I've been following the "Object Editor Question" thread and have found it helpful, except for a few issues I'm still having problems with. And searching didn't turn up the answers I need, at least not that I could find. So here please help if you can...
What I'm Doing
I'm attempting to make a custom airfield shape in the OE for use in the TE. I'm building this from scratch. I built it as follows:
1. In the OE, I laid out all the runways, taxiways, and hangar pads using the various rwyX and lotX objects, all defined as runways, and saved that as a separate, unbuilt tile. This shows up in the OE object/shape list without a * (I have no idea what the * means anyway). In subsequent steps, I started a new tile from the ground up, selecting this collection of pavement as 1 piece over the base plate.
2. I started a new tile or object or whatever in the OE starting with lafld0g as the base, then put the above runways on it, and then started placing the field objects: tower, rearm pads, radar, FHs, BHs, VHs, ord, troops, fuel, and acks. The map room I left over in a town I added separately in the TE at a later point. For each type of object, I made sure its type was set in the OE before I added it.
3. I left all the boxes unchecked in the properties dialog in the OE the 1st time. On subsequent iterations, I have experimented with these boxes but they don't seem to make much difference as to what I see in-game (more on this later).
4. I saved all this, built it in OE and moved the resulting .shp file from the newshps folder to the /texsrc folder of the map I'm testing it on.
5. I opened TE brought up my test map, which is the SMALL map made with Nutz's tutorial. I added 2 grass squares to the southern island then went to the objects tab. There was my airfield on the list so I plunked it down on the new flat land I'd just made, along with a town for its maproom. I set this as Field #4 (next number after the base of 3 in the tutorial), and because I put it on the south island, I put it in Zone 3. When I plunked my airfield down, I set its property to TOWER just as I'd done with the stock airfields already in the TE.
6. I looked for a way to set this field as "Group Master" in the TE, but the only way I could see to do that was to change the whole shebang from TOWER to "Group Master". I didn't think that would make the tower work, however, so I backed out, went back into OE, and rebuilt the tile with the lafldg0 set in OE as Group Master, and rebuilt the tile. I went back into TE, deleted everything concerning my new field, exited, moved the new version of the field from /newshps to /texsrc, and put the new version on the map. At present, the lafld0g is still the Group Master--nothing else is.
7. Added spawn points in TE using boat spawns for the arrows to line them up, then converting them to fighter and bomber spawns. Selected whole mess (my field and the spawns) and saved it as a group in TE. Built the map and tested it in the game.
Stuff that Works In-Game
1. You go to the tower when you're supposed to and its clock works. The status board doesn't work (more on that later).
2. The plane selection/convergence hangar works.
3. All the pavement functions correctly as "successfully landed" areas.
4. All the spawn points are for the right type of ride and face in the right directions
5. Radar works in that it shows the white circle when it's there and the red circle when I destroy object on it.
Stuff that Doesn't Work In-Game
1. Despite the field, town, and spawns all being in Zone 3, it shows up as bish in-game, which have zone 1.
2. The rearm pads don't work, although set as such in OE.
3. The field status clipboard doesn't show the real status of the field. It shows 125 fuel and everything else enabled, even when I've destroyed every object of a given type. Also, all rides, ords, and DTs are shown as available on the clipboard in the "hangar" hangar when all this stuff is destroyed. However, if I try to fly with all the hangars down, I get an immediate CTD when I hit the runway button.
4. None of the autoacks work. This field has several of each type of gun0-3 and none of them do jack to the nme drones circling overhead. In OE, I initially set their type to "autogun". When that didn't work, I changed them to "auto/default", and now they say they're "def auto gun" objects. However, they still don't work. Maybe this is a function of them thinking they're in zone 3 despite the field showing as bish, so they don't see the drones as nme? Or did I not set them up right?
5. None of the manned acks work. They show up in the hangar as gun positions in the correct places, but when I try to use one I get an immediate CTD when I hit the runway button. In OE, I used bas0 objects and have them set to "battery soft".
6. In the Destroy Objects menu, I note there are 2 towers at this field: F004TWR000 and F004TWR001. As far as I can tell, however, I only put 1 tower on the field in the OE. When I destroy up TWR000, the one you're standing in blows up, whether or not TWR001 is dead or alive. When I blow up TWR001, there's an explosion and resulting fire in the tower where I'm standing, but the bulding doesn't disappear.
7. In the game, I get the ground clutter (hills, trees, grass) sticiking up all over the field, regardless of what boxes I checked or left open in the properties of the OE.
Any help would be appreciated.
