# Editors

| This file describes the various editors in FRED2. These are accessed from the Editors menu. It is these editors that give FreeSpace 2 missions their variety and depth. The dialog boxes opened by some of these editors may too big to fit on your screen. If this is a problem, try turning your desktop resolution up to 1024x768.

The sections of this file are:

- Ships Editor
- Wings Editor
- Objects Editor
- Waypoint Paths Editor
- Mission Objectives Editor
- Events Editor
- Team Loadout Editor
- Background Editor
- Reinforcements Editor
- Asteroid Field Editor
- Mission Specs Editor
- Briefing Editor
- Debriefing Editor
- Shield System Editor
- Command Briefing Editor
- Campaign Editor

## Ships Editor

| This editor lets you change the characteristics of an individual ship. By marking several ships, you can edit them all at once (for example, turn them all hostile). Many of the things that can be done with the Ships Editor can also be done with the Wings Editor. When dealing with wings, use the Wings Editor whenever you have a choice.

At the upper left of this editor is a pull-down menu to let you select a ship. When you first open it, the Ships Editor has all currently marked ships selected. Any fields (such as Name) which are not the same for all ships will be blank.

In the upper right are Prev and Next buttons, which let you cycle through the ships in your mission. Delete deletes the currently marked ships, and Reset resets everything in the Ships Editor to default values.

### Main Area

You can change the Name and Class of a ship here.

You can also set skill the of AI (Artificial Intelligence) controlling this ship. Skill levels range from Lieutentant to General. Coward will attempt to evade. None will react little and take no initiative.

There are four teams to which a ship can belong: Hostile, Friendly, Neutral, and Unknown. In a single-player mission, the player is always Friendly. By default, Hostile ships will attack Friendly and Neutral ships. Friendly ships will attack Hostile and Neutral ships. Neutral ships will attack Friendly ships. (In FreeSpace 1, the Hammer of Light was Neutral.) Unknown ships will neither attack nor be attacked by anyone (unless ordered to do so).

Cargo indicates what, if anything, this ship is carrying. This is used mostly for transports, of course. The button at the right side of this field lets you select from a list of cargoes on other ships in this mission.

If you specify something in the Alt Name field, this will be shown as the ship's class in the player's HUD. This way, the player can't tell what something is just by targeting it.

If this ship is part of a Wing, this is indicated.

Hotkey lets you assign a default hotkey for pilots to target this ship. More than one ship can have the same hotkey; pressing it in flight will target all such ships.

F5 through F8 are generally reserved for Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta wings. You should use F9 through F12 for the ships the player is most likely to target: freighters being escorted, stations being guarded, capital ships being attacked.

The player can alter their hotkey setup during the game. (The default key for doing this is F4.) If a ship's arrival is supposed to be a surprise, you don't want the player to see it when they do this. In this situation, give the ship the hotkey Hidden.

Persona is used for fighters and bombers. It determines which video and sound clips are played for chatter from this ship. There's really not too much difference between them, but note which are male and which are female; if you're going to have fighters send radio messages, they should match the automatic messages at least in gender.

Score is the number of points (toward promotion) the player earns for destroying this ship. Player Ship is checked for ships flown by a player.

### Weapons

Pressing the Weapons button opens the Weapons Editor. Here, you can change the weapons mounted on the ship, as well as the AI class of each gunner. (These are just the default settings. Players can be given some choice as to their weaponry with the Team Loadout Editor.)

Pilot is not a weapon mounting point; this is just another way to set the pilot's AI class, equivalent to setting it in the main Ships Editor.

Some weapons cannot be mounted in some positions; you can't put a capital ship beam weapon on a fighter.

### Player Orders

This dialog box lets you choose which orders a ship will accept from a player. The example at right is for a fighter; there will be fewer options for a capital ship, which does not have such a sophisticated AI.

### Special Explosion

This lets you provide an unusual explosion when and if this ship is destroyed. Damage is the amount of damage taken by ships caught within the Inner Damage Radius of this ship when it blows. The amount of damage decreases steadily out to the Outer Damage Radius, where no damage is taken. Blast determines how hard anyone caught in the explosion is pushed away from it. The Shockwave is the blue visual effect seen on some large explosions.

