ED Bombing missions not happening

[Jimbonsx]

Playing 'Eagle Day' as Luftwaffe, scheduling day and night missions withing 10/11 Group areas, and the game jumps past them - the clock literally skips past these missions and doesn't perform them. In the same game, a (night) mission with the Stab unit as lead bomber + I/II and III units as additional bombers only launches the Stab unit to bomb. Twice.
This is getting ridiculous - I've tried replaying the turn and it repeats the failure. When looking at the Action reports, it shows wide open spaces where there should be damage assessments/air losses. What is going on?

[simovitch]

Do your messages indicate bad weather at form up point? missions will automatically scrub if the bad weather persists into the afternoon, or it's too late in the day to launch day raids, but you should get messages to this effect. Run the replay at the end of the turn and see if the messaging up to level 3 provides any hint.

Otherwise I've never seen anything that you describe, except the clock will jump ahead if there are no missions over several hours. let me know.

Best to launch night raids with KGr 100 planes as lead in BoB btw.

[Jimbonsx]

No 'bad weather' reports - I've had those in other turns in this game. I've played this game for decades (TalonSoft version) and never encountered it before.
I've seen the clock jump forward too, between raid groups (am vs pm for example). In the replay on message level 3, there is no message displayed when the clock jumps forward at 1202 (radio activity is 200+ at that point) to 1812 (radio activity is descending from 200-ish).

Game file available if you need it.

[simovitch]

No 'bad weather' reports - I've had those in other turns in this game. I've played this game for decades (TalonSoft version) and never encountered it before.
I've seen the clock jump forward too, between raid groups (am vs pm for example). In the replay on message level 3, there is no message displayed when the clock jumps forward at 1202 (radio activity is 200+ at that point) to 1812 (radio activity is descending from 200-ish).

Game file available if you need it.

PM sent, but I think I'm seeing something like what you describe. stay tuned.

[simovitch]

OK what I am seeing is the mouse-over info of a raid in progress will only show the lead group, but when they reach the target I am seeing every group from the raid do a bomb run in turn. Please verify that this is the case.

So far I have found no cause for the cancelled raids or skipping clock. Please send me a save, preferably before the game clock starts, when you get a chance.

[Jimbonsx]

Update: I've made some changes to the missions for the day and managed to get a mission-set that actually plays.
Several game-days down the line - all of which had the same issue - and I've still got the problem.
It's becoming unplayable - I don't want to have to rebuild each days missions many times just so that the game will accept and perform them.

[simovitch]

I would like to help but I can't get this to repeat with a new scenario start. Some answers might help:
Do you remember what version of the game you started this file with, and what patch are you using now?
Are you using autoplan raids at all?

[timotio80]

I've been having the same trouble in BTR. Played for many years and just got it running again on a new PC. Fully updated to 1.06.70. It has happened on both night and bomber raids and it's been doing it since I started the new game. At first I thought it's because I had mixed in auto gen recon missions, although I had done that in the past with no trouble, but no it just happened with only a handful of user-planned missions. A couple of times, I was able to reload and it would launch everything correctly, but that is inconsistent.

From what I've seen, the lead planes will launch, i only ever see the one box. It starts at the "launch point" but then the box immediately heads to it's home base. It never announces any messages, at least in detail setting 1 or 2. Further, it shows the raids in the list just fine, not cancelled. Also, it seems to keep the germans from launching intercepts in the area it happens, but that may just be a coincidence.

Anyway, yeah it's game breaking unfortunately. I have a save file I can share if need be.

[simovitch]

OK then so much for "one witness - no witness" axiom. I have a save file from the OP that I can work with. I'll let you know.

[Jimbonsx]

I've pared the turn down to a very few missions - a few FS and BOMB missions, no recon, no Auto Plan of anything. In the latest iteration, the first two missions execute (Epr210 low-level on Rochford, StG3 on West Prawle, both starting at 0600) without a problem, as do 2 raids from KG30 and KG3 on Coltishall (TOT 0900) but everything between those are no-shows.

[simovitch]

Still trying to figure this out.

[timotio80]

Thanks for finding the bug, crazy it never manifested until now.... Obscure code bases be like. Anyway, do you think we can temporarily work around it by starting missions at like 5 past the hour or something?
Thanks,
Tim

[simovitch]

feck- the bug is still there... but if I slow the clock down they are more likely to launch which is more vexing.

setting odd launch time later in the day might help, but I'm not sure yet.

[Jimbonsx]

Well spotted and thanks. I'll try the odd start time and see what happens.

[simovitch]

Need some help sleuthing this out -
By chance was the game saved and exited in the middle of raid planning; meaning did you load a saved game and continue plotting raids? Is there any other pattern that you are noticing where the raids are being skipped?

[timotio80]

No it’s not about exiting, not even alt tabbing I don’t think. If I had to guess its about too many planes launching in a short time. Not all raids with escorts do it, but it’s super likely if there are more than a couple of fighter units attached. Also, night bombers failed too when I launched large raids. Although, the night intruders and ecm launched fine. And so did typhoon raids even while the eighth glitched.

My first thought was that it was the auto planning but it breaks even without that. Unfortunately I’m traveling right now or try it without dxwnd or reinstall the game entirely and see if it happened with the base game or a given patch.

[simovitch]

So this "no show" issue started with 1.06.70?

[simovitch]

This is most vexing, because sometimes raid launches and sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't seem to be related to any randomness except maybe the internal clock, or perhaps the data is getting subtly tossed around in the memory... which led me to investigate groups flying multiple raids in a single day, which my test scenario had. Sure enough there are issues that could mess up raid timing. Easy fixes - done, but I'm too burned out from this to create a test right now.

It may be that I release a public beta for testing.

[Jimbonsx]

I noticed that the first time I tried a very large (for me in BoB) raid - circa 300 bombers + ditto fighters - was the start of the problem. Perhaps the 'large' theory is right. I'll try breaking it down.

[simovitch]

It would be best to test the theory that adding aircraft groups on 2 missions per day causes launch issues on current and later raids. You will know that a group is already committed to an earlier or later raid if it shows up as dark blue on the selection list. red means it is already slated for 2 missions.

Hours and hours of debugging your saved game has led me to this 2-raid bug conclusion. large raids have nothing to do with it unless they are using groups from an earlier/later raid.

Thanks.