SCenarios

The Scenario Editor builds the battles you play in FTJava with Play Scenario...: who fights (teams and players), with which ships, where everything starts, what space terrain is in the way, and which rules are in force. A scenario is one `.xml` file in the `Scenarios` folder.

This manual walks through building a scenario from nothing, then looks at one of the scenarios that come with the game.

Opening the editor

From the game's main window, open the Editor menu:

• New Scenario opens the editor on an empty scenario.

• Open Scenario... asks for a scenario file (the dialog starts in Scenarios) and opens it.

Two windows open:

• The editor window, with the scenario as a tree on the left and the buttons on the right.

• The star map, which shows where every ship and every planet or asteroid is, and updates as you edit.

The Tree

• The top line is the scenario itself, with its name, briefing and rules (Picket Test).

• Each folder under it is a team, one side in the battle (Terran).

• Each folder under a team is a player on that side (Terran Squadron).

• Each line under a player is one of that player's ships, shown with its class code (CA Ranger).

• Space Terrain is always the last folder, and holds every planet, asteroid and star (Arakis (Planet 3, radius 8.0 at 0.0, 0.0)).

Teams, players and ships are listed in the order they were added, which is also the order they are saved in.

The Buttons

Most buttons act on what is selected in the tree. Select something first, then click.

• New Team asks for a team name and adds the team. It works whatever is selected.

• New Player adds a player to the selected team (or the team of the selected player or ship) and opens the player dialog.

• New Ship asks for a ship file and gives the ship to the selected player (or the owner of the selected ship). A fleet file gives them every ship in it.

• New Terrain opens the terrain dialog for a new planet, asteroid or star. It works whatever is selected.

• Edit opens the right dialog for the selected item (see below).

• Remove removes the selected item. A team or player goes with everything under it, after you confirm.

• Save asks where to save (the dialog starts in Scenarios).

Double-click any line to edit it, the same as selecting it and clicking Edit. Folders open and close with the small handle next to them.

If nothing suitable is selected, the button just beeps. For example, New Player beeps with only the Space Terrain folder selected.

The window's title starts with * while there are unsaved changes. If you close either window with unsaved changes, the editor asks first.

Building a scenario, step by step

The example is Picket Test: two squadrons of two cruisers each, facing each other across a planet, with an asteroid off to one side.

1. Name the scenario and set the rules

Select the top line of the tree and click Edit. The game options dialog has four tabs.

Info

• Name: the scenario's name.

• Briefing: what both players read before the battle.

Variations

• Optional rules to switch on: 

  • Aft Arc Fire

  • Core Systems

  • Penetrating Damage

  • Ship Rolls

  • Threshold Damaged Systems

  • Simultaneous Fire.

  • Movement: Cinematic or Vector.

  • Target Resolution Mode: Targeted (each fire control fires at its own target) or Priority (every weapon fires at the primary, secondary and tertiary targets in turn).

Fog Of War

• Fog Of War: 

  • Off (everyone sees everything)

  • Fixed (enemies are always seen at one level of detail) 

  • Ranged (the farther away, the less you see; the usual choice).

• Fog of War Mode: that level of detail for Fixed, from Everything down to Bogey Only.

• Sensor Range Band: the size of each range band for Ranged, 18 MU by default.

Range Bands

• The range band of every weapon type, in MU. The defaults are the rulebook's.

OK keeps the changes, Apply keeps them and leaves the dialog open, and Cancel throws them away.

2. Add the two sides

Click New Team and type the team's name.

Add Terran, then Entomalian. A name that is already a team is refused, because two teams with one name would really be one team:

3. Add a player to each side

Select Terran and click New Player. The player dialog opens:

• Name: Shown in the game and in the reports.

• EMail: Not used by this game; leave it blank

• Objectives: What this side must do. Only this player sees them.

Do the same for Entomalian.

You don't decide here who plays and who is the computer. Play Scenario... asks you which team is yours when the game starts; every other team is flown by the computer.

Don't start a player's name with Bot, Robot or AI unless that player should always be the computer. Such a player stays computer-controlled even on the team you choose to play.

4. Give them ships

Select a player and click New Ship. Pick a ship file: the dialog starts in the Ships folder, the ship library that comes with the game. It is arranged by game (FullThrust, FleetBook1, FleetBook2, StarFleetWars, EFSB, StarTrek, ...) and then by race, with one file per ship class (Terran_CA_Ranger.xml is the Terran heavy cruiser Ranger).

Some files hold a whole fleet, usually one ship of each class of a race (for example StarFleetWars_Entomalian.xml, ten ships from Roach to Swarm Mk II). Picking one of those gives the player every ship in it, each where the file places it.

