements. More Scripts were added. At the Station a Message was required when the empty Station was conquered. At the Camps, Airfield and Locations it is now reversed. They are not empty and an action is required when they are lost. It is the reverse program logic. The Questionmarks dont disturb, the most important is visible with "Language=2", mentioned in the beginning.

Only 0 and 1 need to be exchanged.

The random construction contains 60 items now. The Titles were made more speaking. Helps to have Overview.

If the small Tower in North is conquered, the Aviation Traffic is stopped

If lost, Aviation is activated with C_51 = 0.

For Aviation a second random construction is inserted.

It begins like before, with the Timers.

This time Variable 43 is decreased.

If C_43 less than 1 set it to 20.

If one of the Timers elapsed and Aviation is switched on with C_51 = 0 set C_40 to the value of C_43. Note the braces around the elapsed timers. Without them it would not work.

Now the first of 20 flights. Plane types are choosed in window "Player".

Allied and neutral Units arriving in Player Camp shall be delivered to Player. They must have Groups C0 or H0 like in Script.

Same Scheme für Neutral and the other Camps.
Now we need a harbor.
Important to set "Other Flags\Shallows", so that the passengers can leave the ship. For that the landing places naturally cant have blocked fields.
For the Location i take 7.
The matching marker (in Script called "Object") 7.
For the Scripts we can copy from Airfield and alter, all to 7. New Phrases must be created.
For Airfield now i take 9. Then we have 7 Harbor, 8 Station und 9 Airfield. Easy to remember. Marker and Variables, all have same numbers.
Now we can let the enemy bomber throw a bomb on it from time to time.
The ship of the Player swims to the harbor.
The "Random Value" in Variable 33 becomes altered by other parties.
Dont forget to set Airfield to Location 9 and Marker 9.
Now we can limit the numbers of units for each party. The vaarible number appears at the end of the title.

For each party a Script.

And its counterpart.

And add this Variable 51 to the former ranodom script, so that the reinforcements are only set when there are not already too mch on map.

Same for each party. Here for the enemy.

The industrial tower to stop aviation now gets variable 50.

After all this scripting now we bring a big ship on map, like in "Corregidor Castle". The ships are very different in each mod.
At landingpoint there should be "Shallows".
Thats how it looks in game (WWM 0.8). The landingship under full steam.
After marking the ship and clicking in command box in the middle left, rightclick at target point and passengers leave ship.

To use the Maps in your Mod just copy "map.253" and "map.254" to your "Maps.src" folder. In many cases there will be few corrections necessary. Objects, units, reinforcements and not to forget paradropers in Player-window. And the sounds at Phases.
It is even possible to copy the example mission to each map of any size of each mod To do so create a new mission with the desired size. Then copy all files except "desc" and "info" to the new mission. Now you can load this mission in map and do your corrections.
We have still a few Centimeters and Lifetime left, so we can create a Chart with the Map Image Tool from Kev. First we scale a real Chart to approximately 512 x 512 and open it, here 512\Pearl Harbor.bmp.
In the target mod we create a new 512 map in slot 243. Then Mapfolder is set to ~\Maps.src\Map.243 . Now "Transfer".
Now there are the contours on map, see minimap, and we can fill them with terrain. Naturally for very big ships the map is a little small. But with smaller ships there can be a lot of traffic.

We have placed the Fieseler Storches in the new style before. In SSRW there is another too, the old style. These both are completely different and should be strictly separated. They cant be mixed. In the old style the planes are added in the menu MISSIONS/PLAYER and brought on the map by script.

In this menu we select the bombers for the player. With the directionlines on the lower left side we choose the flight direction for the whole nation.

In this window we only use Plr 1-4 on the upper left and the planes area. Player 1 is player, 2=enemy, 3=ally, and 4=neutral. Name and nation is ignored. Color and team is not necessary to change. Color is for the points in the minimap. Team can be sometimes useful to change. If there are planes defined for all 4 parties and its wanted that party 4 behaves like ally and can throw bombs and becomes shot (neutrals cant). Then select for party 4 team 3.

We choose transport to send paratroopers.

At paradrop the troop to send is chosen. How much possible depends on the type of plane. Mostly 20-30. Must try. Dont forget group and experience. With experience under 50 they do a lot of nonsense.

Now it goes on with enemy paratroopers.

Delay can be left at 0. Time can be controlled by script.

Now the allied italian fighters.

And neutral spies.

