Bug report

[Knokke]

Perhaps others too can use this thread to report bugs they've found in ToW3 Korea?

Here are the first problems I noticed:

-A minor bug (still present since ToW2 Africa): truck doors are often staying open after passengers disembarked. It looks a bit weird to see the trucks driving with opened passenger door.

- After finishing my first battle of the campaign, the game returned me to the desktop instead of saving the progress after the distribution of combat experience to my squads. Log.lst indicate an error like that:

*** FAILURE *** [sYSTEM] Main loop: null

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError

-Looking at the log.lst file, it appears there is several errors with a misplaced building of the type KOREA_GARDEN_STRUCTURE_006 on the map KOREA_MAP_03

(!!!!!!!!!!!! initWeaponEmplacement() in Models\Environment\Building\KOREA_GARDEN_STRUCTURE_006\hier.him failed !!!!!!!!!!

not found walkable cells).

The entrance of said building is probably located just between two pathfinding cells, making the interior of the building inaccessible to the soldiers.

-I'm not a big fan of the new moral system though (perhaps I don't understand very well what is happening). It seems that panicking soldiers are throwing their weapons away while trying to run away from the fighting. What is annoying however, is that once they're rallied, their weapons are no longer to be found anywhere. They simply seems to have vanished.

-Something that looks like the issue just above: surrendered soldiers seems to get rid of their ammunition, as it can be captured by my troops, but their weapons can't be found either. Also, the soldiers don't really seems "captured", as they're simply left where they surrendered, can't be moved, and looks simply neutral.

Other than that, the game runs smoothly. Infantry survival is much better than in the previous titles, thanks to the new fragmentation model and the extra ground cover "layer". This should make happy thoses who where mourning grieviously their decimated pixel soldiers in the previous versions. I would say this looks like the best version till the beginning of the serie. If is difficult to form an opinion just after one battle, but it seems the missions are much more balanced than previously and should not frustrate the players so much.

I do miss the "scout" order button a lot though. I wish it could still be there, as it was nice to be able to sneak near the ennemy positions and opening fire only when 50m-100m close

[pcelt]

Again a minor gliche --but having created some battles with the Simple Editor i find that selecting the button "Save and Start TOW" always causes a crash and a bug message to Microsoft.

But if you just Save the battle and then restart the game yourself the battles load successfully----so no great problem- but the other button should work (as it always has in other TOW created battles)

NB I agree with Knokke re the absence of the "scout" or "Sneak" order for infantry---I too very much miss this movement option.

--but I do very much appreciate the new "binocular" view--just wish it could be back-patched to Kursk/Caen etc.

[Sneaksie]

By the way, do you use the new ammunition selection hotkeys? You can set them up in Settings - Controls - User. This way you can, for example, order all selected tanks switch to MGs only or order selected soldiers to ready AT grenades at once.

[Knokke]

Thanks for the tip, Sneaksie.

An other bug that I found is much more annoying:

Soldiers and vehicles that have already participated in a battle are disappearing from the force pool and are never to be seen again. After a campaign turn is completed, and I'm fighting a new battle with a battlegroup that had fought the previous turn, I'm expecting to see all trophies I captured listed in the force pool, and i'm expecting to be able to field the troops that had gained experience during the previous battle. But none of them are visible in the force pool. Even worse, vehicles who participated in the previous battle and survived unscathed simply disappear from the list. I had 8 T-34-85, I used 4 of them in a battle - all survived - but now I have only 4 T-34 left in the force pool. All vehicles, guns, squads...etc... who survived the first battle and gained experience as well as the trophies captured have simply vanished. I looks like the game is considering them to have died during the battle.

In effect, it means that each new battle is fought with green troops, as the only available units are the one who never participated in a battle.

Am I right to assume this is a bug, or will the troops who gained experience be available again in the force pool after they're coming back from rest & release?

