Dutch aircraft stuck with new Public Beta Patch

[chuckj118]

In my current WitP AE game the last patch had all the delayed Dutch squadrons show up in Aden. Unfortunately all of them are set to HQ's that block their being placed on ships. I can only guess that this happened because I am already into 1943 so the update didn't work correctly? Will sending them away for 60 days reset them?

I suppose this may need to be looked at in a future patch. I can send a save game if needed.

[michaelm75au]

Zip up and attach save here.

[Durbik]

Isn't that WAD? My Dutch units always showed up in Aden after their destination base was taken, and they are always restricted, so useless. If there's a possibility to move them in future patch - I'd say "yay!"

[Pascal_slith]

here's an example from my PBEM game...

finally got attachments to work...

[Pascal_slith]

bump.

Just checking if michaelm saw the save....

[michaelm75au]

I am going to allow restricted groups to load on ships for transport to an on-map base.
I don't see any issue with this as air groups at offmap bases are basically unable to fly real missions anyway.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I am going to allow restricted groups to load on ships for transport to an on-map base.
I don't see any issue with this as air groups at offmap bases are basically unable to fly real missions anyway.

Loading them onto a ship is only part of the problem. When they are unloaded they will still be restricted, hence you will not be able to move them anywhere else if there are no bases left on map. This is highly likely with the Dutch air units. You could create bases provided you have LCUs to do this with but with no HQs from the command available this is not a good thing to do.

It would be much better to remove the permanent restriction when the air units come back. This could be fudged by forcing the withdrawal of the units and bring them back as effectively new units with new HQs.

[Itdepends]

Could open up an exploit though- could you transport restricted west coast units to Balboa/Panama and then load them onto ship to transport them to where ever you wanted? Heck you can already transport them direct from the East coast to Capetown- and then load them onto ships.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I am going to allow restricted groups to load on ships for transport to an on-map base.
I don't see any issue with this as air groups at offmap bases are basically unable to fly real missions anyway.

Loading them onto a ship is only part of the problem. When they are unloaded they will still be restricted, hence you will not be able to move them anywhere else if there are no bases left on map. This is highly likely with the Dutch air units. You could create bases provided you have LCUs to do this with but with no HQs from the command available this is not a good thing to do.

It would be much better to remove the permanent restriction when the air units come back. This could be fudged by forcing the withdrawal of the units and bring them back as effectively new units with new HQs.

In the save I am looking at, there was a group static attached to an Indian HQ. Indian bases were still available, just not the original national bases. So moving that group by ship to an Indian base make sense.
Dutch and Phillipino groups are problematic when no national home bases exist any more.
I still need to review groups in these cases.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Itdepends

Could open up an exploit though- could you transport restricted west coast units to Balboa/Panama and then load them onto ship to transport them to where ever you wanted? Heck you can already transport them direct from the East coast to Capetown- and then load them onto ships.

If restricted groups are at an on-map base, then you can't move them onto a ship in order to transport to Panama.

My mistake, Eastern Usa is an off-map base.[:o] Might need to isolate it further to isolated offmap bases that don't have land routes to the map.

Didn't realise you could move restricted groups already from Eastern to CT?

[Itdepends]

You can move restricted units from Eastern USA to wherever you have an off map connection. The off map movement uses the land movement rules which means just like you can march restricted units across borders in Asia- you can strat move restricted units from the USA to Port stanley, cape town, canada etc via the East coast.

Not a real problem at the moment because the only advantage you can get out of it in game is (for instance) to move additional air or naval support to off map bases that may be lacking in them.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Itdepends

You can move restricted units from Eastern USA to wherever you have an off map connection. The off map movement uses the land movement rules which means just like you can march restricted units across borders in Asia- you can strat move restricted units from the USA to Port stanley, cape town, canada etc via the East coast.

Not a real problem at the moment because the only advantage you can get out of it in game is (for instance) to move additional air or naval support to off map bases that may be lacking in them.

Are you talking about groups or LCUs?? Or both??

[CaptDave]

Being a long-time IT veteran, I understand the coding nightmare michaelm is facing. This is definitely a case where tweaking one little piece of code has high potential for messing up other parts.

The first question we need to ask is how historical is this and how historical we want it to be. As a specific example, would the Dutch have reconstituted these squadrons if they had nowhere to send them? Presumably, if they did so it would have been for attachment to some other country's forces.

I have no opinion on whether that premise should be accepted, since I don't have the historical knowledge in this are. If it is, though, it makes sense to me that returning units from countries with no national bases available should have their permanent restrictions removed at re-creation, though the player should still pay PPs for reassignment to another command. Even in the greatest war of all time, countries didn't make a practice of just gifting significant equipment to other countries (loans, maybe, but not gifts -- and yes, there are probably exceptions).

Of course, as I said earlier, I have no idea what programming is involved, so I may be proposing the near-impossible!

[Itdepends]

Michael I've only tried it with groups so far- moved three bomber squadrons that were training on the east coast to Canada and Cape town. It's a PBEM game so I haven't waited for them to get there- but they're showing up in the reinforcement que to arrive in Cape town in 30 or 40 days from memory.

RE land combat units- I'll admit I haven't tried that but wouldn't expect it to be any different as I assume it's using the same land strat move rules as the air groups.

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I am going to allow restricted groups to load on ships for transport to an on-map base.
I don't see any issue with this as air groups at offmap bases are basically unable to fly real missions anyway.

My suggestion would not be this but rather allow for an HQ change if the unit can only appear at a non-national off-map base. You've already checked for the change in arrival base in the current code, so you don't have to check for that again.

[Pascal_slith]

Another solution is simply any air or land unit that appears from the reinforcement calendar at an offmap base, EXCEPT Eastern US and Canada, should always provide the possibility to change the HQ.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Pascal
My suggestion would not be this but rather allow for an HQ change if the unit can only appear at a non-national off-map base. You've already checked for the change in arrival base in the current code, so you don't have to check for that again.

ORIGINAL: Pascal
Another solution is simply any air or land unit that appears from the reinforcement calendar at an offmap base, EXCEPT Eastern US and Canada, should always provide the possibility to change the HQ.

FWIW I agree with these approaches.

Also, it should not be possible for restricted units to make use of off-map strategic movement between off-map bases, if they are prohibited from being loaded onto "normal" ships (TFs).

Andrew