Fast Transport bug w/attached save

[Mr.Frag]

Here's a illustration of the Fast Transport bug.

Notice the TF heading up from Noumea to Tulagi.

Notice the remnant of the RCT left behind

Notice all the empty ships in the TF doing nothing but burning fuel.

Explain please ... A smaller group of ships took the exact same sized RCT to Lunga, the only difference between the two groups is that this one has MORE capacity...

[Capt Cliff]

Did you pick a destination for your task force first, before you did anything else that is? It's in the rules. You must first pick a TF's destination. What your describing sounds like what I've seen time and time again. If you did it in the right order then who knows, WTFO!!!

[Mr.Frag]

Yep. picked dest, then troops. Exact same command sequence used for the other RCT which moved quite successfully to Lunga, thats why it gets to be so frustrating. It just randomly goes haywire like this...

[Joel Billings]

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
Here's a illustration of the Fast Transport bug.

Notice the TF heading up from Noumea to Tulagi.

Notice the remnant of the RCT left behind

Notice all the empty ships in the TF doing nothing but burning fuel.

Explain please ... A smaller group of ships took the exact same sized RCT to Lunga, the only difference between the two groups is that this one has MORE capacity...

I see what you mean. I tried to duplicate it at start of May scenario but couldn't. We need the save the turn before the execution phase so we can run it through and see why it didn't load the whole unit. Do you have that? You were obviously using the Load Troops Only option. Did you transfer some of the ships into the TF after you gave the orders to load the troops into the TF? It's probably some kind of round off error in the load routine so send us the pre-save if you have it.

[Mr.Frag]

Tough really to give a pre-save for that one, as all the commands happen at once.

Select base.

Select create TF.

Select Fast transport.

Add required ships.

Set TF DH.

Select load only troops

Select ground unit.

Run turn and wonder if it worked or not.

It may just be a sequence of events that does it.

This particular case, the turn before the load, I fueled the TF from port instead of creating it from scratch. The ships were at Dock as a TF, not being made up from scratch.

This is the same glitch that I get with load only troops, pickup at another destination. Sending a large group of ships will carry less then sending a bunch of separate ships with identical orders. It's gotta be a rounding problem somewhere, just not really sure where it comes into play.

I'll try and mock up both scenarios in one save for you.

One little cheat I do is to set destination of Tulagi as it is within the steaming range of the ships to have them run full out vs Lunga where it takes an extra turn to get there due to the added range.

[Yamamoto]

I always click the load option before setting a destination hex and I have never noticed this problem. Of course I do set the destination before ending the turn or else they start unloading everything again right away.

Yamamoto

[dherche]

Originally posted by Yamamoto
I always click the load option before setting a destination hex and I have never noticed this problem. Of course I do set the destination before ending the turn or else they start unloading everything again right away.

Yamamoto

I do the same as Yamamoto. Never really had a problem either. However, I have noticed sometimes that a multiple ship FastTrans TF will only load one ship with troops as is Mr. Frag's case. I don't see this as a bug. I see this as the FastTrans TF will only load what it can unload in a single unloading phase (as documented on page 33 of the manual). This, of course, has a lot to do with port size/damage etc.

[Joel Billings]

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
Tough really to give a pre-save for that one, as all the commands happen at once.

Select base.

Select create TF.

Select Fast transport.

Add required ships.

Set TF DH.

Select load only troops

Select ground unit.

Run turn and wonder if it worked or not.

It may just be a sequence of events that does it.

This is a case where we can use a save game with a step by step of what we need to do to repeat the bug. I realize this is difficult to provide, especially if the bug is not consistent. With a save and step by step we can fix the bug, without it, it's highly unlikely we'd fix the bug even if we invested hours/days of time trying.

Joel

[Mr.Frag]

I'm curious, if the amount loaded is determined by the DH port size, how does it factor into this when some of you do NOT pick the DH first, maybe thats my issue, sometimes i muff up the order, and with no DH set, it assumes the don't care load factor vs the MUST be gone by sunrise load limits.

This might explain why it seems so random in nature, as the DH is going to vary in size and/or not be set at all sometimes. As we all do things in slightly different order, this could account for the seemingly random results...

Joel,

from a how the routine works standpoint, can you confirm that the port size for DH would make a difference to the calculation of how much to load? Is there a factor at play that checks number of ships vs port size and controls unload rate (ie: port sized 3 can only unload 6 ships at once, so don't load other 3?)

[Mr.Frag]

Ok Joel, heres the best I can prove ... it is completely repeatable.

I have included two saves, with the ships already given their orders so all you have to do is run the turn (USA player) and see the results.

Save 1 is all the ships in one group, picking up the RCT at Noumea from Efate.

Save 2 is the exact same ships, given exactly the same command, running as individual ships instead of one larger TF.

You will note that after the turn, each ship in save two has picked up more troops total then the group'd version in save 1. There is still the problem in save 1 where 2 ships return empty.

I feel this is the root of the problem, somewhere in the calculations, it deems that the last two ships are not required to load the complete unit, but these calculations are actually wrong, because the clock is ALSO running until the sun comes up. If you load this RCT directly in Noumea without sending the ships to Efate, it DOES fit perfectly with two ships to spare on this exact group of ships, which pretty much shows exactly where the calculations are going wrong.

From a logic standpoint, it looks like it determines exactly how many ships are required to load the unit, excludes the rest THEN starts loading based on port size/ops points/time and fails to fit the troops in the time allotted.

I have worked the problem in reverse but I can not get it so it can be reproduced 100% of the time and I know if you can't see it, it's the devil to try and troubleshoot. Hopefully, this will lead down the same path and fix the problem from the other side of the coin since it can always be reproduced. The problem that I can't prove seems to be related to loading the troops after refueling the TF and leaving it docked for the turn to get it's ops points back ... they seem to be related to each other and I would not be surprised if fixing the one also fixes the other, since the extra ships instead of being excluded will pick up the slack that got missed...

[mogami]

Hi, TF using the same ships but set to transport or fast transport will not load the same amout load points.

Transport TF will load completly, FT will only load what can be off loaded with OP's remaining from movement phase (2nd movement phase OP are for retiring.

It is OP's remaining that detirmine how many load points a ship can offload (or load on pick up missions)

Ship speed effects loads (by the amout of OP used prior to arriving at DH)

[Mr.Frag]

Mogami, they are all fast transport. Even if that was somehow at play, it does not explain why two ships that have exactly the same op points left as every other ship in the TF do not load any troops.