What\'s wrong with this?
 

PBEM campaign, second battle, deployment phase. I bought some Area SAM with my support points and they are not available for deployment. I check the HQ list and they are listed there, in fact if I click on one there, exit the list, hit the find button, then it will "choose" it, but it won't show it in the battlefield at all, and if I click anywhere on the map then it will make it appear and only that specific unit. I am talking about Patriot SAMs for Greece 2008.

At the same time, I can see 4-5 enemy units that my guess is player one has already deployed...

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

It is not very useful to report a problem without an attached save game to debug.

PBEM campaigns are basic mode security, so a save game with the password is all we need.

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Well, ok, but I can't just give away the password like this when it is from a running game.
Is there a way to pm you the password?

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

No, I don't take PMs or give out my direct email address.

Put a copy of it aside, and send after your game is over.

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Actualy, nevermind, I use this password for 2 other current campaigns as well, so, perhaps next time.
Thanks anyway.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

why don't you send the saved game and password to DRG, he takes pm

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

If DRG says it is ok I have no problem with that, but I can't just send an email like that without him giving me the ok beforehand.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I'm the opponent and my password is "campaign".
How do I attach a file set?
I have a theory. The units I deployed were 'dead'. Only the points of damage were not equal to the points the unit cost (IIRC, I cannot reopen that file set). I think those where kills where the crew bailed out. Normally I keep track of those and replace them first, but the game ended a turn early so I didn't get the chance to record which crews were still alive.
When the dead units came up on the deploy screen, they had damage points ALMOST equal to the point cost of a fresh unit. NO MP's so I placed them in position where they would be decoys to draw fire. Figuring if they were dead, getting them killed again wouldn't be any big deal and it might give me a free target. Worked better then I thought.
As far as the Patriots, they are off-map weapons. With a range of several hundred Km's , they are beyond the scope of a tactical game. They are death on SEAD strikes as well as giving one a count of the opponent's off map units. You cannot target or fire at his off map units BUT they do show up as target (1).

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

no

They are not off map units. I can place them without any problems in any other battle.

Here not only they couldn't be placed without that trick, but when they did they appear as trucks or something.

Anyway, let's play the new campaign.

c_of_red, how giving away your savegame password can help since the problem resides on my side? ;p

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

To attach a file, reply to the message and tick the "I want to preview my post and/or attach a file" box. Then attach a file using the browse button.

Did you actually repair these dead units in the upgrade/repair screen?. Something weird is going on here and I would like to get to the bottom of it.

Patriots are not off-map units in any case. Thy are LR-SAM, and so deployable units.

I'm thinking something you did with these "undead" units caused the other problem, so if at all possible I'd like a save from just before the end of the game.

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Nope - some sort of corruption has crept in with his "undead" units, which may be the root of the problems. As stated before, I would like a save from just before the last turn in order to see what exactly happened.

A save game showing the problem that has occurred is much less useful than one from just before, when debugging what has happened.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

You may send me the email and I will send it to Andy.

pyros@myway.com

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

edit2. No, me bad, I don't have any files from before.
You will need to ask c of red.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

ok, good thing for yahoo email. I attach now the file 1 turn before his end and 2 before mine, where after playing the game ended a bit earlier. After the end of this battle are the issues.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

and this is the turn right after the game finished.
found it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I am player 2, Greece and he is player 1, Turkey.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I have just received an email from Wdll containing his password and I have forwarded it to Andy.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I keep ALL the files, at least until the game is over.
Do you need mine also or will Wdll's do?
I had another thought. What if the undead units were killed in the truncated turn? I had one full fire mission of ICM saved and had it set to hit a flag cluster on a 0.0 delay. I had units there as bait to draw his armor to the flag cluster, since I didn't see any leg units that could retake those flags. Maybe when the game ended prematurely, my units were transferred over to the next game because they were still alive when my turn ended, which I assume is where the next game roster is drawn from. But since they were actually killed, they came over as undead.
Wasn't there a bug fix done on something like this about 2.1 ver of WW2. IIRC it was the version that fixed the crew problem.
Wdll, we don't know if you had any units come over as undead. We never got that far in the turn. And I was surprised to see the Patriots as off map weapons. But that is all I could figure out for why they weren't on the map.
Patriots ARE considered theater weapons. I haven't looked to see if the SM-3 is part of the Marine OOB. It should be, since it has a range of about 250 Km's or so.
So no decoy tanks? To bad, I could dream up some real sneaky things to do with a few 'dummy' guns.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

This is the save just after you have done your Greek repairs and upgrades, correct?.

