XvTED Academy

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XvTED Academy Revision Proposal

• GEN David "Heavy" Pasiechnyk, after some personal ideas and a brief readover of the current XvTED Acad course, has decided to revise, update, and expand the current course with intention to provide applicants with a better understanding and more experience with the XvTED program.
• The majority of this proposal was written before Heavy found the existing XvTED course information and is thus new in the majority of the content, although many parallels will be found, along with some parts taken from the original course in full or in edited form.

Academy Outline

The Academy program for XvTED will be broken up into 4 Levels, each consisting of a series of lessons and required outputs/submissions. The Academy will primarily run on basic BoP mission settings and craft, with the option for using only XvT or using BoP with the RS Patch. Preference of the applicant will be taken into account for this.

Level 1: Basics

• Single Player TRAIN mission
• Learn the essentials for a basic training style mission
• Produce 2 separate missions
  • One mission built through lessons
  • Second mission built on own by applicant as final submission

Level 2: Structured

• Single Player TRAIN mission
• Learn how to add body and depth to missions
• Flight group interaction
• Detailed and Bonus goals
• Description, briefing, debriefing
• Messages
• Produce 2 missions
  • 1st through lessons
  • 2nd on own

Level 3: Advanced

• Three separate Level 3 courses
  • MP Train/Campaign
  • Melee/Tournament
  • Combat/Battle
• Learn how to create interconnected missions
• Learn the set up and parameters necessary for multiplayer missions
• Create 5 missions plus the accompanying Campaign/Tournament/Battle *.LST file

Level 4: Advanced x2 (Instructor's Course)

• Learn the XvTED editor inside and out
• Aid instructors with lower level courses
• Learn to troubleshoot various fleet level build problems (?)
• ???

Level Outlines

Level 1

Lesson 0: Intro

• Introduce concept of XvTED
• Give applicants and understanding of important methods and approaches
• Have applicants produce mission outline/story (very basic) for final submission
• Assign a number to the applicant (primarily for use in the Rebel.lst file)

Lesson 1: Flight Groups

• Adding flight groups
• Modifying flight groups
• Changing various related parameters

Lesson 2: Map and Waypoints

• Changing flight group map locations
• Adjusting/adding waypoints
• Views and options

Lesson 3: Orders

• Common orders
• Understanding order parameters
• Order progression

Lesson 4: Global Goals

• Basics
• Parameters
• Settings

Level 2

Lesson 1: Motherships

• Arrival/Departure
• Related orders
• Starship orders

Lesson 2: Boarding Targets

• Capturing objects
• Repairing craft/objects
• Cargo operations

Lesson 3: Flight Group Goals

• FG specific normal goals
• Bonus goals

Lesson 4: Messages

• Event triggers
• Timing
• Color and/or team recipients

Lesson 5: Briefings

• Messages/text
• Animation
• Timing
• Tags

Level 3

Lesson 1: Mission Grouping

• Introduction will be specific to the Level 3 course taken
  • Tours/Campaigns
  • Tournaments
  • Battles

Lesson 2: Multiplayer

• Balance
• Orders
• Player related settings

Project

Depending on the Level 3 course taken, 5 missions of the course specific type are to be built and coordinated into an applicant written and instructor improved storyline (where applicable) and set up the necessary file for XvT/BoP to read and play out the series of missions. Lessons learned from Levels 1 & 2 will be crucial to building and completing the project. The instructor(s) will be available for questions and guidance, as well as testing.

Level 4

• Apprenticeship
  • Help instructor in teaching Level 1 courses to applicants
    • Only one L1 applicant will be assigned to a L4 applicant
    • Advancement of both applicants is watched and graded by the instructor
    • Instructor takes a BTS role in the instruction of the L1 applicant
• Troubleshooting exercises
  • Library of missions with built in build errors shall be on hand for instructor to select and assign to L4 applicants for troubleshooting
  • Possible source of afore mentioned missions could be TacOps archives for beta-builds and half-builds from the VSG Tour mission building process
    • Approval with Vaughan (or current LO or TacOps Leader) needed for use of these builds

Lesson Outlines

Legend:

• These sections denote information.

a) These sections denote practical actions to be done by applicants.

Level 1: Lesson 0

• User friendly, logic oriented program used to build missions for X-wing vs. TIE Fighter (and its expansions, official or 3rd party)
• The program is organized by tabs and makes use of drop down lists for majority of selection operations.
• The program lists can be edited through the use of external *.txt files, and thus makes 3rd party expansion missions easier to build.
• There are many different methods for building a mission. There are multiple methods to achieve a specific in-game result, each of which will have its upsides and downsides.
• The most important thing to remember when building a mission is frequent testing of the mission during the build process. This is made much easier if the mission can be broken up into build stages. The mission can be built as a series of steps, each of which will include testing after completion of a built stage. This is more practical for longer or more detailed missions, and is not necessarily required for shorter or simpler missions.
• By frequently testing a mission after stages of building, it will be much easier to detect the location of build errors than it would be to build an entire mission from start to finish and then look for the errors in building.

a) Produce a short, basic mission outline that will be used for the final submission to complete your Level 1 course. Do not make this an extensive outline, as only the basics of mission building will be covered in this Level. Basic requirements for the outline include: Situation, location, and summary of forces/groups.
b) Once you have submitted the outline, you will receive a number that will be unique to you. This number will be the number that you will use for testing your mission.

