Mission Editing 2024-11-05
2024-11-05T00:14:00Z New Sea Power mission editing day has started. Well not exactly, I already created "PMC Kiddie NACV 1, US East Coast" mission earlier today, but now I officially started to write dev diaries 
So one week ago sunday I received reply from Martin of Triassic Games, I contacted Microprose and Triassic Games earlier and asked if I could get access to Sea Power preview build (later known as beta) so I could finish my website existing pages and write new mission editor beginner tutorial. He replied that sure, sent me the serial key and then I was off playing. My very first Sea Power mission file has date 2024-10-28 on it, but that was simple one group of ships in the editor, nothing more. Since then I've been tinkering something in mission editor and even started to write basic mission editor guide/tutorial pages.
So this Dev Diary by me for Sea Power mission editing is about me editing various missions. This wont be just one huge never ending blob of text or will it be a single web page per mission as I suspect over the years of time I will create many missions so number of pages might increase to uncontrollable numbers.
But I'm not sure, neither option doesn't really sound good, or well perhaps the one dev diary per mission kind of sounds better than one never ending blob without any clear indication what it is for.
Guess this is a bit of a learning curve with brand new game engine, style of mission editing etc. I'll find my way, like Ian Malcomn said in original Jurassic Park movie: Life, uh, finds a way... 
Anyways time to dive right into mission editing thoughts and other stuff.
In short, my original PMC Reuben James NACV (North Atlantic ConVoys, small head nod to 1989 Harpoon battle-set) mission is too large, my Gaming computer has 16gb RAM and nvidia RTX 3060 12gb GPU, when I play that mission for over 4hrs constantly deploying sonobuoys with helicopters, the game performance goes to the dogs, RAM is maxed out the whole 16gb, GPU utilization is 100% pretty much constantly and VRAM usage is maxed out 12gb as well. This causes freezes every once in a while, kind of like lag spikes, but then these freezes get more severe, it begins from duration less than a second hiccup, then its around 1sec and at worst when you play well into 5-8 or more hours it gets so bad its almost 2-5sec freeze every 30-60sec and often times when switching from helicopters to surface ships for example, its just system struggling as its chocking without any free RAM and VRAM, game is just not playable like that.
Edit 2024-11-07T18:30:00Z, later Martin of Triassic Games told me that VRAM is handled by Unity engine and it takes whatever it gets its hands on, so VRAM being maxed out on a video card is a good thing, at least that is how I understood it.
So today I decided to take this mission concept and split it up to "15min paintball match quick kiddie shoot'em up style". Earlier today I ended up making "PMC Kiddie NACV 1, US East Coast" mission which has ships traveling to the objective trigger area 39.5nm away which is basically nothing compared to the original missions 1,030nm distance from north atlantic to iceland coast.
I hate to split a long extremely cool atmosphere mission into such small chunks, but if I cannot play the game with such long mission durations then there is no other choice really.
Eventually I wanted to chop up this original mission concept to these small compartmentalized chunk quickie (relatively speaking) missions, however after I completed testing "PMC Kiddie NACV 1, US East Coast" just moments earlier and checked out global map view in mission editor just now, its clear that if I hardcore just split it up 1:1 size distance, meaning I wont skip any parts of the traveling nautical miles, then it will result in just insane number of missions and that would lead into excess "uuh is this the same frigging mission again just in slightly different location, huh!?" arguments, even from me. I mean it is absolutely insane to travel from New York harbor to Reykjavik iceland.
Just checked on google/maps and distance as direct line over land from NY coast to reykjavik is 4,200km, that is a very long distance to travel. Dunno how much longer this is by ship, I am honestly not interested of googling global shipping routes and historical plans for US to european cold war era shipping routes.
I love large scale terrains in ofp/arma etc, american large scale farming (in farmsim games), but dunno if this purist hardcore mission series with actual every nautical mile played from NY to reykjavik is just too much, I mean even if we take that direct flight path distance of 4.2k kilometers it would be 2267 nautical miles. Now if I felt that 1,000 nautical miles (NM) original mission cannot be completed in one days 17hrs gaming session, how the heck many hours do you need for that twice as long distance then.
