Bridges CTD

[Mehring]

Here's a problem I've frequently encountered, particularly playing Elasson Rearguard, perhaps as it is such a frequent occurence in this scenario. The blowing or completing construction of bridges is often if not usually followed by a crash. On several occasions even beginning the scenario with a number of units set to "deny crossing" seemed to crash the game.

[Arjuna]

Mehring,
 
Are you sure it is a crash? When a crossing is constructed or blown a full recalc of the map terrain must be done. This takes about a minute on my old machine ( P4 2.6 ). During that time the game appears frozen, though you should have received a warning message first.
 
If you still think it is a crash:
 
Do you have a screen shot of the error message?
 
Do you have a saved game just prior to the crash, from which I can repeat the crash? If so, then please email it to me at support[at]panthergames[dot]com.
 
 

[Mehring]

Y, it's definitly a crash, not a freeze, microsoft error report and all. It's happened more than half dozen times now. There's no CotA error mesage. I emailed you the file of the last Elasson game it happened several times. I think it's saved just before the bridge completes.

I got through it in the end after changing to slow game speed but I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

Another thing I notice with regard to bridge construction/destruction is the use of engineers.

In the case of "deny crossing" command an engineer under a higher HQ will not necessarily be put to prime a bridge or even deployed near it, even when the yellow deployment box is narrowed down to 300m x 300m and carefully placed by the bridge. Several times I had to do this manually. Is this a sign of poor judgement on the part of the HQ?

I also tried constructing bridges with single and multiple engineer units attached to larger units (battalion size). Here I found that the additional non-engineer units did not fatigue at all although they did appear to speed up construction in some but not all cases. They appeared set to "defend." When the engineer decided to rest, however, construction stopped. In the case of the multi-engineer construction groups, when one engineer decided to rest and would not wake, other fresh bridging/engineer units, also in defend mode, were not put to work. Again I had to issue a manual command for a single engineer unit.

I find this strange not least because the commanding HQs on several occasions issued orders to subordinate organic units, to pass from one side of the river to the other and sometimes back again (not via the uncompleted bridge) as if they were involved in co ordinating construction. Or was this part of the "defend" mission they had assumed, in spite of the "construct bridge" order?

[lian]

I have a crash what may be similar to this. The crash happens at a very particuliar time (9h54) whatever I choose in options and there is a bridge ready to blow . I got an error message from the game saying it must close.

[Arjuna]

Mehring,
 
I'm onto it.
 
TT3266 - ? - CTD in Mehring's Elasson Saved Game  - bridge completion

[Arjuna]

lian,
 
Welcome.
 
First thing is to get a saved game where the crash can be repeated. Can you please send me one? BTW what scenario?

[Mehring]

Thanks

[lian]

The scenario was "Tempe: pulling tight the nooze" and I was playing Germans. But sorry, I have not keep the saved game :-( -I thought I had but I did begin one more time the scenario and saved on the previously savings. Too bad -I feel like an idiot.

[Arjuna]

Mehring,
 
I ran your scenario and cannot get it to crash. How much RAM do you have available on your machine. Please send me a DX report - see here for details on how: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1136227
 

[Arjuna]

Mehring,
 
When the bridge is reconstructed, it rebuilds the terrain table and this takes some time ( 30 seconds ). Can you recall if you interacted with the user interface in any way - ie clicked on the map and gave orders - just before or straight after the bridge was rebuilt?

[Arjuna]

Mehring,
 
I got it to crash by using the UI during the recalc of terrain tables after the bridge is constructed. Looks like we need to do the same thing we did when demolishing a crossing - ie handle the messaging and recalcing in separate events. I'm working on this now. I will get back soon.

[lian]

I've got 1 Go Mo and here is the DxDiag.txt

[Arjuna]

lian,
 
Can you recall if it occured just after constructing a bridge?

[lian]

In my case, I thought it happened when a bridge was going to blow (I had no problem with blowing bridges in other scenarios). But, I cannot be sure at 100%

[Arjuna]

Thanks.