The ongoing JG42 war

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Should we skip the Moscow and move over to the Bessarabia campaign as soon as possible?

Yeah, let's move immeadiately!
4
25%
Yeah, ... but give Moscow further two weeks before moving over!
1
6%
Naw, me loves Moscow! Let's fight there to the bitter end!
7
44%
Where da beer ... again?
4
25%
 
Total votes: 16
Nephris
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Fri Oct 04, 2013 8:46 am

We destroyed all 3 AA guns in the town of Ugra
Will have look and check whats going on there.
Repairs to airfields that are not connected to the road system can be possible by landing transport planes, like Li-2 or Ju52.
In the city itself no repair status should be possible, as it cant be reached by columns. Did u destroy some static trucks in the city aswell? Thats makin it just easier to track the mission


You are right Moscwo was a large sandbox to learn a lot. Beginning with the issues of counting planes and working downgrades, which at the end has to do with the use of mods only. The influence of flight size to downgrades cost another while :D This issue took most of my testing time :idea: Crashing AI planes directly in the beginning of a mission, which led to AI free missions sometimes had to do with not properly set payloads or paintschemes or planes in class.dcg,paintshemes.dcg and payload.dcg.
Not porperly set locations with gaps, where red and blue armory wasnt able to shoot on each other (remember the tank pool at Ruza Airfield).Finding out how bridges really work and needed to be connected to the raod system. Spawning crashes in te very beginning, where we had to remove objects from airfields and spawnpoints ...I guess that were just a few of the biggest flaws I remember atm
For most of us blue pilots the way is and was the target. We really enjoy the regular meeting at weekends and being able to fly with a certain dynamic and causal sense on the ground. The mix between human and AI pilots keeps up the concentration in each dogfight.

However all tihs issues were and will be addressed to each upcoming campaign.
So there were a lot of design errors within moscow, that got slowly fixed awhile we played. And I absolutely misinterpretated the lenghts between each final location for an army to reach.

What we maybe should consider for next campaign, is the lenght of a mission.
Basically I think it should be at least 2 missions to see a certain development on ground vehicle movement and so frontline changes.But the time of 90 mins gives us players a relative long time to hunt columns down, which then start from the depot again.
The battle area of the Bessasarabia campaign is much smaller then Moscow. So maybe it wouldnt a bad idea to use 3x65 mins, which would make 60mins effective play time (substracting the loading time).
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:FI:Blue2
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Blue2 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:17 am

Hi again Nephris. Hope your cold is gone or on its way out! Please do take another look at last week's missions when you can. I finally had a chance to review mission recordings, and I'm sorry to bring bad news, but I found 2 rather serious problems:
1) All AA guns AND all trucks/tank cars inside buildings at Ugra had in fact been fully restored before we arrived there in mission #1 last week.
2) Although red knocked down bridges at both K6 and N7 on mission #1, BOTH bridges were fully restored on mission #2, and the restored bridge at N7 allowed a Blue tank column to cross over and move east. Preventing this was obviously the whole point of knocking down those bridges.
:(
Both of these flaws, and perhaps others like them we're not even aware of, make it impossible to use much of a strategy to recapture territory, especially when your forces are fuel-starved and only move every other mission or even less often.
The Ugra issue means that the many flights we've taken all the way there - and all the planes lost and time and effort expended - probably did not gain us much (if anything) in terms of weakening Blue's fuel supply or spawn rates, even though we successfully destroyed more than half of the targets hidden there weeks ago.
The bridge situation is just as frustrating. Had those tanks not been able to cross the river at N7, it's very possible we could retake the sector just to the east of that bridge within the next mission or 2, which would regain for us the use of the airfield at Q7.
](*,)
I know I just voted to keep playing this, sandbox learning and all, but this really almost makes me change my tune. I know you've worked hard to fix all these difficult issues, Nephris, and it's frustrating for you as well. We don't blame you for them. We sincerely appreciate your efforts, and keep the fun going with you guys! I really mean all that. However, these bugs ARE happening, and at this point I'm no longer very confident that the game will perform ground actions in a predictable way from one mission to the next. It just seems that the combination of DCG, MDS, Server Commander, and modded planes is a bit too much right now. If we can't count on things to happen as we're told they will on the ground, how can we really hope to form plans that have a chance to succeed?
Please give some serious thought about making whatever changes you must in order for Bessarabia to have more predictable behavior. Perhaps getting rid of all mod planes. Or maybe even going to COOP mode, which in my past experience was very reliable in its behavior. As always the choice is yours, mate. I simply believe that choosing a simpler, less "beta" combination will make things much easier for you, and more enjoyable/less frustrating for everyone else too.
^:)
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Graf Zahl » Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:52 am

