Arena/CM Tools

[Anaxogoras]

quote from skuzzy:

There is an arena variable which turns on map rotation (i.e. winning the war).  Once enabled there is a list of maps stored in an SQL table which contain the maps, and the order they are to be rotated through.
No custom tables can be loaded at this time, nor does it allow for the maps to be rotated based on time

My wish is for Arena/CM tools to allow greater customization and automatization.  It would be a big benefit for the CM's who do a lot of drudgery to get the special events going, and it would help for the AvA, too.

Thank you.

[Ghosth]

The CM's have a full suite of arena tools and options.
Heck most of them are now gui, not like back when I was doing it when it was all dot commands.

You want Customization, you need to ask for that directly. Main arena's are HT's babys, no one gets keys for those.

[Anaxogoras]

I'm a little confused by your reaction, ghosth.  There's some neat things that could be done with arenas like the AvA, but I am told that it's not possible because of the limitations of the "full suite of arena tools and options."

[Baumer]

You both have a point, but to really make this wish more useful to HTC it would be best to spell out exactly what functionality your looking for Gav.

As an example, as a CM I'd like the ability to change the accuracy and lethality of the puffy ack at various altitudes. With the current arena settings I can only control the lethality.

And here's another one,

I'd like the ability when I'm configuring the arena, to limit what ordinance is available for each plane that is enabled.

I think posting more specific requests would help HTC to see if they have merit. And some of you're idea's you have may all ready be possible, but you just might need some additional eye's looking at the problem.

<S> Baumer

[Anaxogoras]

Good points, Baumer.  Both of those things sound like they could be very useful for CMs and events.

Specifically, what I am asking for would be the ability to...

• Have a collection of customized setups that are always available for future use
• These customized setups could be uploaded with just a couple CM mouse clicks, e.g. BoB, Midway, etc.
• The customized setups could be set to rotate automatically, either by time, or by number of aircraft destroyed, etc.

While we're at it, it would be great if map changes didn't dump you to the desktop if you're in the arena when it happens.  Other online games have the ability to change maps without dumping all the players, so that's another reasonable change I'm asking for.

[Baumer]

Well part of that all ready exists. If you set the arena up as you want it for that event you can then use the CM tools to create and save the arena tables. That would at least allow you save your field and plane setup, however it does not save everything like CV locations, and there's no way to have it load, or reset automatically.

I have created such a table for the current FSO setup. I can load the terrain, then load my saved table, change ownership of one strat zone, and finally move the CV's where the Admin CM want's them, and then the arena would be ready to go all in about 5 minutes with just a couple of clicks. (I'd spend a good 30 minutes double checking everything after that!    )

However, there's not a way to cause all that to happen automatically, and like I said, there are limits to what can be saved for example, the strat zone ownership has to be changed very time I load the map and table.

BTW I agree about the dump to desktop on a map reset, but between new tools and new planes or fixing the dump to desktop, I'll take the tools and planes!