How would you like to chase a Lamborghini Countach through the Iraqi desert? Fight MiG-23's over Arizona. Travel by DC 10 from Basra to Baghdad, not as a passenger but as the pilot? Or, why not, take off with your whole squadron to search out those 30 MiGs and down them?
And if you have not yet bought the full version of the game, (what are you waiting for, by the way,) how would you like it to play all six training missions of the demo with opponents and the weapons of your choice?
All this and more is possible with the Hornet Scenario Editor. Open the Hornet data file, choose one of the 6 scenario's of the demo or one of the 40 scenario's of the full version and start working on it. And if you make a particularly nice scenario, save it as a scenario file and distribute it to others, or load a scenario that someone else has written.
Of course the usual caveats apply. Work only on backups, it's quit easy to ruin your datafile and crash your machine. (Hornet is a remarkably stable program, by the way, when I say crash the machine it usually means crash the F-18 at startup. That's a lot friendlier than crashing the Mac.) Be prepared to restore old files when needed. You'll need to do this more often than you like.
And don't expect a flashy graphical interface. It's mostly a pretty low level file editor, dedicated to one particular type of file, the Hornet data file. You have to have something left of that old urge to take alarm clocks apart and see what makes them tick or you will not appreciate this program. The information that you get with the HSE program is pretty incomplete and most of it you will have to find out for yourself.
On the other hand, HSE is completely free. You are free to use it, to copy it, to give it away or to use the code as an inspiration for a really great version 2 of the editor. HSE is written in HyperCard 2.2, with a few basic XCMD's written in good old Think Pascal. The scripts are unprotected, if only sparsely commented, so by all means, have a look at it. I wouldn't mind seeing the same plethora of editing and DIY programs and scenarios for the F-18 that you have for Marathon. And you'll find that most of the code is rather straightforward anyway.
So use the program in any way that you see fit, as long as you agree that you accept all responsibility for all the consequences of the use of the program. Otherwise, throw it away or give it to someone else. Agreed?
Three documentation files are supposed to be included with the editor, the Read Me that you have just read, a sort of Manual and a Tutorial. The manual is boring, the Tutorial is probably more fun. Start with the manual! And if you give the HSE to a friend, please give him the documentation files as well.
There are also a few demo scenarios included. The tutorial will tell you the story.
Plans for version 2? Yes, plenty of plans. A plain English script editor wouldn't be too difficult, once my understanding of all the commands would be more or less complete. A graphical waypoint editor would also be nice and would certainly be feasible. And perhaps some control over the fixed objects of Hornet (the ones that do not belong to a scenario, that is, such as the SAMS near airfields,) could be added. A shape editor, on the other hand, will probably not be part of it. Maybe someone else could give that a try?
Planned release time for version 2? Nonexistent. The ideas are there and I'll certainly try to implement some of them, but all depends on available spare time which is in short supply. That's why I invite others to have a go at it as well. If I will release a version 2 then it will probably be done in SuperCard, because of it's better graphics and multiwindow capabilities.
As a final remark I would like to point you to two recent scenario's for the Hornet, the "173rd Airborne" and "Long Reach", as well as the file "A Basic Lesson, Hrnt Data" that more or less goes with it. These were NOT made with HSE, in fact they were already available before HSE was finished, and especially the file "A Basic Lesson, Hrnt Data" came just in time to fill a number of gaps in my scripting knowledge, that I've incorporated in the scripting reference at the end of the Tutorial. Many thanks to Mr. frontacs. Very well done scenario's, too!
Have fun. And remember to support the people of GSC so that they will be able to work on version 3 of this great game (and maybe to buy that Countach that they obviously like.)
July 1996,
swartjes@bart.nl (H.M. Swartjes)
Release notes for version 1.0.2
After release of the first version of the Hornet Scenario Editor it soon turned out that there are several version of the Hornet 2.0 datafile around. The first release only recognizes the two files that I have, which are the one from the demo (5290599 bytes, dated 22 of June, 1995) and the version from the Hornet 2.0.1 CD (13990058 bytes, dated 24 of July, 1995, the file itself still bears the version number 2.0).
The Scenario Editor uses the length of the data fork of the file to determine the version of the datafile. Based on this version it then assumes an offset within the file for the mission scripts. Obviously this will go horribly wrong for files of different size which is why HSE 1.0 rejects unrecognized files.
The present release (1.0.2) tries to overcome this problem by maintaining a database of recognized files. Whenever it finds an unrecognized file it will offer to analyze it. Although this analysis takes a considerable amount of time (typically 15 minutes, depending a.o. on your machine speed,) you will have to do this only once.
The analysis is simply a string search for the script of the first training mission. It's clear that this will only work if you haven't yet modified this script, e.g. by applying patches. Use a clean copy of the datafile.
If for some reason you ever want to zap the database (e.g. because I made a typo, it is known to happn,) press the ╥Open Data╙ button with the Option key down. Out of the box version 1.0.2 now recognizes the demo, the 2.0.1 version of the CD and thanks to Johan Rundberg also the 1.x to 2.0 update, available from the net. According to Johan it will not work with the KC update. Too bad.
Version 1.0.2 also contains a bug fix in the "Save scenario" button. It now deals properly with empty lines. Also some new opcodes have been added to the reference list.
