Report here oddities after Patch1# for LV _mosh

[Al Boone]

In earlier threads above, I inquired about the effect of core losses. It seems that I have encountered the same missing rank situation as noted in the above thread. The J2 unit, noted above, was supposedly killed, but suffered no penalties in the next scenario except that the leader, Sgt. Kinkel, has no military rank. Sgt. Kinkel is still Kinkel, but with no rank designation. If this means that he was killed, the logical thought is that a new name and rank would appear, not simply retaining all attributes, but losing all military rank. Brent suggested that he may not have been killed and therefore retained his attributes, but losing rank does not seem to fit within that thesis.

[RockinHarry]

This might be a bug of the inherent replacement system and I think it has nothing to do with the core.dat file problem that has been patched already.

It´s very annoying to have a destroyed leader to be replaced with a much lower ranked leader or in the above case with no rank at all. Did you guys encounter any other problems with these units?

I think the only issue that might arise with new low rank leaders in core force is when playing with CC set to on. They probably get fewer command points to use. The LVMC wasn´t designed with CC set on though.

_________
Harry

[Grenadier]

Now, I'm confused, Al. You started this by saying the unit J2 was destroyed but that in the next battle, Sgt Kinkel was still there and with higher experience and Morale. Now you appear to be saying thhat Kinkel is there without a rank.

Does he have higher morale and experience or lower experience and morale? What about the unit itself? Is it higher in experience or lower?

This is two different issues and as such Steel Panthers was made for single combat, not campaigns, as such, the engine assumes that in the battle, if the leader was killed then his adjutant or another soldier in the squad took over for the duration of the battle. Gary Grigsby did not anticipate player designed campaigns as such and as all battles are resolved, the leader replacement issue was not taken any further. The game engine replaces a Sgt with a lower rank in the heat of battle. All player designed campaigns are supposedly under the same constraints as the battles are all scenarios. If the AO is killed, it is replaced by the adjutant, for a colonel , this is usually a leiutenant.

Perhaps the leader was demoted if his perfornmance cost him his men. That would make sense. This is only conjecture. You would be best writing Mike Wood and asking him.

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Node 11A:
No location and wrong date.
Is it possible that the map was saved as "desert" (in the small window in the upper right I see sand, not plains).

(These are really just details that have no influence on gameplay)

Roland

[BryanMelvin]

Whoops - Node 11A was mine. What is the date you see and yes, the settings were set as desert settings so that the choking blinding Russian Steppe dust would get into a players eyes

The desert settings are correct

Originally posted by RolandRahn
Node 11A:
No location and wrong date.
Is it possible that the map was saved as "desert" (in the small window in the upper right I see sand, not plains).

(These are really just details that have no influence on gameplay)

Roland

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Originally posted by BryanMelvin
Whoops - Node 11A was mine. What is the date you see and yes, the settings were set as desert settings so that the choking blinding Russian Steppe dust would get into a players eyes

The desert settings are correct

Hi,

the date I see is "6/1/41".
Thanks for your clarification of the desert-steppe effect.

Kind regards,
Roland

PS: Just to prevent any misunderstanding: MCLV is great (apart from the fact that I haven't enough time to play it)
.

[Adrian]

Well its happened again. In the 3rd battle trying to save the Brandenburgers at the bridge one of my core force stugs was destroyed with the total loss of its crew. Now that stug is racing about with one of the famous . commanders with stats all in their 20s. Funnily enough this hasnt happend to any of the other units ive managed to lose completely (all recon). Sorry if this opens a can of worms that was thought closed.

[skukko]

Hi

We have quite good explaines of how leaders/crews/units are replaced on the core, here in forum. This is MC-code thing, not a bug but merely its behavior.

mosh

[FNG]

We have quite good explaines of how leaders/crews/units are replaced on the core, here in forum. This is MC-code thing, not a bug but merely its behavior.
[/B]

Are there any tools to edit lost leaders? After Dubno, I have three StuGs with unnamed leaders and stats in the 20s. I tried the MCNA campfix from Fabio's site, but the 'blank' leaders aren't listed to be edited.

Am I stuck with StuGs that can't hit the side of a KV-2 from five yards?

[Grenadier]

If you lost the crews under normal combat, then the replacements are green until they have played a couple of battles, just like a normal campaign. That is why you should do everything possible to rescue a crew from the battledfield

[Jeff_Ewing]

Originally posted by skukko
Hi

We have quite good explaines of how leaders/crews/units are replaced on the core, here in forum. This is MC-code thing, not a bug but merely its behavior.

mosh

Pardon me for butting in, but I think there are 2 different issues here. The explanation you cite is for what's referred to as "Immortal Leaders", and I agree, it's a good one and I agree it's not a bug

What's under discussion here is the different case, often referred to as "Lost Leaders". In this case the new, replacement leader has no name, no rank, and his rally, infantry, artillery and armor scores range from 0 to about 20. This problem has bedeviled MCNA. I would characterize this as a bug.

There is a stand alone VB utility by Anthony Utano, who deserves the praise and thanks of all MCNA players at:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/SPWAW%2 ... pFixer.zip

I have no trouble downloading from this locale, but one should beware the line wrap.

I've opened the .cam file from Watchtower as well as from MCNA with this, so I'm guessing it will work for MCLV as well (haven't started it yet myself.)

Jeff

[FNG]

Originally posted by Jeff_Ewing


Pardon me for butting in, but I think there are 2 different issues here. The explanation you cite is for what's referred to as "Immortal Leaders", and I agree, it's a good one and I agree it's not a bug

What's under discussion here is the different case, often referred to as "Lost Leaders". In this case the new, replacement leader has no name, no rank, and his rally, infantry, artillery and armor scores range from 0 to about 20. This problem has bedeviled MCNA. I would characterize this as a bug.