The commands to appear we insert in the random structure script. Normally we would put a "exclude this condition" before to execute it only once. The old entry we erase. The enemy bombs the station (zone 8) and disappears.

At 21 i add enemy paratroopers landing on bridge (zone 2).

At 22 i add a route. That could be done separetely too.

For that markers must be set. The route leads over the airport. 19 is action point.

Here 19.

And the script goes in 22. The plane flies on the route, acts according to its type at marker 19 and disappears. If there would be an airport number it would try to land.

With "add planes to player" and "add flights to player" the numbers we have selected in player window before could be raised.

In the window MISSIONS/GROUPS type in the group, then UPDATE. Now EDIT.

Here you can make many adjustements (see CDV original - file „SS2 Map Editor.doc“ Useful to read. For the russian officer i choose:

Then below the zone he should guard.

You see it in the overview.

Here you see the zone the officer should guard.

Models of Behavior from the original manual (In the window "Group Properties" there are even more detailed options).

Each group of units in a mission has a model of behavior, which influences the way all computer units (AI-controlled) act. Five values are used to describe a group's behavior. These are: AI_BEHAVIOR, AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2, AI_GRP1 and AI_GRP2.

AI_BEHAVIOR saves the actual actions, dependent on behavior models and their options. Each model of behavior has a list of options you can enable or disable.+

AI_LOC1 and AI_LOC2 save the numbers of two places which are particularly important to the group. How these values are generated depends on the behavior model, i.e. if a certain behavior has been set, the units will move to one of these locations.

AI_GRP1 and AI_GRP2 save the numbers of certain unit groups, e.g. if another group is to be followed or supported.

Here is a list of all available models and their descriptions. The options for each of these models are not described in detail here, as they tend to be self-explanatory. Only potentially uncertain cases are mentioned here.

| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | None
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Not used
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | No special actions. The units maintain position and will only attack if the enemy comes into view.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Infantry - Guard zone
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Guarded zones
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | The infantry moves to the specified locations and guards them. In addition to infantry, this group can hold AT guns, howitzers, MGs, mortars and jeeps. The infantry will use this equipment and never attempt to give it up. Guns of other groups are only used if they happen to be in the specified zone, and only if the appropriate option was set previously. If the "Don't move to new zone" option has been enabled, crews will leave their guns when the infantry leaves a zone (its position), either because this behavior has been set or because AI_LOCx has changed. If the "Don't leave" option has also been enabled, the crew will continue to maintain its position. If neither "Don't drag to new zone" nor "Don't move to new zone" have been enabled, the crew waits for a truck for about 15 seconds and then drags the gun by hand. If only "Don't drag to new zone" is enabled, the crew will leave the gun. If "Don't move to new zone" has also been enabled, the crew will continue to maintain its position. All of these settings refer ONLY to guns of other groups. All except the "Don't leave" option are ignored for all guns belonging to the group itself.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Infantry - Pursue
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Guarded zones
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Pursued groups
Description: | The same as "Guard zone". If units belonging to AI_GRP1 or AI_GRP2 come into view, they will be attacked. All "Move to zone only if ..." options are used only in connection with moving to AI_LOC1 and AI_LOC2. Guns are never dragged and only used if they are nearby.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Infantry - Crew howitzer
AI_LOC1 | Guarded zone
AI_LOC2 | Howitzers' vision range
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | The same as "Guard zone", except that only AI_LOC1 is guarded, AI_LOC2 describes the vision range of the howitzers. Jeeps are not used.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Tanks - Guard zone
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Guarded zone
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Tanks remain in the specified locations and guard them. Only tanks and armored units (gun carriages and APCs) are allowed.
| ****************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Trucks - Support
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Rest zones
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Groups to follow and provide support for
Description: | Transport vehicles support the players units and those of his allies by pulling/dragging artillery. Infantry units inside the transports are immediately unloaded. If the "Move to zone only if there are no support units" option is enabled, the unit will move to the specified location, provided there are no guns to be moved. If this option is not enabled, the unit will follow AI_GRP1 and AI_GRP2. If "Support only the selected groups" is enabled, only AI_GRP1 and AI_GRP2 will be supported; if the option is disabled, the players own units and those of his allies will be supported. Once the gun has been hitched up, the truck will obey the commands of the gun crew and thus adapt to their behavior, until the gun is uncoupled.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Trucks - Move to zone
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Target zones (uses closest point)
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Transport vehicles move straight to the specified zone. If there are infantry units in the transports, they are immediately unloaded on arrival. (The trucks transport infantry units.)
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Trucks - Transport Infantry
AI_LOC1 | Transport's departure
AI_LOC2 | Transport's arrival
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Transport vehicles move to AI_LOC1, wait until they are at least 70% full and move to AI_LOC2, unload the units and repeat the process.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Supply Trucks - Repair
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Locations of repair jobs
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Supply trucks will repair units. If "Repair objects" is enabled, the truck will also repair bridges, but only at AI_LOC2 and only if the bridge has a marker. Trucks will also repair railroad tracks and airfields in AI_LOC1 and AI_LOC2. If "Repair only inside zone" is enabled, only units at AI_LOC1 or AI_LOC2 will be repaired. If this option is disabled, all the players own units and those of his allies are repaired. If there is nothing to repair, the truck will move to AI_LOC1. In order to construct pontoon bridges with this behavior selected, enable the "Build pontoon bridges" option. The location of pontoon bridges should be AI_LOC2 and should have a marker.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Missile launchers - Move to location
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Target locations (uses closest location)
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | If "Hold fire" is enabled, you should use scripts in order to fire. If it is disabled, missile launchers will attack autonomously, targeting groups of enemies.
| ****************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Planes - Move to location
AI_LOC1, AI_LOC2 | Target locations (uses closest location)
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Planes will take off and move to the specified location to carry out their mission (scouting, bombardment, dropping paratroopers). For bombers, the first two flags are the other way around, i.e. "Bomb only if there are no friendly troops there" and "Bomb only if there are enemy troops there". Transport planes will wait until they are at least 70% full before they lift off.
| ***************************************************************
AI_BEHAVIOR | Trains - Guard zone
AI_LOC1 | Guarded zone
KI_LOC2 | Location for repairing tracks
AI_GRP1, AI_GRP2 | Not used
Description: | Trains repair tracks at AI_LOC2 (only if "Repair track" is enabled), then move to AI_LOC1 and guard it.

