The Mission Editor 101

The Mission Editor - A great tool to create your own missions. But how does it works, what items are there and most important: HOW DO YOU ADD MORE THAN 20 ITEMS!? (And how to add a mission to the workshop)

Introduction

Seeing more and more great missions in the workshop leads to the desire to create your own unique and creative missions, right?
But, even the Mission Editor was created with a simple and fast understanding design, there are still some things that can be confusing when seeing them the first time.
In this guide I will explain the interface and items, and how to use them proberly.

If you don't want to scroll through all the text, just use ''ctrl + f'' and type the word(s) you're searching for.


Hover was in Version 1.7.2 when I updated this guide last time.
Guide updated on June 08, 2018

- Added ''Hide Editor'' and ''Mouse Cursor'' to > Interface

[Note: Unintentional, the item limit is currently set to 19.]

> Interface

Let's start with breaking the interface down:




Mission Name
Under what name the mission will appear on the left side when saved.



Delete Mission
That will delete your mission and remove it from the list on the left.



Point(s)
How many points (laps in races) a player needs to achieve to beat the mission. If set to 0, the mission only ends when the time runs out.



Time
How much time a player will have to beat the mission. If the timer goes down to 0:00 the mission ends simply. If the timer is instead set to 0m 0s the mission runs as long the player(s) doesn't leave the mission. And by this I mean it, it can run until the digits go ouside of the frame.




Type
Cooperative means every mission is won together and players won't be able to bump each other when you are near them. Though if two players run in a race mission (that has for example a total score of 4 laps) one player needs to run all laps.

Free for all means that every player plays for his/her own and tries to win the mission. This means in a race the fastest player wins, and in a gameball match the player who reaches the necessary points/with the most points wins.

Two teams means the entering zone of a mission is set into a Blue Team and a Red Team. When entering the certain colored zone and scanning the mission box, the player is put into this certain team. The type is more likely for missions with a gameball but can be used for races aswell.



Reposition Mission Start
The mission box can be repositioned as you like.



Save
Clicking it the first time your missions will appear in the list on the left. After that, every new saving will overwrite the old savefile with every change you made in the options and itemlist. (Just like every save buttons works, tho)



Start Mission
Simply puts the mission into the world and lets you load/scan the mission to play it and for other players. Need to be said that only you can see the mission box.



Add Item
Opens a list of every item that can be placed into the world. Doesn't work when 20 or more items are already used.



Move Up & Move Down
If an item is selected, it can be moved up or down in the list. Good for changing the order of checkpoints in a race for example.



Switch Team
Certain items in the list have a flag symbol. This button allows you to change this flag into a red, blue or white (neutral) color.
The items that have this symbol are: Basket, Basket Once, Basket Random, NPC Gamer, NPC Gameuse, NPC Breaker Girl and NPC Breaker Boy.



Move
Allows you to reposition the selected item in the list.



See item
Hides the mission editor and the camera moves and highlights onto the selected item. Useful when you want to delete a certain item but forgot where it was placed.



Delete
The selected items gets deleted (and it cannot be undone.)



Hide Editor
This hides the interface and you can run freely around in the area. Including not getting detected by camers or having any collision with Holo-Propagandas for example.



Mouse Cursor
Having the interface hidden or placing an item, this cursor appears in the middle of your screen. If moved on one of your items (like in the picture), clicking right opens the interface and selects the item in your list.

> Items

Checkpoints
Both are for races, the pink is activated when a player run through it while the turquoise is only activated when a gameball is carried or thrown through it.



Gameballs
Every ball item acts like a gameball. A player carries them under his/her arm until he/she throws it away or at a basket to get a point. Then it respawns by its spawnpoint, except the Gameball Once.



Ball Boundary Wall
This invisible wall sends the gameball back to its spawnpoint when the gameball is thrown through it.



Baskets
Their function is for ball items get thrown at them to gain points. While the normal Basket, depending if it set for neutral, team red or team blue, adds a point everytime a ball is thrown at it for the correlating team, the Basket Once only works, well... once, and the Basket Random only works if the arrow at the bottom points at it (aka the goal changes, if you have more than one Random Basket in your mission).