That's some really bad news. Actually I was a bit surprised about blue's quick advance in the past few missions. But since all your efforts were apparently nullified by a combination of bugs, the reason becomes obvious. :(

As told above, I witnessed the bridge bug on a few occasions myself. Luckily for us, there seemed to be not a real impact on the course of events.

About the solution for these problems:
I am not sure if switching to vanilla 4.12 will be an option. We tried Bessarabia a few times in vanilla and experienced system crashes after 2-3 minutes every single time.


So...what do we do now? Ignore the problems and give Moscow another try this Sunday? Or do we do something else?
Time is running out though...

Heads up, reds! ^:)

Cheers
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:FI:Mikester
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Mikester » Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:54 pm

Hers is another issue m8, if the code was designed for a specific version of il2 and the code has not been updated to reflect any changes made to il2 ie HSFX. This is the most likely source of the problems. If we are using any mod objects or anything non standard to 4.11 this data will probably not be recognised by the dcg. This I guess could cause unexpected behaviour so I think this needs sorting out before you move to the next map.

Just had a quick look at the latest dcg download, this does state in the documentation that its designed for 4.11 and that any log file changes made by mods could cause issues. Now I know up3 made changes to the log files in il2 but I'm not sure about HSFX.

Next issue you will have if running without mods is currently DCG does not support 4.12 so you may get similar results if you don't stick to 4.11

I'm afraid to say unless these issues are resolved I think your map could go down hill very quickly. Because reds are more clued up on how things work, they are spending time examining flown missions to see how things have gone so terribly wrong when they feel at times Have gone so well. What they are finding is our actions are not all our failings but the DCG is letting us down at times.

I also appreciate all the effort Nephris has gone to setting these maps up and I will join u boys in the next map if these issues can be resolved but If these issues would continue it would only cause frustration, that I can handle if our own fault but this is out with our control.
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:FI:Mikester
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Mikester » Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:22 pm

Moving forward, has anyone tried dropping a bridge in 4.11 and HSFX?? If someone could try this and have a look at your log file. If any difference in the way this is logged that could be stopping this vital info being parsed by the DCG engine, having it believe this never happened and explaining why bridges are automatically rebuilt in next missions.

Just a thought!
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:12 pm

I noticed also some flaws with bridges, as some keep destroyed awhile the bridge destruction time of 2 missions, like the one west of Kubinka ,and others dont. I am unsure if it is just a visual bug, or not on the bridges.When generating the next mission i ll keep an eye on the log .We once tested the bridges in may successfully.As u can see a few posts above a destroyed bridge was tracked into the next mission.


As for the statics in Ugra ,...i never rechecked if the static objects we were supposed to destroy in Naro ,were rebuild in next mission or not, even without a column travellin by.I dont see any reason why statics should be rebuild in Ugra.

My personal opinion is that mods are creating more problems than fun here. Compared to 4.12.1 i see no advantages in mods.Of course Lowengrin doesnt give any support on issues with mods.
The "human only" either doesnt work with mod :?

As for Bessarabia, we noticed vanilla cant handle the map in MDS.After a certain time the game crashes without a guid error log in il2 root.


I wont find the time to check what happened by all that issues until tomorrow, and i dont know if it is worth to test in a mod envirenment anymore and to find certain workarounds.


That leads us to the quesrtion what next.
Bessarabia is causing probs loading on vanilla exe in mds.
Mods are imho no real alternative as these seem to be unliable here.
Nevertheless bridges need to be tested also in vanilla first.

