Multiplayer bugs in ver 4.4

Skotty · Post by **Skotty** » Sat Oct 21, 2000 7:39 pm

I had a thread going about "bugs" or burps we had encountered in ver 4.3b multiplayer games some of which may have been squashed in 4.4, but I will continue to post any which to be a burp in ver 4.4.

One thing that happened last night in a US v GE battle in 45 has to deals with 2 Chaffee tanks that came back to life after being destroyed. One Chaffee got a top hit from a 20mm burst and blew up, crew bailed out, and the Chaffee blew up. Their bad day didn't end yet, cuz in the next turn or two, a DO-217 dropped a few 250kg bombs on thier heads, killing them all. Then, by some divine intervention a couple of turns later, the Chaffee came back to life with full crew and I was back in contol of the unit. I could move the Chaffee, and when I did, the burning hulk grafix was still there in the hex it got ko'd! Lucky for me, but not very realistic.
Another Chaffee got rattled so bad the crew bailed and was cowering under the tank. I recall 3 crew members out of the tank. A couple of turns later, I had another 2 crew members as a separate unit in the same hex. Now I have a 3 man crew unit and a 2 man crew unit, both from the same Chaffee. A few turns later the 2 man crew got back in the tank and manned the weapons but the other 3 man crew just hung outside. Is it possible that a vehicle crew can get split up, and have a partial crew man the weapon again if rallied? The Chaffee was immbolized, and only the main gun and a 30 cal was operational after the 2 man crew got back in. I have never seen this happen in single player.

Skotty · Post by **Skotty** » Thu Oct 26, 2000 9:39 pm

Two more odd things occured last night in a battle US v GE, May 45, meeting.

1) I was playing US and had smoked 3 PSW 8-rad ACs that simply popped back to life after being destroyed, Immediately after getting shot up. 2 where killed by 20mm AAgun fire and one was flambe'd by and engineer squad. After the units blew up, the wreck graphix was drawn, the text message was brought up that is was KO'd, and then bingo, AC's popped back up like a Phoenix!!! Leaving the smoke and wreakage behind. This has also happend with Chaffees in other battles.
2) Air stikes were not consistant between the to players. On the US PC(server) a JU-88 made a very effective bombing run, and the flew off only taking light damage from AA. On the German PC(client), the Ju-88 made the same effective run, but was shot down shortly after the run and fireballed into the ground.
Again, the 2 PC's are P-II400's,128mb ram,8mb FireGL Prg agp,100mbit lan.

bradmcm · Post by **bradmcm** » Sun Oct 29, 2000 4:53 am

There is stil a problem with
VCR replays under 4.4.
Most of the turns I do in a PBEM
game will replay the full replay
but every few turns or so, the
VCR will stop prematurely.
It is better than 4.2 but still
infuriates the heck out of me.

Scipio Africanus · Post by **Scipio Africanus** » Sun Oct 29, 2000 9:11 am

I'm convinced that PBEM is a lost cause. Forget it, something got screwed up in the switch from 2.3-4.0 and no one seems to know what. In the middle of a big battle in 4.4, I just had a 9 second replay (at 2+ megs of download). I have not seen an Artillery replay since 2.3. I've said it before and I'll say it again- the computers are the same ones that ran 2.3 without a hitch. I have no problems with any other programs. Both systems have plenty of RAM etc. All of the settings are correct on both machines.

PBEM is broken, has been broken, and will remain broken. The problem may be specific to certain configurations (I'll wager its hardware, probably chipset or RAM type), but that's still a bug.

------------------
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

Desert Fox · Post by **Desert Fox** » Sun Oct 29, 2000 11:30 am

Yeah, the 'nine lives bug' is a real pain, unless its your Tigers coming back from the life. There is definitely something wrong with data transfer between host and the other player(s). Sometimes this problem results in the above mentioned bug where a unit comes back to life. Other times, you will not see your unit get destroyed at all, not even a burning wreckage will be in the hex.
My belief is that these stem from the same problem, somewhere between what happens on one computer and what is told to the other one.
However, there are also timer bugs. Timeouts apparently do nothing. Op fire does not stop the timer from counting down. There are probably some other related timer bugs, but it just always counts down, regardless of what is going on. It may graphically stop for some time, but when it starts displaying again, you will see a large time loss. After an op fire, for example, maybe 10 to 15 extra seconds are lost off the clock.
Some things I would also like to see is to get rid of that complete control lockout when searching for the host server. The entire computer just stops responding for a couple minutes while you wait for a connection. I would like the option to cancel the search at any time to regain control of my computer.
Also, the battle generator for online play is not very good. Terrain selection is not allowable. It simply makes up some terrain to use for the battle, often not what you really want for random terrain. I think that you should be able to select exactly what kind of terrain you want, not have it selected for you. I also think that you should be able to run the generator multiple times. Currently, if you do not like the map, you must exit the game and reconnect to get a new map.

Kharan · Post by **Kharan** » Sun Oct 29, 2000 10:30 pm

Originally posted by Scipio Africanus:
I'm convinced that PBEM is a lost cause. Forget it, something got screwed up in the switch from 2.3-4.0 and no one seems to know what. In the middle of a big battle in 4.4, I just had a 9 second replay (at 2+ megs of download). I have not seen an Artillery replay since 2.3. I've said it before and I'll say it again- the computers are the same ones that ran 2.3 without a hitch. I have no problems with any other programs. Both systems have plenty of RAM etc. All of the settings are correct on both machines.

PBEM is broken, has been broken, and will remain broken. The problem may be specific to certain configurations (I'll wager its hardware, probably chipset or RAM type), but that's still a bug.

Will you cut down on those negative waves, baby? Why don't you say something positive and righteous for once? lol

But seriously, if you want to do something useful, take notes of if the .rec file is always at it's max size (2.28MB) when your VCR stops prematurely.

My theory is that it gets filled by unit placement and move info (it's been at 1.86MB without any shooting or sighting happening at all) so that there is no room left for the firings, and it could be easily solved by hiking the max file size cap to 7MB (shouldn't be a problem as the rec file compresses nicely). It's definitely not machine specific, as was not the disappearing unit problem.

[This message has been edited by Kharan (edited October 29, 2000).]