CREATE NEW MISSION
From the main F4 screen, Click on "Tactical Engagement" then click on "Saved" then click on "New". This will bring you to the mission builder screen.
SET TIME OF DAY
Set the clock in the upper right to the approximate desired starting time for your mission.
DISPLAY INSTALLATIONS AND AIRCRAFT
Right mouse click on the map and click on "Installations" and turn on "Airfields" to display icons for these items on the map. This will enable you to place squadrons of specific planes at specific airfields and will help with planning flights. If you want to see the location of factories, right mouse click on "Installations" then toggle on "War Production". Likewise, to view bridges, click "Installations", "Infrastructure" or to view cities click "Installations", "Political". I recommend that you toggle on and off all of the items that you can so that you become familiar with where to find potential targets and threats. To attack a place or thing, you first need to display it on the map. Similarly, click on "Air Units" and toggle on "Fighters" and any other air units that you wish to display as they are created.
DECIDE ON A TARGET
Let's create an individual flight to strike Kuum-ni Airbase.
SELECT TEAM BEFORE ADDING PLANES OR OBJECTS
Be sure that the flag is US since we want to create a friendly flight of US planes. Click on the flag to toggle to the other team if necessary (US should be the default when you start a mission).
ADD SQUADRON
Before we select a target to strike, lets select a friendly air base for us to take off from and add a squadron of F-16's at that base. Click on the "Add Squadron" button (along right) so it turns green. Now click on Gangneung Airbase (Northernmost US base along the East Coast) and the "Add Squadron" window pops up. Select F-16 and then hit "OK" (F-16 is the default). If you leave out this step, your flight will originate from the nearest friendly air base to the target. I like to be sure that I get the right air base so I create squadrons where I want them.
ADD A FRIENDLY FLIGHT
Now it is time to create the strike. Be sure that the flag is still set to US. Click on the "Add Flight" button (under the flag on the right) so that it is green. Now click on a Target: Kuum-ni Airbase, on the East Coast North of the border, and the "Add Flight" window pops up. Be sure that F-16 is the selected Plane, the selected Role should be OCA strike, Select the number of planes that you want (let's make 4 for this example), check that the target and your air base are correct. Then hit OK. Your flight will appear on the map with computer generated steerpoints and loadout. Change your loadout if you want. Note: If the loadout screen shows the planes are "in flight" hit "cancel" and then open the loadout screen again - now you should be able to edit loadouts. You can zoom in on the flight with the "+", "-" and "fit flight plan" buttons. You can move steer points at any time, if you wish - just click and drag with the mouse. Notice that when you create the flight, the Icon representing the Flight of F-16's appears at the IP near the target on the map. This is where the flight is scheduled to be at the specific time shown on the clock.
ADD ENEMY FLIGHT
It is time to add an enemy flight of MIG's to encounter along the way. Lets place the MIG's on BARCAP patrol before the friendly flight arrives. To get the timing correct, let's adjust the clock so that the F-16's are located close to the home air base (reverse time by about 10 minutes). Now click on the flag so that the enemy flag is selected so that that anything that you create will be enemy. In this case, we will not create a MIG-21 squadron at a specific air base so they will originate at a computer-selected air base. If you want them to come from a specific base, follow the steps that we did in step for the F-16's. Be sure that the "Add Flight" button is toggled on (green) and click on the map where you want to add the MIG's (their target patrol area). Let's add them near our F-16's steerpoint 2. Move your mouse there and click. The "Add Flight" window pops up. Select MIG-21, select BARCAP for role, select "3" for the number of planes. When you click "OK", the flight path and Icon for the MIG's will show up on the map. The MIG's will be located near the start of their patrol area.