[Lemonade]

I can confirm this. The troops, that participated in the tactical battle, simply vanish. There seems to be no trace of them afterwards.:eek:

[Arzok]

I saw troops with increasing experience, so for me, it can work (sometime)

[Knokke]

@Arzok

Did you notice if the troops with increased experience where really the same that the ones who participated in previous battles or is it possible that they were better experienced reinforcements that were added to your force pool when you captured a specific map? And if they where really the same troops, did they manage to keep captured equipment?

I usually change the names of the squads in the order of battle to keep better track of their progress, and I've not been able to find them again (only squads with generic names appears in my force pool).

[Lemonade]

It's turn three of the North Korean campaign and my 2nd Tank Regiment, after fighting two or three battles, is down to only one T-34/85 tank and four SU-76Ms even though I did not lost a single vehicle! Same thing happened to other units in the Regiment and to units in the rest of my battle groups! They simply vanished, vaporized, gone forever. What the heck?

This is a major bug! How could it slip through the testing phase?

[Hellmann]

Wow that's an amazing bug, thanks for reporting! I was thinking of buying this soon, mostly because of the improved campaigns, but now if they don't actually work...!?

Hopefully it'll be an easy thing to fix, like perhaps a bad line of code or something that we could edit ourselves...

Anyway I'll definitely be holding-off buying until there's a fix, thanks again for the heads-up.

[Lemonade]

Turn 5. All of my North Korean groups that participated in the fights are running low on soldiers. Infantry divisions without infantry and AT guns, Tank Regiment without tanks. I haven't noted any casualties, but still, some invisible force is disintegrating my troops. I guess 1C has implemented some very nasty case of pixel smallpox that got to the soldiers.

I can't move those groups to the rear and replace them with fresh formations due to the inability to switch places with other groups (only one battle group can occupy the province at once, and the movement is done in real time, not during the resolve phase). And all the provinces in the rear are already occupied.

Am I and Knokke the only ones who experience this? Anyone?

[Arzok]

@Knokke, I improve first scout capability

And I notice some troops later in the campaign with scout capability (not the full squad, as some soldiers died...). So I am sure of that.

mais je ne peux pas jurer que c'était exactement les mêmes soldats, je n'ai pas tenu le compte...

And I captured some 105mm, that I saw in another battle. So I guess it was the same.

For the name, perhaps the game does not keep the name of the soldiers in memory, so for each battle, it gives names randomly...

[Knokke]

Could it be that the bug is related with the choice of the historical battlegroups option? That's what I selected.

[Lemonade]

I have Historical Units Set turned on too. @Arzok, how about you?

[Arzok]

I did not notice this option

So probably, it is not turn ON...

I will check, but I am working on skin for TOW 1 ...

[Lemonade]

I think this may be it! I have restarted the PRK campaign without this option and it seems that my units are still there after their first battle. Phew! Who would have known?

[Knokke]

Then, that must be it. By default, the historical battlegroups option is not selected.

I don't know why this has an influence though.

[Smash]

Complete shutdown of TAW; Korea when retreat button is pushed with battle of Pusan.

Play American forces; Campaign US Counteroffensive.

Third Battle America forces attack North Korea in Pusan area. (

After retreat button you get retreat screen and after pushing'continue' button Defeat screen appears> move back to the strategic map but TOW; Korea shuts down completely and go back to Windows desktop.

[Sneaksie]

The historical battlegroups option removes IS-2 tanks from NKA if checked since only Chinese had them in this war (and there are no Chinese troops in the game), otherwise all is the same. Looks like both internal and external testing teams played happily with this option turned off...

[Lemonade]

Yeah, that certainly looks like it, @Sneaksie. I had this option turned on in my previous PRK campaign and troops kept disappearing from my battle groups.

Are you sure that this option should disable IS-2 tanks presence in North Korean army? I'm asking this, because at one point, due to my groups being decimated by the bug, I reinforced one of them with tank support (the one from the support frame of the strategic map), which gave it several T34-85 tanks and two IS-2s.

