User Guide

Delta Force Task Force Dagger - Mission Editor Manual - 06/11/02
Page 10
Section 4: Groups and Layers
The most important part of building a good mission is organization. Planning your groups and
layers is a major part of that organization. You can quickly get lost in a sea of meaningless
numbers and objects unless you take the time to properly label everything. A little work in the
beginning saves a lot of headaches later on.
Groups
Groups are used to classify related items, such as a squad of enemy helicopters, and set an
identity for Events and Waypoints (explained later). If you want an asset to trigger an event, be
triggered by an event, follow waypoints, or just about anything else, it has to belong to a group
(even if there is only one unit in that group). By assigning multiple units to a single group, you
can give them group commands or have a single event tied to the fate of every unit in that group.
Group names are specified by clicking Edit then Group. This brings up the Groups window.
Highlight a slot and in the description area, type the name of the group such as “Player”, “Enemy
buildings”, or “Enemy Reinforcements”. Keep your names simple and understandable. Once you
have twenty or thirty groups, you may forget what a term was supposed to mean.
NOTE: When you place the “Start, Player” marker, it MUST be designated to group “1” and have
its team set to “Blue, good” to properly set off area triggers.
The more groups you have, the more detailed your triggering can be. It is often better to give each
unit its own group, and therefore its own orders, so that it doesn’t interfere with other units.
However, placing multiple units in a group will save you time when setting up the mission. You
can automatically select all units within a group from the Group window by pressing the Select
Members button.
You are able to save and print your Groups list as a text file. Click Save As to save the list to a
text file. Print out this file for easy reference. You’ll be glad you did.
Layers
A layer is simply a user assigned collection of groups and items that can be easily hidden from
view. It is much like using the “show” field. By assigning similar elements to a layer, such as
“foliage” or “vehicles”, you can quickly find exactly what you are looking for (or hide the things
you aren’t seeking. You can create up to 32 individual layers for this purpose and assign an
unlimited number of objects to a layer.
Under the Edit menu, you can change the Layer Names to whatever has meaning to you.
Some examples of names are “Enemy Base”, “Friendly Waypoints”, and “Reinforcements”.
When you just want to see a certain layer of items, hit the Layers button on the main screen and
check the ones you want to see.