As future alternatives i could offer a Stalingrad map or the default dcg maps by Lowegrin.
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:FI:Mikester
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Mikester » Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:40 pm

bridge log test

4.11 Standard ATTEMPT 1

[Oct 5, 2013 1:06:49 PM] Mission: net/coop/1/dropbridge.mis is Playing
12:00:00 Mission BEGIN
12:00:00 =FI=Mikester is trying to occupy seat r01000(0)
12:00:00 r01000(0) seat occupied by =FI=Mikester at 106436.08 54736.9
12:00:00 r01000 loaded weapons '2fab5002fab250' fuel 20%
12:00:00 r01000 in flight at 106441.766 54717.664
12:01:17 Bridge130 destroyed by r01000 at 109036.0 50300.0
12:01:35 Mission END
-------------------------------------------------------
Name: =FI=Mikester
Score: 0
State: In Flight
Enemy Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Tank Kill: 0
Enemy Car Kill: 0
Enemy Artillery Kill: 0
Enemy AAA Kill: 0
Enemy Wagon Kill: 0
Enemy Ship Kill: 0
Enemy Radio Kill: 0
Friend Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Tank Kill: 0
Friend Car Kill: 0
Friend Artillery Kill: 0
Friend AAA Kill: 0
Friend Wagon Kill: 0
Friend Ship Kill: 0
Friend Radio Kill: 0
Fire Bullets: 0
Hit Bullets: 0
Hit Air Bullets: 0
Fire Roskets: 0
Hit Roskets: 0
Fire Bombs: 4
Hit Bombs: 0
-------------------------------------------------------

4.11 STANDARD ATTEMPT 2

[Oct 5, 2013 1:25:18 PM] Mission: net/coop/1/dropbridge.mis is Playing
12:00:00 Mission BEGIN
12:00:00 =FI=Mikester is trying to occupy seat r01000(0)
12:00:00 r01000(0) seat occupied by =FI=Mikester at 106436.08 54736.9
12:00:00 r01000 loaded weapons '2fab5002fab250' fuel 20%
12:00:00 r01000 in flight at 106441.766 54717.664
12:01:23 Bridge130 destroyed by r01000 at 109036.0 50300.0
12:01:42 Mission END
-------------------------------------------------------
Name: =FI=Mikester
Score: 0
State: In Flight
Enemy Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Tank Kill: 0
Enemy Car Kill: 0
Enemy Artillery Kill: 0
Enemy AAA Kill: 0
Enemy Wagon Kill: 0
Enemy Ship Kill: 0
Enemy Radio Kill: 0
Friend Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Tank Kill: 0
Friend Car Kill: 0
Friend Artillery Kill: 0
Friend AAA Kill: 0
Friend Wagon Kill: 0
Friend Ship Kill: 0
Friend Radio Kill: 0
Fire Bullets: 0
Hit Bullets: 0
Hit Air Bullets: 0
Fire Roskets: 0
Hit Roskets: 0
Fire Bombs: 4
Hit Bombs: 2
-------------------------------------------------------

4.11 standard ATTEMPT 3

[Oct 5, 2013 1:29:14 PM] Mission: net/coop/1/dropbridge.mis is Playing
12:00:00 Mission BEGIN
12:00:00 =FI=Mikester is trying to occupy seat r01000(0)
12:00:00 r01000(0) seat occupied by =FI=Mikester at 106436.08 54736.9
12:00:00 r01000 loaded weapons '2fab5002fab250' fuel 20%
12:00:00 r01000 in flight at 106441.766 54717.664
12:01:20 Bridge130 destroyed by r01000 at 109036.0 50300.0
12:01:41 Mission END
-------------------------------------------------------
Name: =FI=Mikester
Score: 0
State: In Flight
Enemy Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Tank Kill: 0
Enemy Car Kill: 0
Enemy Artillery Kill: 0
Enemy AAA Kill: 0
Enemy Wagon Kill: 0
Enemy Ship Kill: 0
Enemy Radio Kill: 0
Friend Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Tank Kill: 0
Friend Car Kill: 0
Friend Artillery Kill: 0
Friend AAA Kill: 0
Friend Wagon Kill: 0
Friend Ship Kill: 0
Friend Radio Kill: 0
Fire Bullets: 0
Hit Bullets: 0
Hit Air Bullets: 0
Fire Roskets: 0
Hit Roskets: 0
Fire Bombs: 4
Hit Bombs: 4
-------------------------------------------------------



