Create Training Missions in IL-2 Sturmovik
by Ilya "Luthier" Shevchenko
- I highly recommend writing the text before you record the mission! Only that way can you actually ensure that it flows in a logical manner, and there is sufficient time to explain everything
- Print out the mission text, and assign approximate time to each text message
- Go to the full mission bulider and design a new mission that will contain all objects you'll need in the mission, properly positioned. Make sure to create a nice logical path for the player's plane, so when trainees take control they know where to fly next
- Play the mission, ideally with the stopwatch. Ensure that you give enough time for each message to be on the screen, no less than 5-8 seconds.
- Save the track, and then edit it as you normally would. NOTE: Any time compression you use will be saved with the track, so don't speed through the track if you don't want it running accelerated in the end.
- Exit Il-2 and Move the track to the IL-2/Training folder
- Add a line to the all.ini file in the folder containing the name of the new track. You do not need the extension, just the file name
- Create a file with the same name and .msg extension. It will contain the training mission text (for example, if you have a Bomber Attack.trk file, you would create a Bomber Attack.msg)
- Insert your training narrative into the text file, in the following format:
[all]
0:00
0:05 Welcome to the custom training!
0:15 Today we will learn...
- Play the training track in Il-2, and fix any discrepancies or timing errors.
- If you want to also distribute other language versions, just create additional .msg files, with the country prefix added to the name (in the example above, Bomber Attack_de.msg and Bomber Attack_fr.msg for German and French versions). Il-2 will automatically pick the correct one based on the game version. You will of course need to find somebody to translate the text for you.
- That's it, you're all set!
