Help Needed and Alpha Release: Steel Tiger Campaign

[TeTeT]

This is my very first attempt of creating a campaign and adopting a terrain. Any advice on how to improve my effort is welcome!

 

Currently there is a huge problem with the adapted VietnamSEA terrain for the campaign. The campaign runs with the standard VietnamSEA with modified TARGETS and TYPES and MOVEMENT INIs. When trying to use the VietnamSEA-SteelTiger terrain a CTD happens every time when starting the campaign. Is there any way to get a good debug output from WoV to see what's going wrong? I suspect some mandatory file is missing from Terrain\VietnamSEA-SteelTiger, but I can't figure out which one.

 

Please do not use this in your every day Wings installation, as it is a very early release and when you merge the INI files from VietnamSEA-SteelTiger terrain with your VietnamSEA terrain, you may mess up your other campaigns badly. You can download the campaign here:

http://woffle.de/wov/SteelTiger/SteelTiger.zip

[TeTeT]

Here's the README:

 

=== BETA RELEASE ===

 

Operation Steel Tiger was a covert air operation against infiltration

routes of the NVA in Laos. This campaign is based on the original

Wings Over Vietnam Rolling Thunder Campaign and adds a number of

stationary truck parks, named Base Area 6XX, and a more aggressive NVA

infantry division to the list of targets.

 

KNOWN ISSUES:

Most CAS missions will take place at weird locations in Thailand rather

than South Vietnam.

CAS missions do not face AAA currently.

Armed Recon missions are never scheduled, feel free to convert any

regular mission to one and fly over northern Cambodia through Laos up

to Vinh and look for targets of opportunity.

Every strike against a Base Area will list only one truck, instead of

a significant number of trucks.

Strikes into North Vietnam Route Packages 4, 5, and 6 are still quite

frequent.

 

SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Steel_Tiger

http://www.mistyvietnam.com/

 

CREDITS:

Kout's loading screen is used as base campaign screen:

These files are made available under the Creative Commons -

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 license

Please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/ for details.

 

LICENSE:

All mods used in this campaign are subject to their own license, which is

given in the CREDITS section.

All changes original to this campaign are licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. Please visit

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/ for details

[TeTeT]

Found the fix for the terrain: Extract VietnamSEA.MFD and VietnamSEA.TFD from VietnamSEA.CAT, rename it to VietnamSEA-SteelTiger.HFD and .MFD and place it in VietnamSEA-SteelTiger.

[+JSF_Aggie]

To fix the locations of your CAS battles, see the Knowledge Base stickie about strategic nodes.

[TeTeT]

To fix the locations of your CAS battles, see the Knowledge Base stickie about strategic nodes.

 

Thanks, there were some weird locations ... Do I get this right:

 

The terrains movement.ini determines the action that takes place between strategic node, e.g. ground_attack or truck or shipping. The ground_attack RoutePosition determines the location of the icon on the map. The StrategicNode BasePoints determine where a battle between ground units take place,

[+JSF_Aggie]

I do not believe the terrain's movement.ini has any effect on a campaign, other than the location of the front line. It only has to do with single missions.

 

CAS missions in the campaign are soley based on the StrategicNodes.

 

It's been said that you'll never get Armed Recon missions in campaigns. I myself have never been given one. If it is/did work, I don't know if the campaign engine would get the locations from the strategic nodes, or for the movement.ini. I have the same question for anti-shipping missions.

 

I'll post over at thirdwire and ask TK to verify.

Edited September 25, 2007 by JSF_Aggie

[TeTeT]

It's been said that you'll never get Armed Recon missions in campaigns. I myself have never been given one. If it is/did work, I don't know if the campaign engine would get the locations from the strategic nodes, or for the movement.ini. I have the same question for anti-shipping missions.

 

I'll got a anti ship mission, but the ships location was in the lower left corner of the map (0,0). If you're assumption holds true and the routes in the terrains file are not used, there's probably not much of a chance to change it. Having said that, placing some Sampans as targets near the coast should work.

[TeTeT]

I've updated the campaign today and hopefully fixed some of the issues. Thanks for your help, it's much appreciated! I did some experiments with Kesselbruts infantry and it looks promising. However, I haven't included the infantry yet, as it needs to be properly repackaged first.

Files:

README

SteelTiger.zip

 

I've also started a TODO list, though it is unlikely that I'll integrate all of this. I'll be quite busy work wise for the next four weeks, so there is no ETA for the beta release yet.

1. Add artillery targets south and north of 17th parallel
   
2. Add outposts for SVN and US along the border
   
3. Add supply outposts for NVA and VC
   
4. Add VC static units
   
5. Add NVA routes and strategic nodes in Laos for moving/attack
   
6. Add static AAA close to battle areas
   
7. Add static AAA at some valleys/hills
   
8. Stagger appearance of more AAA and SAMs over the years
   
9. Add Sampans close to the coast as targets
   
10. Add A1H and other slow mover
    

Edited September 27, 2007 by TeTeT

[topcat II]

Thank You all for this Very much appreciated!!!!

[TeTeT]

I've worked some more on the campaign. The result can be found in this zip: SteelTiger.zip.

 

For playing the campaign Kesselbrut's infantry pack and the M101 gun are needed. Both can be found in the download section of CombatACE.

 

I've added a vast number of strategic nodes in Laos and placed ground units there. Unfortunately next to no CAS missions came out of this ...

 

Currently the campaign has not really been play tested, so take results with a huge grain of salt.

 

TODO

added one for NVA - Add artillery targets south and north of 17th parallel

added three VC bases - Add VC static units

added FSB for US - Add outposts for SVN and US along the border

added NVA routes and strategic nodes in Laos for moving/attack

 

Add supply outposts for NVA and VC

Add static AAA close to battle areas

Add static AAA at some valleys/hills

Stagger appearance of more AAA and SAMs over the years

Add Sampans close to the coast as targets

Add A1H and other slow movers

Reduce number of targets in RP5 and

[TeTeT]

I've worked some more on the campaign. The result can be found in this zip: SteelTiger.zip.

 

For playing the campaign Kesselbrut's infantry pack and the M101 gun are needed. Both can be found in the download section of CombatACE.

...

 

Here are the URLs for the downloads needed:

Kesselbrut's Infantry Pack SP4

The SFP1 Dev A-Team M101 105mm Howitzer

[TeTeT]

I do not believe the terrain's movement.ini has any effect on a campaign, other than the location of the front line. It only has to do with single missions.

 

CAS missions in the campaign are soley based on the StrategicNodes.

 

It's been said that you'll never get Armed Recon missions in campaigns. I myself have never been given one. If it is/did work, I don't know if the campaign engine would get the locations from the strategic nodes, or for the movement.ini. I have the same question for anti-shipping missions.

 

I'll post over at thirdwire and ask TK to verify.

 

Here's the full quote of TKs reply:

 

I think you get both anti-ship and armed-recon missions based on movement.ini file, but they have to be close to where the front line is.

 

I think CAS is the only type that discards movement.ini and generate mission from campaign data.ini instead.

 

TK

 

Maybe adding some trucking routes close to Khe Sanh and the DMZ will do the trick ...

[gambit168]

Very cool TeTeT

Thx for sticking with it

[dexxa]

yes .... sounds very kewl