A new ship:

• is named after its class: the first Ranger is Ranger, the next Ranger 1, and so on (every ship in a scenario has its own name);

• from a single-ship file, starts at 0, 0, facing 12 (up the map), at speed 0, until you place it (step 5);

• comes with its class's picture, which you can change (see The ship's picture below).

5. Put the ships in place

Select a ship and click Edit:

• Name: The ship's name; it must not be another ship's.

• Class: The ship's class and race, from its ship file (for reference; it can't be changed here).

• Position X, Y: Where it starts, in MU (movement units), for example X -40 and Y -12. x grows to the right on the map, y grows upwards.

• Heading: The clock direction the ship faces, 1 to 12: 12 is up the map, 3 right, 6 down, 9 left.

• Speed: Its speed at the start, 0 to 99.

• Picture: How the ship is drawn on the map; the preview on the left shows it in its player's colour.

SSD shows the ship's control sheet. Anything that isn't a sensible value is refused with the reason, and the ship stays as it was:

The ship's picture

Every ship comes with a picture of its class. Some classes have no picture of their own yet and use a shared one for their class code (every cruiser CA, for example). The dialog then says A shared class icon - no picture of this class yet.

To pick another, click Choose.... The folders on the left hold the pictures of each race (under Standard), of other ship sets (EFSB, Imperium, StarTrek), and the shared ones (Generic). It opens on the ship's own folder:

Click a picture and OK (or double-click it). The new picture is kept when you press OK or Apply in the ship dialog, and it is saved with the scenario.

In Picket Test the Terran cruisers sit at X -40, Y -12 and X -40, Y 12, facing 3 (right); the Entomalian ones at X 40, Y -12 and X 40, Y 12, facing 9 (left).

6. Add space terrain

Terrain belongs to no side. Both sides see it, and it gets in everybody's way. The game has three kinds:

Planet (pictures Planet 1 to Planet 7)

• A ship whose move crosses it stops at its edge and takes 1000 damage (it is destroyed).

• Fighters, missiles, salvos and torpedoes that end inside it are destroyed.

• Direct fire and sensors cannot see through it.

Asteroid (pictures Asteroid 1 to Asteroid 3)

• The same as a planet, except that fighters can fly across it. They still must not end their move inside it.

Star (pictures Star 1 and Star 2)

• Behaves exactly like a planet.

To put terrain in a particular place, right-click the star map there and choose Set Mark first. New Terrain then starts at the mark (otherwise at 0, 0).

Choose the Type from the list, which shows each picture. The rules for that type are described under the fields. When you change the type, a name or radius you haven't changed yourself follows it: Planet 2 becomes Asteroid 2, and the default radius goes from 6 MU (planet) to 1 MU (asteroid) or 10 MU (star).

The radius is the body's real size in the game: what is drawn on the map is exactly the area a ship must not fly into. It must be more than 0 and at most 100 MU. For a sense of scale, the shipped scenarios use planets of 6 to 9 MU and asteroids of 0.5 to 1.3 MU.

Add at least one player before adding terrain; the editor asks you to if there is none yet. Removing players later never removes terrain.

7. Save, and play it

Click Save and give the file a name. .xml is added if you leave it off. Save it in Scenarios folder, and it appears in Play Scenario....

Changing things later

• Rename a team: select it, Edit, type the new name. Its players move with it.

• Remove: a ship or a terrain body goes at once. A player or a team asks first, because everything under it goes too:

Example: a scenario from the game package

The game comes with three practice scenarios: Human Practice.xml, KraVak Practice.xml and Phalon Practice.xml. Each is two fleets of five or six ships (one of each class, balanced so that either side can win), a planet or moon in the middle, and a small named asteroid belt. Opening one in the editor is the quickest way to see how a finished scenario is put together.

Human Practice.xml (Editor → Open Scenario...):

Two teams, FSE and Kra'Vak, one player each, and under Space Terrain the planet Kestrel IV and the asteroids Hebe, Ida and Iris. On the map the FSE squadron (light blue) is on the left, the Kra'Vak strike fleet (purple) on the right, and the terrain between them:

Select the planet or the ships from the tree views (map selection is not enabled yet) and then you can edit their position or names or size for planets

Making your own version: open a shipped scenario, change what you like (move the moon or a ship, rename the scenario on the Info tab), and Save it under a new name. The original stays as it was.

Good to know

• Coordinates: everything is in MU, with 0, 0 at the centre. The map has no edge unless the Play Area preference is on. In Human Practice the fleets start about 150 MU apart, between x = -90 and -70 on one side and x = 70 and 90 on the other.

• Ship names must be unique within a scenario; the editor numbers repeats for you.

• Characters: names, briefings and objectives may contain &, <, >, quotes and apostrophes (O'Brien, Kra'Vak).

• What the editor doesn't do: it cannot place fighter groups or mines, or set victory conditions. Fighters already in a scenario are kept when you open and save it.