Mission Briefings
This is a sadly ignored area, that with some additional work, can add a great deal to your mission. By the time you've finished building your mission, you will probably have run it 20 or 30 times and will know it backwards. You'll be intimate with every platoon, hill and wood. You will know exactly what needs to be done and how to do it. Unfortunately, the rest of of us will have never seen it before and what may seem obvious to you, the creator, may need a little by way of explanation. The Briefing performs this role admirably.
When the mission is launched, the briefing screens are the first thing that the player sees. From here, he should be able to understand the job required and make note of prominent terrain features and areas to avoid. By the time the game starts, he should have a good idea of where to go and what to do. Most missions are built to played by only one side, but some can be reversed allowing you to fly for the other team. If both sides can fly, then briefings for both sides should be included.
A briefing is written in plain text at the end of the mission file and can have up to 5 sections. While there's no fixed layout for these sections, taking a lead from Microprose, the sections are usually written under the following headings.
MISSION
The first section should explain what is required from the player. Clearly define all the mission objectives that have been set and indicate what kind of engagement he's involved in. The pilot does need to know is he's acting defensively over a wide area, or carrying out a raid on a fixed target.
You could also use this section to define the game requirements, such as the GS version and any mods the mission may need. Reminding players of this information here, could avoid wasting valuable play-time as they can read it before the mission is launched.
OPERATIONS
This section is usually used to inject some sort of background, to put the mission in context. You can use this to explain why the mission is time critical or why artillery is in short supply. If the force composition is non standard, this is the place to justify it.
FRIENDLY FORCES
Any other friendly helo units should be mentioned here. It also helps the pilot, if he knows if there are friendlies on the ground and if artillery or air strikes are available. All of this information can be fairly vague or you can give details and identify individual units and callsigns. The Mission and Operations sections should guide you as to the amount of information required. If the mission is an ad hoc, last minute, seat of the pants scramble, then details would be fairly sketchy. Conversely, a well planned and timed raid, would be accompanied by detailed information of all aspects of the operation.
ENEMY FORCES
This section should be based on available 'intelligence' and can be be anything from an accurate list of units and positions to a general estimation of strength and rough area of operations. Try to aim for somewhere between the two, although again, the mission and operations background should indicate how much accurate intelligence would be available. Although the briefing is designed to help the player, you don't have to be too helpful and don't be afraid of an outright lie. Try '.....current Intel suggests SAM threat is low to medium.....' and then dig in 3 long range SAM batteries. This is quite justified because, intelligence is rarely 100% accurate, it's often out of date and Microprose themselves did exactly this in the Gunship campaigns.
WEATHER
This section allows you to inform the pilot of the weather conditions and the time of day. It would be both unfair and unrealistic to send him out into a thunderstorm on a dark night, without telling him first. The Meteorology section includes examples of the text for all 25 weather options.
Writing the Briefing
Each section of the briefing starts with a sequentially numbered header, showing which side the briefing is written for. When the mission is launched, Gunship checks the file to look for a briefing to match the SIDE shown in the mission header. If you're flying RED, then Gunship will only display the Red briefing. If you build the mission with only one flyable side, you can omit the Blue/Red designation and use the third example shown below. Note that the headers must run consecutively from Briefing 0 to Briefing 4.
Below this comes a Heading line, showing the font size and the section name (xxxxxxxx) which will appear on the right hand side of the screen.
The Text line below shows two 1's. The function of the first is unknown, but the second gives the font size. Anything above size 1 would make the text rather cramped. The xxxxx's are where you actually write your stuff. Notice the lack of a space between the 1 and the x's. If a space is inserted, a space appears in the text. Leave it out unless you want the first line to be indented. Typing \n starts a new line. This is useful to separate items within the text.
When you next run the mission, the Headings and text
should appear on the right hand side of the briefing screen. If they don't,
check that the side is correctly identified and make sure that the headings
start from zero.
example of a Briefing Section:
Acronyms, Jargon and Brevity Codes
'Fly up to the big hill and stop the enemy from driving onto it' ...........that's not really what were looking for.
Neither is............ 'Proceed NE to HA ECHO and await ALO guidance to BP DAISY prior to MOUT.'
This is supposed to be a military briefing and that means that some military jargon is hard to avoid. And a briefing wouldn't read properly without the use of some military abbreviations. But what we need is an understandable briefing, with just enough commonly used abbreviations to give it the right feel. If you throw in acronyms that few civilians understand, then the time you've taken to write it has all been wasted. Instructions have to be understood. The US armed forces use Brevity codes when co-ordinating between services and these are particularly relevant when air/ground liaison is required (FM 3-97.18...see link to Global security). If you really must throw in obscure abbreviations, then please use Labels and Lines on the map to make their meaning very very clear. Remember..... the whole point of the briefing is to help the player.
Most of the briefings used in the Gunship campaigns are fairly well written and should serve as examples.