### Additional Ship Properties (Misc)

Pressing the Misc button brings up a dialog box.

You can have a ship destroyed a certain number of seconds before a mission (leaving debris).

If a ship is marked Scannable, the player can scan it the same way they would inspect a cargo vessel. These are different things: scanning just changes the ship's status from Not Scanned to Scanned, but inspecting reveals the ship's cargo. Any ship which does not have Cargo Known can be inspected.

If a ship is a Reinforcement Unit, it can be called into the mission by the player.

If you check Protect Ship, no AI-controlled ship will attack this one. Beam Protect Ship merely prevents capital ship beams from targeting this ship. (These can both be overriden by explicit beam firing orders, given with the `fire-beam` SEXP operator.)

Ignore For Counting Goals takes this ship out of consideration in SEXP operators like `percent-ships-destroyed`.

Any ship marked as an Escort Ship will show up in the Monitor Display on the right side of the player's HUD. There is only room for three ships here, so FreeSpace 2 will pick the three escort ships with the highest priority values. Any Asteroid on a collision course with an escorted ship will be bracketed in white when the mission is played.

No Arrival Music disables the dynamic fanfare when this ship arrives.

A ship which is Invulnerable takes no damage, even from collisions. This is useful for ships which have to survive for plot reasons, such as the SC Lucifer in FreeSpace 1. It is also extremely useful in testing: by making Alpha 1 invulnerable, you can fly around and watch the action without fear of being destroyed. Don't forget to uncheck this when you're done with the mission!

A ship which is Hidden From Sensors will not show up clearly on radar and cannot be targeted. It is still visible to the naked eye.

A Kamikaze ship will ram its target, destroying itself and doing the indicated amount of damage.

If No Dynamic Goals is checked, the ship will stick to its assigned orders. Otherwise, it will stop to defend itself if it feels sufficiently threatened.

In a campaign, a mission can be designated as a Red Alert mission. (This is done in the Mission Specs Editor.) In this kind of mission, the player has not had the chance to return to their base ship for repairs. Other ships in the previous mission with Red Alert Carry Status will be brought along into Red Alert mission.

When a player ship is destroyed in a multiplayer mission, the player will respawn near the ship with the highest Respawn Priority.

### Initial Status Editor

This dialog box lets you control various aspects of the ship's initial status.

Velocity is the ship's initial speed. Note that ships may quickly change velocity to carry our orders or position themselves within wings. Also, ships emerging from hyperspace have a high initial velocity regardless of how this is set.

If a ship is supposed to be damaged at the beginning of a mission, reduce its Hull Integrity below 100. You can also adjust the integrity of individual subsystems, such as engines and turrets. If you don't want to do all this by hand, consider using the `subsys-set-random` SEXP operator.

Unchecking Has Shield System will render a fighter or bomber shieldless. This box has no effect on larger ships.

If Locked is checked, the player cannot change the class or weapon loadout of the ship before launching the mission.

A ship can begin Docked With another ship, if they share appropriate docking point. In some situations, you will have a choice as to where a ship will dock. A ship can only be docked with one other ship at a time. To see where the docking points are located, turn on Show Model Dock Points in the View Menu.

The field labeled Cargo here doesn't do anything.

### Initial Orders

Here you can specify what the ship is trying to do at the beginning of the mission. New orders can be given later using the Events Editor.

The orders that can be given here are equivalent to those that can be given later with SEXPs, so we'll skip the detailed explanation for now. We will note that the word Attack is used here where `chase` is used in the SEXP operators.

Although there appears to be room for them, you can't give a ship more than 5 initial orders. You can give additional orders using the Events Editor.

### Arrival and Departure Cues

Here you can control when the ship enters and leaves the mission. By default, the ship is present when the mission starts, and never leaves. If you want the Ship Editor window to be smaller, clicking on Hide Cues will toggle this part of it on or off.

Choices for Location are `Hyperspace`, `Near Ship`, `In Front Of Ship`, and `Docking Bay`. If you choose anything but hyperspace, you must also select a Target ship to be near and a distance.