Now insert something in MISSIONS/OBJECTIVES.

This field works a little strange. You need to write over the right border if you want to have a continuous text. With enter a paragraph is inserted. That looks strange in the middle of a sentence.

Thats how it should look so that it works correctly in game.

Dont ask for sense in this text... it is only for demonstration purpose.

At last the settings. For SP you can leave everyting as is. Only the weather can be useful to change. Rain and fog is changed. Fog can be used on dark maps as night.

Now i generate the SP map in ~\MAPS\SINGLE

Choose „MISSION/BUILD AS SINGLE MISSION“

If you want to view this map copy MAP.254 to <Your Maps.src Dir>\

# 3. Multi Player Maps

Here a simple MP-Map for RWM 8.0. We can take the same map, only create a new mission on it. This was made on the included example map 253.
A Multiplayer-Map consists mainly in one single script which is executed in the beginning and describes the troops for the parties.
For that five Reinforcements must be created, same as in SP-Map.
In the "Score" we see, the Germans are much to strong, the Japanese (Italians) are much to weak. This can be balanced somehow.
A second Script will send Reinforcemnts when captured the Zeppelin 1. For that we set Marker 1, in Script it is named "Flag".
For Simplicity we take the same Reinforcemnts like before.
Now we can generate the MP-Map. Thats all for the beginning.

#

# 4. Campaigns
Campaigns are described in the .doc file at the end.

#

# 5. Links

Some Adresses, which are online today (Dez 18 tested):
First Adress is the Headquarter:
http://www.sudden-strike-maps.de/index.php
Slyders Site with good Downloads
http://www.strategie-games.com/
Toms Site with Militärtechnik
http://www.ww2technik.de/hauptseite.htm
Shadocks Site
http://shadock.chez-alice.fr/
Pet Hauptmanns Site
http://pethauptmann.de.to/
Rodrigoxp1in Brasil
http://hiddenstroke3.forumbrasil.net/
Denis_48 in France
http://www.sudden-strike-alliance.fr/
Last Soldiers Videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtR8b9b03WDUjh-dwIDsHw
Plys Videos auf Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBhO_-cPrmHht-8AqAQPIGQ
Sorry to all we have forgotten.

# 5. End

# Now we come to the end of this small guide. Hope you all have fun with SSRW-Mods! You reach me at Sudden-Strike-Maps.de with PM to Stahlin.

Yours Stahlin