But I am extremely lousy person to make a decision like this, how to change the original 1,030nm mission into chopped up little pieces and how many NM do I skip between those missions, I have zero clue. Like would I just choose nice round number of missions to chop it up to, like lets say, I don't know, maybe 4? 6? maybe 10? Is ten already too much, same ships, soviet subs as adversary, it feels like its the same repeat with only slightly different global map location in each mission. Dunno, I simply don't know.
Yeah the 40nm to the objective mission series with hardcore full 2267nm distance, oh btw 2267 / 40 == 56.67 missions, so heh FIFTY SEVEN missions to reach iceland and that was the direct flight path across land, sailing with a ship makes the trip much longer, so oh my. Even if I would just blatantly copy-paste the same mission, move units around to the next location, label it with a new name and save, that would already make my own mission editing fun dry up real fast.
Yeah dude, how about NO. I'm bad making these kind of decisions but realizing how many, insanely many relatively speaking, missions it would take, yeah the decision is real easy, I'm not going to do sixty plus missions, no way man. It has to be some compact number, some hand wavey skipping in the middle.
Right now "PMC Kiddie NACV 1, US East Coast" mission is done, so next up would be hmm dunno where, already in the open ocean? Not sure. But anyways I would have to decide a number of missions, could it be perhaps... 5, like 2 missions in the start, one in between and then 2 in the end, well I mean not necessarily right at the start and end regions but spread them out nicely. Perhaps in the last two missions the action might get a bit heavier, more enemy subs and such. Who knows maybe I could throw in some P-3C orions from england to help Reuben James and Pharris out, not sure haven't thought about it much, would it shift the focus of that nice small scale but long duration (except not anymore) mission away from its core, hmm dunno.
Did that kind of illustration with triggers, btw those trigger areas are 100nm radius, oh my, atlantic ocean is a big place if 100nm is that small splat in there. Making one mission distance the whole 100nm would be out of the question, I mean yes in one day it would be very doable, but I guarantee you the current dev branch "04-Nov-2024: Build #?? (14153)" performance issue will start to haunt you soon after 2hrs of game-play, maybe you could squeeze out 4hrs of more or less enjoyable gaming but after that the freezes are so bad that you are really annoyed by them.
But anyways, that would be the overall look for this 5 mission design. I think adding more missions is just kind of like "well OK how many is enough for you then?" type of deal. Hell even 3 missions might be fine, one at NY coast, one in the middle of the atlantic and one when reaching iceland coast near reykjavik. I mean when you really go down to small scale stuff, keeping it simple and small, compact.
However that 40nm distance to travel was my very first guess and I am extremely surprised it fit so well that yes while there was freezes already they didn't ruin the naval warfare gaming session yet. Dunno, maybe, just MAYBE you could get away with nice round number of 50nm, distance. Hmm in fact, maybe I could test that out tomorrow, I don't think I have enough energy and time tonight, already feeling a bit tired.
2024-11-05T01:47:00Z Got caught browsing some news a bit, now I'm starting to yawn, getting tired here, overall feeling is that its now game over for me, I cant get any editing done anymore today. I think tomorrow morning after days first meal its time to create second mission and dunno but that wild 100nm round number mission kind of got interesting, I don't believe it can be accomplished before the performance issue kicks in, but I would like to try and fail to have confirmation of it, so tomorrow... maybe that is my plan, create the mission maybe in mid-way through, make it like mission 3, then have the distance be 100nm for the objective, give it a go, can you complete it before freezes kill all the fun, would be interesting experiment.
