DCS Sandbox

These scripts and maps are designed to provide "Zeus-style" sandbox missions where you can spawn a variety of hostile and friendly units anywhere on the map using a combination of MarkPoints and the F10 Radio Menu.

The goal is to provide a way to

sandbox.lua includes a modified version of MIST, so it is incompatible with vanilla MIST (unless you remove "00_mist.lua" from lua.txt and rebuild sandbox.lua)

Where are the missions???

DCS Mission Files (*.miz) are basically just zip files containing everything needed to run your mission: Unit informtation, map zones, triggers, victory conditions, sound files, custom scripts, etc. You can unpack and re-pack the files using an archive tool such as 7zip and see for yourself.

The unpacked, loose files are git-friendly; They can be compared when they change and they won't balloon the size of the repository when they do, unlike a zipped .miz file. The downside is, this means you have to create the .miz files yourself.

Generating .miz files

Windows

Simply run the pack.cmd file and it will package up the loose mission files into zipped .miz files which DCS can read.

Note: Requires 7-zip! If not installed in the default location (C:\Program Files\7-zip) you will need to edit pack.cmd in a text editor and change the location on line 6

UNIX / Cygwin

As long as your shell can find the make and zip commands you should be able to run make pack and it will package up the loose files into .miz files.

Unpacking .miz files

Windows

Currently no way to do this. I will create an unpack.cmd file eventually.

UNIX / Cygwin

You will need the following in your shell:

• make
• unzip
• lua

First, this project relies on scripts from VEAF. Without them this would not be possible.

All Makefile targets

You will need the following to take full advantage of Makefile targets:

• make
• zip/unzip
• lua

In the project root folder run "make" for a list of options:

'clean'
        - Remove compiled lua file from /build

'pack'
        - Package the loose folders back into .miz files
        - Do this when you haven't made any changes and just want to (re-)generate the .miz files

'unpack'
        - Unpack and normalize all .miz files into the mission files folder

'repack'  - Unpack and repack the files.
        - Unpack and repack the files.
        - Do this if you have modified the missions in the Mission Editor but haven't made any script changes.

'build'
        - Compile lua scripts into sandbox.lua and put it in the build folder

'install'
        - Build sandbox.lua
        - Install sandbox.lua into all sandbox missions listed in sandboxes.txt
        - Repack the missions
        - Do this when you have made script changes but not mission editor changes.

'full'
        - Unpack + Install
        - Do this if you have made both script and mission editor changes.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

This software is Copyright (c) 2020 by vsTerminus

Unless specified below, the work is licensed under

GNU General Public License v3.0 

00_mist.lua is a fork of MIssion Scripting Tools (MIST) and is Copyright (c) 2020 mrSkortch (Grimes)

This is free software, licensed under

GNU General Public License v3.0

veafMissionEditor.lua and veafMissionNormalizer.lua are used from VEAF-Mission-Creation-Tools and are Copyright (c) 2014 Nicolas "MagicBra" VERRIEST

This is free software, licensed under

Apache License 2.0

SplashDamage.lua is from DCS-Scripts and is Copyright (c) 2021 wheelyjoe

This is free software, licensed under

MIT License