The Cue itself is a SEXP. The ship will arrive or depart after this becomes true and then the number of seconds given in Delay has passed.

Check No Warp Effect if this would be inappropriate, such as when a fighter is launching from a destroyer or when a ship is appearing in the distance in a nebula.

The area at the bottom (which may extend below the edge of your screen) is the SEXP help, explaining the currently highlighted SEXP. In the unlikely event that you want to turn this off, you can do so in the Help Menu.

## Wings Editor

| This is very similar to the Ships Editor, but it allows you to edit properties of a wing. If a control appears in both editors, you should use the Wings Editor for features which will be the same for all ships in a wing (such as initial orders).

By turning # Of Waves above 1, you can have more ships come in whenever the wing gets down to the number of ships specified in Wing Threshold.

You can also set the minimum and maximum Delay Between Waves (in seconds) in the Arrival panel. Make the minimum high enough that it's not obvious that these guys were just waiting in hyperspace for their last comrade to die. This is also a good way to give the player time to reload between frenzied dogfights. At the other extreme, don't make the maximum delay so high that the player is flying around for minutes waiting for something to happen.

By checking No Arrival Message, you can turn off the message (such as "Beta wing here" or "New bandits incoming") that is normally sent when a new wing arrives.

Delete Wing deletes all of the ships in the wing, and Disband Wing deletes the wing but leaves the ships in place.

## Objects Editor

| This allows you to place objects much more precisely than you can with the mouse. This is useful for lining up neat rows of cargo containers, for example. You can also make an object Point To another object or at a particular location in space.

## Waypoint Paths Editor

| This allows you to rename a waypoint path. This could be useful if you have so many paths that it's hard to keep track of the numbers. You can also rename jump nodes with this editor.

## Mission Objectives Editor

| Here you can specify the player's goals for the mission. There are three kinds of goals: Primary, Secondary, and Bonus. Success in the mission requires completing all Primary goals. Bonus goals are not listed in the mission briefing, and will not appear on the in-flight objectives list (F4 by default) until completed.

The Name of the objective is used in-flight, while the longer text line below it is used in the briefing. Score is the number of points toward promotion awarded for completing this objective. (This is in addition to any points for destroyed ships.) In a multiplayer mission, you must also specify which Team is trying to complete this goal.

If Objective Invalid is checked, this objective will not show up in any lists or be required for victory. This is used for objectives which should not be obvious at the beginning of the mission, such as stopping a surprise attack. To make the objective valid later in the mission, create an Event with the `validate-goal` SEXP operator.

If Don't Play Completion Sound is checked, there will be no musical fanfare for completing this goal. This might be appropriate for not-so-heroic goals like "scan all cargo containers".

The large area at the bottom of this editor is for SEXP help.

## Events Editor

| The Events Editor is the heart of FRED2. This is where you "script" your mission, setting up radio messages, HUD directives, and other things that occur over the course of the mission. There are really two areas of the Events Editor: the Event Panel on the left, dealing with events, and the Message Panel on the right, dealing with messages. (The word "panel" is being used loosely here, as the two areas overlap to some degree.)

### Event Panel

The large white area in the upper left is for the various event SEXPs. SEXP help is given in the box at the bottom of the Events Editor (not shown here).

New Event adds a new event to the end of the list. Insert Event adds a new event just before the currently highlighted one. Delete Event deletes the highlighted event.

An event can be made to occur several times by specifying a Repeat Count (how many times it will happen) and an Interval Time (number of seconds between repetitions). For example, consider this event:
Suppose this event has a Repeat Count of 5 and an Interval Time of 10. It will send a message from Command as soon as Alpha 1 gets within 100 meters of the container, and again every time Alpha 1 spends 10 seconds within 100 meters of the container. (The message will be sent at most 5 times.)

The player can Score some points when this event occurs. In a multiplayer mission, you must also specify which team scores when this event occurs.

If an event is Chained, it will not occur until and unless the one listed immediately before it has occurred. If a Chain Delay is specified, that many seconds must have passed since the previous event.

Directive Text is given at the left side of the player's HUD. FreeSpace 2 is quite clever about this. If you set an event to occur when Kali wing has been destroyed, and give Directive Text "Destroy Kali", the HUD will show the number of ships left in Kali wing.