[Lemonade]

Game freezes for several seconds when a unit surrenders. Quite annoying. Maybe it's rig dependant as I don't have the fastest one (Core2 Quad Q9300@2.5GHz). Perhaps on newer systems this goes unnoticed.

[Sneaksie]

Yes, it should give no IS-2 tanks by default, i guess reserve tanks are not affected by this. Did you have IS-2 while playing with this option turned on?

[Lemonade]

From the beginning? Not in my battle groups, no. Not until I used that tank support.

[Lemonade]

What happened to pathfinding? It was very good in Kursk and Caen, but here in Korea it's almost non-existent. Most of the time infantry forgets where it should go. Sometimes I order it to move to a certain place, only to find out later that squad is scattered all over the map. That, or the infantrymen picking the weirdest routes possible. Once in a while they even go in the opposite direction. Or some of them just stop in one place, unable to move. I have to micromanage to release them from the "clutches" of earth. Sometimes it takes lots of clicking in various points near the unit to unstuck it. If I leave them in their movement, soon I have one squad divided into two or three with several men still sitting in their starting position.

Same with vehicles. But here at least I can understand this behaviour for I know how difficult the terrain in Korea was for either tracked or wheeled vehicle (although I bet it's the same pathfinding case). Most of the time they were unable to drive off the road.

Oh, and that reminds me about something. Are roads just an eye candy? I haven't noticed any positive (ie. speed boost) or negative (low cover) effects on any of the unit types.

PS. Two screen shots to show what I'm talking about:

I've issued an assault order to this squad and moved the camera away to oversee combat in some other place. After a minute or two, I found this squad to be divided into two parts, one at the destination and the second still remaining at the start location. I've issued another order to those stragglers, but guess what. Some moved, some got stuck again.

This tank's movement destination is marked by "30m Grass" label. You can clearly see what twisted path it has chosen. What's worse it stopped at the point pictured on the image and did not want to move further. The assault order icon was still highlighted, so I guess he was still trying to complete the movement. I had to show him a detour.

These things are VERY common and VERY frustrating. Especially when you have a lot of distance to cover, a lot of units and you're in a pressing situation. You want to pull up some reinforcements quickly, but you soon realize that they're in a complete mess, taking paths a sane person would never take, stopping, moving back, left, right... God. Sometimes I get the impression that I'm not fighting with the opponent but with my own units.

[Lemonade]

Okay, I might have sounded a bit harsh in my last post, but that's because the mission I have played just before I wrote, was the third in a row with serious pathfinding problems and at one point I felt extremely frustrated. I think the pathfinding problems might occur because of the terrain we're dealing with. Lots of narrow passages, hills, banks... Maybe this makes the pathfinding routines go crazy? Sometimes units behave as they should. But there are times when everything goes crazy and infantry/vehicles, if ordered to move, go wherever they want to, choosing complicated routes to destination, or they just sit still like statues when it's too much for them.

[kakaprutt]

Okay, I might have sounded a bit harsh in my last post, but that's because the mission I have played just before I wrote, was the third in a row with serious pathfinding problems and at one point I felt extremely frustrated. I think the pathfinding problems might occur because of the terrain we're dealing with. Lots of narrow passages, hills, banks... Maybe this makes the pathfinding routines go crazy? Sometimes units behave as they should. But there are times when everything goes crazy and infantry/vehicles, if ordered to move, go wherever they want to, choosing complicated routes to destination, or they just sit still like statues when it's too much for them.

you're right, pathfinding is worst than ever. i've seen some infantry stuck on a tree while the rest of the squad is 200m away, loosing guys in fighting is ok, loosing guys in woodcutting is not really welcome !!

very often units are ordered to move 100 m forwad, they go left for 30m, then stop.

with tow3 you need to do more micro management thant before because of this insane pathfinding behaviour.