Pyewacket Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 I need one or even two serious testers for a campaign tool for windows. There are two setup programs and a very 'dirty written' manual, well not a real manual, but I first step guide, at my website: PCT you have to install both setup programs (of cause on your own risk. Did I mentioned that I am not a real coder?). I am sure there are a lot of bugs in it and would apreciate any help. Need also help with a good manual in English (I am a German and my English is mmmh ... poor). The issue is to give Gamemasters some help and support to run campaigns without those masses of paperwork. The features are: - units management - points (spent for the units) management - exporting units to CMBB/CMAK from the tool - importing casulties back (from CMBB/AK) to the tool There are two specific problems if you test the tools: One problem is that you have to run CMBB or CMAK in 1024/764 mode when you import/export, because I wrote the program on my laptop and this is the max. resolution this old thing can show me. The other is, that both programs use a lot of main-memory (around 60 MB each). I hope this is ok for you and it would be cool if there were someone with some time to give me support and maybe has some ideas for improvements. If you have some questions , you find my email below... Thanks Jens (Pyewacket) webmaster@gillspye.de 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sardaukar Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Certainly sounds very interesting....now if it could help me with my RoBO Quick campaign... Have to check this thing out, definitely. Cheers, M.S. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmerch Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Hey there These tools of yours sound very intersting. - points (spent for the units) management - exporting units to CMBB/CMAK from the tool - importing casulties back (from CMBB/AK) to the tool If this works it would be awsome. I haven't heard of any other tool that can handle that! Maybe you can upload a few screenshots on your homepage? It is easier to download the files when knowing what it looks like. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
76mm Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 I'll check this out too; I've been working on a similar project. tmr 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mPisi Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 First of all, as a campaign manager I appreciate your efforts and hope you will keep working on it. My campaign is temporarily on hiatus since it takes too much time for me to set up the battles, etc. Tools like this will make running campaigns easier and reduce the time needed, leading to more campaigns as more people can afford the time to run them. I don't have time to look closely, but both of the programs are running for me, and the importing units from CMBB seemed to work. I will give it a good workout as soon as I can. Keep up the good work! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 @ Sardaukar: Unfortunately the tools are not helpful for these single player campaigns with a core force which is lead through many years (the many years is the problem here). When I talk about campaigns I mean a fixed certain time. My offer is: If you tell me your specific need I can check out what is possible and what is not. @farmerch: I have updated my homepage. Now there're some screenshots and a little description. Thanks for the hint. PCT - with screenshots @76mm: I am interested in your project/ideas. I would also like to work in a group or so to split work and to make things faster or to make a bigger project than just tools...How about you? @mPisi: Thank you very much for the first test, mPisi. As I said I am new to programming and I wasn't sure if this runs on other computers. Whenever you have some information for me please tell me. I don't have the experience as a campaign manager and would like to ask you for your knowledge. If there are any ideas, changes you want etc. just tell me. @all: thanks for the replies!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: I need one or even two serious testers for a campaign tool for windows. There are two setup programs and a very 'dirty written' manual, well not a real manual, but I first step guide, at my website: PCT ... Thanks Jens (Pyewacket) webmaster@gillspye.de Wenn das hält, was die Webseite verspricht... err... If it works as advertised, it will be a great tool. Definitely will test that! Is there a possibility that it exports/imports the unit data to/from excel? It would ease most (single player) campaign tools, who do their bookkeeping on spreadsheets. Generating the rules for a long campaign is not such a big problem... available time is the big factor. Two questions: a) Which programming language is used? Where do you live? Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofthehill Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 i'am not a coder, but when I launch a gamemaster.exe i report this error: Components COMDLG32.OCX or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file missing or invalid. I made search on my Pc and infact i have not this *.ocx Some help? thanks KotH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofthehill Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Ok resolt, i have draw a COM**.ocx on the web this a controller of VB i think, now gamemaster runs. Sorry KotH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 @Joachim: 1. Programming language is Visual Basic. Problem was "learning by doing" so VB was the best choice for me. 2. Berlin, and you? 3. Using Excel: I am not sure what you have in mind. As far as I understand these excel campaigns there 's an upgrade included (or am I wrong?) e.g. from June 1942 tanks to July 1942 tanks. This won't be possible with the data I get with my (another) app (not released yet). Maybe we should go more into detail about what you like to do. To give a first aspect about how it works: I made an app which reads out all unit data from the left and right side of the CM unit editor. Each item on the left and it's attached item on the right will be saved as one recordset, e.g. a Battalion consists of 1 item from the left and around 80 items on the right. So I save the first recordset "1;Battalion;1; BattalionHQ blablabla points blabla" and the second is "1; Battalion;2; CompanyHQ blablabla points blabla" etc. This way I know that the first item on the left side is a battalion which consists of around 80 subitems (i.e. 80 recordsets). Just for one month and one year I come to around 15.000 redordsets (infantry is the most recordset producer).(The excel limit is 64.000 rows by the way.) The gamemaster.exe just sorts the recordsets as they are shown in the CM unit editor and the battlecreator.exe clicks on the position in cm (remember the 1 in the example in front of "Battalion" which means it is the first item from the left in the CM unit editor; and the 2 "CompanyHQ" means the second item on the right screen. Maybe this helps you to get an idea what excel should be able to do if you want to code something. By the way, I decided to save battles and groups in a text format, because it should be easy to load or save such files in other application. I think it should be easy to load the files in excel and work with the data. Could be easier as to program all the stuff again. But let's talk about your idea in detail, maybe we can put some things together. @kingofthehill a little bit embarassing, but where did you find the COMDLG32.OCX? Just for the case someone asks me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofthehill Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: @kingofthehill a little bit embarassing, but where did you find the COMDLG32.OCX? Just for the case someone asks me. @Google, otherwise i have upload the file on my smart webspace, http://rabbithole.it/comdlg32.zip bye KotH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: @Joachim: 1. Programming language is Visual Basic. Problem was "learning by doing" so VB was the best choice for me. 2. Berlin, and you? Ok... did learn VBA the same way- though I spared the graphics and only used it for comparing and formatting lists Düsseldorf 3. Using Excel: I am not sure what you have in mind. As far as I understand these excel campaigns there 's an upgrade included (or am I wrong?) e.g. from June 1942 tanks to July 1942 tanks. This won't be possible with the data I get with my (another) app (not released yet). Maybe we should go more into detail about what you like to do. To give a first aspect about how it works: I made an app which reads out all unit data from the left and right side of the CM unit editor. Each item on the left and it's attached item on the right will be saved as one recordset, e.g. a Battalion consists of 1 item from the left and around 80 items on the right. So I save the first recordset "1;Battalion;1; BattalionHQ blablabla points blabla" and the second is "1; Battalion;2; CompanyHQ blablabla points blabla" etc. This way I know that the first item on the left side is a battalion which consists of around 80 subitems (i.e. 80 recordsets). Just for one month and one year I come to around 15.000 redordsets (infantry is the most recordset producer).(The excel limit is 64.000 rows by the way.) The gamemaster.exe just sorts the recordsets as they are shown in the CM unit editor and the battlecreator.exe clicks on the position in cm (remember the 1 in the example in front of "Battalion" which means it is the first item from the left in the CM unit editor; and the 2 "CompanyHQ" means the second item on the right screen. Maybe this helps you to get an idea what excel should be able to do if you want to code something. By the way, I decided to save battles and groups in a text format, because it should be easy to load or save such files in other application. I think it should be easy to load the files in excel and work with the data. Could be easier as to program all the stuff again. But let's talk about your idea in detail, maybe we can put some things together. The idea is basically the old Steel Panthers long campaign. Take a core force thru a long period, add some auxiliaries now and then who stay a bit and local support for every battle. Now you have a generator that is based on certain "given" parameters (given means someone comes up with a viable batch of parameters) that change over time. This generator provides the parameters for a CM battle a) Date. Based on Last battle, last result, amount of fighting in that period etc. Calculate random weather. Parameters for summers favor warm weather with clear skies, dawn is more often foggy than mid day etc. c) Calculate a random support force and a random enemy. d) Start QB with that parameters, usually after creating a scenario with a map and your core force. e) Buy support as it is allowed f) Play QB g) Note results for every unit h) Increase/decrease experience of units based on losses and kills i) Note which units are not there in the next battle. j) Next (quick) battle Sometimes your core force changes (usually twice a year, as formations/units are outdated). The problem is much book-keeping. So I wrote a tool that rolls a battle. The tool is under construction, next step is to ease the book-keeping on units, i.e you have an excel "units sheet" were you insert the kills and losses and Excel generates the new experience and availability for the next battle. What I'd like is a) a possibility to read the kill stats and the losses (probably not covered by your app) to insert them into the units sheet Some kind of automated buy routine for your core force based on the unit sheets of my tool And the ultimate goal: c) Some automated routine doing the whole buy process for each qb... ... ok... ignore this one Checking your tool till the weekend... Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarquon Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Wow! This is impressive. I will test it, just one question first: how exactly (through what interface) did you get the data out of the editor? OK, two questions: how did you figure out the binary *.cme file format? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 @Kingofthehill thanks a lot. I've stolen the *.ocx from your homepage and added it on my hp @Joachim so when you're living in Düsseldorf why do you sit at the computer instead of moving through the bars, deadly drunken of cause? a) to read the losses is included (reads each unit on the battlefield, those who are not on the battlefield are seen to be dead). the statistics after a battle is not included but not a big thing to read out. If you look to the folder "Groupfiles" you find a file "CMBB Axis sample (Sept 1941).txt" in which a sample army is given. I made a test with excel see picture and exported the units to excel from the file. The same thing is possible with a losses list. The only thing you would have to do is to write a procedure which compares the names of the army with those from the losses/casulty list and actualize the amount of men. There are some difficulties with half squads and how to find out if a tank is KO but there are ways to solve too. Goes this in the right direction? @Zarquon Thank you. I am scanning screenshots taken from the editor and from the map after a battle. There's no binary reading of cm files. Not a big thing when you've found out how to read the Bitmap data. It's much more stressy to handle those f***ing huge masses of data . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: @Joachim so when you're living in Düsseldorf why do you sit at the computer instead of moving through the bars, deadly drunken of cause? Cause the Altstadt is for prolls and the harbour for Schicki-Mickis And I hate Altbier. Nope, the reason is ... a beautiful girl Hey, I heard Berlin is as dead as Bonn now the government and the public servants moved there a) to read the losses is included (reads each unit on the battlefield, those who are not on the battlefield are seen to be dead). the statistics after a battle is not included but not a big thing to read out. If you look to the folder "Groupfiles" you find a file "CMBB Axis sample (Sept 1941).txt" in which a sample army is given. I made a test with excel see picture and exported the units to excel from the file. The same thing is possible with a losses list. The only thing you would have to do is to write a procedure which compares the names of the army with those from the losses/casulty list and actualize the amount of men. There are some difficulties with half squads and how to find out if a tank is KO but there are ways to solve too. Goes this in the right direction? Yes! Checked with a current battle, but then recognized import does not work without prior export Experience is what you gather when you read the manual afterwards... What is needed exactly is the losses, the destroyed/burning/abandoned tanks for each side the kills per unit - a problem as separating the kills into infantry, guns, bunkers, vehicles and tanks is a problem... but exporting the kills stats to excel as graphics could do - the user then has to decide it, but does not need to switch between CM and excel. Counting the numbers of destroyed/burning/abandoned enemy tanks, guns and mortars is a tough nut to crack.... but if it doesn't work, I could change the rules... Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japanzer Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 I've tried your software.(on Windows XP Japanese edition) Your tool is very interesting. When I saw your tool entered parameters and scanned units infomation automatically, I was surprised. In the Battlecreator, "Export Battle" works successfully. But, "Read Units" works unsuccessfully. It scan units and generates units'names, but doesn't pick up the numbers of men and casualities as follows. --------------------------------------------------------- BattleData: 29 UntNFrickNNNNNNNNNN1Nsqd?N3Nplt?NANcoNNMot\NReconN41NSqd 0 0 UntNKuntzNNNNNNNNNN2Nsqd?N3Nplt?NANcoNNMot\NReconN41NSqd 0 0 --------------------------------------------------------- May I say my proposal? The selection of experience by individual unit(sqd), not by platoon. The assignment of HQ's special abilities. "Read units" reads the kill information of the units. If your tool has these functions, I think that it is more useful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 destroyed/burning/abandoned tanks this is a problem. I can say that a tank is dead but not if it is burning or destroyed (to separate abandoned tanks should be possible with some lines of code) the kills per unit - a problem as separating the kills into infantry, guns... no problem You should go to gamemaster.exe, build a large group (around 60-80 units from all sections (inf., guns, tanks etc.), create a battle and export