June Release: WitPTracker now at 1.6!

Gary Grigsby's strategic level wargame covering the entire War in the Pacific from 1941 to 1945 or beyond.

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Ambassador
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Ambassador »

Hi all,

Floyd, Damian, I'm coming here with a completely new suggestion. And large-scale too. So, it's only a long-term suggestion, most probably not doable right now. It is threefold, but each part being related to the others. So, it's one -big- suggestion.

First, as WitPTracker is already tracking all these info, it would be to allow the user to "pick a date" and see the global situation at this date, in the various sheets of data, without needing to jump in the History sub-boxes. So that a player could easily discover which units were that what base at a certain date, which ships were in a given TF, who where the pilots of VMF-214 during a particular day in the past. I suppose the interest would be particularly acute for the AAR-writers and RPers, but it could be useful to compare two battles and see what where the differences that made you win one and lose the other. Or see, which LCU achieved in the past an obscure (at the time) victory that had dramatic (in the good sense) consequences several months later.

Second, when I finished my last short scenario game (Guadalcanal), I was sad I could not get info on the Japanese side for the 200 or so turns, only current (end) situation. So, would it be possible for Tracker to read the other side's data, store it somewhere, but keep it locked until the end of the game (be it auto-victory, common agreement, or will of the lone player) ? That way, you could then compare both side's situation in the past, see how (un)lucky you've been, how much damage your attacks really made, understand why you've been surprised at particular times, etc. Kind of like the work done by historians (Liddle Hart & co) who interviewed german officers could then put to the grave some common misconceptions of the Desert War, D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge.

And third, ... a map. A map where we could see the units, LCUs, ships, TF, airgroups, etc. To see the flow, devise strategies without needing to open WitP. Kind of what Bodhi's Utility, but with units instead of intel/ops/battles. Could be very useful when coupled with the two previous parts, when looking at the past, when looking for missed opportunities and lucky catches.[&o]



So, like I said, it's only a broad, long-term idea. You have more pressing changes to make I'm sure, but this is an idea I've had for a little while, and knowing my brain, I'd better share it now before forgetting about it.[;)]


And the new comparison interface for upgrades looks great. I can't wait for the next update.[:)]
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n01487477
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by n01487477 »

Not sure we can do any of this or not ...

1. Possible but a load of coding to achieve that ... I was thinking more about a future perspective first, something which Nemo alluded to some time ago. I want to see if I can put together a Centralised Planning Area for combat forces and production, time permitting...

2. Difficult, particularly in that the data can not be "hidden", using other DB utils you can see all the tables and data. But you could keep your game saves and at the end ask for your opponents password... or if he is using tracker swap the DB files

3. I'd prefer to build on Bohdi's fine work first and then maybe go down that track... still don't want to reinvent the "wheel" unless I can make it better...

Cheers
Damian
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Ambassador »

It's just an idea. It would be great if version 2.9 could do that, but nothing is urgent.
ORIGINAL: n01487477
1. Possible but a load of coding to achieve that ... I was thinking more about a future perspective first, something which Nemo alluded to some time ago. I want to see if I can put together a Centralised Planning Area for combat forces and production, time permitting...
I fail to understand what this CPA would look like...[&:]
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Nemo121
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Nemo121 »

A virtual sandbox in which players would be able to see what forces would be available on a given date in the future ( for both sides ) and then sandbox it out by moving units to various theatres to see what would be possible in terms of correlation of forces.
 
Would probably be a useful way for players to figure out the maximum size of enemy reserves --- a crucial component in all plans.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Ambassador
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Ambassador »

Oh yes, I concur, that's much more useful ![:)]
Ambassador
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Ambassador »

Well, sorry for the double-post, but I just remembered an idea I forgot to write down : in the Air group panel, an additional filter for the plane type (fighter, level bomber, recon, etc) would be great, as checking each model is a bit long.[;)]
Einbauschrank
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RE: WitPTracker now at 1.4

Post by Einbauschrank »

Hi there,

I don't seem to be able to get this tracker to run. I get the error

"the command java -jar is misspelled or could not be found" (I translated this from German).

Though I did install the altest Java application.

Any help would be much appreciated :)

Thanks

Patrick

floydg
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RE: WitPTracker now at 1.4

Post by floydg »

ORIGINAL: Einbauschrank

Hi there,

I don't seem to be able to get this tracker to run. I get the error

"the command java -jar is misspelled or could not be found" (I translated this from German).

