Tyrant's Virtual Missions Tools Q&A

[Tyrant]

You can say web tech moves fast but thats just because its broken so bad to begin with.

Dude I am a Lisp programmer - when I look at the state of web tech I often say to myself, "How can anyone actually program like this?"

[Raytio]

You can say web tech moves fast but thats just because its broken so bad to begin with.

Dude I am a Lisp programmer - when I look at the state of web tech I often say to myself, "How can anyone actually program like this?"

The answer is they dont program they code

Well if your a lisper you could do your thing in this.
http://www.lispworks.com/products/lispw ... l#personal

However I find standard GUI systems problematic sometimes.
Now if you want to make it truly balling I could help you do it in IMGUI and a DX12 window.
I can provide the window and graphics api's. I use a subset of C style inside of a C++ compiler to get operator overloading and a few perks that C doesnt have.
IMGUI is really simple basic GUI lib.
Perhaps you would it enjoy your work more if you were working in a sane environment

Although sounds like your far enough along better to just keep pushing through it.

[Micro]

Thanks for the update Tyrant.
VMT is really a MUST for mission creators on my opinion, when you wanna create something special.

Cheers
Micro

[Tyrant]

The answer is they dont program they code

Ha! Too funny. My experience is that you can write Perl in any language, though...give me a really good JS gal any day over a bad Haskell programmer or whatever. A good team with bad tools beats a bad team with great tools every time.

Well if your a lisper you could do your thing in this.
http://www.lispworks.com/products/lispw ... l#personal

I'm actually a Clojure guy. I use emacs for all my work. I've done a little CL, and I've heard good things about Lispworks but never used it in anger.

Code for VMT is here, BTW, if you're interested in seeing it. https://github.com/candera/vmt. It's a solo hobby project, so not my best work from a few standpoints like comments, but then again it doesn't have to be.

Now if you want to make it truly balling I could help you do it in IMGUI and a DX12 window.
I can provide the window and graphics api's. I use a subset of C style inside of a C++ compiler to get operator overloading and a few perks that C doesnt have.
IMGUI is really simple basic GUI lib.
Perhaps you would it enjoy your work more if you were working in a sane environment

Confused: you mentioned "balling" and "sane" and then talked about using an Algol-family language. And operator overloading!

Seriously, though, the thought of re-writing VMT is enough to stop my heart. I've put probably over 1000 hours into it already. Even just updating it for 4.34 I'm already a good 20-30 hours in. And I really do prefer Clojure. If I was going to rewrite it, it would probably be to port at least the back end to the JVM and serve it out as a web app, with the front end still written in Clojurescript. That would enable some real-time collaboration features I'd love to add some day. Or move the whole thing and do the UI in JFX. But the odds of that happening any time soon are tiny, even though the platform mobility of Clojure means I could reuse a ton of the code as-is.

Fun discussion! Next time we're in the same place I'll have to buy you a beverage of your choice and you can show me your setup. I did C and C++ for a bunch of years and have done some DX stuff but always interested to see new things.

[Tyrant]

Thanks for the update Tyrant.
VMT is really a MUST for mission creators on my opinion, when you wanna create something special.

Thanks! I wrote it out of having a low pain threshold: I was creating 2-3 missions a week at the 1st for a while, and I couldn't face using the BMS 2D UI to find the info I needed. All the information was there - it just took too many clicks to find it. Oh, and I guess I wanted to integrate the weather generator I had written, too. The weather part was based on a project I did way, way back in the dark ages when I was in college.

Kind of became an obsession for a while.

[Raytio]

Why would you ever want to write PERL? lol

JS gal? Thats JS person if you were trying to be completely gender neutral
You are right tho a good team beats a bad team regardless of tools although I would correct good with competent and work well together.

WOW you take a strike at my heart so now you will suffer this autistic programmer rant

Now I understand you have done C/C++ programming in the past and I assume that you got frustrated and just wanted to "get things done" and in doing so you perhaps swung the pendulum a lil too far in the other direction.

Talking bad about algol languages is like telling a human he is an idiot for speaking with his mouth rather than using telepathy like an enlightened being.
Conversely using Closejure is fine if you like mind puzzles just to do the simplest of tasks.
Best use for Closjure is to give CS students a massive superiority complex and warped sense of reality.

Operator overloading is very handy for writing api's and especially if your writing your own math libs.
Like I said I restrict myself to a subset of C++ so it is basically C with some namespacing and a few other minor C++ things that are not in C.

While I would like to program in a higher level language unfortunately there are very few high level languages that are useful, in my industry you need control of memory, intrinsics and other lower level constructs and if I want to give away control of those things I need to have way to ensure its not going to blow up in my face.


Rant Over shew!
Ahhh now I feel much better after you insulted my algo based language!

Seriously tho I use emacs for work as well I got my setup on github similar to you but just in private.
Thats a very big deal with programmers text editors can start a holy war and I am glad we are in the same religion lol. Although tbh I dont think much about EMACS I am shopping for a replacement and I know which one will replace it just am a lil lazy to set it up since my EMACS setup has been refined over quite a few years.

Looking forward to when VMT is done for 4.34! Thanks for all your hardwork on the project.
Hope to see you in the air sometime soon too!


Yes please I am looking forward to when you can buy me a beer.
Next time your in the Tokyo Shibuya area please give me a buzz there are lot of great places around here.

[Tyrant]

Haha I will admit I went a bit Lisp troll there for a second; sorry.

Will definitely look you up in Tokyo some day! The invite is reciprocated if you're ever in the Washington DC area!