Directives first appear in the HUD when it becomes possible for the player to bring about the event. For example, if the event requires the destruction of some ship, the directive won't show up in the HUD until that ship arrives. Also, if the event is chained, the directive won't show up until the previous event occurs.

If an event has Directive Text, the dot (or chain link) to the left of its name will be red instead of blue.

You can also specify the default key the player should press to bring about this event; this is useful mostly in training missions. In a training mission (see the Mission Specs Editor), if you surround the name of the key with dollar signs ("Press $spacebar$"), FreeSpace 2 will automatically adjust if the player has remapped their keys.

### Message Panel

A list of all of the Messages in the mission is shown in the upper right. Use New Msg to create a new one, and Delete Msg to delete the highlighted message.

For a message to actually be sent, you have to create a `send-message` event. The source of the message can be a particular ship, or `#Command`.

The Name of a message is strictly for use within FRED2. Message Text is what appears at the top of the player's HUD.

ANI File is the animated "talking head" that appears at the upper left side of the player's HUD when this message is sent. `CM` stands for command, `TP` are Terran pilots, `VC` is Vasudan command, and `VP` is a Vasudan pilot.

Since you can't create your own `.ani` file, Browse isn't useful.

Wave file is the `.wav` file played with this message. You can choose from the many built-in wave files, or select one of your own (which should be placed in the `data\voice\special` subdirectory of your main FreeSpace 2 directory). The button with the little triangle plays the selected wave file, but unfortunately it does not work for the built-in ones.

Several useful files are included in the `data\voice\special` directory:

File | Description
--- | ---
`emptymsg.wav` | Empty message
`msgstart.wav` | Beep for beginning of message
`msgend.wav` | Static burst for end of message
`vasudantalk.wav` | Long sample of Vasudan speech

If you send a message with a wave file and FreeSpace 2 can't find the file, the message will just be run silently.

Persona indicates which "character" is speaking. It corresponds to the the personas set in the Ships Editor, and also allows choices like `Support Ship`. Pick whichever one is appropriate. When you pick a new built-in wave file or click on Update Stuff, the ANI File and Persona are both updated to the correct values for that wave file. If a fighter or bomber is going to send such a message, set the persona in the Ships Editor to match so that chatter messages will have the same face and voice.

## Team Loadout Editor

| Here, you can select what additional ships and weapons are available for each team. To toggle an item's availability, click on the box to the left of its name. Amount Used In Wings and Player Entry Delay don't do anything.

## Background Editor

| The background editor lets you add stars, planets, and nebulae to your mission. (There is a separate editor for Asteroid Fields.)

### Bitmaps

The Bitmaps panel lets you place planets, nebulae, and other background images.

Click on Add to add a new image and Delete to delete the currently highlighted image. The field in the upper right lets you choose from several dozen built-in images. `dneb` stands for dark nebula, `neb` is nebula, and of course `planet` is planet.

The next three fields determine the position and orientation of the currently highlighted image. P stands for pitch (degrees above the horizon), B is bank (degrees of clockwise rotation), and H is heading (degrees left along the horizon). The default position (0, 0, 0) is straight ahead when you open FRED2. These numbers all range from 0 through 359.

The Scale fields let you make the image larger (for example, to make a planet appear closer). These range from 0.001 (one thousandth normal size) to 18. With a planet, these should be equal; otherwise, you'll get a goofy-looking elliptical planet.

The # divisions fields determine how many sections the bitmap is divided into for mapping onto the sphere of the sky. These values range from 1 to 5, but you don't normally have to mess with them. Very large bitmaps (taking up half the sky) will not be rendered properly unless the # divisions fields are turned up to 2 or 3. (Turning them any higher doesn't have any noticeable effect.)

You can use your own bitmap images. They should be `.pcx` files, no larger than 256x256, and should be placed in the `data\effects` subdirectory of your main FreeSpace 2 directory.

### Suns

The Suns panel lets you place bright, nearby stars. It works basically like the Bitmaps panel, but the Scale goes from 0.1 to 50 here.