Graffity Target
If a player sprays a graffiti on it, he/she gains a point once.



Springboard
They allow players to spring off and jump over something like a building or pit.



Wall
They are perhaps the most useful items of all. Like the name suggests they can be used as Walls but also, if placed horizontally, they can be used as platforms too! (For that, crouch, while placing them)



Bumper
If a player touches it, he/she gains a jump boost into the direction the bumper is facing with its exhaust.



Booster
This item gives a player a speed boost into the direction the arrow on it is pointing.



Grind
A rail for the player to grind on.



Trick Score Counter 500 pts & 1000 pts
Two invisible items that count the player's trickscore and adds 1 point if he/she hits a +500 or +1000 trickscore depending of which item of the two is used.

Note: Currently 1000 pts doesn't exist and switches to a 500 pts.

Condenser
A player needs to charge it up by perfoming tricks and gain a +100 trickscore near it.



Quadbot
A little robot that needs to be scanned in order to collect it.



NPCs
Four Anons that can be teammates or opponents in a race or gameball match. Only one Gamer,Gameuse, Breaker Girl, and Breaker Boy can be spawned at the same time.




Fugitive
These NPCs will run away from the player and the goal is to bump them 3 times to catch them.
A Traitor is a male Breaker and an Imposter is a female Breaker. Atilla and Helio are clones of Otello...or not? Agent-A and Agent-Z are E-Cops. Only one of them each can be spawned at the same time.

> The ''advanced'' Mission Editor

With all this in mind you should be able to build interesting missions, right?
Kinda yes, kinda no.
Your knowledge allows you to build missions in-game that don't get over the item limit of 20. But there are ways to break this limit and build some really interesting missions like the ones in the workshop.

The first way to break the limit is just to type the command /unlimited objects in editor in the chatbox and deactivates the limit.



True means it's deactivated while False (typing the command again) means it's activated again.

The second way, that also allows you to create more complexe missions, is that you go outside of the game and edit the file of the mission itself.

I will explain this editing now, but let's start with the basics of it.

First you need to know where your missions files are located on your PC. On windows it's in
C:\Users\NAME\AppData\LocalLow\FustyGame\Hover\Missions (NAME needs to be replaced with your name)
Another way would be to search for %appdata% and you will land in C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming. Go one folder back and then go into the folders LocalLow, FustyGame, Hover, and Mission.
And then you need to know in which map your mission is.



Click on the right folder and open your mission in a text editor (also known as Notepad). It should be said here that you could technically create a mission in here, but it's easier if you create your mission in-game and edit it here.
I am gonna use this mission to explain everything:



Let's start with the upper part.



In the first line we got the name of the mission ''For the guide o3o'' and the next few lines are the exact position and angle of the mission box in the map. You could edit this, but I think it's easier to change the position in-game.
The next line, <scene>0</scene> can be ignored.
The next three lines are what you also can change in-game via the interface: Type, Time and Point(s). But you could edit it in the text editor to ridiculously high numbers that aren't possible in-game if you want.



Next are the items. Let's go straight to the second of the two items I already placed in-game; the wall.
The lines that are in the green frame are all the information for the item ''Mission_Wall''. Above I also underlined ''Mission_PetBox'' just so that you don't get confused.
The blue framed lines are for the position of the item in the map and the purple framed lines are for the angle of said item. It's just like the mission box, except there's also the ''x'' and ''z'' angle.
The team line sets an item on neutral (0), Team Blue (1), or Team Red (2).



With this in mind, we can make our first edit of our mission. By the way, while you edit your missions text file, you can be in-game. If you're in the Mission Editor Mode, just select an alternate mission and then select the original to refresh your changes. (In the case of only having one mission in the whole list, just create a dummy mission).
No ''closing and restarting the whole game'' :)
Anyway, if we now copy everything from <MissionObjectInfo> to </MissionObjectInfos> of our certain item, making a new line directly under it and paste our copied text, we have an exact duplicate of this item. In-game we can see this by looking at the number, the number doesn't show up in the mission file.



