Matrix Games Forums

Greetings,

A friend and I are trying to design a campaign. So far we have three scenarios designed. When played as stand-alone scenarios, they play just fine. However, every time we try to link these scenarios into a campaign three big problems arise.

Problem #1.
When designed and played as a scenario, crews can abandon and bail out of their vehicles and the crews are shown in play as units. However, when the scenario is linked as part of a campaign, crews never show up when a vehicle is abandoned or bailed out from. How can this be fixed?

Problem #2.
This seems to be related to problem #1. When vehicles are damaged and/or destroyed when playing a scenario that has been linked to a campaign, sometimes the armor toughness (as seen in the preferences) of the player2 units (never the player 1 forces) is changed by the game to 1636% (always 1636%, never any other value). (Perhaps this is because the damaged/destroyed vehicle tried to create a crew? Only guessing here.) Anyway, the only way to know if this is happening is either to check the preferences frequently during play (especially after damaging/destroying enemy AFVs), or when all of your rounds start bouncing off even the weakest enemy AFVs. How can this be fixed?

Problem #3.
Seems to be related to problem #1 and/or problem #2. To me this problem #3 is by far the worst of the three. Suddenly during play of a scenario that has been linked to a campaign, the asterisks (*) stop appearing from friendly units that have been spotted. I don't know of any way to make the asterisks appear again. This means that to get my asterisks back I have to uninstall the entire game (thus deleting all my Steel Panthers files) and re-install the game from scratch. To date, I have had to do this over a dozen times. How can this be fixed?

I am using version 8.30 of the game (8.20 with the 8.30 update).

Thanks for your help,
Victor

I've never encountered such problems. I have never played the game as 8.3 and therefore I can't tell you more than perhaps you need to look for an upgraded version.

It may be a hardware problem too. Once i had a problem that my game crashed after every ten minutes of play and it was caused by some ancient model virus. Took me a little while to find out what is was about, for I never suspected any viruses. Even old viruses making just little harm can make life difficult as in my case.

I've never seen the problem either, but I've only designed one campaign and it was a small one. I was thinking one of the more experienced designers would have responded to your problem before now.

Does this happen on both machines, or have you only tried to link the scenarios into the campaign on your machine?

You might also try deleting the infamous steel.prf file in the SAVE directory. You'll lose your preferences, but this file sometimes screws things up. Deleting it may straighten your problem out.

Hope this helps.

Post in the General spwaw area, one of the more experienced designers wil probably reply

I have seen these problems often, especially that 1636% problem.

It is not specific to campaign play and can crop up at any time. If you are playing soitaire, simply delete your steel.prf file and all will be corrected. If you are playing PBEM, the 1636% problem can not be fixed but the missing * can be fixed by deleting the steel.prf file

I am not sure that #1 is a problem. In campaign play, if a unit is destroyed, it can be repaired before the next battle if you have sufficient repair points. The destroyed vehicle is repaired or replaced. The crew is assigned to the new unit and does not appear in the next scenario as a unique unit.

re problem #1: I assume you´re speaking of "placeholder" core force crews? AUX units? The core force (once selected by user and NOT the scenario designer!!) command structure is fixed after the first campaign scenario played and then will be handled with the hardcoded logic of the campaign system. That means that abandoned/damaged/destroyed stuff will be dealt with after each battle played. Damaged stuff gets repaired/replaced by user options ect. Major Destruction already explained what happens. Best you avoid any of the design tricks applied to (placeholder) core force units and only apply them to AUX units. I assume you did set friendly non core force units to AUX? (Note: Core force units in scenarios that are inserted in a campaign are those that are not designated as AUX. Any non those designated units will vanish once the campaign has started and are replaced by what the user selects. Consider them as a sort of placeholder for what the user selects. Counts for friendly units only off course.)

Just tested: AUX units crews will not reunite with the their vehicles (or guns) when the bailing was initiated in a scenario that was reinserted into a campaign tree as save game. Looks like it´s a limitation of the campaign engine.[8|]

From the GM: "Note that SP:WaW scenarios can use
“Auxillery” troops, so the scenario designer can include supporting forces the player has no
choice in selecting. The player should be made aware of the options available."

Btw, hotkey for AUX toggle in editor is "2".


re problem #2: No idea. Personally I have not seen that yet.[&:]


re problem #3:

From game manual

• Added a toggle for the asterisk “*” display in the unit information section. Pressing the
asterisk key will enable/disable the asterisk for knowing your unit has been spotted by
your opponent.

If switching the asterisk toggle manually does not make the "*" reappear in your camapign, then reinstalling the game will have no effect on that either.

Re problem 1

In huge scenarios when the designer has used up all the available unit slots, bailing a vehicle will result in the crew 'disappearing'.
This is because there are no more available unit slots to create the new 'crew' unit into.

Incredibly, in one scenario that I played by email only one of the players suffered from the disappearing crews; the other player did not.

ORIGINAL: Major Destruction

Re problem 1

In huge scenarios when the designer has used up all the available unit slots, bailing a vehicle will result in the crew 'disappearing'.
This is because there are no more available unit slots to create the new 'crew' unit into.

Incredibly, in one scenario that I played by email only one of the players suffered from the disappearing crews; the other player did not.

Thinked of that too, but that does not appear to be his problem.

I understand, Harry.

My apologies for adding to the fog.