failure to launch

[Pete McCullagh]

Here is a new one. After a full day of raids and bloody combat (361axis losses, 178 allied), not a sinlge night bombing raid launched! Approx 15% cloud cover. Is there a limit on anything built in that could cause this?

[Arkham]

wow, how did you get 361 kills?

[Pete McCullagh]

361!!
1) stagger multiple raids in same area w heavy escort.
2) lots of fighter sweeps/airfield raids
3) repeat in italy
4) make sure return route is escorted

[simovitch]

was there any messaging that might indicate what happened? What is the moonlight?

[Pete McCullagh]

I had messaging turned off, moonrise was at 23:21 raids at1900. Ecm and Nf raids launched, only bombing and airfield missions did not! Find saves attached.‎
Look at raids 40,44,48,37,53-59
This was a really big day, flew almost90% of ac. Wondering if I ran into a database limit?

[warshipbuilder]

I see no attachments. Try again or email them direct to one of us so we can look at them.

You can fly a maximum of 200 missions. I have never heard of planes not launching just due to number of a/c involved.

[Pete McCullagh]

For some reason I can't upload any saves, will send by email

[simovitch]

Remember, even if you had messaging turned off during the reaction phase, you can always watch the replay with messaging turned on, and go back and forth one frame at a time if you want.

[Pete McCullagh]

Tried that, didn't see any message. Support missions launched, no bombing missions

[Arkham]

To be fair, i have seen this too with BC. I chalked it up to weather and didnt think too much of it.

[Pete McCullagh]

Yes I would have too, but, there was light cloud cover (about 15%) and it happened both in England and Italy plus the rcm and escort missions launched, very odd.

[Pete McCullagh]

Part 2) another big day allied losses 172 axis 300. Launch every night bomber and support missions !!! Not a single axis night fighter launches!!: I have axis in oil shortage and have been going after syn fuel and chem. But 3/30/44 and no fighters??? Weather is good. Don't understand this. Will save it.

[Pete McCullagh]

OK saved this anyone wants it I will email. Did replay, no messages and one of my large raids didn't launch either despite having same point of origin as another which did. Almost no cloud cover. Something is definitely odd!

[Pete McCullagh]

OK replayed this, similar results. This time no night bombers launched, weather clear, some rcm missions launched no axis night fighters. There seems to be some limit I running into.

[Arkham]

I think I just was able to recreate your issue. I had a decent day, with lots of combat (120 allied losses, 150 german). I also had a number of BC raids planned that went out without problem. For giggles I replayed the turn, but this time I added all my remaining heavies into one big stack and sent it out around 3 PM.

The big stack ran, but BC all canceled. It was a decent night, no bad weather at all.

[warshipbuilder]

Do you have a pre-launch save?

[Arkham]

Unfortunately not, but i'll see if i can recreate it again.

[simovitch]

The maximum number of raids is 200, and the maximum number of flights is 2000. "Flights" include the main raid groups plus all the individual flights, stragglers, followers for both sides. The number of flights will increase/decrease throughout the turn as planes land, take damage and break off, etc. If the 2000 is exceeded then there will be issues but that is a lot of freakin' flights. The good news is that this limit is easy to change in the code.

Any saves that you can provide will help us figure this out.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Arkham

I think I just was able to recreate your issue. I had a decent day, with lots of combat (120 allied losses, 150 german). I also had a number of BC raids planned that went out without problem. For giggles I replayed the turn, but this time I added all my remaining heavies into one big stack and sent it out around 3 PM.

The big stack ran, but BC all canceled. It was a decent night, no bad weather at all.

Interesting - I did the same - sending out a major daylight raid at 4PM followed by some night bombing raids. When the sun set the daylight raid divided into a bomber stream similar to the night raids. This could cause the 2000 flight limit to be exceeded, although I didn't notice anything like that this time. I need to retest with even larger formations.

This leads to a question: should the game allow daylight raids to launch that would be returning to base at night? As a pilot myself, forcing untrained 8AF bomber crews to land multiple bombers at night at a single airfield sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

[Arkham]

I read historical accounts (from I think the 100th BG) that said there were some raids deep into germany that they didn't land until after dark. I don't think its ahistorical, but perhaps it should cause an increase in crashes.