and play this scenario with an AI force. Get as much casulties as you can and then import it back and have a look at the import file. e.g. if a gun is knocked out you find the name either twice (1. the gun and 2. the crew) or only one time (crew left the map). In the first case you know the gun must be dead because there are 2 equal names (one must be the crew which left the gun). In the second case you see only the gun and this must have men =0 and cas = 3 (or so). and 0 men means knocked out!! The same works for tanks, vehicles, mortars, guns and bunkers. All other units (infantry, arty, support like MGs) suffer only casulties, there's no knock out. Hope this helps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 @Japanzer It scan units and generates units'names, but doesn't pick up the numbers of men and casualities as follows. Thanks for the bug report. Can you send me a screenshot of your CM map/battle (please click on a unit so that I can see a name and the casulty). Then I'll try to fix that, probably has to do with the Japanese Windows version.... webmaster@gillspye.de The selection of experience by individual unit(sqd), not by platoon. The assignment of HQ's special abilities. "Read units" reads the kill information of the units. A and I feared this proposal!! This is easy to code but will have a heavy impact on some files the apps create. Will have a look at it next weekend. Thank you Japanzer! C) this is a bug - please send me that screenshot! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joachim Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Good news on the tanks. Destroyed or burning is less crucial, abandoned is important. The kills per unit you answered is not what I meant. I mean the kill stat of an individual unit (big black unit stats window when you hit enter on the unit, "kills" page). To raise the exp of an individual unit, it is necessary to check its kills and thus read that black window... E.g. ----------------------------- 17 infantry casualties caused 1 T34-M41 destroyed ----------------------------- BTW: I strongly second Japanzers proposal to be able to select the exp and bonus for each unit. I'd even add ammo to that list! And I guess what he wants for "Read units" is exactly what I described above. R"ead units" should read not only the own losses but the losses inflicted upon the enemy, too Gruß Joachim 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Deuce Posted February 13, 2004 Share Posted February 13, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: I need one or even two serious testers for a campaign tool for windows. The issue is to give Gamemasters some help and support to run campaigns without those masses of paperwork.webmaster@gillspye.de I think I might Love You ! ! ! Between this tool and Pal Woje's COCAT my Campaigns will become a lot easier to run. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 13, 2004 Author Share Posted February 13, 2004 @Joachim no good news I guess 1. Good news on the tanks. Destroyed or burning is less crucial, abandoned is important. auweia/oooops: I made a mistake. the "Abandoned" text is not a text, it's a bitmap from the bitmap folder. So the issue would be to comparing this bitmap (part of the screenshot) with the one in the cm folder. This is similiar to reading the text but will change a lot in the code...and I don't really see the big benefit. 2. I mean the kill stat of an individual unit sounds like a different project. I can't handle those data (same as for 'Abandoned' tanks) in the 'gamemaster.exe'. I even don't think a campaign master/manager would use it. So, could be the next step/project, but this one isn't finished, yet. I received just one bug report but lots of proposals.....this way I won't finish the thing ever 3. select the exp and bonus for each unit Yes, will be added. experience for each unit is already included in the files, I just have to adding the selection boxes on the form and the 'clicking'. 'Bonus'is important and will be added. 4. I'd even add ammo to that list! Forget it. Really, that is awful. I tried that in the beginning and found out that those things have to be skiped!! Have a look at the unit editor where you can change the ammo. Watch out that e.g. for one unit the 1. field is HE and the 2. smoke, and for another unit the 1. field is AP, 2. HE, 3. something else and 4. smoke (so a different order for different tanks). That's in the english version, but in the German there is not HE but SP and not AP but PZ and in the French ???, hahaha. So I don't recommend to try that except you want to become crazy. Sorry... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofthehill Posted February 13, 2004 Share Posted February 13, 2004 Sorry for "OT" but what is thr Pal Woje's COCAT ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyewacket Posted February 14, 2004 Author Share Posted February 14, 2004 Cocat is the mother of all tools: Cocat 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofthehill Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 Originally posted by Pyewacket: Cocat is the mother of all tools: Thanks man, there are other interesting tools(Excluded mods tools)?that you know? (Probably this is a stupid question, perhaps you are writen just a tool because you knew that there are not any of interesting). After COCAT obviusly. Good work KotH 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 Hi! Wow! This looks interesting. I'd love to take a closer look at PCT if you still need testers! Regards, Pål Woje 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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