The next step is that I want to change the second wall, because I want to build a long bridge and at the end is a basket for the petbox.
Now, figuring out which coordinate you need to change and how much for the direction of the item I want to move is simple trial and error. The best way to do this is to edit one of the numbers a little bit, in this case I added +20 to the ''x'' position and... it's the right direction! Ha, that was lucky! But I need to say, sometimes it's not that easy and you very often need to reload the mission just to see that your edit was wrong - again! Argh! xD
If you want a little help, a list of each map's coordinate direction can be found under ''Tips'n'Tricks'' →



The right number is +13. With that I copied the last wall, pasted it and added another +13, and did that several times until I got 20 items. Isn't it a wonderful floating bridge of walls? I stopped by 20 items, because I want to show you the item limit notification you get when you try to add another item.



The last item I need is a basket. But how can I add one when the item limit (in-game) is reached? One way could be to copy any item information and rewrite <ressource_path>Prefabs/MissionObject/Mission_Wall</ressource_path> into [...]/Mission_Basket</[...] but I think this is too much trial and error if you don't know the right name of the item. The easier way is just create a new mission with the item(s) you need. Copy the item information and paste it into your actual mission. This new mission can then be deleted.
If you want to rewrite it, a list of each item can be found under ''Tips'n'Tricks'' →



So, I got a basket as the 21st item(!) and just reposition it. Now, my mission is done :)

> Submitting to the Workshop

So, after spending a very long time working on a mission, it's time to upload it to the workshop so that everybody can try your awesome mission!
But first, how can you do this...?


Hover has a seperate Workshop Tool that allows you to upload your mission. You can find it under tools and than scrolling to ''H'' or search after it.
Download it and, if your game is open, close Hover. The Workshop Tool doesn't work when Hover is running.



You've got this window. On the left are all your missions. Select the mission you want to upload, add a description and a picture (only 1MB) and submit it to Steam. After a short upload time, you will get a small window with the information that your mission was successfully uploaded.

You could leave it at that, but I would like to edit my description. For that, I'll go to my Workshop Items, select it and edit it as I wish. At the end I changed the description to be a little bit nicer to look at.
You can find my mission here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1305294708

> Downloading from the Workshop

The other way around is downloading missions from other people.




Browse through the workshop and subscribe to the missions you want to download (clicking on the green plus button).
Your downloaded mission will appear in your own mission list in the map it's located.
The mission I choose for example is in the Gamers HQ (Sewers) to find: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1184136688&searchtext=omni

> Tips'n'Tricks

For the end of this guide I'll give you some helpful tips and tricks. [Possibility of adding new stuff in the future]



List of each item name in the ressource path. For a simple copy and paste into your mission file ;)
Mission_CheckPoint
Mission_CheckPointHorizontal
Mission_MiniCheckPoint
Mission_Extract_Zone_Race (Gameball Checkpoint)
Mission_Extract_Zone_Race_Mini (Gameball Checkpoint)
Mission_Gameball
Mission_Gameball_Once
Mission_PetBox
Mission_SushiBox
Mission_PizzaBox
Mission_USBox
Mission_BallLimit (Ball Boundary Wall)
Mission_Basket
Mission_Basket_Once
Mission_Basket_Random
Mission_GraffityTarget
Mission_Springboard
Mission_Wall
Mission_Bumper
Mission_Booster
Mission_Grind
Mission_TricksScoreCounter
Mission_Condenser
Mission_QuadBot
Mission_NPC_Gamer
Mission_NPC_Gameuse
Mission_NPC_BreakerGirl
Mission_NPC_BreakerBoy
Mission_EscapeTraitor (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeImpostor (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeBreakerBoy (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeBreakerGirl (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeAtilla (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeHelio (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeAgentA (Fugitive)
Mission_EscapeAgentZ (Fugitive)



Coordinate directions of each map (Researched by Lightbringer)
Haven District


Admin District


Sewers (Gamers HQ)


Prison


Ecop Tower (Orientate by the vents on the right)


Orbital Station (Orientate by the admin position)




Useful tricks while working with the text editor (also known as Notepad). (Tricks given to me by Omni)

Slash ''/'' is ignored
When working with a huge amount of items, ''grouping'' them would be sometimes helpful. Good for us that in the mission file the character ''/'' is ignored. When creating a new line before a <MissionObjectInfos>, and after a </MissionObjectInfos> we can then write something like ''/// Wall Set 1 Start'' and ''/// Wall Set 1 End'' for example to mark a group of walls.