Map Graphics
Within each of the above five sections, you can include graphics such as unit icons, lines, arrows and text, which will display on the map . This can be done once and then copied into each section, or you can show map graphics only for the relevant sections. ie enemy unit icons only on the Enemy Forces section. If a lot of graphical information is included, its probably best to split it into the relevant section. In order to do this, you will need a printed copy of the map, as you have to fix the co-ordinates for the graphics. Unlike the in game map, the briefing map uses a scale of 310 x 310. This is actually easier to use than it sounds, as the briefing map uses a 15½ x 15½ grid. If you measure directly off the map, each square then represents 20. Note that all map positions must be taken to the top left hand corner of the graphic, and not the centre.
A graphics demo has been included on the Missions page, showing (hopefully) all the graphics used in Gunship and the units they represent. You can download the 'All Sprites' mission into your 'Player Battles' folder and scroll through the Briefing screens. It also includes a playable mission just for fun.
Sprites
Sprites are stored pictures and include unit icons, WP markers, arrows and pre-defined objective markers. Any WP and objective markers should be included in the MISSION section. Unit icons should be used in the FRIENDLY and/or ENEMY sections and arrows used wherever appropriate. Most of these are optional, but try to give as much information as you feel is necessary, without putting too much clutter on the screen. A list of all the Sprites I've found so far can be found on the Sprites, Icons and Filenames Section.
To include a Sprite, insert the line below into the relevant briefing section. Sprites must be consecutively numbered in each section and must start from zero. If a Sprite fails to appear, the numbering is always the first place to check. The xxxx's represent the file name of the Sprite, which must be followed by .pcx file type. Next come the X and Y co-ordinates of the top left hand corner. The trailing zero must also be included.
Most sprites are approximately 20 x 20, so to centre the icon, the map position should be offset by 10 west and 10 north. The diagrams below shows a selection of types, with the map position circled. Bear in mind that most units would be mobile and their positions usually don't need to be too exact. Placing arrows accurately will need a little trial and error.
Unfortunately the sprites used to show most AD units, include a range circle, which can make them huge. The positioning of these Sprites is a little more difficult as the map co-ordinates must be offset to the NW by a distance equal to the radius of this circle. This is simpler than it sounds and hopefully the following diagram makes this clear.
Although all three of the units above have the same map co-ordinates, the units are shown in very different positions. Fortunately for us, the radius of the range circle is shown in most of the Sprite filenames. The SA-3, for instance has a radius (or range) of 6 and as each map division represents 20, an offset of 120 is required. Negative numbers can be used for the map co-ordinates if the icon needs to be moved further north or west.
Ranged AD unit map offsets are as follows:
| ZU-23 | 40 |
| Avenger | 80 |
| Linebacker | 80 |
| ZSU23/SA-9 | 120 |
| SA-3 | 120 |
| TOR | 160 |
| Tunguska | 160 |
Lines
Lines should be drawn on the map to show objectives, such as Rear Line or Forward Line, but can also be used to indicate sector boundaries, or the area of operations. Lines are quite straightforward, but do require some additional information. Once again, Lines must be consecutively numbered in each section and must start from zero. The first information needed are the three RGB numbers to define the colour. Any RGB combination is valid, but the following examples are common:
- 0, 0, 0 White
- 255, 255, 255 Black
- 0, 0, 255 Blue
- 255, 0, 0 Red
- 87, 215, 1 Green
- 250, 235, 0 Yellow
Try to use relevant line colours such as blue for Blue and so on (obvious really). Neutral lines are better in white, as this shows up well. Following this are two sets of X and Y co-ordinates marking the end points of the line. Multiple lines can be used (I don't think there's a limit) to draw angular shapes or to show an irregular boundary.
Labels
A label is text. Any text that needs to be written onto the map, must be placed as a label. Labels should be used for naming objective lines, or boundaries, or identifying features that are referred to in the briefing. If you refer to a town in the text and the map shows two different towns, make sure that the one you refer to is labelled. Good use of labels can make the mission briefing easier to understand, but as with all the map graphics, try not to clutter the map too much.
Labels must be consecutively numbered in each section and must start from zero. Unlike Lines, the XY co-ordinates come first and like icons, this places the top left hand corner. The RGB numbers come next, followed by a single digit which shows the font. Anything bigger than 1 is shouting. The xxxxx's at the end are the actual text Label. Unless identifying Blue or Red actions or units, white is recommended as it is much easier to read.
If you want lettering to stand out, a neat trick used by Microprose was to set a black or white shadow. Duplicate the Label line and use the first one as the shadow. Change the colour to black and increase the X and Y positions by 1. You have to use the first one, as the labels are written sequentially, so the black lettering is partially overwritten by the following coloured line.
Putting them all together
I usually paste in all the headers and fill in most of the text first, then write the icon, line and label commands all in one big block. I just find it less of a chore to do them all together and it gives me a chance to view them all on one screen and check the relative positions. After deciding which needs to go where, I divide them up and 'cut and paste' them into the relevant sections.
IMPORTANT: If you do copy them from another section, always remember to renumber them or they won't display. All Sprites, Lines and Labels in each section must be consecutively numbered beginning with 0.