If so - where are these new core patriots then - all I see are some KO'd and mauled units, so there were not enough repair points to buy any new core, presumably?.


Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

The tanks (and mortars and other crewed weapons) which had damage greater than points values were units that have had their crew recombined since there were crew survivors for the KO'd unit. However they were not repaired in the repair/upgrade screen.

These units probably should not be deployable - I'll look into the code for that, which this save game will be useful for (it may be a player 2 problem, as previously P2 could not play campaigns?) - but this gives me a useful reference.

However, should you get this in future then you should not deploy these units, as they contain a survivor crew (maybe only 1 man!). They will likely die immediately if something happened to them, losing the damaged but experienced crew for a new replacement unit. So using them as pillboxes is not a good idea. I'd place them on the grey hexes at your rear so they immediately exit the map on turn 1, for now, till I figure out to tell the code to not even offer these cripples as deployable assets.

They probably do not get properly initialised anyway - so may still have the spotted flag set from the previous game (which is why he could see them in his deployment?).

The patriot unit you have showed the exact same behaviour as your opponent reported - not selectable in the deployment with the N and P keys, only by clicking on them directly force list menu. Which does not happen if you try it in a lash-up game for this class. They were not damaged either, so something is not right with the class's handling here.. more debug. (Once selected and placed, after the deployment turn they are properly N/P key selectable in normal play).

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

That would make sense that the spotted flag carried over. After 29 turns pretty much all the survivors were spotted. More loses in that game then I normally get. Most of the units I deployed in the next game were rebuilds.
Would it help to have the set-up for the next game?
Now that I think about it, none of my KIA infantry units came thru as undead.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

The last saved game I attached is when player 1 sent me the file to play my turn, after which I got the battle results screen and I sent it to him.
After I received his next set of files I proceeded with the repairs. I didn't have enough core points to buy Patriots for my core army, or even do all the repairs since we annihilated each other. I had many BMP1s with damage 70, which I guess were the destroyed ones, some of which I repaired. All of them (APCs) I could deploy on the map, damaged or not. I didn't notice the same thing with other type of units like anti tank squads or light vehicles. I don't know about tanks since I managed to repair all of them IIRC. I bought the Patriots with my support points.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Infantry do not split into crews - they don't therefore have to be recombined.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

That save does not give me the chance to repair/upgrade any Greek units. (I used the second file you attached).

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Have you tried the one with the name "camp game 01 slot 25 Turn 30.zip" ?
This is the file he sent to me, I played my turn and got the end result.
So, you will need to play my turn and hopefuly get the end result too.
I will reattach it here just in case.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I tried that after my post, and that was the one wanted.

Another oddity here, and I have tried several test PBEM campaign starts (to ensure it is actually using the same code as the battle generator!). Which it is.

The battle location for your game 1 was "0 - Northern Europe", which is completely wrong for that pair and date. None of my experiments were able to generate this whatsoever. All dialled up the correct batlocs for Turkey/Greece (Various of Turkey, Greece, Cyprus). No Northern Europe. So something strange must be going on at your end, I presume...

Are both of you on the exact same game version?

You are using a brand new zip file for each email message, and not trying to reuse an existing zip (that has caused problems in the past).

And I presume both of you are using zip files - not one sending RAR and the other zips?

If you start a test battle in your game with the battle generator for that pair and date you (both) should see turkey, greece, cyprus. Not Northern Europe.

Hmm - did someone load up a custom map or something?. (but it generates a 0 - Northern Europe on the next battle of that campaign, so something is definitely corrupted).

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I tried that one - and in trying to add a sam unit, without fixing anything (so i had points to spend) - it barfed as the 200 core limit had been already reached.

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Well, c of red starts the games, but I didn't know you could choose specific maps for PBEM campaigns, but I have no reason to believe he would try something like that, it just doesn't make much sense to me.

I use new zip files every time.
The version I have is 16th April 2008.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I started a new single player campaign earlier and first battle is in Cyprus.

