Warcab 0.8.0 BETA version

[ErikCumps]

Thanks, that's food for thought.

In the mean time, if anybody has ideas about tracking cross-attached units from battle to battle,
in order to "know" that unit B2 in the first battle is the same unit as unit G2 in the second battle,
I'm all ears!

Erik

Originally Posted by Mobhack

Expanding the core is a given. As will be cross attachment.

I can't think of any reason to stick to the same core you start with. That really only happened in SP1, where no addition or cross attaching could be done, only changes of unit type. So in SP1 you would start a campaign and ensure your full 48(? may have been 24) allotment was filled - even if it was jeeps or sniper placeholders (SP1 charged 1 whole point for a sniper, so they were extremely good value).

[ErikCumps]

While I'm at it, here's another question

When a unit is cross-attached to another formation, and the OOB record ID of the
formation is not changed, that new unit will probably not match the OOB formation
record information, right?

Ok, there's a bunch of special winSPWW2 support work popping up here, I think.

You see, before I discovered the unit 'valid' flag in the savegame section #01, warcab
had to resort to some fancy OOB formation record discovery and verification to determine
if a unit in the savegame is a valid unit or not (i.e. it could be a leftover from a previous
game).

Today warcab knows about the unit "valid" flag and the fancy OOB record checking is
no longer necessary to determine unit validity, but it is still being used to determine the
unit's core status: in some cases a formation contains a unit which obviously does not
belong to the formation according to the formation's OOB info. In such a case, this unit
gets an SPAU status (Special Purpose Attached Unit - this only has a meaning in warcab).
These SPAU units are considered support units, not core units.

Take for example a "PionierZug(gep)" formation with OOB formation record 241. This
formation is supposed to contain 10 units, but I have seen savegames (albeit from a
scenario battle), where this kind of formation contained the expected 10 units, but also
an additional 11th unit, a "Schlauchboot" -> That's an SPAU.

But all that will have to change now, I guess. If units can be cross-attached, they will
probably no longer match the formation's OOB info and they will be mistakenly tagged
as SPAU and hence as support unit.

To fix this, warcab will have to assume (at least for campaign savegames) that all units
in a core formation are core formations, which will also mean losing the SPAU status
of actual SPAU units.

But, based on the previous messages in this thread, I guess that won't be too big a
sacrifice to make?

Erik

[ErikCumps]

Fellow wargamers,

Two quick notes.

#1: a new Warcab BETA #7 is available.

I have sent a PM with the download link.

This beta has disabled the core formation/unit count check when adding
savegames to a campaign (for winSPWW2 only).

The upside is that this will allow adding savegames to the campaign dossier
even when core units have been added/deleted/cross-attached...

The downside is that the unit history tracking and the campaign reporting is
probably incomplete and/or incorrect. There's more work to do here to get it
right, I am afraid...

However, the battle and turn reports will be correct and complete.

#2: I am going on vacation to Italy until the end of the month

This means I won't have time to work on warcab until early September.

In the mean time, if some of you are willing to start a long campaign with three
(or more) battles where core units are first added and then later deleted (to end
up with fewer core units than in the first battle), that would be very useful as
reference material when I start investigating improved unit campaign tracking.

See you in about 2 weeks,
Erik

[gabeeg]

What a very cool tool! I am looking forward to giving a spin when ready for general release. Wishing you the best of luck!

[ErikCumps]

Hi there!

I'm back from a very refreshing holiday, the dolomites where absolutely fantastic!!!

This also means I can restart working on the remaining issues with the current warcab 0.8.0 BETA.

I believe these are:

• add full support for core unit additions/deletions/cross-attachments
  (I already have an idea about this, but some example save games would be highly appreciated!)
  
• support more heights (up to 15 levels) on the stratmap
• don't show dead units on the stratmap
• add a "limited-intel" option to hide opponent formation and unit information

If you see something missing from this list, please let me know!

Thanks,
Erik

[Kritkeen]

Welcome back!

[ErikCumps]

Yes, it's been a while. Life was sidetracking me again...

Just a quick status update.

Supporting the addition, deletion and cross-attaching of core units is not an easy task,
but I'm happy to say that I have some proof-of-concept code done!

It seems to work fine in most circumstances (based on some artificial test data), the
only limitation is that battles are expected to be added to the dossier in the correct order,
otherwise the cross-attachment detection can go wrong.

Next steps are to polish and integrate this PoC code into the codebase, without causing
regressions or other bugs, or impacting the support for that other game.

I'll progress (and keep you updated of my progress) as time permits.

Erik

[KAreil]

Does this still work with version 13 from 2020?

Can we get a public beta or do you still share only via PM?

[ErikCumps]

Originally Posted by KAreil

Does this still work with version 13 from 2020?

Can we get a public beta or do you still share only via PM?

Hi KAreil,

Not sure about v13, haven't tried it yet. But my guess is that the
savegame file format hasn't really changed and that it will just work.

Concerning your question about a private beta:

To be honest I almost bit of more than I can chew when I tried
to add support for unit cross-atachment, but I've done just that...
...and a little bit more!

I'm finishing up and am aiming for a public release of 0.8.0.
(no private beta, don't think it will be necessary)

Hope to have some release news soon.

Erik

[DRG]

The savegame format has NOT changed. Only the scenarios format was altered to accommodate more scenarios