HSFX 4.11 ATTEMPT 1

[05.10.2013 13:12:35] Mission: net/coop/1/dropbridge.mis is Playing
12:00:00 Mission BEGIN
12:00:00 =FI=Mikester is trying to occupy seat r01000(0)
12:00:00 r01000(0) seat occupied by =FI=Mikester at 106436.08 54736.9
12:00:00 r01000 loaded weapons '2fab5002fab250' fuel 20%
12:00:00 r01000 in flight at 106441.766 54717.664
12:01:24 Bridge130 destroyed by r01000 at 109036.0 50300.0
12:01:45 Mission END
-------------------------------------------------------
Name: =FI=Mikester
Score: 0
State: In Flight
Enemy Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Tank Kill: 0
Enemy Car Kill: 0
Enemy Artillery Kill: 0
Enemy AAA Kill: 0
Enemy Wagon Kill: 0
Enemy Ship Kill: 0
Enemy Radio Kill: 0
Friend Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Tank Kill: 0
Friend Car Kill: 0
Friend Artillery Kill: 0
Friend AAA Kill: 0
Friend Wagon Kill: 0
Friend Ship Kill: 0
Friend Radio Kill: 0
Fire Bullets: 0
Hit Bullets: 0
Hit Air Bullets: 0
Fire Roskets: 0
Hit Roskets: 0
Fire Bombs: 4
Hit Bombs: 2
-------------------------------------------------------

HSFX 4,11 ATTEMPT 2

[05.10.2013 13:16:44] Mission: net/coop/1/dropbridge.mis is Playing
12:00:00 Mission BEGIN
12:00:00 =FI=Mikester is trying to occupy seat r01000(0)
12:00:00 r01000(0) seat occupied by =FI=Mikester at 106436.08 54736.9
12:00:00 r01000 loaded weapons '2fab5002fab250' fuel 20%
12:00:00 r01000 in flight at 106441.766 54717.664
12:01:13 Bridge130 destroyed by r01000 at 109036.0 50300.0
12:01:35 Mission END
-------------------------------------------------------
Name: =FI=Mikester
Score: 0
State: In Flight
Enemy Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Enemy Tank Kill: 0
Enemy Car Kill: 0
Enemy Artillery Kill: 0
Enemy AAA Kill: 0
Enemy Wagon Kill: 0
Enemy Ship Kill: 0
Enemy Radio Kill: 0
Friend Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Static Aircraft Kill: 0
Friend Tank Kill: 0
Friend Car Kill: 0
Friend Artillery Kill: 0
Friend AAA Kill: 0
Friend Wagon Kill: 0
Friend Ship Kill: 0
Friend Radio Kill: 0
Fire Bullets: 0
Hit Bullets: 0
Hit Air Bullets: 0
Fire Roskets: 0
Hit Roskets: 0
Fire Bombs: 4
Hit Bombs: 0
-------------------------------------------------------

HIT Bomb seems a bit strange, I destroyed a brige a few times with 4.11 and HSFX and this says "0" I'm not sure if this section is read by the parser.?
Nephris
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:28 pm

Really strange.
I open a thread at Lowengrins forum what line the parser uses.
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:53 pm

Each bridge got a certain id to be identified.As in your log the bridge id is 130 for the one u destroyed.
I marked each bridge with its id to the bridges.dcg.
The campaign files were created with vanilla.
I will have to check if either the mod or probably changes between 4.09 and 4.11.1 took influence on the id chronics.If the id of a bridge wouldnt be correct it cant be tracked into the next mission of course.
However this just basic bug hunting and serves to determine if a mod would break bessarabia ,wich shouldnt be a sandbox anymore but a proper workin one compared to moscow.

Thus i will run a test session on bessarabia coming thursday from 20:00h met up to midnight i guess.
You aree all very welcome to join me and help passing a certain testing program:

- destroying bridges. 1. bridges which are locations themselves e.g Roman_bridge123. 2. bridges which are between 2 location

-destroying static objects within industry zones, aaa will be deactivated,checking the issue Larry posted above

-determining payload limitations for blue and red

anything else to test what i forgot or u would like to check?

