BTR Bugs

[mgp1044]

Hi, I've been playing an Allied full 1943 campaign using v1.06.80 and have been running into a few bugs.

The main issue is with bomber raids with complex routes (to avoid flak sites). Recently I've got to the point where I have decent escorts that mean that I can send Eight Air Force raids deeper into Germany and use all the available waypoints to route the raids. The raid follows the inbound route, but after hitting the target the majority of the bombers and some escorts seem to just be heading back to base directly, ignoring the planned route. For some reason the pathfinder units (that I use as raid leaders) follow the route as designed, but the main bombardment groups and most of the escorts don't. I suspect that this issue may have been there since I started the campaign (about 120 turns ago), but I'm only really noticing it now (bombers charging straight across the Ruhr instead of going around is proving a bit suicidal).

The second issue that I've been having is seeing full fighter groups that have been escorting heading home far earlier than they should. Sometimes the groups abandon escorting just after crossing the coastline of Holland, usually after being involved in combat with interceptors. In previous versions (v1.06.66 was the last version that I played) you would see any damaged fighters heading home after combat, but the rest of the group would continue until they ran short of fuel. With this new behaviour bomber raids end up very short of escorts later into their mission. Is this a change that has been made deliberately or a bug?

Between these two problems I suspect that the later part of the campaign (where you want to be hitting targets much deeper into the heart of Germany) is probably unplayable.

Another observation (which may or may not be something that has been changed in patches since the last one that I played) is that fighters that are escorting bombers seem much more reluctant to attack interceptors that are trying to disengage from their interception, i.e., the interceptor outline has turned from black to blue, (either because they are damaged, low on fuel or low on morale). I'm not sure if this is a change that has been made or a potential issue, just something that is different from previous versions that I played.

[simovitch]

RE: First issue: Bomber and escort stragglers (>25% damaged or low on fuel) will take the shortest route home, but all the rest should stay on the plotted return path. I just tested this and it was the case. To test for yourself, you can stop the action, select "Review" and then "show all paths" to see if the returning groups are staying on the plotted course. If you can take a screenshot of this that might help me figure out what is going on.

RE: Second issue: fighters engaging in dogfights burn a lot of fuel. Adding to that, newer patches have made some mods to account for the fuel spent by escorts from/to base to FUP, so what you are seeing seems like WAD to me (move your fighter groups closer to the east coast). I assume you are adjusting the fighter delay during raid planning to meet up with the bombers near the Dutch coast to give them more range?

Interceptors that are disengaging now dive down away from the bomber groups so that they can get away or maybe drag down some escorts with them. This sounds like WAD to me.

I hope you don't give up and call it unplayable, you may need to just adjust your old tried and true strategies and tactics.

[mgp1044]

I've had some time to do some testing and have come up with a few results. Firstly I tried loading a previous save (after the action of the day before), moving into the planning phase and planning a similar raid (and only that one raid) and got no problems. I've run the original save a few times as well and seen the first issue every time, I've also tried loading the original save and deleting all the missions except the one with the problem (to see if the number of raids that I had going simultaneously was the problem) and it still occurs. Is it possible that a save has become corrupted?


The following picture shows one of the two raids with the route following problem (the other is raid 24) that I'm having with the original save with the units that are following the route properly:

Units following route.jpg (183 KiB) Viewed 833 times

This picture shows the same raid and highlights the units that are not following the route properly (to the South-West of the route):

Units not following the route.jpg (185.22 KiB) Viewed 833 times

The Liberators (except for the lead unit of the raid, the 3/814th pathfinder unit, which is following the route) not following the route did follow the correct inbound route, but seem to have ignored the return route after hitting the target. Note that although there are a number of raids, only allied aircraft from raid 23 are in this screenshot.

It is possible that this is an intermittent problem, possibly caused by a corrupted save or something; in which case I can probably work around it, although it is inconvenient if I've done a lot of work planning.


Regarding the second possible problem the following picture shows a fighter group (353rd) heading home fairly early (South of Haarlem in the picture, the Liberator over the North Sea is a single one that turned back presumably from mechanical failure). The raid set off from Leiston (West of Lowestoft) and the 353rd FG is based at Raydon (just West of Ipswich) using P47D-15s. I didn't use a delay as D-15s should have the range to escort this raid all the way and back (although I didn't understand the additional fuel burn during combat when I set up the raid). The fighter group detached from the main raid after the first interceptors made contact with the raid, but no damage messages appeared (I use message level 2). Does 'combat' occur without any damage being done (i.e., they are burning extra fuel without shooting (or at least hitting) the enemy)?

Escorts heading home.jpg (159.37 KiB) Viewed 833 times

Note that this second point is probably more for my understanding rather than a definite bug.

[simovitch]

Those P47's will jettison their tanks if engaged, and then burn more inherent fuel during the dogfight.

Setting escort delays during planning is easy with the right-click-on-route method to set the point where the fighters will join the bombers on route. You can also observe the theoretical location where the escorts hit bingo fuel. This will also be the best way to set the escort delay for picking up the return trip.

[mgp1044]

I'm still having the same problem as before with bombers not following their assigned routes, see the picture below:

Bombers over the Ruhr.jpg (187.31 KiB) Viewed 791 times

As before the allied aircraft in this raid are all supposed to be following the raid route shown. Most of the bomber groups are charging across the Ruhr and the fighter escorts are all over the place.

I've attached the save file that I'm having trouble with:

save001.zip

(1.99 MiB) Downloaded 14 times

The two 8th AAF and the 15th AAF raids are all failing to follow their assigned return routes properly. In most cases they are flying over heavy flak areas that they shouldn't and the escorts also get separated leading to heavy losses. Please could someone look into this as it makes the game unplayable.

[mgp1044]

I'm still having problems with the bomber raids not following the return routes properly. Is anybody else able to replicate this bug or is it something wrong at my end?

[simovitch]

It looks to me like this happens when a group takes heavy casualties. The group is supposed to shed off the heavily damaged (>25%) stragglers and proceed on the return path but it's not for some reason. I'm looing into this.

[mgp1044]

Thanks for your help!

[simovitch]

Man this was a motherxxxxer of a bug hunt to find this one but I got it. It seems to be a leftover bit of code from when we were working on squashing the infamous turnback bug. Bomber groups that should have been following the leadgroup the entire mission were breaking away after bombing the target and heading straight back to the formup airfield instead of following the return path and became unintentional flak-bait on the way home.

I need to test it for shuttles but it seems to be working now. Thanks for reporting this, it's significant enough to release another official patch but I will try to get a hotfix up soon with the other fixes.

[mgp1044]

That's great! I remember the turnback bug fondly. Looking forward to being able to carry on with my game.