Matrix Games Forums

In my current stock scenario 15 game against the AI, I have a large battle occuring in China. Gobs of Chinese troops along with some other Allied troops have got a ten division plus force of Japanese cut off and are slowly (and very bloodily I might add) grinding them down. I have a large number of air units assigned to support this, flying Ground Attack missions. As I am starting to destroy Japanese LCUs, I am noticing that many of these air units are having their targets get changed to hex 0,0. It seems that if they attacked an LCU that gets destroyed in the land combat phase, they "lose" their target.

It appears that while the player can only assign what hex a Ground Attack mission attacks, the program actually assigns it to attack a specific unit and it continues to attack that unit regardless of all else on subsequent turns. Even if the air unit gets stood down for a turn or more and then re-assigned to Ground Attack the same hex as before, it attacks the same LCU (if it exists). The routine to assign specific LCU targets is apparently not being properly called and/or is broken.

The battle can be seen in either of these two saves previously posted for other bug reports: http://rapidshare.com/files/33047498/witp017.pws http://rapidshare.com/files/33774937/witp018.pws It is just southeast of Changsha, hex 47,37. Air units attacking are based in Changsha, Hengchow, Amoy, Swatow and Pescadores. If I remember to do so, I will try to get a pair of before and after saves with some specific units.

Well, I wasn't quite right.  Here are before: http://rapidshare.com/files/34188353/witp009.pws  and after: http://rapidshare.com/files/34188448/witp019.pws saves.  The before is just before hitting end of turn, no orders need to be issued.  Out of Swatow the 258, 82, 110 and 134 squadrons attacked the 116 IJA Div; out of Hengchow the 3 CBS, 5 CBS and 9 CBS attacked the 27 and 110 divisions and; out of Pescadores the 12 BG attacked the 68 division.  The ground troops then launched a Deliberate Attack that destroyed the 40 and 22 IJA divisions; elements of the 68 division banzai'd but the unit should still exist.  ALL the air units in Swatow, Amoy, Changsha, Hengchow and Pescadores that were set to Ground Attack 47,37 have been reset to attack 0,0, even the ones that did not fly. 

Oops, I forgot about the AVG up at Ichang.  Wonder how many drop tanks they've managed to stuff on to their P-40s in trying to attack the North Pole.

I've seen the same effect.  I found that if a unit is assigned to attack 0,0, if you stand them down and reassign them to the same hex, they will choose a new target.

Bill

You don't even have to stand them down, just assign them a target.  But I'm not interested in workarounds.  I want the bug fixed so I can move on to bugging them about the next one.

ORIGINAL: dtravel

It appears that while the player can only assign what hex a Ground Attack mission attacks, the program actually assigns it to attack a specific unit.

Can't say anything about the code but I can confirm this for the savegame file. Air groups assigned to ground attack store LCUs as their target, not hexes. That also explains why they shift their target to a new hex, if a LCU retreats.

Some additional information on this.  It appears that the air units only lose their target if a LCU is in the target hex is destroyed by ground combat.  If units are removed due to attrition or the "units surrounded" part, the air units retain their target setting.

I think in the realm of bugs, this is a minor annoyance. Plenty of more important things to spend time debugging IMHO.

I really can't just bypass that statement like I can the vast majority of others.

Yep, on the surface someone may be able to classify it as a minor annoyance, but since someone (dtravel) has done considerable research into the cause of this problem, I feel that a thank you would be more appropriate than the response given.

As an example of a "minor annoyance", the "big fix" of the last patch was for the loading bug (minor annoyance) which took almost a year to be fixed. Now, a "minor annoyance" multiplied many hundreds/thousands of times of occurance and again by many hundreds/thousands of players can have a tendacy to become a major bug when viewed on such a scale.

Perhaps we could be provided with a list of guidelines as to what would constitute a minor annoyance and what would constitute a serious bug so that we players have an idea of what we should be reporting and whether or not it is worth the effort of doing so?

Disclaimer: just my humble opinion, of course, and has absolutely no value whatsoever except to myself and no bearing on the reality here.

Minor annoyance is when you just have to repeat the action again the next turn to get the action you desire, i.e. - just reset the target again next turn.

Major annoyance is when nothing you can do will produce the actions that should be possible and it effects overall gameplay, i.e. - inability to move from one hex to the next down an unblocked road, inability to load or unload cargo from a cargo-carrying ship, etc. Having a unit disappear and having a unit teleport would fall into this category.

Leader bugs might fall somewhere in between - it USUALLY doesn't affect gameplay that much (but it might if someone like Halsey or Yamamoto vanishes).