If you don't put in any suns, you will get a default sun. You can't get rid of it, but you can come fairly close by putting in one sun of scale 0.1.

### Nebula

The Nebula panel is for missions that take place inside a nebula. Check Full Nebula for such missions.

Range determines how far (in meters) radar can detect enemy ships. Ships more than half this distance away will appear as faded blips on radar and cannot be targeted.

Pattern is a big background image, overriding any bitmaps. Poofs are clouds swirling in front of the player.

Lightning Storm determines the strength of electromagnetic discharges within the nebula.

Pattern and the other fields below the line in the Nebula panel don't do anything.

### Misc

The Misc panel lets you specify the number of stars (100 to 2000) or set a mission in hyperspace.

## Reinforcements Editor

| This small editor lets you specify which ships and wings can be called in as reinforcements. (You can also do this in the Ships Editor and the Wings Editor.) To make a ship or wing available more than once, raise Uses above 1. Delay After Arrival is the minimum number of seconds between uses.

## Asteroid Field Editor

| This editor is used to install a field of floating rocks or debris in the mission. Checking Enabled turns the asteroid field on. In the main FRED2 window, a wire-frame box will show the boundaries of the field. An Active Field actually throws asteroids at large ships in or near the field, making it more dangerous. A Passive Field does not.

You can choose from three different colors of asteroids. In a Passive Field, you can also choose different kinds of Ship debris.

The Number of asteroids in the field can range from 1 to 256. When one drifts out of the specified area, it will disappear and a new one will be generated. FreeSpace 2 tries to do this behind the player, so it isn't obvious.

The Avg. Speed of the asteroids is given in meters per second.

FreeSpace 2 does not check for collisions between asteroids, so they pass right through each other. Don't make your field too dense, or this will be noticeable.

The Outer Box settings give the boundaries of the field. In an Active Field, you can also specify an Inner Box. No asteroids will appear here, and asteroids will not be hurled at ships inside the inner box. This is useful for hiding an installation inside an asteroid field.

## Mission Specs Editor

| This editor allows you to edit various properties of the mission as a whole. You can also set in-flight music and make designer's notes here. Title is the name of the mission, and the Designer is you. A mission can be Single Player, Multi Player, or Training. A Multi Player mission can be Cooperative (all players working together), Team Vs. Team, or Dogfight (every pilot for themself).

You can't have a single mission work both for Single Player and Multi Player, but you can have two different mission files that differ only in this detail.

If you check All Teams At War, the rules described in the Ships Editor change: now Neutrals and Unknowns will also attack Hostiles.

A Red Alert Mission takes place right on the heels of another one; there is no return to base for repairs. This is mainly important in a campaign.

In a Scramble Mission, there is no opportunity for the player to change their ship or weapon loadout.

If you Disallow Support Ships, the player cannot reload their secondary weapons after the mission begins. It would be a very bad idea to check this option in a mission where the player had to shoot down Shivan Dragon fighters.

If you Disallow Promotions/Badges, they player cannot earn any such awards as a result of this mission.

Max Respawns is the number of "lives" each player gets in a multiplayer mission.

Music indicates what music is played during the mission.

You can use Squadron Reassign panel to put the player in a particular squadron for the duration of this mission. (This contrasts with their regular multiplay squadron.) You can give the squadron a Name and specify what Logo will be painted on the side of the player's ship.

The Mission Description shows up when players highlight a mission from the list in the Tech Room Mission Simulator or when choosing a multiplayer mission. Designer's Notes are for the sake of other FRED2 users.

## Briefing Editor

| This editor lets you set up the story at the beginning of the mission, describing the situation to the player and telling them what to do. Of course, there can always be surprises... When you open the Briefing Editor, two things happen: a very large dialog box appears, and the main view shrinks to about a quarter of its size. The shrinkage is to remind you that, while the Briefing Editor is open, the main view is used to place briefing icons. That's explained below in the discussion of icons.

In a multiplayer mission, first use the Select Team menu to determine who gets this briefing. (You'll need a briefing for each team.)

A briefing consists of a series of stages, each of which has a picture of the mission area and a paragraph of text. Add Stage adds a new stage at the end, Insert Stage adds a stage right after the current one, and Delete Stage deletes the current stage. Prev and Next cycle through the stages.

