Russian Steel Bug

[White Falcon]

I just completed the Kolotchny Station scenario in Russian Steel 1.4 -- achieved a decisive victory and captured all except one victory hex in the Southeast corner of the map in the full 18 turns. Every thing looked okay up to the point where the victory summary screen appears. When the next screen appeared where my forces are normally allocated anywhere from 300-600 rebuild points after a battle, I noticed that ZERO rebuild points were allocated to them. After clicking through this screen, the next battle -- without the usual introduction or side notes -- is again Kolotchny Station except this time there are zero support points as well. I deployed my forces thinking that this might a different battle but using the same map. I noticed that all the victory hexes at the start of the battle are Russian controlled except for the same hex in the Southeast corner that I failed to capture in the previous battle. I also noticed that SPWAW crashed anytime I tried to save the game during this battle. I advanced my forces all the way across the map only to discover there are no German forces whatsoever on the map! After the final turn 18, I am again rewarded with a "Decisive Victory" and in the following rebuild phase I get 1700 rebuild points! And now the big problem -- the next battle is the Defense of Dubno! The game looped my vastly improved forces all the way back to the very first battle of Russian Steel! I have no real desire to play all these battles over again (even though with my new force of KVs & -34s would make it very easy this time around) and if I did, I have a feeling this is just an endless loop anyway and I would very much like to get to the next battle that's really supposed to follow after Kolotchny It's important to note that before I played Kolotchny Station the first time, I upgraded SPWAW from 7.0 to 7.1. Has anyone else experienced this problem and is it fixable? And if it isn't, if I should restart Russian Steel all over again in version 7.1, can I avoid this loop? Please advise.

[Spenser]

getting kolotchny after kolotchny just as you describe.
Can't remember being looped back to Dubno though.
I upgraded RS to 1.4 while playing kolotchny and believed
that to be the problem, so i experimented with reinstalling different versions but when i couldn't fix it i skipped the whole thing and started the Stalingrad campaign instead...

Be nice to have a fix though, had got myself some tank crews with 40+ kills


Spenser

[pcarell]

I have tried RS 3 times and never got past Kolotchny. I re- downloade the campaign and patches but the same loop occurs. This is a bug that needs fixing pronto cause RS is too good to give up on.

[Frank W.]

i´m now past kolotchny station.

i don´t encounter any bug till now.

ecxept a pillbox pointing straight in the woods
instead to the front

[Anthony_MatrixForum]

looking at the file that controls the campaign 'ucamp022.dat' - there seems to be a major problem with scenario '40' (kolonsky station ...sp?) - when you finish , it points you a non existance scenario #41. This was changed from rs1.3 to rs1.4.

I will try to create a 'fixed' version of this file based on what I can see from the pervious versions...

(ps: this can be all seen and fixed when you 'edit campaign' from within spwaw)

Anthony

[Supervisor]

Nice catch Anthony, if you want to fix it, edit campaign scenario 40 to point to scenario 1000 for all results. This is the accepted end campaign scenario SPWAW reconizes as their are no other scenarios to point to at this point. Maybe they didn't expect anyone to make it this far before they could add some more scenarios. Maybe just a small oversight on the creators part also. I'll find him and point it out then kill him.

[darroch]

Hello -

Sorry to find out about this just now. gmenfan was kind enough to email me...

...switched jobs and have had to put hold on RS....


I will review 1.4 and post here by Sunday with my plans...


I have the parts of RS 1.5 - 4 new battles and 4 re-engineered battles (the first 4)...

I want to pacakge them all together and send to Tankhead as a single zip file....

I will advise soon.


Thanks for hanging in there.


Brad

[Frank W.]

i must say RS is getting more and more difficult. i have now completed the kaluga defend i mailed about to you brad.

but the battle after that is also a heavy one, need to buy some truck and inf, (not much for 105 points) to take some of the vic hexes in the german strongpoints, i think. no further arty , seems you must rely on the katjushas you have, but the amunition from them will be gone very fast.

must try this one again

[darroch]

Hello,


I've finished reviewing everything. Since Rs 1.4 there's been a disk crash and a complete re-installation of operating system...

There are two serious mistakes in the battle-advance codes - I cannot explain how this happened but if you get decisive victories in two of the battles you are sent to a completely wrong battle and end up getting stuck...

The good news is that this is easily fixed.

I also found the four updated battles so that any new RS players will not have to endure those ridiculous airstrikes in Battle 1...

There will be more build points too - these battles have proven to be very difficult and without enough build points the player might get too cautious - which may discourage and frustrate


I hope to have some more news within 2 days - I think I can fix the bad jump code very simply.

Brad




Frank W: your will probably need to buy trucks - the battles are designed so that your AUX plus core force can (barely) handle the enemy forces - but having your infantry and ATGs mobile will help a lot...


Cheers,

Brad

[Bing]

Darroch - If you can fix those airstrikes I would be very interested in playing Russian Steel, will playtest for you if you would like. After all, how many campagins do we have that can be played from the soviet side?

Last time I restarted RS, I got as far as the first airstrike and that was it. Seemed to be a setup to me, with effects way out of proportion to what they should be in game terms.

Can provide backup on Red Army TO&E and equipment, ditto for Soviet air forces equipment, have assembled a nice little library.

Bing

[darroch]

Bing,

In the version I am finalizing the airstrikes in Battle One are reduced to some level bombers in the pre-battle artillery phase.

The presence of 13 planes was a serious oversight. There was a major design philosophy shift half-way through and all the original factors (such as major airstrikes in Bat 1) were not completely eliminated...

I decided to eliminate the planes in favor of the abstracted level bombers so that the player's core only has to worry about the Wehrmacht - not the Luftwaffe too...