Though I did install the altest Java application.

Any help would be much appreciated :)

Thanks

Patrick


Looks to me like it can't find Java at all. From a command window (CMD), can you start Java by just entering "java"?

Floyd
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
Einbauschrank
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Einbauschrank »

Thx for the hint, I have reset my PATH and now it works ;)
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invernomuto
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by invernomuto »

Could WITPTracker keeps track of the varius combat reports like bhodi's utility does?
floydg
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by floydg »

ORIGINAL: invernomuto

Could WITPTracker keeps track of the varius combat reports like bhodi's utility does?

Maybe later, but for now, we're just reading information from the save file and not the assorted .txt files. We would like to do it, though.
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
floydg
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by floydg »

ORIGINAL: Einbauschrank

Thx for the hint, I have reset my PATH and now it works ;)

Great!
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
Chris21wen
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by Chris21wen »

Engine history problem. The top three engines give the wrong history. NAk you get Mits, Kaw you get Naks and Mits you get Hits


Image


I also meant to ask, how is the number of engines accrued (+) or shortfall (-) worked out?
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floydg
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by floydg »

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Engine history problem. The top three engines give the wrong history. NAk you get Mits, Kaw you get Naks and Mits you get Hits


Image


I also meant to ask, how is the number of engines accrued (+) or shortfall (-) worked out?

If you sort the table by increasing ID, then it should be right. If that works, I know why it's showing the wrong history.
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
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n01487477
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by n01487477 »

I also meant to ask, how is the number of engines accrued (+) or shortfall (-) worked out?
Chris Look here ...

# Air Production and Engines fb.asp?m=1824258

and the other problem is in fact because you have changed the sort, I'll fix that for the next release.
floydg
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by floydg »

ORIGINAL: floydg
ORIGINAL: floydg

Not sure what kind of display you mean for where the devices are going to. Do you mean on the Current Usage table to also show how the count changed (increase or decrease)? Then you can check how each LCU changed turn-by-turn in its' history. Or something else...?
I'm not sure either. I must have been tired at the time, for I don't know what I actually meant there.[&:] But your understanding of my suggestion is fine for me. However, there would be the problem of the device-count changing due to other reasons (splitting the LCU for transport, battle casualties, etc). This might not be as helpful as I thought at first.

It may not be so bad to see when you lose devices as well, but the splitting/merging will also show up. Maybe not that bad, since it's probably not happening every turn to each LCU.

I added a new column to the Device History which shows the delta between the last loaded turn and the turn loaded before:
Image

How does that look?
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
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n01487477
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by n01487477 »

More development ... looking at using some charts (sorry for the washed out colours) to represent LCU production...

Here is my first attempt looking at units arriving over a year period. The bottom shows the number of arriving units over time. The top shows PP's, accumulated PP's, and projected PP's. I'll do similar for Arm and Veh... thoughts ? Of course this is rough & will be focusing on HQ restricted units ... (Nemo mod EA)

I'll do something similar for Air Production ... although this is going to be more complex.

Image
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mikemike
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RE: WitPTracker 1.4

Post by mikemike »

Hi, guys, I've found a problem with the Air Production screen. Having forgotten to load a turn from my current test run, I scrapped the database and reloaded all turns via the multi-turn read facility.
Now the Air production screen, history tab, seems to keep the Pool, Loss, and Used values from the first turn while the other columns are properly updated:

Image
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DON´T PANIC - IT´S ALL JUST ONES AND ZEROES!
floydg
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Minefields

Post by floydg »

After a bit of prodding from Damian, and lots of good legwork from the same offender, we have added a new panel showing minefields:
Image

The panel only shows mines for your "side". And mine fields laid at a non-friendly base show as "-1".

And a view of the per-turn history:
Image

Also added was an Alert when a minefield ceases to exist.

Comments? Suggestions?

-- Floyd
Delete the trackerdb.* files.
Copy the pwsdll.dll file from the game folder to the WitPTracker folder.
Try running the WitPTracker.bat again.
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eloso
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RE: Minefields

Post by eloso »

I like the new features being added.

I had a suggestion with regards to charts. I'd like to see charts for air losses added if possible.
Image
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