Pilot's bug: what happens?

[rominet]

As rtrapasso just said, the next patch for WitP would probably not solve the pilot's bug?

So my question is: when it occurs, what is happening?

I have read an AAR where the players could no more do "get pilot" in the plane screen?

But i have also heard that when it occurs, many pilots of the 2 sides suddendly make harakiri?.

Where is the truth?

[Barb]

Once you reach 20,000 (named) pilots over the map.
Generally this happens somewhere in 1943-1944. Event is accelerated if players are over-stacking their air units with pilots (example: daitai with 27 plane capacity having 40 pilots).

Could be lessened by disbanding of some air units (say Dutch).

[n01487477]

Rominet,
IIRC, closer to 30000 pilots and the great purge begins.

--Damian--

[rtrapasso]

The game current version has a subroutine to purge dead (and MIA?) pilots with less than 5 kills from the rolls... this causes upset in some players, but the alternative is to run of pilots later in the war.

The problem is exacerbated in some mods that add lots of aircraft and pilots... stock WITP is already ahistorical in that respect, iirc, and the "souped up" mods are even worse. IIRC, one game came to a crashing halt in late 1942 from the problem.

[rominet]

Ok but something i don't understand:

the pilot's bug arrives, a big slaughter among 2 side's pilots! OK

The turn after, there are many groups empty of pilots.
If the 2 players "get pilots" to fill their air groups, and if the limits of 30000 is reached again, the pilot's bug should reapply once and so on and so on ...

(I suppose for this example that there were no airgroups with more pilots than aircraft)

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: rominet

Ok but something i don't understand:

the pilot's bug arrives, a big slaughter among 2 side's pilots! OK

The turn after, there are many groups empty of pilots.
If the 2 players "get pilots" to fill their air groups, and if the limits of 30000 is reached again, the pilot's bug should reapply once and so on and so on ...

(I suppose for this example that there were no airgroups with more pilots than aircraft)

No - no slaughter (in this particular bug, although there are other unpleasant ones).

The guys that were KIA and MIA are purged from the lists in current version of WITP, but that is periodic... what happens with the "pilot bug" we are discussing is you can no longer add pilots to your units, so you might have a lot of aircraft, but no one to fly them.

i believe there are a couple of other bugs that cause pilots to vanish, though.

[rominet]

Sorry to insist but it is not completely clear for me.

Damian said that when the number of pilots reaches 30000, there is a great purge (so many pilots are vanishing).

But you say that the pilot's bug consists only in the fact that the 2 player can not "get pilot" anymore.
And that there is a subroutine which sometimes kill MIA and KIA pilots (to make place).

These 2 consequences are not the same (i prefer the second one[:D]). Who is right?

[rtrapasso]

Damian said that when the number of pilots reaches 30000, there is a great purge (so many pilots are vanishing).

As i said: there are different bugs... i think he is describing another bug that hit him around the same time as the 30K limit... the bugs MIGHT be related, but it is unclear to me at least (see below for more.)

Also, this kind of sounds like what happened under older versions.

It COULD be that the "overflow error" that happens at 30K affected his game and caused his pilots to vanish... different games behave differently with many variables, and often it is difficult to sort out what went on with the different versions and mods of the game floating around.

Not everyone plays with 1.806 for different reasons, and most of the people on the forum seem to play mods (although certainly not all). Also sometimes people describe experiences that happened to them with different (older) versions that MIGHT NOT necessarily happen with the current one.

[n01487477]

Rominet,
I've never encountered the bug, all I know is that there are 30K slots. These are "named pilots", so this includes all pilots existing and those assigned to future  groups (not arrived yet). But does NOT include pilot Pools (the number not used yet in your pools - if that makes sense).

I think there are 2 bugs here, but I think Rtrapasso needs to explain these as it has been a while since I've read about them

Damian
edit - I help code witptracker, and I can see 30K slots in the savefile.

[rtrapasso]

I think there are 2 bugs here, but I think Rtrapasso needs to explain these as it has been a while since I've read about them

Actually, SEVERAL different bugs going on ... see above... they may (or may not) be related... some of them have been squashed or lessened at least with 1.806, but certainly not all of them.

[rominet]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

edit - I help code witptracker, and I can see 30K slots in the savefile.

Is there an easy way with Witptracker or something else to know "exactly" how many pilots there are for one side at any time.

[n01487477]

I know very little about the various pilot bugs, but one way you can Track that you are under the 30K limit is if both players load WitpTracker, and make a count at different intervals (actually mod designers should do this too before release)...

And I'm sure that as "my shadow" [;)] aka rtrapasso says there are pilot bugs that may have or not have anything to do with this ...





edit - Rominet Summary -> pilots tab in Tracker

[rominet]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

I know very little about the various pilot bugs, but one way you can Track that you are under the 30K limit is if both players load WitpTracker, and make a count at different intervals (actually mod designers should do this too before release)...

And I'm sure that as "my shadow" [;)] aka rtrapasso says there are pilot bugs that may have or not have anything to do with this ...





edit - Rominet Summary -> pilots tab in Tracker

So simple, i haven't seen before. Thanks

Where are WIA pilots?
Delay pilots or active pilots???

[n01487477]

Olivier,
Delayed - pilots whose airgroups are still delayed, but assigned to these groups. Active pilots are those that are presently on map including WIA, MIA & KIA. Inactive - those which are not assigned to any group (Seems like a DB error here ??) .

I'll make it easier to read next version with MIA/KIA/WIA accounted for (something like below - but with the numbers correct!). Gotta check with Floyd first too ...