The presence of the Luftwaffe is universally disliked in most of the feedback I've received. As a result I have tried to reduce its effects in many battles...

it is still good discipline to avoid clumping units and purchasing and grooming a platton of AA...

When I release the latest revision: Russian Steel 1.5, I hope you'll give it another try. I have included some comments in the introductory text - including a warning that RS is intended to be more difficult than most of the campaigns bundled with SPWAW...

In a way, we'll be disappointed if a player doesn't have to replay at least one or two battles because their core got creamed...not trying to ruin the fun so much as avoid the "this-is-so-easy-its-boring" syndrome....

I'll salute anyone who can clear Kaluga city north of the river in battles 11 and 12 - a real nasty slugfest there...

But I admit in going back over some of these battles that the difficulty level was overdone in several...I've addressed many but not all issues...continued feedback helps.

For players who insist on capturing every VH on the map, there will be some rude surprises in terms of losses. And if you're used to AI campaign games where you can wipe every enemy unit - this is frequently not possible in RS...

Cheers

Brad


I will post here and on tankhead when RS 1.5 is ready

[Frank W.]

Originally posted by darroch
Bing,

...
I'll salute anyone who can clear Kaluga city north of the river in battles 11 and 12 - a real nasty slugfest there...

Cheers

Brad


I will post here and on tankhead when RS 1.5 is ready

thanx. in the first kaluga scen i took this whole fuckin* city. and yeaah: a bloodfeast it was...

[Bing]

Darroch - Congratos for going back, looking at the campaign and thinking through the effects of early events and doing something about them. This is the kind of work we don't often see; once finalized, that is that for most designers.

I felt the airstrike coming so early in the first scenario was enitrely out of proportion. I did disperse my units as much as possible. Many of them were wiped out anyway.

Didn't matter what I did, the game went "Ha!! Gotcha!!", which isn't my style because I feel the player can't do anything about it. Make a certain posiiton difficult to capture, make it so I have to complete a certain task at a certain time, there are other ways to challenge the player.

If the pro-airstrike faction would like it, maybe an airstrike which wipes out ALL their troops and equipment can be arranged. That would really be challenging. Quick play campaign.

For me, the airstrike results discouraged further play. Not the fact there WAS one, the fact it was devastating. Others may give it a standing ovation for all I know. Good for them.

Good for you for doing something about it. I look forward to restarting RS. Those with an interest in the Red Army somtimes wonder if they did indeed win the Great Patriotic War.

Bing

[darroch]

Frank! Well done - taking the city is an achievement...

I may remove those Stukas in RS 1.5 .... slowly checking over all the battles....taking longer than I thought.




Bing:

The airstrikes were generally added only to ensure the Russian learned and observed good discipline - like dispersing vehicles and not clumping infantry with "HE magnets" like tanks....

This effect should not be at the expense of the player's enjoyment, however, and based on many player's feedback (thanks!) Russian Steel is difficult enough without the random devastation of a Stuka strike....

As I go through these battles once more, I'll be looking for use of airstrikes that are questionable....like the Kaluga battles where they don't really add much to the game play....

Keep up the feedback and I'll keep improving the campaign - it helps in editing previously released battles and also will help with new battles because I can calibrate difficulty levels better...

And, with the long 75s showing up in mid-1942, the German tanks are deadly enough without throwing in the Luftwaffe....


The real effect of airpower is (IMHO) well modelled in SPWAW - if curious, just try and move a column of T-34s across 5 kilometers of open steppe while the German has 20 Hs-123 with anti-armor ordnance.....

Everyone ought to do this once just to see how bad it can get....


Now when I read about battles and they mention the sortie rate, it has a lot more meaning....

At Kursk, on III PzKps front, the Luftwaffe managed over 900 sorties per day for several days - on a frontage roughly the size of the largest SPWAW map (~10 Kms) - Imagine 4-5 airstrikes per 50 meters of front....no wonder the Panzers could advance despite deeply entrenched Russians in multiple defense zones....

Here's a SPWAW scenario: 100 hex map, 200 entrenched Russian units (all kinds, multiple lines, mines), 100 Luftwaffe aircraft, 2 companies of Tigers and some Panzergrenadiers....

Roughly equal to the effect of the 503rd SchwABt and any one of 6, 7, or 19 Panzer down on III PK front....

Whew!!



But, playable??? - No way...

Cheers,

Brad

[Frank W.]

i thin only delete the airstrikes if they are really questionable like in winter or bad weather battles. the russian player must live with that, it was reality IMHO. beginning perhaps in 43 this will change of course.

[Bing]

Perhaps we ought also to move a German armored column in the open with IL-2's in the neighborhood? By 1943 the Red Army TO&E had omitted the standard mobile AA batteries. They were put back in, but it is a measure of the control of the air by the Red Army air forces that it was felt AA was no longer needed.

Turned out there was more life in the Luftwaffe than the Russians realized.

I look forward to the new RS.

Bing

[darroch]

Here is the corrected ucamp file for Russian Steel 1.4...

The two erroneous branchings should be gone as well as some that were yet to be discovered (i.e. you had to fight through Rostov twice...)

unzip, place in campaign folder - to check, if curious, open edit campaign and look at decisive victory for battle 6 - if it says anything but "0007" - it is wrong and I need to know specifics.

RS 1.5 is assembled, in final quality control, and the text writeup is finished so it will be ready in a few weeks - current estimate.

Brad

[Frank W.]

Originally posted by darroch
.
RS 1.5 is assembled, in final quality control, and the text writeup is finished so it will be ready in a few weeks - current estimate.

Brad

you´re the man

[Bing]

Does the Russian player get blasted with German air, same as usual? If so, I'll wait.

Bing

[Jim1954]

Bing, it appears so , at least till 1.5 is out.

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