Jeff

Exactly how I see it. I've tried the campfix utility, but it does not list the leaders that have "disappeared".

[RedMike]

I'm running LV v1.1, the sound patch, and SPWaW v7.1.
The problem is I'm not receiving any radio broadcasts during briefings. Also the auto run installation program is crashing; had to install LV manually. Else OK. The radio broadcast sound files are in the sound folder and I can click on them to hear them but they don't play during the game. Any help at all is welcome. Thanks!!

[RockinHarry]

Hi,

Things I found out about the *.cam file content that might help people like Anthony to write some utility for Lost Victories maybe:

Byte 48 current turn
Byte 50 current Node Number
Byte 54 campaign total score
Byte 6c battles played?
Byte 70 Wound Badge (01)
Byte 74 Assault Badge (01)
Byte 78 Tank Combat Badge (01)
Byte 7C Iron Cross (01)
Byte 80 Knights Cross (01)
Byte 84 Knights Cross + Oak Leaves (01)
Byte 88 Knights Cross + Swords (01)
Byte 90 ?

---------------------------------------

(CF=Core force)

0270-02AB CF Experience

0400-043B CF Morale

0590-0913 CF general Data/Leader names/ command structure?

1D00-1D3B CF Ranks/Leaders

1E90-1ECB CF RallyRatings

2020-20D3 CF Inf/Art/Arm Rating sequential

24D0-250B CF Unit Kills Score

27F0-2805 ???

---------------------------

I used a common shareware Hex Editor and trial and error methods, but finally managed to repair old save games from before #1 patch.

I still recommend to restart the LV MegaCam with the #1 patch if encountering the "messed" leader problem from the initial LV release, but the "Rank" problem can be addressed with the info above pretty well. Off course it also can be used for "cheat" editing! You call.

Example on rank: Hex "1D00" holds info for A0 unit and values all go from 0 (no rank) to 9 (General). Captain=06. The other leaders follow sequentially. Look for the "00" ones and promote!

Section 0590-0913 is pretty messed up in corrupted *.cam files, but I couldn´t find out about the true data structure.
Anthony?

BTW: ALWAYS work on backup files!

___________
Harry

[Anthony_MatrixForum]

I am not too sure what people mean by "not seeing leaders that have disappeared"

1. If their slot is visible(id<40), then recreate them - thats what the tool is for.

2. If they are in slot with id >= 40 (the max in MCNA is about 36) then they are not shown. ( this is set in code to improve performance). If someone tells me how many campaign leaders units there are for MC-NA and MC-WT I will modify the code to allow access to all leaders for all MC. If I set this number too high the tool takes ages to fill in the data.....


The good news is that the file structure seems to be the same. There seems to be 400 slots in the campaign file for the leaders, most of which are not used.

The section 590 - 1b70 are the spaces for the names of the leaders; up-to two leaders (7 bytes each)

FYI - In MCNA we have

offset(dec):length(bytes):description
270(624): 400:exp
400(1024): 400:morale
590(1424):5600:names for leaders
1B70(7024):400:???(is empty in MCNA)
1D00(7424):400:Rank
1E90(7824):400:Rally
2020(8224)Inf/arm/art command rating
24D0(9424):800?:Kills
27F0(10224):?:???? - something here, 15? bytes with value 02
after that all is empty


Anthony

[FNG]

Originally posted by Anthony
I am not too sure what people mean by "not seeing leaders that have disappeared"

1. If their slot is visible(id<40), then recreate them - thats what the tool is for.

2. If they are in slot with id >= 40 (the max in MCNA is about 36) then they are not shown. ( this is set in code to improve performance). If someone tells me how many campaign leaders units there are for MC-NA and MC-WT I will modify the code to allow access to all leaders for all MC. If I set this number too high the tool takes ages to fill in the data.....

Anthony

First of all, thanks for all the work you have put in on this.

The leaders that I can't see must have an ID > 40. When I get home tonight I'll count just how many there are and post the details here.

Thanks again.

[FNG]

There are sixty leaders in the LV core force.

[Bing]

"There is a stand alone VB utility by Anthony Utano, who deserves the praise and thanks of all MCNA players at:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/SPW...S/CampFixer.zip

I have no trouble downloading from this locale, but one should beware the line wrap. "

===================================

This might be just my browser / cable IP, but I got nothing from the above link except an error page. Going directly to Fabio's Armor Site and clicking on "Downloads" got me in with no trouble at all.

Bing

[Steiner]

First off, I want to say that I haven't played a computer game as addictive as LV in a long, long time. I keep trying "just one more turn." This is a great wargame.

Anyway, a bug that I've noticed started just before the Dubno scenario (the last part of the Recon at Radziechow scenarios) and has continued into Dubno. A couple of my units have an infantry graphic but sound like a vehicle and can only move one hex at a time, and are only able to move a few hexes in total. They can't shoot either.

In the Dubno scenario, one is named Vebber (as in A0 Vebber) so I seem to have two Vebbers on the field!!!

But the other Vebber doesn't do much of anything--"The Man Who Wasn't There?" or some body double? Anyway, it doesn't have much of an effect on gameplay, except that I now have a couple of useless units.

[Steiner]

Well, after loading LV up today the odd units seem to have disappeared. I'm not sure if they were replaced, but they are gone. So, no problems for now. All is back to normal.