Star Wars Galactic Battleground Mission Creation Course

Introduction
Welcome to the Imperial Directorate's Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Mission Creation course. This course is designed to teach you enough to create your own custom scenarios/campaigns.

Plotline
The first step to creating any type of custom battle is to create a plotline. For this, you need a simple text program. Notepad...Wordpad...MS Word...those will all work. I, myself, am a fan of Notepad. Here is a basic outline of what you need to do for this step:

1. Write out a historical background for your campaign. Whether it be based on a current competition that is going on, or if it's brand new, list some information giving whoever shall play your missions some sense of what is going on.
2. Figure out what you want to happen in your campaign. From when the beginning of your first scenario is first started until the final minute of your final scenario, have it mapped out. It will make the actual creation process much easier. 3. Divide your plan from step two into individual scenarios. Figure out what will occur in each scenario that is bringing it to a conclusion.

Creating a Scenario
First thing you need to do is to start up SWGB. Click on "Scenario Editor," and you should get a menu with three choices:

1. Create Scenario
2. Edit Scenario
3. Campaign Editor

They are pretty self-explanatory. Clicking "Create Scenario" allows you to make a new scenario from scratch. Clicking "Edit Scenario" allows you to edit one you've previously created. Clicking "Campaign Editor" allows you to create a new campaign by naming it, and assigning it scenarios that you've created already. We will go with "Create Scenario" for now.

This will bring you to a large map. It will be a square map (your standard size and shape of a map) with no features or anything aside from the grass terrain. We will start with discussing the various buttons on the program.

Menu
There are a number of options here:

1. Quit to Main Menu: Quits the Scenario Editor and returns you to the SWGB Main Menu
2. Save: Self-explanatory. Allows you to save your progress on the scenario
3. Save As: Self-explanatory. Allows you to save the scenario, and if it's been saved before, to rename it
4. Edit Scenario: Allows you to exit the current scenario, and load another one that's been saved before for you to edit
5. Create Scenario: Allows you to exit the current scenario, and create a new one from scratch
6. Test: Loads the current scenario, allowing you to play-test it
7. Cancel: Yeah. Self-explanatory.

There are also ten buttons on the top of the editor. I will discuss them briefly, top to bottom, left to right. Map
Allows you to generate maps. There are three selectable buttons on the bottom-left. "Blank Map," "Random Map," and "Seed Map." In the bottom-middle, there are three more things. "Map Size," "Default Terrain," and "Generate Map."

Map size will set how large the map is. The following are the choices available:

1. Tiny (2 player)
2. Small (3 player)
3. Medium (4 player)
4. Normal (6 player)
5. Large (8 player)
6. Giant

Default terrain sets the type of terrain you want your map to consist of. The following are your choices:

1. Grass 1
2. Ice
3. Dirt 1
4. Snow
5. Water Shallow
6. Red Desert
7. Yellow Plains
8. Cloud Tops
9. Starfield

All pretty much self explanatory. Now, the three buttons to the left. The first is "Blank Map." After selecting a map size, and default terrain, check this box. Then click "Generate Map." The program will then create a map for you, based on the size and terrain specified. "Random Map" does the same, except it deploys a starting force for both players (Command Center, a Scout, and several workers), and randomly placed resources. It also places holocrons, so if you don't want them in your scenario, be sure to remove them. "Seed Map" does the same as "Random Map," except it asks you to input a number. You can choose between 1 and 99999. Each number creates a unique looking map. "Random Map" makes a map from a random 'seed,' while "Seed Map" allows you to specify the seed.

Global Victory
Here, you can select what is required for victory in the scenario to be won. Your choices are:

1. Standard: First player to collect all holocrons, build a monument, or destroy all other players, wins
2. Conquest: First player to destroy all other players, wins
3. Score: First player to reach a specified score, wins
4. Time Limit: Player with the highest score when the time limit expires, wins
5. Custom: Allows you to customize the Global Victory conditions

Terrain
Here, after you've generated a map, you can add specific features to the map. You can add hills, add cliffs, copy parts of the map to paste them elsewhere, and erase buildings/units.

Options
Allows you to set options for each player. These include restricting tech levels (not allowing the player to research past Tech Level 2, for example)...and can get as specific as not allowing the player to research a specific technology. Allows you to chose Buildings, Units, and Techs to 'disable.'

