Vanishing Pilots

[Cuttlefish]

My apologies, I know I have read of someone having this problem before, but my memory isn't what it once was and the search function...well, little help there.

I am playing Japan in a PBEM currently in January 1945 and the game faces a crises: over the last several turns my pilots have been disappearing at an alarming rate. In some air units pilot losses are over 50%. The planes are still there, but not the pilots. It almost goes without saying that Japan cannot replace these pilots at this stage of the war.

Does someone out there remember anything about this bug, possible causes, and whether or not there is a fix?

[wolffpack]

 I'm Cuttlefish's opponant and I don't seem to be having this problem. The only solution I can see is to go back in time a couple of turns and try again. Hopefully someone has a better idea.

[Cuttlefish]

As a follow-up here are a few specific examples taken at random. None of the units in question have seen combat or been attacked during the time period in question:

F2/261st Daitai
A6M5 Zekes
Based at Shimizu
Exp. 69
Escort level 60
Jan. 5: 16 planes, 17 pilots
Jan 10: 16 planes, 10 pilots

22nd Fighter Sentai
Ki-84-Ia Tojos
Based at Tokyo
Exp. 69
Escort level 60
Jan. 5: 36 planes, 36 pilots
Jan. 10: 36 planes, 25 pilots

B6/210th Hikotai
D4Y Judys
Based at Maizura
Exp. 50
Training level 50
Jan. 5: 48 planes, 48 pilots
Jan. 10: 48 planes, 43 pilots

56th Fighter Sentai
Ki-44-IIb Tojos
Based at Naha
Exp. 80
Escort level 60
Jan 5: 34 planes, 35 pilots
Jan. 10: 34 planes, 28 pilots

[Gem35]

No idea,
Maybe folks like Terminus, Feinder or TheElf know some answers for you.
Good luck.

[n01487477]

I thought there was a problem with the pools in '45 see below ...

tm.asp?m=1136388&mpage=1&key=disappeari ... s&#1260180

but this different problem has been documented before in the Tech help ... not sure if there is a solution, but last time someone did about this the tech guys wanted the files to look at ... so maybe that should be a port of call soon ...

Good luck Cuttlefish.

[bbbf]

Welcome to the great Seppuku moment in WITP when all your best pilots decide that suicide is the only honourable option.

There is no cure that I have seen.

It's to do with pilot losses.  Once you reach a critical number, your pilots just leak away, leaving your air units completely impotent.

I had carefully shephered 3 or 4 Hikotai with 100+ 85+ experience pilots to be the Home Islands protectors , then in 3 days I was down to less than 10 in each Hikotai!

It's a game breaker, in my opinion.  It really makes playing on very diffiecult.

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: wolffpack

 I'm Cuttlefish's opponant and I don't seem to be having this problem. The only solution I can see is to go back in time a couple of turns and try again. Hopefully someone has a better idea.

Going back isn't going to help. The problem will recur.

[Feinder]

I thought they fixed this (evidently not!).
 
Didn't they put something in that clears out the slots of dead pilots?
 
If not (and I had to say easy, I know it's not), but one way of resolving the issue would be to make a pass thru the DB each turn, and clear out the dead pilots, so that new pilots could be assigned to them (or simply assign new pilots to slots occupied by dead guys, and do away with actively purging the dead guys).
 
I know that currently, aces keep their slots (and thus show up as KIA on the list).  But other than for nostalgic reasons, you don't need these guys either.  But certainly a dead pilot doesn't need to occupy a slot on the DB.
 
-F-

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Sadly,
no solution exist.

But the "good" thing about this is, that both sides will be affected. At last at my games and later on tests this happen.
 
Here is the bug-report and the sad answer from bob (i miss him)
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1767405
 
As i wrote in this thread, its a game-stopper.

Matrix has to repair this as fast as possible. it is so stupid that your own succsess kill your pilots!
 
All ways to reduce the problem does not help in the long run. I created a scenario without any russian planes (cause other bugs make them useless in a fair game), but these few planes/pilots do not help.
 
In the end you will loose 90% of your active pilots... sad thing is, it will happen again
yeah... normally i lost 1000-2000 pilots (for both sides), 20-40 days later it happened again.

No way out of this. But as i remember Bobs answer, there is hope for AE. But i will buy AE only AFTER it is clear that this game-stopper-bug will be cleared. Otherwise AE is broken also.
You are lucky, cause it happend first in 1945. (or unlucky).
Your army and navy airforce will be useless, cause your exp.30-Pilots will be killed by flak without hitting something. Sure, same will be true (in a few days) for the allied side, but they have the ships and the replacement for them is better. Even new airwings will be affected
 
I play now only untill this bug happen, after that i restart. It is really not funny if you loose 200 Elitepilots and your Kida Butai has to fight against nonaffected allied forces (or viceversa... doesn´t matter)

[Adnan Meshuggi]

this will not help.

We have to many planes and pilots (for the engine)
not only need every plane a pilot, but also the pools are full of pilots. So, the allied side is affected too.