The large Text area is the text displayed at the bottom of the player's screen as they watch the briefing.

The importance of good spelling and grammar here cannot be overstated. If you're weak in this area, find someone to "proofread" your mission.

A word can be colored by preceding it with one of the following "tags":

Tag | Color
--- | ---
$h | Hostile radar color
$f | Friendly radar color
$n | Neutral radar color
$r | Red
$g | Green
$b | Blue

If you want to produce a Voice Wave File, put it in the `data\voice\briefing` subdirectory of your main FreeSpace 2 directory. You can either type in the name or Browse for it, and the little triangle will play it.

You can choose from a number of different Briefing Music tracks.

The Usage Formula is a SEXP determining whether this briefing stage will be used or not. This will simply be `true` in a single mission, but you may want to do something more interesting in a campaign, perhaps involving SEXP operators like `is-previous-goal-true`.

Everything else has to do with the picture the player sees during the briefing. This is set up in the main view. The first thing you'll want to do is double-click on this (not on an object) to make it bigger. (It still won't be full-sized, but it will be as big as it will be during the actual briefing.)
You can use the camera movement controls and many other standard FRED2 controls. However, the player will only see those things for which you've created icons.

Having the icons and the actual objects visible at the same time can get pretty messy. There are two ways around this:

- Turn off most of the features in the View Menu such as Show Ship Models and Show Ship Info.
- Move the camera to point at an empty area of space and create your icons there, ignoring the actual mission objects.

To make an icon, select a ship and then press Make Icon. (If you're working out in empty space, you'll have to create an object, make an icon, and then delete the object.) You can move an icon around just as you would an object. You cannot rotate it, though, and it will not appear smaller if you move it farther away.

During the briefing, the player only sees icons and the grid. If you don't make any icons, they'll just see a blank grid.

Label controls the text that appears right under the icon; this can be blank. Icon Image determines which picture you get. Ship Type controls what the player sees if they click on the icon during the briefing. (If you didn't know about that feature, go start up a mission in FreeSpace 2 and click on an icon. Neat, huh?) Team determines the color of the icon (it will not change color here, just in the actual briefing).

The Text box at the bottom doesn't do anything. This is a good thing, because it spills off the bottom of your screen anyway.

If you check Highlight, the current icon will be surrounded by a ring of rotating triangles during the briefing.

ID is just a number identifying the current icon. There's no reason to mess with this.

If Change Locally is checked when you make a change (for exampe, to the Icon Image of an icon), that change will not affect other stages of the briefing.

You can delete the selected icon with Delete Icon.

Pressing Propagate causes all icons to appear, in their current positions, in all following briefing stages. If you make a mistake in a stage, you can go back to the previous stage and press Propagate to reset the icons.

Shockingly, checking Draw Lines Between Marked Icons draws lines between the marked icons.

Returning to the top of the editor, Save View "takes the picture" for this briefing stage. If you move the camera around and don't press Save View, the picture will not be from the angle you so carefully set up. Don't forget to do this!

Goto View resets the camera to wherever it was the last time you pressed Save View. You can use Copy View and Paste View to copy a camera angle from one briefing stage to another.

Camera Transition Time is the time in milliseconds that it takes the camera (during the actual briefing) to move from its current position to its position in the next briefing stage.

If you check Cut To Next Stage, you will get static rather than a camera pan between this stage and the next. Cut To Previous Stage is similar, but would only come up if the player hit the Back button during the briefing.

## Debriefing Editor

| This editor lets you set up the text that appears after a mission telling the player how they did. It is very similar to the Briefing Editor. The differences are:

- Since there are no pictures in the debriefing, you don't have to mess with icons and camera angles.
- You will want to use more interesting SEXPs in the Usage Formula area. (Do not use the `is-event-incomplete` or `is-goal-incomplete` SEXP operators here. Events and goals are ever incomplete at the end of a mission; they are either true or false.)
- For a stage corresponding to something the player failed to do, you can include Recommendation Text telling them how to get it right the next time.
- `.wav` files should be kept in `data\voice\debriefing`.