Gonna write a complete plan where to destry what of course.
Server Adress as usual, ts adress is posted in ur intern area i guess.
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:FI:Gadje
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Gadje » Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:41 pm

OK forgive me original poster but to explain how we have felt over the last three months I will risk letting our friends and opponents read an honest and clear post on our own forum about the current situation from someone wiser than I-

'Yeah.. This is 60% of the reason I'm not interested in the next map.

The DCG simply has too many bugs, if we were to count the amount of times we had issues in missions I really think it would be something like 4/5 missions. That to me says this is not worth the stress or frustration. For every AAA we can't kill, every Bridge that gets rebuilt and every target that gets magically fixed we are simply spending 50% of our time re-doing stuff that was done in the last mission and the last mission. Does this happen for blue?

Its not a DC if the next mission doesn't have a true reflection from the last missions and if you can't plan a mission and be confident the next mission will show a true reflection of that planning and careful execution that sucks all the magic out of this type of game.'

-That post sums it up for red I'd say JaVA and FI .We keep flying regardless and as you chaps saw with the choice to continue to the bitter end, we are not divas that only fly when we can win. But we have seen the weird and wrong from mission to mission for a very long time now.

We need a rethink, perhaps the simpler coop missions.
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Sun Oct 06, 2013 7:16 am

Yes maybe we should just leave it as it is.
I m investing far too much time in it anyways.
However i dont expect our guys much to be interested in coops with more than 4 pilots as for the given reasons we left mds. But i cant speak for all of them of course.

As for this evening I need to cancel the date, still didnt make it home.
Maybe u can start a coop already tonight.
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:FI:Gadje
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Gadje » Sun Oct 06, 2013 9:08 am

Sorry to here that Nephris.

Whatever our frustration with the ground war at least, yours must be so much greater when things like this happen. As Larry said your efforts are much appreciated by us all and if there is anything we can do with testing to help get this bloody MDS/DCG working I and I am sure others will be only too willing to help.

The fact remains this has generally been a lot of fun. Being in the main just a lowly fighter pilot, the war in the air for me has been hard fought and devoid of these problems. Perhaps with more help for you we can still see this long war patched up and reach it's end. Whatever happens I hope we can all keep flying on a Sunday. The Moscow campaign has certainly revitalised my own interest in this old game for which I give you my thanks! =D]

S!
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:FI:Mikester
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Mikester » Sun Oct 06, 2013 9:33 am

I agree completely.

I think the fact that we are all posting and engaging in this topic shows we all care and are enjoying the experience, just unfortunate the DCG has issues but again this is through no fault of yours Nephris.

Whatever we do I also hope we continue to fly on a Sunday and I actually hope we can branch out to a Thursday if we are doing something that's interesting enough. It would need to be online war based though. AI coops are just not an option for me.
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by :FI:Armitage » Sun Oct 06, 2013 6:12 pm

Nephris,

I think I might have asked before but can I have a copy of the bridges.dcg file ? I can tie in the bridges destroyed in the logs to this file and provide some stats info on the bridges destroyed. Might also help with the DCG if I can identify bridges destroyed in a mission that DCG is missing especially if you can update DCG manually?
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Re: The ongoing JG42 war

Post by Nephris » Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:07 pm

Update


bridges.dcg

Code: Select all

[Winter_Defense]
  2 7
  3 70
  7 7
  8 7
  f 7
  h 7
  j 7
  k 7
  n 70
  o 70
  B 7
  C 1
  G 7
  H 1
  M 1
  N 1
  O +70
  P v0
  b1 7
  e1 7
  i1 7
  B1 7
  N1 1
  O1 7
  P1 1
  S1 7
  T1 70
  U1 7
  V1 7
  W1 7
  X1 7
  Z1 7
  -1 7
  12 1
  32 1
  42 1
  52 1
  62 7
  82 1
  b2 7
  c2 7
  d2 7
  f2 1
  g2 7
  h2 1
  j2 7
  k2 7
  l2 7
  m2 7
  o2 1
  u2 7
  v2 7
  w2 1
  x2 1
  y2 7
  z2 1
  K2 1
  L2 1
  M2 1
  N2 +10
  P2 7
  Q2 7
  T2 +10
  V2 7
  W2 7
  03 1
  13 7
  43 7
  63 1
Gadje should have the complete campaign files.
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