17.12.2007, 10:24
Sorry for the name, LOL, but anyway.
First off, what this thread is going to be about is:
1) How to set up DCG and get it started
2) How to tweak DCG to custom fit it either for your computer or for your own personal taste
3) How to edit the DCG campaigns that are already provided
4) How to create your own campaign from scratch, and how to make it so that a certain side will always or usually win a map.
Any and all questions are welcome. I want to ask that this thread be specifically for people who want to know more about DCG, or are frustrated with DGen and want to give DCG a try. I want this to be for those who are interested, so please leave any anti-DCG flaming BS out.
If you are against DCG, great. More power to you and your opinion. Not in this thread please.
OK, now that that is out of the way, lets start with part one.
1) How to set up DCG and getting started.
If you do not have the DCG program, you can get it here: http://www.lowengrin.com/download.php?view.120. So what is DCG? DCG stands for Dynamic Campaign Generator. It is a wonderful little program created by Paul Lowengrin. Essentially it is a replacement for DGen. What DCG does is simply generate missions. So when you are in your game, and you complete a mission, IL2 calls DCG for the next mission. DCG generates the next mission, and then IL2 loads it. That simple. What sets DCG appart from DGen? Several things. Basically, DCG gives you more options, and tries to maximize the use of cool things in the game. So DCG lets you choose what time of day you fly, or randamizes it, DCG also randomizes the weather so you could fly in clear, cloudy or thunderstorms. Also, There are random # of flights generated per mission. There is ALWAYS something going on in the mission other than what your flight is doing.
Now, once you have the program downloaded, unpack the RAR file to your desktop. Now cut and paste this folder inside your IL2 game folder. Now go into the DCG folder inside your Il2 folder and run the DCG.exe. In the window that pops up, you are being asked first, "Where is IL2 on your computer?" and secondly, "Where is DCG on your computer?." Go to the appropriate exe's and hit OK. The DCG window should now be open. In this window, go to the top menu bar and go under "Mode" and in the drop menu select, "Offline-Career (Full Auto Generation)" and "Replace Career Generator (DGen)". Now you need to start IL2 and start a campaign, it does not matter which country, just generate A[/i] campaign. The purpose is that there must be a campaign to tweek to tweek DCG.
Now go to the DCG window and on the same upper toolbar, go to the "options." I recomend checking the following settings:
Active Front - This shows static objects and you could see battles at the front when two tank colums intersect ...
Air Starts - Allows AI squadrons to start airborne. This may allow for an unexpected scramble mission ...
Delayed Start Times - This lets airfields spawn flights throught the mission. If this is unchecked, any flights that cannot fit on a runway will start airborne at that runway.
Normandy British Base - This uses the Normandy map that has the little British Island. I like this because it lets me takeoff and land every mission, to each their own
No Transfers -This keeps a squadron at an airfield until it is overrun, or the front gets outside of the action radius
Paratroopers and AI Chutes -If you have a lower end machine, don't check this. This allows transport aircraft to do paratrooper drops if it is in the campaign.
Other options are:
Aircraft Downgrades-If a squadron suffers heavy losses, and cannot put up a full flight of aircraft, that squadron will fly the downgrade plane until it can put up a full flight. So if the plane is a F6F Hellcat, the downgrade would be an F4F4 Wildcat.
Historical Production Dates-This only allows planes to be available durring historical dates. If before a set date the downgrade will be flown. If unchecked, any plane can be available at any time in any campaign. Which can be good for say, mimick aircraft ...
Massed Bombers -If this is checked, any heavy bomber squadron will ALWAYS spawn four flights of four planes. It will also always start airborne. If unchecked, the number of planes will be that same for any other squadron.
Ships Remain Sunk -Any ship sunk will stay sunk and not respawn. I don't recomend using this one, because if the Germans sink the Transports, they could cause there to be no Invasion of France ...
Primary Objectives -If checked, you cannot proceed to the next mission if you do not complete your prime objective. If unchecked, you can advance to the next mission as long as you survive.
Stats Reset on Death -If you die, your stats are reset and you just go to the next mission. If unchecked, you must repeat a mission if you die to keep your stats.
DCG Panels and conditionign DCG
Now go back to the DCG window. There is a row of icons in the upper portion. Click the first one. This is the settings panel that covers basic DCG operations. These settings will be set in all campaigns. If you have a lower end computer, you need to turn down the number of flights. So the top left drop box is the flight density per mission. If set to full, every squadron in a campaign will fly every mission. Other settings are percentages, so by turning it to a lower setting, each squadron may have say, a 70% chance of flying each mission. I recomend heavy or moderate, depending upon your machine. Column density is the number of tanks, vehicles, trains and ground units that appear. I highly recomend leaving this on full. For Stationary object density, I need to explain. At each location in the map, there are static objects underneath buildings so that bombers will destroy the factory buildings. Stationary Object Density is how many of these objects show up. I recomend leaving it set to full, but if you have a low end machine turn this option down, but NEVER off. You will need static objects. Action radius is a circle of X distance from your airfield in which static objects appear and can be attacked. If you want shorter missions, shorten the action radius. For longer missions with more target opprotunities, make it larger. Time passage by default is one mission per day. You can change it so that you fly several missions per day or one mission every 2 or three days. Max flights per squadron is how many flights fly for each squadron per mission. I recomend two. The other boxes are how many planes make up each flight. I recomend four.