If an allied player is carefull, his huge pilot pool cause this desaster. If he is careless, it will help a little. But if the number "active pilots in planes + pool pilots + pool planes" > X then this will happen.
So deleting air groups does not help also - only deleting 5-10.000 planes could help for some time.


Sorry, no help for this problem. AE with this bug is not worth to buy it. I play WitP since i bought it (first week of apperance), but for AE this bug must be repaired. I still does not understand the acting of matrix with this bug (or to be correct : bunch of bugs causing the deasaster - it is not only one bug). Instead of new toys they really should solve it. But - i fear this bug is a feature and can´t be fixed. So they try not to talk about it

As long as AE will be free of this problem it is fine for me. Another Idea i had (but because of logistic trouble doesn´t work) is to reduce the planes to 1/4 or 1/8... so a group of 16 has only 2 planes/pilots, but the effect is the same as 16. This could help to reduce the overkill-bombeffect of torpedobombers, but the air-war makes it impossible.

With only 5-10.000 planes ingame, the bug could be avoided. But how to calculate this? We can´t reduce all effects quite similar.
Okay, a carrier with 23 instead of 90 planes sound mad - but this could work. But we need also to reduce flak (how? also 1/4?) and have to multiply the effect of bombs to land troops, bases, etc...

well, AE will hopefully fix it.

[Cuttlefish]

Thank you everybody for the replies. Between your answers and the discussion in the threads I was referred to I can now confidently say that it looks like I am hosed. I have spent a year carefully preparing my air groups for the Allied assault on the Home Islands only to have them succumb to a data base that does not properly purge itself. Ouch. I had a tooth extracted earlier in the week. That experience was less painful than this one.

Alas.

The good news is it seems that this problem is not likely to occur in AE.

Well, it's game on for Japan anyway. Let the sword be shattered, let death rain from the skies. It is 1945 and the odds are hopeless and the fight is doomed no matter what. This blow will simply be one among countless others. The will to resist remains strong. There will be no surrender, there will be no retreat.

[Feinder]

I'm very curious to how you manage to integrate it into Hibiki!  I'm sure it' will be clever as always!
 
-F-

[Charbroiled]

I think bbbf's comment would probably be the best explaination.

ORIGINAL: bbbf

Welcome to the great Seppuku moment in WITP when all your best pilots decide that suicide is the only honourable option.

[ttjhowell]

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

this will not help.

We have to many planes and pilots (for the engine)
not only need every plane a pilot, but also the pools are full of pilots. So, the allied side is affected too.

If an allied player is carefull, his huge pilot pool cause this desaster. If he is careless, it will help a little. But if the number "active pilots in planes + pool pilots + pool planes" > X then this will happen.
So deleting air groups does not help also - only deleting 5-10.000 planes could help for some time.


Sorry, no help for this problem. AE with this bug is not worth to buy it. I play WitP since i bought it (first week of apperance), but for AE this bug must be repaired. I still does not understand the acting of matrix with this bug (or to be correct : bunch of bugs causing the deasaster - it is not only one bug). Instead of new toys they really should solve it. But - i fear this bug is a feature and can´t be fixed. So they try not to talk about it

As long as AE will be free of this problem it is fine for me. Another Idea i had (but because of logistic trouble doesn´t work) is to reduce the planes to 1/4 or 1/8... so a group of 16 has only 2 planes/pilots, but the effect is the same as 16. This could help to reduce the overkill-bombeffect of torpedobombers, but the air-war makes it impossible.

With only 5-10.000 planes ingame, the bug could be avoided. But how to calculate this? We can´t reduce all effects quite similar.
Okay, a carrier with 23 instead of 90 planes sound mad - but this could work. But we need also to reduce flak (how? also 1/4?) and have to multiply the effect of bombs to land troops, bases, etc...

well, AE will hopefully fix it.

Wow. I didn't realise that the infamous pilot bug was that bad. Can somebody confirm Adnan's formula? Is it really

"active pilots in planes + pool pilots + pool planes" > X causes bug?

It just seems strange that pool planes contribute to the woe.

So there seem to be three separate issues:
1) Max number of plane slots limited so unable to add different plane type (not really a problem actually)
2) Unable to draw planes even when available in the pool (error message = "out of plane slots!). What is the formula for this one?
3) Pilot bug as described above.

I feel the last two are going to cause a lot of problems in 2-3 years time in my pbem game. I feel a bit like I have be diagnosed with some sort of genetic chronic illness that will affect me in my old age and there is a race for the scientists (the AE team in this case) to develop the cure before I reach that age.

(Please note: No disrespect intended to any persons who are actually in this terrible situation, WitP is only a game after all.)

[Chimaera]

This sounds quite worrisome. I have 2 PBEM games, in May and August 1943. Both are CHS 155, with Andy's extended map. Witp fully patched to 1.806.

Has anyone played CHS into the late years (1944 and beyond) and NOT encountered this problem? Or if they did, when (approximately) did this bug happen and what kind of workaround did you use?