ADJUST TIMING
Now you should advance the clock to watch the F-16's fly to the target and see if the MIG's arrive at the time that you hoped (Be sure that fighter aircraft are visible). The way we just created this mission, the MIG's will be there patrolling when the F-16's arrive. That is good. But let's change the timing so that the MIG's don't arrive until after the F-16's strike the target. Here is how to do that: First, advance the clock so that the F-16's are where you want them when the MIG's arrive (in this example, put the F-16's over their target steerpoint). Select the MIG-21 icon so that their flight path is shown. Then click on the "flight plan" button at the bottom of the screen. Click through the different steerpoints until the target steerpoint is selected. Notice that the time "lock" icon is highlighted green and locked. This means that the time for this steerpoint is locked. The unlocked steerpoints are dependant on this one. If you change the assigned time at the locked steerpoint, the other unlocked steerpoints will change to maintain the flight timing. Be sure that only the target steerpoint is locked. Then change the time for this "locked" steerpoint until the MIGs are just arriving at their patrol area. Now as you advance the game clock, you should see the F-16's arriving at the target before the MIG's get there so that the dogfight will be delayed until after the strike.
VIEWING OR EDITING A SPECIFIC FLIGHT
Now, un-toggle the "Add Flight" button. If you want to see the flight path of the F-16's instead of the MIG's that you just created, simply click on their plane icon. Be careful to not drag and move the plane or you will create a new steerpoint with "locked" time.
ADD ENEMY AIR DEFENSES
Let's add an enemy AAA site next. Be sure that the flag is set to the enemy color. Click on the "Add Battalion" button (3rd button below the flag) to toggle it green. Now select a location on the map for some AAA. Click there and the "Add Battalion" window pops up. Select the appropriate type (ex. KS-19) then hit OK. Likewise. You add SAM sites, Tank battalion, etc, the same way. You can make some types of ground battalions move. To do this, click on them with the mouse. If a circle appears over the battalion's icon, you can drag it with the mouse to a new location to create steerpoints for them to follow. As you advance the clock, you should see the battalion move.
ADD A MISSION DESCRIPTION
Before saving the mission, we should add a mission description. To do this, click on the "teams" button on the left side of the screen. Select the American flag. Type a brief mission description into the "Mission Statement" window, FOLLOWED BY ENTER. This is important, if you don't hit ENTER, the statement will not be saved.
SET AI SKILL LEVELS
You can set the pilot and ADA skill levels for both friendly and enemies on the Teams screen.
CREATE VICTORY CONDITIONS
Now let's make some victory conditions. Let's start by making our US victory conditions. Be sure the flag is set to US. On the Mission Builder map, right mouse click on the primary target (Kuum-ni Airbase) and click "Add Victory Condition". To make enemy victory conditions, change the flag to the enemy and right click on the US F-16 flight and click "Add Victory Condition". Now click on "Victory Conditions" along the left side of the screen. In the lower section of the victory conditions window you will see a US victory condition to degrade Kuum-ni Airbase and an enemy victory condition to intercept the F-16 flight. You can leave the victory condition to "Degrade" the target by a selected percentage. But, let's choose to destroy a specific target at the site. To do this, change the strike victory conditions to "Destroy". A "Target List" window pops up for you to select a specific target at the site. In this case, select the first runway and click "Assign". Assign a score for each victory condition. For example, 100 points for the US to destroy the runway and 100 points if the enemy intercepts all 4 F-16's. Now type in the points for victory at the top of the victory condition screen, followed by hitting the ENTER key (make it 100 points for this simple example). Important, if you don't hit ENTER, the points for victory wont update. You can make as many victory conditions as you want. I prefer to limit conditions to the primary objective of the flight. Also, you can delete victory conditions or change the team assigned to the victory condition if you make a mistake. One more thing to do at the victory condition screen is to adjust the "Start Time" and "Time Limit" so that your flight falls within the range. If the flight falls outside of this time range, the game will be scored a stalemate before it even starts.
Note: When playing missions with victory conditions, a blue score window will pop up when victory is achieved. This window can be cleared from your monitor by hitting the key stroke combination Alt-R
SET TIME PRIOR TO TAKE-OFF
Go back to the "Mission Builder" and reverse time to at least 10 minutes prior to the F-16's taking off.