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Some additional information on this.  It appears that the air units only lose their target if a LCU is in the target hex is destroyed by ground combat.  If units are removed due to attrition or the "units surrounded" part, the air units retain their target setting.

OK - i downloaded the turn and ran it... at the end of the turn, 4 of the air units at Swatow had reset their targets to 0,0... the fifth unit (that did not fly) still had no target.

If i understand this correctly, this is the extent of the bug? It appears that the enemy units were attacked by air during the turn.

Since air attacks take place before the ground attack that caused the target resetting, yes.  But they would not attack the next turn or ever again until the player resets the air unit's target.  Given the way air attacks are handled in the game, the player would never know the units were not flying until and unless he goes in to that individual unit's control window and checks its target setting.  And if he is unaware of this bug, he would have no reason to do so.  The only reason I noticed it was because this was a major battle involving lots of air support and one day I suddenly realized that I hadn't seen any Ground Attacks at all there for a game week.
 
It may seem like a minor issue but it requires the player to check every air unit in the area set to ground attack whenever an enemy LCU is destroyed (since there's no way to sort them by target and I sure as *bleep* don't memorize every single air units' targets every turn).  That can be a lot of mouse clicks and going in and out of unit windows.  When you get to 30, 40, 50 or more, its not "minor" anymore.  I understand there are higher priority issues but don't be dismissive to the customers.  Plus I know enough to know that this should be a relatively easy fix.  (Or at least it should be. [8|])  Having one programmer spend half a day tracking down and correcting the one line of code for a "minor" issue can build a lot of goodwill and patience while they spend weeks trying to fix a "major" problem.

i've have reported the bug (which my job as a beta - i don't do programming on WITP.)

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

i've have reported the bug (which my job as a beta - i don't do programming on WITP.)

Good enough then.

ORIGINAL: DD696

I really can't just bypass that statement like I can the vast majority of others.

Yep, on the surface someone may be able to classify it as a minor annoyance, but since someone (dtravel) has done considerable research into the cause of this problem, I feel that a thank you would be more appropriate than the response given.

Thank you. But, in the realm of bugs, this is a minor annoyance. Because truth be told, you shouldnt be flying missions every turn (its hard on morale and readiness). Especially to the same target. At least from a historical perspective. The 8th airforces "big week" had 5 raids in 7 days and about wore the entire airforce out.

Leader bug. Probably the most important problem in the game.

Sync bug. Right up there with leader.

Disappearing units or units popping across the map for no reason (fixed?).

Ships leaving port without being fully loaded (still there).

A few others I would put as a higher priority than this. Personally.

Please don't thank me....I didn't find this problem. However, as one who wrote his first computer program in 1965 and was a senior systems analyst, I do feel that I can state that this is a bug. Just one more bug in a program (this game) that was released with too many of them which are still being found three years (short a few days) after release and which will never be resolved to the paying customers satisfaction. Happens way too often nowadays. I know you guys are trying to iron out some of them and it is appreciated, but I don't think that you can dictate that a bug is not a bug and only a "minor annoyance". If you are going to be "mo' better help" that you need to take the paying customers a bit more seriously and not sluff off their efforts to also improve this game.

ORIGINAL: DD696

Please don't thank me....I didn't find this problem. However, as one who wrote his first computer program in 1965 and was a senior systems analyst, I do feel that I can state that this is a bug. Just one more bug in a program (this game) that was released with too many of them which are still being found three years (short a few days) after release and which will never be resolved to the paying customers satisfaction. Happens way too often nowadays. I know you guys are trying to iron out some of them and it is appreciated, but I don't think that you can dictate that a bug is not a bug and only a "minor annoyance". If you are going to be "mo' better help" that you need to take the paying customers a bit more seriously and not sluff off their efforts to also improve this game.

interesting - you ASK for an opinion - you get one - and then you say where do i get off on giving an opinion. [:'(]

JW isnt paid to fix things. It isnt his full time job. He only has so much time available to do it. Where would you have him invest his time? Personally I would have him spend it on things that arent just "a minor annoyance" I think we all owe him a lot of thanks, and we also should be asking for things that will fix the game before we fix annoyances. My .02.

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Because truth be told, you shouldnt be flying missions every turn (its hard on morale and readiness). Especially to the same target. At least from a historical perspective. The 8th airforces "big week" had 5 raids in 7 days and about wore the entire airforce out.

Interesting to contrast that to peoples' responses here: When Do You Cease Air Ops?

Well thats the difference between real life and a game I guess. OK, YOU decide. What SHOULD JW be working on? Is this really worth his time more than any of the problems I listed already? Or can you perhaps check your planes once in a while (I check mine every turn) and make sure they are doing what you want them to be doing?