If you can get this done, you can then go in and start up a campaign and see what it is like. There are more options to edit, and I will go over them in the next post. If there are any questions, launch em in here, and I will get back to all those questions later tonight.[/url]
First off, what this thread is going to be about is:
1) How to set up DCG and get it started
2) How to tweak DCG to custom fit it either for your computer or for your own personal taste
3) How to edit the DCG campaigns that are already provided
4) How to create your own campaign from scratch, and how to make it so that a certain side will always or usually win a map.
Any and all questions are welcome. I want to ask that this thread be specifically for people who want to know more about DCG, or are frustrated with DGen and want to give DCG a try. I want this to be for those who are interested, so please leave any anti-DCG flaming BS out.
If you are against DCG, great. More power to you and your opinion. Not in this thread please.OK, now that that is out of the way, lets start with part one.
1) How to set up DCG and getting started.
If you do not have the DCG program, you can get it here: http://www.lowengrin.com/download.php?view.120. So what is DCG? DCG stands for Dynamic Campaign Generator. It is a wonderful little program created by Paul Lowengrin. Essentially it is a replacement for DGen. What DCG does is simply generate missions. So when you are in your game, and you complete a mission, IL2 calls DCG for the next mission. DCG generates the next mission, and then IL2 loads it. That simple. What sets DCG appart from DGen? Several things. Basically, DCG gives you more options, and tries to maximize the use of cool things in the game. So DCG lets you choose what time of day you fly, or randamizes it, DCG also randomizes the weather so you could fly in clear, cloudy or thunderstorms. Also, There are random # of flights generated per mission. There is ALWAYS something going on in the mission other than what your flight is doing.
Now, once you have the program downloaded, unpack the RAR file to your desktop. Now cut and paste this folder inside your IL2 game folder. Now go into the DCG folder inside your Il2 folder and run the DCG.exe. In the window that pops up, you are being asked first, "Where is IL2 on your computer?" and secondly, "Where is DCG on your computer?." Go to the appropriate exe's and hit OK. The DCG window should now be open. In this window, go to the top menu bar and go under "Mode" and in the drop menu select, "Offline-Career (Full Auto Generation)" and "Replace Career Generator (DGen)". Now you need to start IL2 and start a campaign, it does not matter which country, just generate A[/i] campaign. The purpose is that there must be a campaign to tweek to tweek DCG.
Now go to the DCG window and on the same upper toolbar, go to the "options." I recomend checking the following settings:
Active Front - This shows static objects and you could see battles at the front when two tank colums intersect ...
Air Starts - Allows AI squadrons to start airborne. This may allow for an unexpected scramble mission ...
Delayed Start Times - This lets airfields spawn flights throught the mission. If this is unchecked, any flights that cannot fit on a runway will start airborne at that runway.
Normandy British Base - This uses the Normandy map that has the little British Island. I like this because it lets me takeoff and land every mission, to each their own
No Transfers -This keeps a squadron at an airfield until it is overrun, or the front gets outside of the action radius
Paratroopers and AI Chutes -If you have a lower end machine, don't check this. This allows transport aircraft to do paratrooper drops if it is in the campaign.
Other options are:
Aircraft Downgrades-If a squadron suffers heavy losses, and cannot put up a full flight of aircraft, that squadron will fly the downgrade plane until it can put up a full flight. So if the plane is a F6F Hellcat, the downgrade would be an F4F4 Wildcat.
Historical Production Dates-This only allows planes to be available durring historical dates. If before a set date the downgrade will be flown. If unchecked, any plane can be available at any time in any campaign. Which can be good for say, mimick aircraft ...
Massed Bombers -If this is checked, any heavy bomber squadron will ALWAYS spawn four flights of four planes. It will also always start airborne. If unchecked, the number of planes will be that same for any other squadron.
Ships Remain Sunk -Any ship sunk will stay sunk and not respawn. I don't recomend using this one, because if the Germans sink the Transports, they could cause there to be no Invasion of France ...
Primary Objectives -If checked, you cannot proceed to the next mission if you do not complete your prime objective. If unchecked, you can advance to the next mission as long as you survive.
Stats Reset on Death -If you die, your stats are reset and you just go to the next mission. If unchecked, you must repeat a mission if you die to keep your stats.
DCG Panels and conditionign DCG
Now go back to the DCG window. There is a row of icons in the upper portion. Click the first one. This is the settings panel that covers basic DCG operations. These settings will be set in all campaigns. If you have a lower end computer, you need to turn down the number of flights. So the top left drop box is the flight density per mission. If set to full, every squadron in a campaign will fly every mission. Other settings are percentages, so by turning it to a lower setting, each squadron may have say, a 70% chance of flying each mission. I recomend heavy or moderate, depending upon your machine. Column density is the number of tanks, vehicles, trains and ground units that appear. I highly recomend leaving this on full. For Stationary object density, I need to explain. At each location in the map, there are static objects underneath buildings so that bombers will destroy the factory buildings. Stationary Object Density is how many of these objects show up. I recomend leaving it set to full, but if you have a low end machine turn this option down, but NEVER off. You will need static objects. Action radius is a circle of X distance from your airfield in which static objects appear and can be attacked. If you want shorter missions, shorten the action radius. For longer missions with more target opprotunities, make it larger. Time passage by default is one mission per day. You can change it so that you fly several missions per day or one mission every 2 or three days. Max flights per squadron is how many flights fly for each squadron per mission. I recomend two. The other boxes are how many planes make up each flight. I recomend four.
If you can get this done, you can then go in and start up a campaign and see what it is like. There are more options to edit, and I will go over them in the next post. If there are any questions, launch em in here, and I will get back to all those questions later tonight.[/url]