Placing Labs, coal, and henchmen tricks.

This page is tell you how I place objects in the Sigma Mission editor.
It might not be the fastest way to do it but so far it has worked for me.

The first thing I do once I have the terrain finished is place the labs, coal, henchmen, and geyser spots.
I do this before I do any texturing of the map.
Why because game play rules if it doesn't play good there is no sense in spending hours making it look good.
Back to the editor I turn on the precise overlay first, then I place a lab, I use the precise map so I can count squares so I can place the lab in the same location in all of the bases.
The lab model is found under the structures dir in the brush/object window make sure you have the object placement mode button check first, this button is the far left one. I also check the relative to terrain choice in the object placement menu this is the default selection but never hurts to make sure.

One last thing I do is assign a player to the lab in this case it was for player 1. This is one thing that you should watch for as it's easy to forget, ok you should spot it fast if a lab is assigned the wrong player. But something like coal or geyser you might not spot while play testing it. There is a way to check all objects in a map, but I'm saving that info for near the end of this, so read on.
Now I add coal to the labs. Once I have the coal placed by a lab I copy the coal placement right next to the coal. Then I shift left click on all the copied coal and then move them all as a group to the other bases, I use this copied coal as a template for placing the coal, because the bases are mirrored I have to place the coal in every base as I can't rotate a group of objects. Spacing of the coal and the distance from the labs is very important you want this to be the same for every base if it isn't nobody is going want to play your map at least not in a stat game.
Here's another pic to show you what I do.

After all the coal is placed I add the henchmen.
Don't forget to assign the henchmen to the right player.
I also use the same trick as I did for the coal.
And place the henchmen in the same location by each lab.
Another pic for ya.


Next I add the geysers and any coal expansion area's.
Once this is done I check all objects to make sure I didn't assign any to the the wrong player.
To do this click on the info button in the top menu bar then click on the object list.
This is a very handy tool for checking all the objects. You can list all the objects or check them by player assignments, along with many other options go ahead try them all.
No if you notice a coal pile assigned to a player you can highlight it by left clicking on it then hit the button that selects it in the map. Now you can change the assignment it the edit mode menu back to the world this is fast and easy to do.
I can remember checking all of the objects by clicking on each one before I knew about this handy option.
This is what this menu looks like.

There now there shouldn't be any wrong assignments now that you know how to check them all fast and fix them fast.

Now the fun part save the map and play test it, do this several times add more coal or geysers spots if needed or delete them if there is too many. Having some one else give it a go before you texture it is nice for input but finding a helping person for this can be a challenge.

Once you are happy with all the objects this includes things like trees and bushes.
Now its time to add some details like decals and paint some different textures on too the terrain.
I will cover this in the next hints page that I will do.