• A total of two missions will be built during the course of your Level 1 training. One will be built through the guided lessons, and the second mission you will build on your own at the end using those lessons that you have learned. The latter will be graded by your instructor, as well as possibly by a group of your peers, as is seen fit by the instructor.

Level 1: Lesson 1

• The first things that must be added to a mission are craft and flight groups. Without craft and flight groups, there won’t be anything for you to fly, nor will there be anything for you to shoot at. 9 times out of 10, if there’s nothing to shoot, it isn’t a fun mission. That last 1 out of 10 is a mission which has an excellent storyline and some ingenious building behind it to create an excellent mission to fly.
• Flight groups, once added to the list in XvTED, will be assigned a default craft and team, which will be needed to be changed in most cases.
• The tabs that we will be focusing on in this first lesson are the Ship and Options tabs under Flight Groups, as well as the Teams tab.

a) Go to the Teams tab.

• Here, you can change Team Names, default IFF settings, and set allied team settings.

i) For Team 1, set the Team Name and default IFF to be Rebel.

ii) To access Team 2, press the -> button and change the name and IFF to Imperial.

b) Return to the Flight Groups tab. Make sure you are on the Ship tab here.

• At this location you can add flight groups, change the number of craft and waves for each flight group, name fight groups, change team and IFF settings for flight groups, as well as other varying ship status options.
• 2 methods of adding flight groups are as such:
  • Right click on the black area and then select "Add New Flight Group"
  • Click on the little glowing page icon at the top of the window.

i) Add 3 flight groups so that you end up with a total of 4 flight groups.

ii) For the first flight group, this will be the player's flight group. XvTED, by default will have already set this up to be Player 1. Next, set up the following settings:

- Craft: 2 waves of 6 X-Wing

- Team: Rebel

- IFF: Rebel

- Missles: Proton Torpedoes

iii) For the second flight group:

- Craft: 4 waves of 6 TIE Interceptor

- Team: Imperial

- IFF: Imperial

- AI: Top Ace

iv) Third flight group:

- Craft: 1 wave of 1 Corellian Corvette

- Team and IFF: Imperial

- AI: Top Ace

v) Final flight group:

- Craft: (will vary depending on whether XvT(IPV), BoP(M/CRV), or the RS Patch(GSP) will be used during training)

- Subsequent settings same as above, along with a Missle loadout of Concussion Missles

• The Options tab allows the builder to adjust the settings which affect the ingame craft selection options, as well as those settings which will generate automatic messages such as the "Primary target has been destroyed." messages. This section is simple to observe and test, and thus will be left for your own experimentation for the most part.

c) Select the player flight group, go to the Options tab, and set the Optional Ships settings to be "All Rebel Flyable Craft".

Level 1: Lesson 2

• The map page gives the builder a visual aid in constructing the mission, and can be a vital tool in setting up the battle scene.
• The map page gives the builder a view of the 3D space in 3 orthagonal views (ie. planes), the x-y plane (default), x-z plane, and y-z plane.
• With the map page a bulider can create and adjust waypoints manually (drag and drop) or by numerical input (typing numbers into boxes). In most advanced missions, a combination of both methods is used for optimal results.
• A secondary method for creating flight groups can be used here, although in many cases it is more reliable to use the Flight Group and Ship tabs.
• Map setings for the briefings can also be edited in this area.

a) Open the Map View by clicking on the small red grid button at the top of the program window. b) At the top of the Map Screen window there is a drop down box with a flight group name in it. This box is used for selecting which flight group's waypoints you wish to edit. Select the player flight group to start with. Press the button which has the letters WP on it.

• The window which pops up allows you to input numerical co-ordinates for all types of waypoints. This can include the Start Position(s), flight path waypoints (denoted by WP#), a Rendezvous Point, the Hyper Point, and the various team briefing map waypoints.

i) Change Start 1 to have the values X=-2, Y=0, and Z=0.

ii) Highlight WP1 and input X=0,Y=0,Z=0.

iii) Close the Waypoints box. If you adjust the zoom settings you will be able to see that the X-wing flight group has now moved and has a solid line in front of it.

• For any of the waypoints to be used in mission, they must be highlighted. For craft to show up in the appropriate briefings, those must also be highlighted. This will be looked at in higher course levels.

b) TI FG

i) Start 1: X=2,Y=0

ii) WP1: X=0,Y=0

c) CRV FG

i) Start 1: X=3,Y=-1

ii) WP1: X=1,Y=-1

iii) WP2: X=-1,Y=-1

iv) WP3: X=-1,Y=1

v) WP4: X=1,Y=1

c) (Fourth flight group)

i) Start 1: X=3,Y=1

ii) WP1: X=-2,Y=1

iii) WP2: X=-2,Y=-2

iv) WP3: X=2,Y=-2

v) WP4: X=2,Y=2

vi) WP5: X=-2,Y=2

d) You should now see an organized map showing the X-Wings coming head on with the TIE Interceptors, with the two Imperial support ships on an patrol pattern which has them encircling the dogfight region of the fighters in a square path. (Patrol path is signified by the dotted lines.)

• This will be the extent of direct instruction on the map page. It is expected by the instructor that each of the various buttons and tools will be played with. Questions may be sent to the instructor as to the meaning of various buttons and tools not described in the lesson.
• One other location can be used for adjusting waypoint values, but is strictly by numerical adjustment without the readily available visual aid of the map. This is found at the WPs tab found under Flight Groups.

e) Go to the WPs tab. Here, we will set up a very basic briefing map for the mission. Press the "Set To Start 1" button found here. This will automatically input the values of the start positions into all of the briefing WP fields.