Hierarchy Module Document

[wdkruger]

I was curious how the game AI (PO) will deal with all the changes you are making. Do you have to make changes in the PO tactical rountine?

[Curtis Lemay]

I was curious how the game AI (PO) will deal with all the changes you are making. Do you have to make changes in the PO tactical rountine?

If the PO suffers Commander lossses, those losses are automatically replaced (via replacement commanders, promoted commanders, or spawned commanders) in the inter-turn phases. That's all that the PO itself does. However, the designer can automate a host of reorganizational actions via events if desired (that would usually be for reorganizations that occurred historically). But, otherwise, sans reorganization, the PO will use its units just as before. The human player may be better able to employ reorganization of his force, but I expect the benefit to be minor.

[Curtis Lemay]

Legacy Bug #5 is now fixed. This issue dated back to the change that allowed ranged units to restore their original deployments after being used in bombardments. Apparently, in some cases, the saved original deployments weren't properly saved, meaning that restoring them put a zero in for deployment, which meant "Undeployed". Now, I check for the saved deployment being zero and don't restore that, ever.

[Lobster]

Ralph had #6 fixed at one time.

[Lobster]

Here it is:

ScreenHunter 471a.jpg (175.65 KiB) Viewed 289 times

[Curtis Lemay]

Here it is:
ScreenHunter 471a.jpg

If so, no telling what happened to it. The current build includes everything I had from Ralph.

[Curtis Lemay]

Ever tried a copy of 4.1.0.45?

[Curtis Lemay]

Ralph had #6 fixed at one time.

You know, I just tested it and it looks like it is fixed! Go figure!

How do we go five years without noticing that? Thank you, Ralph!

[Curtis Lemay]

OK, I've got Legacy Bug #3 fixed. (Needs a lot more testing, of course). This issue was with the PO assignments of air missions. The PO just never assigned anything to sea interdiction or even ground interdiction. It was a real mess with lots of logic errors and poor design. I've got it working a lot better, but the range of possible situations is so huge that it's going to need special testing down the road.

[Curtis Lemay]

The problem was raised with Thomas Harvey's Pacific At War 1941-1945. However, the version that I have lacks a PO. So, I used my Okinawa 1945 instead. This isn't ideal, since the Japanese side doesn't have any ships or sea lift, which causes the air missions to tumble out just like they were doing (no sea interdiction). So, I cheated by setting the flags for enemy naval/embarked to always on and proceeded from that point. Here are the US air missions at the start. No sea interdiction at this point:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the same with the Japanese air assignments at the start. This is just how the scenario is initialized in the Editor.

[Curtis Lemay]

After running the scenario for a bit, the PO sets the air missions. This shot is from before the fix for the US side. Note the lack of sea interdiction:

[Curtis Lemay]

And the same from the Japanese side:

[Curtis Lemay]

But now, after the fix, the US has lots of sea interdiction:

[Curtis Lemay]

And even the Japanese have a bit of it:

[Curtis Lemay]

So here are the last legacy bugs left highlighted in blue. I'm going to now take a coding break for the holidays. I need it! I'll get back to these bugs next year. For now, I'm going to do some scenario work. I'll try to get as many of my scenarios as I can updated to the Hierarchy level. I may even try to make a new one or two.

I'll get a new TOAW-IV version out tomorrow (only on the Dev Board, unfortunately).

[Curtis Lemay]

Here are my plans for Hierarchical scenario updates. Minor and Sequels shouldn't be too hard (hopefully).

[reapercorfu]

Well done , looking good , how far are we from the update to release ? roughly ?

[Lobster]

Well done , looking good , how far are we from the update to release ? roughly ?

[rhinobones]

Well done , looking good , how far are we from the update to release ? roughly ?

:lol:

Lobber, not nice to laugh.

There are three things preventing an answer to your question. #3 appears to be the current showstopper.

1. Bobbie has a bad case of Mission Creep. He keeps finding additional changes, expanding the effort and of course any hope of a public release. He has been at it for over six years.
2. Some time ago there was a conversation about establishing a timeline with goals intended to set an estimated target/release date. Bobbie’s response was that setting a target date was a “fool’s errand”. Thus the release target date remains open ended.
3. Unless something has happened that has not been made public knowledge, Bobbie’s email to Matrix for support has gone unanswered. Last we heard not only was it not answered, but the email hasn’t even been opened. Without their support a downloadable update package cannot be published.

This is the basis for Lobber’s laughing emoji. I certainly hope that these roadblocks will be overcome.

Regards, RhinoBones