defensive GS issue

[jubjub]

Hi, I'm back... I found that my defensive GS isn't doing anything. See the attached example. 160 bombers fly and don't disrupt a single unit. 70 of these are dedicated CAS bombers as well. GS should be even more effective on defense, but it doesn't seem to be performing right.

This is from my server game vs Gam3r. There are other examples you can find by clicking around, but this was the best one since the Luftwaffe enjoyed complete supremacy in this engagement.

[Rosencrantus]

I've mentioned this before here https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5126588 and when I looked at the combat log during some combats on the enemy turn, your bombers just never attempt to bomb the enemy.

[Joel Billings]

I was able to download the Soviet save and repeat the battle you showed. We'll look into it.

[xhoel]

I am seeing the same thing. Defensive GS is flying in substantial numbers and not doing anything.

[Joel Billings]

I see it. Is this always the case for defensive CAP? Unfortunately Gary's first time through the debugger came up with some results (although low). When he ran it outside the debugger, he had 0 as did I. So this may not be an easy thing to track down. The code is very old and very messy so very hard to debug. He is going to keep looking to see if he can repeat it and find a reason for 0. If he can't, then it will have to go to Pavel for him to see if he can find a problem (he's our go to debugger on things that aren't readily repeatable or understandable). If the conclusion is the code needs to be rewritten, then that's a big job that will require balancing. I really am curious if this is always the case that defensive GS is much weaker than offensive side GS. What experience have players had?

[Rosencrantus]

From my experience out of the many combats in my server StB game against tyronec, GS defensively gets 0s about 90% of the time. When they do get disruptions, the amount is far less than it would have been offensively for the number of units in the battle.

[jubjub]

I've noticed that IL-2's do a lot of damage on defense. On the other hand, German CAS doesn't do much if at all.

I don't have much experience running German CAS on defense very much though. Since I can't control the losses, I usually don't leave it on, and when I do leave it on, most of my experience has been that they just don't fly.

[Joel Billings]

Thanks to the save, Gary found the smoking gun on this bug. It does appear to be just defensive GS, and there's some variability to it because it depends on what unit is targeted first by the air strike. This bug appears to have been created in 1.02.13 when some work other work on the air game was being done. I can't say how soon a fix for this will go out. We should have a test version in the next couple of days and will try to get a beta out as soon after that as we can.

[Rosencrantus]

I'm confused, in my thread where I brought up defensive GS not working properly a week ago, were you not able to get a save? That game was a server StB game. It's quite frustrating bringing up an issue with the game to get ignored and then a week later when its brought up in another thread it gets looked at, especially since we were both on server games. The same thing happened when I brought up GS escorts not working properly.

[Joel Billings]

I may have missed your post. If I did, I’m sorry: I try to look at all posts in the tech area within a day or two, but I do miss some in which case a bump is appropriate. If it’s a server game than I may not be able to get the right save to repeat the bug, depending on when the players made their saves. I try to post a note if I need a save or am unable to reproduce the issue so players can look for a similar save.

[Rosencrantus]

Now I just feel bad for getting frustrated, my apologies. I'm just trying my best to get this game into a better state as I spend so much time in it. Thanks for all the work you and the team put in to making this game better each patch.

[baloo7777]

+1

[Joel Billings]

No worries, appreciate the apology, we often feel frustrated too. This is the most complex game program we've ever worked on, and sometimes we feel like just breathing on the code can cause a new bug to appear. As long as we can get saves we can strive to make improvements. We appreciate all the reports as sometimes a report without a save will prompt another player to get us a save. That's the one downside of MP versus PBEM. With PBEM the players can keep all their saves in case something comes up, while with MP we only have access to the last 3 saves (at most, sometimes only 2 for some unknown reason).