[Raytio]

Haha I will admit I went a bit Lisp troll there for a second; sorry.

Will definitely look you up in Tokyo some day! The invite is reciprocated if you're ever in the Washington DC area!

If I come to DC do you know where I can rent a bulletproof car I heard crime is a lil out of hand there.

[Tyrant]

Haha I will admit I went a bit Lisp troll there for a second; sorry.

Will definitely look you up in Tokyo some day! The invite is reciprocated if you're ever in the Washington DC area!

If I come to DC do you know where I can rent a bulletproof car I heard crime is a lil out of hand there.

The poorer neighborhoods certainly have their issues, sadly, but like in any big city. But (for better and worse) much of the city had gentrified in recent decades, so there are lots of great restaurants, good night life, etc. Really depends on exactly where you are in the city.

I live in the suburbs in any event, but DC is a pretty cool place to visit. The museums and monuments down town are world class and of course we can grab Thumper and hit the amazing Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum out by where he works at Dulles Airport. A must for any aviation fan.

Same offer open to everyone reading this, of course.

[Tyrant]

OK, I think I've worked through most of the issues and am happy to announce an ALPHA release of VMT supporting BMS 4.34. As you are probably aware, "alpha" is code for "Please test my broken software for me" So, yes, I absolutely expect there to be bugs in this, although the only thing I'm aware of that doesn't work is the weather, which I have not updated at all (it's next on the list). But everything else *should* work - creating briefings, viewing flights, etc. etc.

Download it here: http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-u ... s.com/dev/

There were a lot of changes to the mission files in 4.34 - this was the bulk of what I had to change in VMT to get it to work. I did my best to translate it internally into the format that older versions of VMT used so that I had to change the minimum possible about VMT internals themselves. That gives me hope that breakage will be limited, but if you are willing to use this interim version and report bugs, that would be SUPER helpful. Reporting them by posting here is great.

If, understandably, you don't want to use this version because you'd rather not deal with bugs, that's cool too. It's going to be a bit longer, but the final version is coming.

[Nick]

Great news!!!

I did a quick test and was able to load campaign mission Bear Trap #5 without any issues.

What I can see (may be I am wrong), but weather seems to be different:

VMT


WC


Will do some more tests this week.

Cheers,
Nick

[Tyrant]

What I can see (may be I am wrong), but weather seems to be different:

Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear: Weather is completely and totally broken in this release.

The weather model has changed a LOT in 4.34 - it's way better now, but because I generate weather the VMT model has to get more complex. I haven't even started on that part yet, as I figured getting *something* for people to use would be a good idea. This release represents just the updates to get 4.34 missions to load. I still have a few things left to do:

- Address bugs that people find
- Fix the bug where weapons don't show up in the damage computer
- Update the weather generator to include the new cool features.

[Nick]

...although the only thing I'm aware of that doesn't work is the weather...

LOL - anyone who can read is clearly at an advantage.

[Tyrant]

Just dropped a new alpha version in the usual spot:

http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-u ... s.com/dev/

WEATHER STILL DOESN'T WORK.

Two relatively minor changes in this release:

- Fixed a bug where the correct list of weapons wasn't showing in the damage computer.
- Removed what I think is a now-incorrect warning about squadrons without airbases.

I've started to work on the weather features, but there's a fair amount new to get through, so it's going to take me a bit.

As always, please give it a try if you're so inclined and let me know about any bugs you find.

[Micro]

Nice Tyrant! Will check that out

[Tyrant]

Am currently uploading v058-10, another alpha. This one fixes a pretty bad bug where not all active teams were being shown. Recommend immediate upgrade from previous alphas.

WEATHER IS STILL BROKEN.

http://org.craigandera.vmt.s3-website-u ... s.com/dev/

[Dan]

Thanks Tyrant! Really missed the tool.

[Tyrant]

I am still working on this every chance I get. It has turned out to be rather a large job. At a guess I'm 30 or 40 hours in. I'd say I'm something like two-thirds done. But I have moved on to updating the weather, which as you know got significantly more sophisticated in BMS in 4.34.

I don't have a working release to share, but I thought I'd drop in this screenshot just so anyone that's interested can get some sense of progress. I'll keep you updated.

These are the new wind/temperature/clouds/visibility controls. As you can see, there are a lot of knobs to twiddle! Luckily, the "just do it for me, mate" buttons are also present.

Screen Shot 2019-06-22 at 11.24.30 AM.png (122.5 KiB) Viewed 14438 times

[Nick]

WOW!!! Looks very promising. Keep it up Tyrant.

Weather map creation should be limited to 1 hour intervals minimum.

[Tyrant]

WOW!!! Looks very promising. Keep it up Tyrant.

Weather map creation should be limited to 1 hour intervals minimum.

Oh? Is that new? I used 15 minutes to avoid big discontinuities for many many missions in 4.33.

[Nick]

It would fit better with possibly future weather map interpolation enhancements (see here).

[Tyrant]

Ah, thanks.

I don't think I'll prevent people from putting in a lower number. One hour is very coarse given that the cells are 9nm square. Weather moving at 25kts (not an unusual speed) will cross more than two cells in that time. But I'll probably put in a warning about it, and default to one hour.

[Nick]

I would not recommend it, because it may raise expectations, which are automatically cashed by the program anyway. (weather maps with an interval <1hr will be ignored)

[Tyrant]

Yep. The post makes it clear that's the direction it's heading. And I understand the tradeoffs BMS has to make. But in general VMT lets you enter crazy params...it just warns you about it. So I'll keep with that pattern.

[Derk]

Looking forward to testing weather when ready. Keep up the good work man!