But for now, I'm calling it a night. What an awesome dev diary opening, actual zero editing in this page 
2024-11-05 Creating PMC NACV 3 Midway Through
2024-11-05T06:59:00Z New Sea Power mission editing day has started. Woke up moments ago, did the mandatory computer morning chores, checked Microprose Sea Power discord but not much going on there overnight (well just about 4hrs that I managed to sleep), now everything is dead, this is the "Time Of Death" in the internet, americans have already gone to sleep and europeans have already gone to school/work or later arrivals have not waken up yet, there is just this creepy silence and absense of any folks. Perfect time for me to edit
Just prior I launched steam client and Sea Power up, no dev branch update this morning but there was few updates late last night. I already created "PMC NACV 3, Midway Through" missions US convoy and mission objective trigger 100nm away. No enemies yet.
Oh right, where did this 100nm idea came about last night, I have no idea, guess it was just the extreme end of "short mission" design I guess. Where 40nm is so short distance, I would say that 100nm is so far that I would be amazed if you get through it using time compression (time scale) before the performance issue comes too severe, but today's gaming session is to find out. Today my goal is as much as having fun just playing Sea Power, its also to meticulously record how long time it takes to reach this 100nm objective on in-game hours and in real life gaming hours. My best guess right now is that 100nm is too long time, too much game time which gets that performance go out the window.
But whatever happens I am going to have so much fun hunting down soviet subs.
2024-11-05T07:06:00Z Going to eat days first meal now, after that begins the enemy submarine populating...
2024-11-05T07:35:00Z Feeding time is over, back to NACV mission editing.
During eating was thinking that in this mission which is located far away from friendly forces, starting or ending location, outside friendly air cover (I'm thinking, have not done research), it would be cool to add soviet spy ships so my escorts would have something to shoot at above the surface, and perhaps add Tupolev TU-95 reconnaissance flight or two, but dunno if that out balances the mission too much for the soviet side, assuming TU-95 can feed intel from its radar to the submarines, I have to assume that is how it works in the game, or perhaps submarines are cut off from friendly intel, the fog of war, as long as they are submerged, at least. Just no idea.
But with dangerous SSGN subs as OPFOR, it would be a huge overkill if recon flight could detect my convoy and then these SSGN's could just launch waves of extremely deadly cruise missiles from 100's of nautical miles away, I cant remember the specifics but I recall one soviet anti ship missile has like 370nm range (SS-N-9 Siren or shipwreck or something, I dont cheat and google it now but this is what I recall). Such range would be a huge overkill if the sub got targeting info from overhead recon flight, it could be THREE TIMES the objective distance away and fire its missiles. Hmm but guess that is one tactical warfare aspect I get to test today.
Okay so right now I have US convoy in, Reuben James, Pharris are my escort ships and then there are four merchants (three cargo ships, one tanker). Now its time to add bad guy soviet submarine groups. Plan is to pepper the upcoming 100nm traveling path with submarine groups using hmm 25% or perhaps even 50% random chance of appearance, in my previous game-play testing I noticed how very few of those 25% ones get created so I'm going to do some overlap this time, I want this to be quite rich hunting area.
Created a circle on the global map, 20nm radius I believe it is, this would be like one submarine groups patrolling area with criss crossing waypoints back and forth. I'm not sure how many waypoints these subs would actually need or what would they do without ANY waypoints, haven't experimented with that yet, I doubt they would just hover at 0kts speed, they would at least do slow 360 turning in never ending mode with creeping speed I guess. But hey maybe I'll add couple of groups with some silly like 5% chance of appearance right along the players traveling path without any waypoints to see what happens.
Started by adding charlie 1 and alfa group with 50% chance of appearance right at the mission objective area.
Then added foxtrot and kilo group 50% chance, quite overlap with previous group. Its funny though, 100nm distance on atlantic ocean, even two groups with 20nm zig zagging waypoint patrol areas, look really like a lot, feels like I can barely add two more sub groups and then this 100nm area is full already.
2024-11-05T08:02:00Z Finished adding the main direct travel path soviet sub groups.