## Shield System Editor

| You can specify here that ships of a particular class or on a particular side don't get shields. While FRED2 will let you set capital ships to have shields, it has no effect.

## Command Briefing Editor

| The command briefing is the higher-level "strategic" briefing that appears every few missions in a campaign. This editor is similar to the Debriefing Editor, except that:

- There is no Usage Formula; in a command briefing, all stages are played automatically.
- You can choose one of the built-in `.ani` animation files to go with each stage. You can't make your own, so Browse isn't useful.
- `.wav` files should be kept in `data\voice\command briefing`.

## Campaign Editor

| You can create entire campaigns with FRED2. To do this, build the individual missions and then link them together with the Campaign Editor. Be sure to test your missions individually before linking them together; campaign missions cannot be played individually unless the campaign has been completed.

Once you have created a campaign, you can switch to it in the Campaign Room within FreeSpace 2. Doing this will erase any progress your pilot has made in another campaign! If you're in the middle of another campaign, you may wish to Clone your pilot first, then switch the clone to the new campaign.

Be aware that building a campaign is a lot of work. There are several ongoing campaign projects being coordinated over the Internet; consider volunteering to help with one of them rather than building an entire campaign by yourself.

The Campaign Editor consists of three parts: a Menubar, a Campaign Diagram on the right, and the Main Controls on the left.

### Menubar

The File menu has the usual options.

The Other menu just contains an Error Checker. This is run automatically when you save a campaign.

The Initial Status menu lets you decide which ships and weapons are available at the beginning of the campaign. If a ship or weapon is not checked (and most aren't by default), it will be replaced with something else in any campaign missions that use it. To make a ship or weapon available later in the campaign, create Events using the `allow-ship` or `allow-weapon` SEXP operators.

### Campaign Diagram

On the right side of the Campaign Editor is a diagram of the current campaign. To add a mission, first highlight it in the list of Available Missions on the left side of the editor; then Ctrl click in a gray box in the Campaign Diagram. Missions can be moved around by dragging them.

The order of missions in the campaign is determined by the links (lines) between them. To create a link from one mission to the one that should follow it, drag it onto the following mission. It must be placed exactly on top of the followimg mission; you may have to drag the following mission left or right for this to be possible.

A mission can have more than one following mission, with the progress of the campaign determined by the player's actions. This is explained in more detail in the subsection below on the Main Controls.

If you right click on a mission in the Campaign Diagram, a small menu will pop up. Remove Mission removes the current mission from the campaign. Add A Repeat Link makes it possible that the player will have to repeat this mission; such links are not visible in the Campaign Diagram. You should select End Of Campaign for any mission that does not have a following mission.

### Main Controls

Available Missions lists those missions that are not already in a campaign.

You can specify a Campaign Name and the Type of the campaign (`single`, `multi coop`, or `multi teams`).

The Campaign Description is shown when this campaign is highlighted in the Campaign Room within FreeSpace 2.

The remaining options affect the currently highlighted mission in the Campaign Diagram.

Briefing Cutscene is really only for use by Volition's mission designers; FRED2 doesn't provide a way to create your own cutscenes.

There are two choices for the appearance of the Main Hall within FreeSpace 2: Galatea and Bastion. (These were destroyers in FreeSpace 1.)

Branches are a series of SEXPs that determine which mission will follow this one. When a mission is completed, FreeSpace 2 goes through these and takes the first branch for which the SEXP returns `true`. The last branch (and no other branch) must have simply `true` for its SEXP.

When a branch is highlighted, you can move it around with Move Up or Move Down. These are slightly flaky; you may have to press them more than once.

Loops are optional branches in a campaign; the player can decide whether to take the loop branch or continue with the main campaign. A branch may be designated as a loop by pressing Toggle Loop.

Realign Tree tries to straighten up the Campaign Diagram so that it looks nicer; it doesn't always help.

Load Mission loads the highlighted mission (in the Campaign Diagram) into FRED2.

Close closes the campaign editor.

There are two more areas, not shown in the picture here. The first is for SEXP help. The second, Mission Loop Description, is the text displayed when the player is given the option to take a loop branch.