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WimO's 82nd Airborne Campaign fix progress update


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When I learned of all the bugs in my 82nd Airborne campaign I decided on a three pronged remedy.

One prong is to examine all of the scenarios and maps that I have ever created and update or fix any issues I find. To do so, I have temporarily removed all of my creations from the repository.  After I have reviewed them and tweaked where necessary, they will be re-uploaded ... all at once.

The second prong is to begin by fixing only five of my campaign scenarios and compile them into a shorter campaign. I did this to create a playable version in less time. The five  scenarios are Manoir Leroux, Angriff der Grenadiere, No Better Place to Die, Saul's Run and Le Motey. These have now been completed and tested as free-standing scenarios but not yet as a campaign. The text files have been rewritten to be more campaign appropriate. A.I. plans have been tweaked and tested with and without player opposition. I am satisfied with the results. The campaign has not yet been tested to determine if the settings for Refit, Repair, Resupply and Rest are set properly to keep the campaign moving forward.

The third prong, is fixing the longer campaign. This is presently in progress but I intend to pause it as of this weekend to test the five scenario short campaign.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Mission Boston - Objective La Fiere, five mission, non-branching, short campaign completed, tested and posted.

Mission Boston - Objective La Fiere, eleven mission (or more, or less), branching, expanded campaign; construction completed, beginning testing.

Any volunteers to assists with final play testing? Warning - some scenarios are huge and very long. Two scenarios are not winnable due to being historical recreations but this will not impede the campaign going forward and will not result in losing the campaign.

June 6, 0500 - Boots on the Ground (small force, large map, low, easy)
June 6, 0800 - Manoir Leroux (medium, low, easy)
June 6, 1430 - Cauquigny (small, low, easy)
June 6, 1400 - The Orchard (small, low, easy)
June 6, 1600 - Angriff der Grenadier (medium, low, easy)
June 7, 1000 - No Better Place to Die (medium, low, moderate)
June 8, 2300 - Breakout (huge, high, medium)
June 8, 2300 - Night Crossing (huge, high, difficult)
June 9, 1030 - Saul's Run (huge, high, high)
June 9, 1200 - Le Motey (large, medium, medium)
June 10, 1130 - Amfreville - (large, medium, medium)

 

Edited by WimO
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Hi Wim

I've played the originals of some of these as Germans in PBEM against @Ultradave (even though some were not recommended to play that way).  My results were true to history 😀.  Anyway as you've made changes and I'd be playing as the 82nd I'd be happy to give it a go, albeit with a bit of prior knowledge?

Might take me a while though as I have fingers in too many pies.  Some very good pies though...

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On 5/6/2023 at 5:40 PM, WimO said:

Any volunteers to assists with final play testing? Warning - some scenarios are huge and very long. Two scenarios are not winnable due to being historical recreations but this will not impede the campaign going forward and will not result in losing the campaign.
 

Sorry to be late.

I was on the front line to playtest this campaign. Now I've been removed to rear areas for badly needed resupply and refit due to battle exhaustion! I see that  Commander Vacillator from Perfidious Albion took the lead. I hope he'll be up to the task! 😉

I stay in reserve and will be gladly activated if playtesting the campaign requires a third wave ! You can rely on my support !

More seriously I really wish to play this campaign. @WimO, if it still needs playtesting after @Vacillator's run, let me know, I'll be around. And if you still want a French translation that's still possible.

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7 hours ago, PEB14 said:

More seriously I really wish to play this campaign. @WimO, if it still needs playtesting after @Vacillator's run, let me know, I'll be around. And if you still want a French translation that's still possible.

@PEB14 Merci beaucoup. I have asked Vacillator to stop the playtest because I found a few more minor wrinkles and many more flavor objects randomly moving positions. Since then, I have spent many hours combing through each scenario to try to remove the jumping flavor objects. There is no easy solution. I think that work has now been  completed. In the meantime I have been playtesting by myself and everything is going smoothly so far. I am presently working through "Breakout", a very long scenario. I have been tuning up the 4R's as I go and will have to do one more playtest after this one. They I think it will be done. Encore, merci.

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16 hours ago, WimO said:

I have spent many hours combing through each scenario to try to remove the jumping flavor objects. There is no easy solution.

Maybe this will help re: jumping flavor objects? Taken from a post I made a long time ago:

 

So, after lots of testing (by creating grids of 64 water spigots per 8x8 meter action square, lol), I've now made more sense of how to accurately place flavor objects and keep them where I want them. Or at least predict where they'll end up after a reload of the 3D environment. The logic is apparently pretty straightforward:

It seems that flavor objects just snap to the southwest corner of whichever 1 x 1 meter grid spot you place them on. So it's just that both grid coordinates are truncated, i.e. the decimal portion is just stripped away. A crate placed at, say, x=7.88 y=23.88, will just eventually migrate itself over to (7,23)... not to (8,24), even though (8,24) was much, much closer.

If there's already another flavor object at (7,23), the new object will replace it.

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Si, if I understand correctly, flavor object don't stay where you put them at first? They jump up to a rounded coordinates position at the first occasion (i.e. scenario load) and then they stay there?

Am I correct?

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I seem to have created a misunderstanding. The problem of flavor objects moving that I was referring to is the result of creating a large master map, populating it with flavor objects and then cutting the master map to a smaller size to use for a scenario. Although the map size has been reduced, the smaller map still hold onto the complete flavor objects list in its code. As a result it does not know where to place the excess objects on the smaller map and the result it random replacement. For example, what was originally a row of telephone poles is now a row of poles, haystacks,  chicken coops etc. It is poor coding and very frustrating. Various suggestions have been made as to how to clean it up but none are 100% effective. The only solution I have found is to load the map, delete the unwanted misplaced objects, save, reload, repeat, repeat, repeat until the problem stops. At this point the excess objects have been deleted from the list. I HATE this issue and it is the number one reason why I will never create another CM master map.

For future map and scenario creators I suggest the following. Do not place flavor objects on a master map that you know you will reduce in size for scenario. Only place flavor objects on scenario maps.

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Update 11 May.

I played through the expanded version of my 82nd Airborne campaign as far as completing Saul's run. At the end of that scenario I was kicked from the campaign in defeat despite having gained a very significant foothold west of the Merderet River. The problem was victory points set too low for the US player and/or victory conditions to progress set too high. Either one can be adjusted to fix this. Although the scenario result was historical, given the gains that I had made, having the campaign end in a loss seemed unhistorical. That's fixed now so back to the beginning for play test #3.  Am going to have to take a break to edit my Stans Missus gladiator rules and print player cards for this month's wargame event. It's my turn to GM a game.

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