Offboard Artillery in WF PBEM

[David Galster]

In playtesting a WF scenario, the offboard artillery would not plot or fire for the German side.
It tested okay in the "Hot Seat" and "AI" modes, but not PBEM. Has anyone else experienced this issue
with the new version 2.02 WF Campaign Series?
If anyone has an account with Matrix games, could you post it on their forum?

Thanks,

David Galster

[Big Ivan]

Dave,

I posted same message on Matrix under John Tiller's Campaign Series.

Thanks
John

[Herr Straße Laufer]

The arty is a ghost. It was originally made off board but the scenario designer changed his mind or forgot and used the arty on map.
That is my experience with off board arty that won't plot.

HSL

[David Galster]

In playtesting a WF scenario, the offboard artillery would not plot or fire for the German side.
It tested okay in the "Hot Seat" and "AI" modes, but not PBEM. Has anyone else experienced this issue
with the new version 2.02 WF Campaign Series?
If anyone has an account with Matrix games, could you post it on their forum?

Thanks,

David Galster

Gentlemen,

 
We found a potential problem with offboard artillery for scenarios made in older
versions. Petri (KrazyKat) describes it best:
 
"This was quite a difficult one to pinpoint. Most times there's an artillery unit that won't fire it is a ghost unit, but it seems there's a chance off-board artillery settings can indeed go out of whack, in case there's an original scenario made with an old(er) Scenario Editor, then the same scenario is edited by a new(est?) Scenario Editor."
 
"I can't for a fact say what happened here, ie. what would be the source for this behaviour. Suffice it to say that if (off-board) arty won't fire, first check it is not a ghost unit and secondly if it is an off board unit, remove and deploy again with the latest Scenario Editor."
 
I hope this will be useful to players and scenario designers to resolve future problems with offboard artillery.
 
Thanks,

David Galster

[berto]

"This was quite a difficult one to pinpoint. Most times there's an artillery unit that won't fire it is a ghost unit, but it seems there's a chance off-board artillery settings can indeed go out of whack, in case there's an original scenario made with an old(er) Scenario Editor, then the same scenario is edited by a new(est?) Scenario Editor."
 
"I can't for a fact say what happened here, ie. what would be the source for this behaviour. Suffice it to say that if (off-board) arty won't fire, first check it is not a ghost unit and secondly if it is an off board unit, remove and deploy again with the latest Scenario Editor."

Would you please post, either here or (better) at the Matrix Forum, the before and after .scn files?  Those would be the best clues to help us pinpoint the nature of the bug.

[Crossroads]

I've got (most of) the files, berto. Sending over.

[berto]

I've got (most of) the files, berto. Sending over.

This is what I see in the .zip file sent:

berto@telemann:/games/matrix/cs/devel/work/DAVID GALSTER> ls -ltr
total 3792
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   23806 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.org
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   31350 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   34102 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.bmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1803161 Jul 28 20:45 Luttich-DieNordlicheKampfgruppe.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   22469 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.scn
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   64394 Sep  8 20:33 !!Luttich-Die-Nordliche-Tom-John.bte
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1846159 Sep 11 13:27 DAVID GALSTER.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   44137 Sep 11  2015 _LUTTICH_TEST_PBEM.bte

"Jul 28" for the .scn files etc. -- that's a recent date.  Is this a newly created scenario, with new map etc.?  If so, was everything created using JTCS 2.02?

Or is this an older, legacy scenario from 1.04 (and before)?  If so, how does it come to have such a recent date?

Also, we would need the latest, fixed version of the .scn file (with now working off-board artillery), in order to compare with the older .scn file (with the broken off-board artillery).

[David Galster]

I've got (most of) the files, berto. Sending over.

This is what I see in the .zip file sent:

berto@telemann:/games/matrix/cs/devel/work/DAVID GALSTER> ls -ltr
total 3792
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   23806 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.org
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   31350 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   34102 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.bmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1803161 Jul 28 20:45 Luttich-DieNordlicheKampfgruppe.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   22469 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.scn
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   64394 Sep  8 20:33 !!Luttich-Die-Nordliche-Tom-John.bte
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1846159 Sep 11 13:27 DAVID GALSTER.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   44137 Sep 11  2015 _LUTTICH_TEST_PBEM.bte

"Jul 28" for the .scn files etc. -- that's a recent date.  Is this a newly created scenario, with new map etc.?  If so, was everything created using JTCS 2.02?

Or is this an older, legacy scenario from 1.04 (and before)?  If so, how does it come to have such a recent date?

Also, we would need the latest, fixed version of the .scn file (with now working off-board artillery), in order to compare with the older .scn file (with the broken off-board artillery).

[David Galster]

I've got (most of) the files, berto. Sending over.

Berto,

The scenario was made using v1.04 in late 2011. I have been messing with it on an off with different
testers. But, John (Ivan the Big) suggested some offboard. I had recently updated to 2.02 and added it
using the 2.02 editor. But when John tried to playtest again, the offboard wouldn't work. I sent this file to Petri.
It is the one with the first addition of offboard using v2.02.

I think some files are coming your way.

Thanks,

David Galster

This is what I see in the .zip file sent:

berto@telemann:/games/matrix/cs/devel/work/DAVID GALSTER> ls -ltr
total 3792
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   23806 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.org
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   31350 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   34102 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.bmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1803161 Jul 28 20:45 Luttich-DieNordlicheKampfgruppe.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   22469 Jul 28 20:45 Le Mesnil-Adelee.scn
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   64394 Sep  8 20:33 !!Luttich-Die-Nordliche-Tom-John.bte
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users 1846159 Sep 11 13:27 DAVID GALSTER.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 berto users   44137 Sep 11  2015 _LUTTICH_TEST_PBEM.bte

"Jul 28" for the .scn files etc. -- that's a recent date.  Is this a newly created scenario, with new map etc.?  If so, was everything created using JTCS 2.02?

Or is this an older, legacy scenario from 1.04 (and before)?  If so, how does it come to have such a recent date?

Also, we would need the latest, fixed version of the .scn file (with now working off-board artillery), in order to compare with the older .scn file (with the broken off-board artillery).

[berto]

In the .bte file, there is this:

6 64 9 1120 -1 1 1 4 100 6 0 256 3 3 3
6 64 9 1120 -1 1 1 4 100 6 0 256 3 3 3
6 64 9 1120 -1 1 1 4 100 6 0 256 3 3 3

The highlighted -1s are the tracking #s.  If -1s are there, when those off-board artys were written to the .bte file, for some reason the code didn't know the organization number at that point.

In the subsequent read of the saved .bte file, seeing the -1s, the code is unable to determine those units' organization.  They are then rendered effectively non-functional.

I have diff'ed the before and after .scn files, and there is no significant difference there suggesting why anything should ultimately lead to -1 tracking #s being written to the .bte file.

This is a really tough situation to debug, because it all depends on the context.  Even if I were to have all the relevant files -- all of them! including backup saves -- I'm not certain I could recreate the context where those -1s were written to the save file.  It could be some odd chance occurrence, maybe replicable, maybe not.

It doesn't help that, if I understand the narrative correctly, the scenario was being modded.

I can't give a full explanation how this all came about, nor do I have a firm basis here on which to identify a bug, much less fix it.

If I understand the narrative correctly, the affected players have since discovered a work-around, and are able to play on.  That will have to suffice for now.

(In future, I ask that technical support questions be raised at the Matrix Forum.  Better to have all of the technical lore be in once place.  The support forum at Matrix

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=449

is the place for it.)