We have played one Greece vs Ukraine battle before (with c of red setting up the game again) and the battle was again north europe IIRC.

EDIT: sorry for double post, I thought i clicked on edit.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Thats OK - you found a bug.

He must have set up the campaign not using the default locations, seems to have been "mountains". That is what I get now the correct block is tested with a quick edit, anyway. But the code did not check that block in the PBEM campaign. Now it does. Buglet fixed.

(I don't think I have used that location button in over 7-8 years, myself - all "plains" or all "jungle" battles, gets very boring, very quickly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif!.)

For now - leave PBEM Campaigns at the DEFAULT MAP setting, or you will not get the expected results.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

OK - question remains about these patriots you bought.

- were they core or support?
- if core, what existing core units did you delete (delete a formation?), or did you change an existing unit into a patriot?

Cheers
Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

They were support units.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

OK - As your opponent had these, and the same problem happened, I was able to locate the problem and fixed that bug.

It only seems to be happening on PBEM campaign deployment (works OK in a generated battle anyway), but the things are being marked as offmap units. So the N/P key does not select them, and they are not lined up with the rest of the onmap troops. To deploy on the map for now, select them from the force menu and then deploy on the map by clicking the spot desired.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

It doesn't matter that they don't look like Patriots?
I will have in mind for our next game since we decided to end this campaign.

Oh, and thank you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

What do not look like patriots? - They are a generic SAM box launcher icon, if that was your complaint.

Best to restart, since choosing a location setting other than default will currently give you spurious batlocs in the PBEM campaign.


If you have badly damaged units, the deployment code puts these off map at the start, currently. however should you select "deploy all" then they are placed on the map, or if you select them from the list you can place them. Best not to use deploy all (leave that for the AI) and not to select from the list - to preserve your crews experience, there will be a better fix for that, which I am working on currently to disallow any user deployment of unrepaired units with damage > 1/2 points value on the map.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

When I was trying and succeeding to deploy the patriots in the particular case, they would not appear as the launchers but as something like a truck. And because I tried later on a single battle to check them, they looked nothing like that.

When you say about damage, each unit can have max damage as its cost? (when trying to deploy them). So, for example, how do I know that unit A that has damage 40 is at 1/2 or less of max damage for that unit?

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

look at unit 185 in the greek OOB in Mobhack - it looks lie a trailer, somewhat.

Cost (points value) is given in the info screen for the unit.

Andy

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Good morning gentlemen!
Yes, I changed the default to 'mountains'. That is because the border there between Turkey and Greece is mostly mountain with a few coastal valleys, and I thought that the 'Northern Europe' thingie was wacked.
I did buy the Patriots as core. I do use the reassign button a lot. Wdll is smarter then the average bear, so I intend on building 'tiger teams' to use against him. I also cut and paste on the formations. I buy 99% of my units in formations.
So when I buy a formation that has something I really don't want or need, I will cut it out and replace it with something I do want and/or need. In this cae I wanted an infantry Battalion with the weapons company farmed out. So I bought the 'Rifle company+' formation 3x Then I went back and deleted the SPAA, which are quad 50's and useful only as targets or bait, and replaced them with somthing else.
I do like to beef up my scout platoons by sticking an extra RR or AT-4 type weapon in there.
I also build a lot of scratch recon formations.
I just sent Wdll a new start-up. I once again set the map switch to mountains. Should we keep playing to see if we can duplicate the problem?

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

I think it looked more like 129, the 2 1/2 ton truck.
I guess I could not remember correctly, but I do remember that I found it very strange that it looked like that.
If it happens again I will let you know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

Since I have played a lot of Greece vs Turkey battles at default settins for maps, you shouldn't fear, there will be plenty of mountains/hills there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

"however should you select "deploy all" then they are placed on the map, or if you select them from the list you can place them. Best not to use deploy all"

That was it. I do the deploy all button, then adjust my units. It is faster and I don't forget to set the range as much.

Re: What\'s wrong with this?
 

And as I stated here already, that switch is useless in PBEM campaigns, leave it as default until the next EXE is sent out.

(if you want hilly terrain, spin the map a few times in your player 1 setup as there are multiple terrains for Greece, and Turkey batlocs - some of them hilly with and without towns)
Andy