DCG Medals & other bugs

[simovitch]

I'm currently in the process of cracking the enigma that is the creation of user-made DCG's. There is a suprising amount of flexibilty under the hood here, and I hope to have a new DCG ready a week or 2 after the 1.03 patch is released, as well as a step by step how to document. I've already modified "Operation Crusader" to follow a more historical sequence of events (like actually starting on November 18, 1941 for starters.)

What I'm finding is that most if not all of the many bugs associated with DCG's are hidden in the various data files and campaign oob's - easy to fix with a test editor if you can spot them. I've found a couple of data anomalies that would seem to trip things up and will address these later.

For now, here's an example of a possible error in both the EF and WF campiagn.pdt file used for medals and promotions. I don't know the ramifications are (yet) but it doesn't look right to me:

[Jason Petho]

I also noticed that, and have adjusted it to 24. It is 4 in the Talonsoft versions though.

How that effects gameplay though, I have no idea - guess we'll find out!

Jason Petho

[simovitch]

Well, after countless hours of trial and error testing, I'm zeroing in on the WF DCG bug - the one that causes the scenarios to start with no forces. Here is what I got:

1. It has nothing to do with terrain, new, North African or otherwise.

2. It only occurs when there are German Motorized (i.e. Panzer Division elements) being generated for a new scenario in 1942 or 1943. Even if you play as Allies, the game will crash as it compiles the german AI forces as well.

So if I edit the chardsc.txt file and change the Axis side to Italian in "The Big Red One" DCG, the campaign works fine, same for "The II Corps in Tunisia". Also when I add a generic German Infantry Corps to the campaign01.oob and select a generic Infantry battalion, the DCG's work fine as well. If I select a Motorized, panzer, or pzgr force the bug reappears.

Now comes the hard part - finding the actual source of the bug. [&:] The good news is that I'm unlocking many facets of DCG's that will allow most of the historical anomalies to get cleaned up eventually.

[junk2drive]

Thanks for sticking with it. I have avoided DCGs because of all the complaints.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

Thanks for sticking with it. I have avoided DCGs because of all the complaints.

I have to wonder if anybody has tried to fix up the WF DCG's and OOB's before me and simply given up. It takes a tremendous amount of time and careful file management to get to the depth of the abyss.

I now have all of the campaigns working, and have fixed many typo's in the OOB's that probably accounted for many of the DCG crashes and upgrade problems in WF.

I haven't isolated the 'missing units' bug yet, but I know it occurs in scenarios with Germans that start between September 1942 and August 1943 inclusive. This tells me that it is likely a problem with the German Afrika Korps Panzer or Pzgr OOB's, also because removing 10th and 15th Pz Division from the Campaign01.oob file makes the Afrika DCG's work properly. This is part of the current work-around solution. Why 21st Pz doesn't cause the bug is unknown, but I'm slowly zeroing in on the problem.

Other features I'm working on is giving the German player more choices at Battalion level, and also some historical formations (like Pz. Lehr and 12 SS) in the late war DCG's.

A more historical 'Operation Crusader' DCG is completed, and I'm working on another late war WF DCG.

Discussions have begun, but whether these mods make it into 1.03 is going to be up to Jason Petho et. al.

[Warhorse]

Admirable work there my friend, I often set out to play with them, but being too mired with other facets of the CS game to mod, I let it go, keep it up!! I for one can't wait till you release a document on this, I love the concept of DCG's, and with a possible way to tailor them even further, very exciting!![&o]

Mike

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Warhorse

Admirable work there my friend, I often set out to play with them, but being too mired with other facets of the CS game to mod, I let it go, keep it up!! I for one can't wait till you release a document on this, I love the concept of DCG's, and with a possible way to tailor them even further, very exciting!![&o]

Mike

Thanks Mike.
I finally discovered the main cause of the of the crashes in "The II Corps in Tunisia", "The Big Red One", and "The Afrika Korps" DCG's. It was like finding a needle in a haystack in a field of haystacks. They now work first time, every time and you can select from German 21 Pz, 15 Pz, 10 Pz, 90th Light, and 164th Infantry.

I also fixed the annoying "There are no lower level organizations for this selection...", and all German Divisions that are available in the time period now allow selctions down to battalion. DCG Forces are generated as balanced groups, Italians show up occasionally, as well as a bunch of new equipment that I havn't seen before, like captured Marmon Harringtons!

[cpdeyoung]

Dear simovitch,
 
This is wonderful stuff you are doing and I would be very interested in what you have found out about the data representation.  I am a coder by profession and would like to look at a tool for scenario generation, including the popular "purchase units to budget" model.  Would you be interested in trying something like this?
 
Chuck

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

Dear simovitch,

This is wonderful stuff you are doing and I would be very interested in what you have found out about the data representation.  I am a coder by profession and would like to look at a tool for scenario generation, including the popular "purchase units to budget" model.  Would you be interested in trying something like this?

Actually the DCG's data structure does lend itself somewhat to a 3rd party application, but only so far as manipulating the % composition of the types of units (tank, arty, inf, AT, AG, engr, recon, support, AA, cav) into the main force. Although there may be more flexibility that I haven't discovered yet (like those cryptic .pdt files.)

I am only editing data content files with wordpad - I haven't the ability or knowledge to edit the executable files. When I present the basic data structure of OOB's and campaign files it should be clearer to you what you can and can't accomplish.