SAVE MISSION
Hit "SAVE" and enter a name.
The following example demonstrates the basic steps to creating a package mission.
Let's again fly out of Gangneung Airbase, but this time, let's make a package to strike Kuum-ni Airbase. The package will have a strike, an escort and a SEAD escort. First follow the steps above through "adding squadron".
To create a package, click on the "Add Package" icon (button on right with two jets) so that it is green. Now click on the target (Kuum-ni Airbase). This will bring up the "Add Package" window.
To add the first flight in the package, click on the "New" button to bring up the "Add Flight" window for the first flight. Select the type and number of aircraft for the flight. In this case, let's make the flight be 2 F-16's assigned to OCA strike Kuum-ni Airbase. Click "OK" and the flight will appear on the map and in the "Add Package" window list. Check and modify your loadout as desired.
To create the second flight, repeat the previous step, but this time make 2 F-16's with the role of escorting the flight that you just created. Again check loadout of the new flight then click "OK" to add it to the list and the map.
Again repeat the previous step but now make the next 2 F-16's have the role of "SEAD Escort" for the strike flight. Again, check and change loadout as necessary. Click "OK" to go back to the "Add Package" window then hit "OK" to finish creating the package. Note: One difference that you will see when adding a package is that the planes haven't taken off at the air base yet when they show up on the map. You will usually need to advance the clock forward by about 20 minutes to put the package over the target. Remember that adding a single flight will put the planes at the IP (near the target) when they appear on the map.
Advance the clock so that the package is visible on the map. Now click on the icons of the individual flights and check their take-off times by clicking on the "Briefing" button (along the bottom of the screen). It is preferable to have at least 30 seconds per plane for take-off intervals. In other words, a flight of 4 planes needs about 2 minutes before the next flight should take off. The game attempts to schedule take off times for the packages, but it can create chaos on the taxiway if the flights get packed too closely together. Be careful to not put too much time between take-off's though, because jets go fast and your package will have many miles of separation if they take off with too much time between flight.
Following is a set of guidelines that I follow when creating TE's for online play. Not everyone may agree with these, but I think that they are at least worth considering when online play is the objective of your mission.
You must convert training missions into tactical engagement files to edit them in the mission builder. Training missions are merely tactical engagements with a different file extension so that they show up in the Training Mission list instead of the Tactical Engagements list. The file extension for TE's is .tac. The file extension for training missions is .trn. For example a file named "01 Basic Handling.trn" is a training mission. If you open "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer" and rename the file to "01 Basic Handling.tac" it shows up in the Tactical Engagements list in Falcon. Once there, you can open Falcon 4.0 and edit the mission using the mission builder. Once you edit the mission and save it, you can rename it back to a training mission again (.trn extension) if you wish for it to show in the training mission list.
Of course, your windows settings must allow you to see file extensions in order for you to change the extension. If for some reason you can't see the extensions, open "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer" and click on "Tools", "Folder Options", then click on the "View" tab and uncheck the box for "Hide extensions for known file types".
I always build a mission from the ground up in each version of the game. I know people have said that all you need to do is open a mission, created in another version, in the TE editor, make a simple modification and save it. This does not work in my experience. Different patch versions of Falcon4 contain differences in things such as allowable load-outs carried by individual aircraft models. SP3 even has differences in some of the fixed ground objects such as buildings and airfields. A mission may work when converted, as long as you get lucky and nothing significant is different. To ensure a bug-free mission, I recommend starting over.
I have found that in SP3, AI enemy aircraft are much more difficult to hit with missiles than they are in RP5. It may take three or four missiles to dispatch a single MIG because they are programmed to turn and run when fired upon from medium or long range. For this reason, I have found the need to reduce the number of enemy aircraft in a given scenario, compared to RP5. It takes some experimenting to find the right threat level. My recommendation is to test fly each mission to be sure that it behaves the way you had hoped.