Need some help!

[panzerlehr62]

Need some help from the experts out here. 501st has begun to lose all its reserves. I est they are losing 15 per turn. Noticed it when it was at 20 teams in reserve, down I guess from around 35 that were left from the Brevands battles. Now its at 5 teams and after this turn its zero! Ive got the saved game file at the end/start of each turn for this GC so you can see in the saved game file how they start to disappear. Being that its the first data stored in the reserve of each BG (I found were its stored using the hex edit) could that be a reason somethg went wrong with only this particular BG? We also had 2 german at-guns vanish thru out campaign, but not entire reserves of thous BG. I wish i knew then how to find were data was stored, because I could have fix it. I can add reserves back in to this GC, but every turn 15 will still vanish for the 501st. So somethg is wrong elsewere in the game file.

Gz...

[Andrew Williams]

PL

Please post the saved games here.

[panzerlehr62]

Andrew post email again for me...Ill send them to you at each turn so u can see the effects.

Edit: I found your email Andrew. I sent you the last 4 zip file turns...

Some more info for you:

turn4 day1 file: at hex 0x1A1990 after 5F is were FP data starts for 501st.
turn night day2 file: at hex 0x1AA160 after 5F is were FP data starts for 501st.
turn1 day2 file: at hex 0x1AD690 after 5F is were FP data starts for 501st.


Gz...

[panzerlehr62]

Hello Andrew,

Its probably not worth messing with at this point. My feeling is somehow the game file has tagged that BG as being cut-off/routed every turn, thus taking 15 teams away from it every turn. Its very consistant on losing 15 teams every turn whether its in battle or not. I looked back at when it first started and at first it seemed it lost only 13, then 15 from that point on. But as I looked at what the battle losses (from brevands),it turns out it was 15 then too, not 13 (I missed calculated the battle losses, were 4 not 6). Basically started free fall with 35 teams left in the force pool. Hopefully I will get some time and print out a particualr area of the game file were I know data is stored for the 501st and see what changes occured in the hex data from turn to turn, but I am affraid that type data will be well beyond my capabilities to understand. Were the force pool data is stored is fairly easy to understand and fix, and I definitly thank the game developers for that.

My main goal will be to try and switch out that BG with one from the Omaha area and hopefully put it in a situation were by its not in battle the rest of the campaign. Sadly its in a hot potatoe situation wise right now with 2 German Bgs breathing down its neck so I am not sure that will happen anytime soon. Plus every turn German Bgs re-enter at Carentan so making the switch may be harder then I think.

I still have not figuired out how to post a "zip" file out here as an attachment. Do you have to have some sort of special permission, because right now its not an option listed when uploading a file for me. It is interesting to me thou what is causing this problem, I am sure in the end its a simple one or 2 hex byte modification.

Gz...

[Tejszd]

panzerlehr62 just rename the zip file extension to one allowed.

Without the file the developers will not be able to see what is happening to fix it.....

[RD Oddball]

I just saw that Andrew posted in the dev forums he didn't get the files yet so perhaps you have an old e-mail for him?

Can you add them as an attachment to a PM Gz.?  If so I posted a PM to you that you can reply-all and send them to us that way.  I'll be sure Steve gets them.

[panzerlehr62]

Hello Oddball,

Yeah I noticed I was able to send them thru your message. I sent 4 files, one before the problem seemed to occur and 3 more afterwards. If for some reason the problem existed even at the first file (turn3,day1), I have turns 1 and 2 also to draw from and I know there were no problems at that point.

***Edit***
Also I know we are using beta .01B patch and maybe this issue has been fixed with lastest patch released but we are stuck using the older patch at this point, we got way to much time invested in this GC to start over. Somethg else to note, because I had experienced weird results I had avoided using "rest" option for the entire first day. If I recall (maybe you could add to this Bob when you first started using it) my oppenent is using it and I just wonder if the issue with lost teams and using the "rest" option are tied in somehow. I know one thing, ive seen it were if its not selected off(before you move the BG), and we both move Bgs you can have a conflict were by you get 2 diffrent battles resulting. Host computer will show correct battle, but the guest puter will not. You can test that with the files I sent you at Carentan if I recall correctly. Try moving in the German Bg from the Causeway (leave it selected at rest) to Carentan to battle the 501st and see what the results of that move are on both computers.

Gz...

[Andrew Williams]

Is this the game where you are playing some maps 30 min and others 15 min?

Has the problem started when you started Hex editing the save game?

[panzerlehr62]

Hello Andrew,

Yeah I hope Oddball got my email (sent it like 9/14 thru reply in regular email) and latest game file (we are waiting on it before we can cont.). He said the programmer can correct the damage which was great news [&o]. It probably happened around late turn 1, early turn 2 when I opened it to change the time from 30m to 20m (sure wish the game had that as an option). The hexeditor I used at time (as I look back now) seemed to have trouble displaying the entire file (I would scroll bar down and it wouldn't bottom out at the end of the file, you still had to use arrow key to keep going). Not sure thats what did it, but more then likely it was. Then it took another full turn before I noticed the problem developing around turn 3 so even having a saved game (which I did) would have cost us a lot of battles to replay. Only thing it seemed to mess up was with the 501st (very first force pool data) and it basically just subtracts 15 units from it every turn until they are all gone! The only other problem I have noticed is my game play, Oddball said the programmer told him I am SOL on that one so I may have to let the dog or cat (Mr/Mrs Nemo could prob do better but ive yet to find a mouse that works in saltwater) take over once we start up again! [;)]

No other changes were ever made (all stock data files too) at that time nor was it ever opened again until just recently while Ive been waiting for an answer. The current hexeditor ive got seems to open the file with no problems, it scrolls all way to the end at least!

Thanks for following up,
Gz..

[RD Oddball]

ORIGINAL: panzerlehr62

Hello Andrew,

Yeah I hope Oddball got my email (sent it like 9/14 thru reply in regular email) and latest game file (we are waiting on it before we can cont.). He said the programmer can correct the damage which was great news [&o].

The programmer got it done and I PM'd it to you. Sorry for the delayed reply. I never did get your e-mail. Last one I got was quite a while ago. At least two weeks or longer iirc. Nevertheless the PM has the file attached. If it didn't come through let me know and I'll e-mail it. Please let us know that it fixed your specific problem.

Basically the programmer had said that the specific problem could not have happened without someone going in and editing the file. Perhaps it happened accidentally. Regardless your file is fixed.