[Hellequin]

I have been attempting to make a mission that has nav points. As I understand, waypoints are generally for setting up paths for AI ships and that I need to use add-nav-waypoint in order to create a nav point on top of a waypoint.

I remember several years back when I first played btrl and decided to play around with fred in there. I remember succeeding in making nav points appear successively using the every-time-argument and a couple of variables. I believe I learned that by looking in one of the demo missions. I think it was the one in this thread.
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=47184.0

This time, I'm making a mission set in the Freespace universe. To be exact, in the story created by the Blue Planet team. But I have been unable to make the nav points appear at all.

What I did was use that exact event created by karajorma for btrl in that thread but I only kept the is-nav-visited as the trigger and used the names Nav 1, Nav 2, etc instead of Waypoint 1, etc. I also made an event before that for Nav 1 which went,
when
> true
>> add-nav-waypoint

I assumed that is what makes the nav point appear for the player to follow. When it didn't work, I made a new event that becomes true 1 sec after Nav 1 has been set using add-nav-waypoint. That event restricts and hides the Nav points. Then another event happens 1 sec later to unrestrict and unhide Nav 1. That too failed to make Nav 1 appear.

How should I go about making nav points? I'm not looking for a way to use autopilot. I just want the player to lead the wing around instead of the player following the AI wingmates.

Funny cause I don't actually remember seeing nav points in FS1 and 2 but it has been a while since i played it. I do remember one point when the player needed to follow a trail but if I'm right that one involved following some transmitters like buoys that you can see and target which is not what I want.

(Edited: to remove a possible spoiler)

[General Battuta]

What, exactly, are you using nav points for? To my knowledge they have never been used for anything meaningful, even by the project they were originally intended for.

If you want the player to head to a specific location, why not pop up a Pharos nav buoy? Just give it an alt name that suggests it's virtual, rather than real - they don't have any collision anyway.

e: I take this back, I think I have seen them used.

[Hellequin]

The mission is set in a nebula. I'm limiting radar range so the mothership would not be visible in radar. The pilots are presumably relying on their computers making calculations of where to go to return to their ship. The player is supposedly finishing up a patrol mission and is returning to the mothership. The events of the mission occur in the last leg of the patrol and part of the way home so I need to give the player a marker so they know where to go.

[General Battuta]

Interesting! That seems like a good use. I wish I'd ever used the nav point system so that I could offer you some help.

[mjn.mixael]

I don't know anything about nav points, what they do, or how they work. But I created a marker system for the player with an invisible "ship". I used set-iff-color and assigned it to a hotkey. Bada-bing Bada-boom. Used coordinate sexps to do the rest.

But, like I said, I don't know anything about nav points.. so they might be a better idea. Sorry I can't help with them though.

[Hellequin]

That's a good work around. Though to be honest, if it is possible, i would like to use nav points. But I'll look for more info about making invisible no collision ships. Thanks for the tip.

[Droid803]

AFAIK, nav points are for the autopilot system.

[General Battuta]

AFAIK, nav points are for the autopilot system.

They can be used just to present markers on the HUD for the player to fly at.

[headdie]

would

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Tutorial_-_Autopilot_missions

help?

[Hellequin]

Eureka! I've found it! I ended up going back to btrl and opening the asteroid patrol mission from the demo. I looked through all the events until I came across the one that has a directive and a keypress message that said Alt-N. *smacks head on desk* I had forgotten all about that function. The waypoints work perfectly now. Thank you all for your suggestions and interest.

[Scourge of Ages]

Doesn't the last mission of VD use those? Or were they something else that just look like nav points?