This makes group copying much easier, and allows mass coordinate editing.
To not losing your ''///'' groups is to save the mission in the text editor at last! This applies also to when clicking "Starting Mission" in-game to test your mission. The game autosaves your mission. Just be sure to have the text editor open to save it once again, when tested and be sure that your mission is complete.

''Invisible'' item numbers
Having many items in a mission file leads to getting lost by which item has which number in-game. But there's a way, simply by counting. First of you need to know which number your item in-game has, just by hiding the Mission Editor and viewing the item's number.

Then use the search in the text editor by pressing ''ctrl + f'' and search for a common item term such as ''Prefab''. Press Enter the exact number of times as the item was listed and that's should be your item. (Best way to test it is by increasing a coordinate a little and look in-game if the right item moved its position.)

Perfect distance between items
Connecting an item to another item with the right amount of distance between them can be quite simple. First step is making a duplicate of your certain item and then, with trial and error, making small adjustments into the direction you want to move your item.

If you found the right distance, in this case a perfect connection to the original item, you just need to subtract the duplicate's coordinates from the original. The number you get is the right distance for each new item you want to add to the line of items.

Update log

Just a reminder if someone wants to know what for changes I made over the time.

Guide updated on June 08, 2018

- Added ''Hide Editor'' and ''Mouse Cursor'' to > Interface

Guide updated on March 22, 2018

- Added/Changed 2 item infos (NPCs and Trick Score Counter)

- Added the info about missions with over 20 items no longer work in Online Mode
- Added the info that the limit can be deactivated with the command /unlimited objects in editor
- - FAQ expanded with said infos.
- Changed the info about ''Cooperative'' mission type races (laps doesn't get count together anymore, one person needs to run all laps)

End Talk (FAQ)

If you have read through all this, thank you very much. Writing this guide took some time.
I also want to mention these great friends who proofreaded this whole thing:
RJ (Grammar and spelling)
Lightbringer (Wording and informations)
Omni (Spelling and informations)
Thank you guys!.


If you have questions, don't be afraid to leave a comment. I'll try to answer everything and maybe, here will be someday a small FAQ with the most recent questions.


FAQ
''How do I add more than 20 items?''
-> Either you type /unlimited objects in editor in the chatbox in-game or you edit your mission's file for that. Copy and paste the items you want to duplicate to whatever numbers you want.

''My mission takes too long to load :(''
->This happens, because you have too many items. You should not go over 200 items.

''If I try to start my mission online it says 'Max Objects Reached'!?''
-> Missions that have more than 20 items aren't no longer allowed to start in Online Mode. This is to prevent issues for people with slow internet connection. Switch to Friends Only if you want to play the mission with people (which also means you need to have them in your friendslist)
-> -> A way to go around this 'problem' is to start the mission in Friends Only and when the box appeared is, just switch back to Online Mode. Voilà, the mission with over 20 items can be played. (Thanks to Jenyos[RU] for that info, until this bug is fixed)

[Note: Unintentional, the item limit is currently set to 19.]

[Habijob]

@Marvelax
Welp, okay. Then this is not the problem.
What exactly did you do to come to the conclution it didn't work? Did you typed the command into the chat box, it said "bla bla = True", and then proceeded to get over the item limit?
Did the mission then said "Max Objects Reached" after placing an item?
I need all infos you experienced to help you... hopefully.
Because with only "didn't work" I can't help

[Snakepool]

no.

[Habijob]

@Equino
Are you on Max/Linux? The command was added on windows in an update that the Max/Linux version hasn't received. (And I am not sure if Mac/Linux ever gets updated...)

[Snakepool]

I tried the unlimited objects command for my mission editor and it didnt work.

[Jenyos]

Go in Friends Only server, start custom mission, go to online server. Now u can start custom mission (>20 objects) in Online server =)

[Habijob]

@Finger-san That's really great to read! But you should check out it again, I just updated the guide due to Hover got a new update.

[Mew Provider]

Thanks for this great guide, really good & usefull work

[Jenyos]

Add 215 Items, mission loading good and have 10-15 sec to start =)