Players
Allows you to set starting stats for each player. How many of each resource they begin with, their Population Limit, how many players will be in the scenario. You can set their initial Tech level, what color they will be, their civilization (Wookie, Trade Federation, Galactic Empire, etc.), who will control them (Player or Computer), and Faction Name (IE if you wanted the player to be called "Imperial Directorate" instead of "Galactic Empire," you could type that name in there.

Messages
This section is fairly important. I will discuss each "Message" area:

1. Scenario Instructions: When you first load up the mission, you'll get a "briefing." The Scenario Instructions is a short paragraph (or two) describing to the player what they must accomplish in the scenario. It displays before the scenario starts.
2. Intelligence: Another screen that will appear before the mission begins. Any 'Intelligence' you want to provide the player with before the scenario starts, you input here
3. Victory: Once the scenario is won, the paragraph that you type here will be displayed. Bascially, a "Congratulations, with your assistance, the......." type thing.
4. Loss: The exact opposite. This will be displayed if you lose the mission.
5. History: Any background information you want to provide to the player, this will appear before the scenario begins.
6. Scout: "Scouting Reports" that will appear once the player is in the game, and clicks on the "Objectives" button.

Units
Allows you to place any Unit (trooper, fighter, ship, etc.), Building (Troop Center, War Center, etc.), Hero (Boba Fett, Veers, Darth Vader, etc.), or Other (Dead Wookie, Colony Ship, Debris, etc.). You can place them, move them, delete them, rotate them, or select them.

Cinematics
Allows you to set pre-game and Victory/Loss movies to play in the scenario

Diplomacy
Allows you to set who each player is Friendly/Neutral/Enemy towards.

Triggers
Without a doubt, the hardest part of creating a scenario, these are the difference between a map with units placed, and a realistic scenario. First, I'd recommend you download this Trigger Guide, found on the Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven site. The site itself is very useful, so feel free to take a look around. The Trigger Guide explains what certain Conditions/Effects mean. I'll go into some now.

When you click "Triggers," you'll see a few boxes to the left spring up. One is the "Scenario Triggers" list. Below that, is the "Conditions Effects" list. Both should say "None" right now.

We'll begin by setting a starting instruction to appear two seconds into the mission. First, under "Scenario Triggers," click "New." A trigger, by the name of "Trigger 0" will now appear in that box, and a new box will appear on the bottom:

1. Trigger Name (you can rename the trigger to whatever you want)
2. Description Order (how you want Triggers to come up...put 100 here to be the first Trigger to activate, and 1 to be the last)
3. Trigger Description (text for you to describe what this trigger does...or to write an objective)
4. Display as Objective (if "Yes" is selected, than the Trigger Description text will appear as an objective for the mission)
5. Trigger Starting State (On if you want the Trigger to start when the mission is loaded, or Off if you want it to load when the Conditions are met)
6. Trigger Looping (On, if you want the Trigger to replay every time the Condition is met; Off, if you want it to play once)

Moving on, this is how to create that first Trigger.

Click "New Cond" to create a new Condition. Select "Timer" from the list. It will then pop up a text box. Put in a number. This number will represent how many seconds you want to pass in the scenario before the Trigger activates. I'd go with two.

Next, click "New Effect." Select "Display Instructions." The number under "Timer" will reflect how long (in seconds) you want the Instruction text to display. "Number" means where you want it to display (zero meaning at the top of the screen, one meaning in the middle, and two meaning at the bottom of the screen). Type in the "Message" box what text you want to display on the screen once the mission begins.

Creating A Campaign
After Triggers, this part is very simple. Save your scenario, and go to the Main Menu. Click "Campaign Editor." This will bring you to a new screen. "Campaign Filename" is what you want the Campaign to be called. Type in your choice of a name. Below that, you'll see a box labeled "Scenarios." This will contain every custom scenario you have created that is saved to the "Scenarios" folder in your SWGB program folder. Below that is "Campaign Scenarios," the scenarios for your current campaign. To add scenarios to this campaign, select them in the "Scenarios" box, and click "Add." Eventually, you will have several scenarios listed in the "Campaign Scenarios" box. Use the "Up" and "Down" buttons to arrange the order. This is important; the order here will reflect the order in which they will be played. Click OK at the bottom, and you are done!