Next I'm going to add like an outer layer of submarines, not exactly sure how they would affect the whole mission as these AI units follow waypoints, if I place them far away from the direct travel path and just create waypoint to it, then whats the difference if I would simply place them into the travel path in the first place, hmm not sure. I have to say I am struggling more and more with this mission editor lack of randomization features, it really limits what you can do with AI units.
Then created yankee and alfa group starting from just S of the mission objective area with loose waypoints heading W then back to E or NE and back again few times. This is not so called circle zig zag waypoint pattern. Dunno, kind of running out of ideas how to setup these waypoints as it feels more and more silly to work without a waypoint random radius plus all the other goodies ofp/arma waypoints have.
And then another oscar 1 and victor 2 group just N of mission objective area doing waypoints along the US convoy traveling path. Dunno, just running out of ideas with tools like this.
Overall I would say 90% of those waypoints are not going to be used because submarines travel so slow with ahead 1/3 speed that mission is over before they even get to their second waypoint, who knows might be even the first waypoint, I mean 3-5kts speed 20nm distance will take hours and hours.
Now I'm going to add extra layer with 5% chance of appearing sub groups, not sure if this might go to overkill, but hey gotta add some. But first, a restroom break...
2024-11-05T08:39:00Z Back, now there was some chat in Microprose Sea Power discord, nothing too long but spend a minute or two there. Was also planning how to add some more soviet units into this midway through mission.
2024-11-05T08:47:00Z Hmm OK been looking at the 100nm distance and enemy OPFOR, hmm I just simply feel like I need more submarines to shoot at, so I'm going to add ANOTHER layer of subs along the path but this time with 25% chance of appearance and very extremely limited waypoints, in fact I'll just make a one waypoint towards the player/NATO starting point and leave it at that.
2024-11-05T08:57:00Z Added 25% chance of appearance another layer of groups, these are on the outer edges of 20nm radius around the direct travel path with one single waypoint towards NATO starting point, simple, straight forward. But let me tell ya, if a random chance would happen that both the 50% and these 25% groups would show up, man player is going to run out of MK-46 torpedoes killing all these submarines
2024-11-05T09:18:00Z Added 4 * soviet spy ship okean's with 25% chance of appearance, starting locations were outside the 20nm radius around direct traveling path and few waypoints zig zagging across the traveling path ending up in the mission objective area. These are fun targets to shoot at, they have no weapons so its just cannon fodder, but the thing is... do these guys transmit contact info to the soviet subs, it might get the convoy into real trouble.
Okay what next, well that scary TU-95 reconnaissance plane, hmm that might be a complete mission breaker with balance, hmm hmm, but hey its all about testing, my first experience being spied upon by such recon asset, might be fun to see what happens, I'm going to add it, hmm perhaps I'll add two with sickening 5% chance of appearance.
2024-11-05T09:30:00Z Added 2 * TU-95RT recon planes with 5% chance of appearance, loose zig zagging waypoints through and through the whole mission area, should be plenty of space them to fly around like lets say player wont shoot it down, the plan would not feel like its constantly buzzing overhead. Remains to be seen.
Was thinking about adding civilian airliner, but nah, don't want to, this mission has already enough stuff.
This is how it looks like overview of the whole area:
And zoomed into the direct travel path:
Okay now going to save it one more time, well I mean actually going to try play it so it launches without crashing or other issues, then 7-zip backup my missions and formations (.unitgroups files) dirs and after that its just switching over to PMC Gaming computer for some naval combat fun
2024-11-05T09:38:00Z Saved mission and exited Sea Power, this mission editing session is over. Once exited and in steam client, there was a new update for Sea Power dev branch, it didn't have any changelog so no idea what was changed, although Martin of Triassic Games said he fixed the encyclopedia freezing issue.
Now off to backup mission files and then switching over to PMC Gaming computer, another several hours naval combat session is about to begin, I cant wait!
I'm going to write a war story about that session, search it from "PMC Kiddie NACV 3, Midway Through" mission testing story page.