Campaign treating a fighter squadron as a bomber one?

[33LIMA 972]

Kicked off my first Camel campaign yesterday and chose 70 Sqdn as they got their machines in July 1917, nice and early. I'm fairly sure I chose 'Fighter' as my pilot type (in fact I think the 'Squad' drop-down list you get when creating a pilot is based on this first choice, and don't think I could have picked 70 Sqdn if I had NOT first chosen 'fighter', rather than 'bomber').

 

I soon got tired of being allocated recce or art obs missions, even getting an escort of real recce/art obs aircraft like FE2s, on occasion. So I installed Bletchley's late 1917 mod, to get more realistic missions. Next mission, got a railyard attack which is not even in the mod's list of British fighter missions. Confirmed the mod was installed ok, which it was.

 

After a bit of poking about, I found out that the problem seems to be that in my pilot dossier for the 70 Sqdn campaign, the unit is described as 'Bomber' not 'Fighter'!

 

I hand-edited this to 'Fighter' with Wordpad and saved the dossier (I have done this before, to ressurect dead pilots so I know that pilot dossiers can be edited in this fashion). I also checked that 70 Sqdn is listed in the squadron list file as fighter, not bomber, and it's fine, and it isn't double-listed in the bomber squadron list, either.

 

But when I relaunched the 70 Sqdn campaign, at the briefing screen, I noticed that the squadron's 'principle (OFF spelling!) role' was still wrongly described as 'bombing and reconnaisance' (probably was, all along, but I hadn't noticed). And on inspecting the hand-edited pilot dossier, 'Fighter' has been somehow reset in the file, to 'Bomber'! It's still july 1917 and much too soon for my Camels to transition to mainly ground attack, even then we should still be primarily fighters, certainly not considered bombers.

 

Can't understand how a fighter squadron, listed as such in the games squadron list, has ended up as a bomber one. Can't remember when this happened but believe it was from the outset. Also can't understand why it's being reset to 'bomber', after I changed it.

 

Has anyone else noticed fighter squadrons being reset as bombers, or knows how to fix it? I think my next step is probably to bin the pilot and that campaign and start afresh (the campaign has also been a bit strange in that I've flown three or four missions and seen only friendly planes, despite being set on medium, not light, air activity) on the basis something has got corrupted somewhere.Would be better if there was a way to fix it, especially if this strikes again.

Edited December 4, 2011 by 33LIMA

[33LIMA 972]

Update - the source of the bug seems to be the squadron history, and it may affect some other squadrons.

 

70 Squadron is definitely in the list of fighter squadrons, and it starts out in the fighter role in England in 1916 with Strutters. But on moving to France soon after, still with Stutters, its role becomes bomber. When it gets Camels in june 1917 it stays as a bomber squadron till August 1917 and only becomes a fighter squadron again in August.

 

So the bug seems to be that 70 squadron does not change roles from bomber to fighter, when it changes from Strutters to Camels, at least not for a couple of months anyway. I wonder if this affects other squadrons which change role (if there are any - 46 Sqdn for example, although OFF does not include the Nieuport 12 'bombers' it flew before converting to Pups in May 1917). Anyway, whatever's triggering the aircraft type change is not picking up on the role change, at the same time, with the result a fighter squadron is getting completely inappropriate mission types. Must do a bit more digging to see if this can be fixed.

[shredward 12]

Update - the source of the bug seems to be the squadron history, and it may affect some other squadrons.

 

70 Squadron is definitely in the list of fighter squadrons, and it starts out in the fighter role in England in 1916 with Strutters. But on moving to France soon after, still with Stutters, its role becomes bomber. When it gets Camels in june 1917 it stays as a bomber squadron till August 1917 and only becomes a fighter squadron again in August.

 

So the bug seems to be that 70 squadron does not change roles from bomber to fighter, when it changes from Strutters to Camels, at least not for a couple of months anyway. I wonder if this affects other squadrons which change role (if there are any - 46 Sqdn for example, although OFF does not include the Nieuport 12 'bombers' it flew before converting to Pups in May 1917). Anyway, whatever's triggering the aircraft type change is not picking up on the role change, at the same time, with the result a fighter squadron is getting completely inappropriate mission types. Must do a bit more digging to see if this can be fixed.

 

Hi Lima,

I've long since deep sixed my P3 datafiles, so I would just be speculating. It may be that 70 is still listed as a bomber squadron until conversion to Camels is complete. Another possibility is that 70 is listed as a bomber unit in the master file, and is unable to convert. There may even be other things deeper in the code - I can't check, cause I am away from home. If you spot anything more, let us know. Ennyhoots, it won't be an issue in P4.

Cheers,

shredward

[33LIMA 972]

Hi Lima,

I've long since deep sixed my P3 datafiles, so I would just be speculating. It may be that 70 is still listed as a bomber squadron until conversion to Camels is complete. Another possibility is that 70 is listed as a bomber unit in the master file, and is unable to convert. There may even be other things deeper in the code - I can't check, cause I am away from home. If you spot anything more, let us know. Ennyhoots, it won't be an issue in P4.

Cheers,

shredward

 

Thanks for the feedback! I took the easy way out and binned the 70 Sqdn career, as a bit of desultory poking about in the sim files failed to reveal whatever file it is lists which units do which role and when. So I'm flying Camels with 45 Squadron instead, as for some strange reason 266 Squadron isn't in the RFC Orbat

 

[+Polovski 460]

We have many 100s of squadrons, but not all are there, yet. Wow 266 was only formed 27 Sept 1918 so hardly worth being in there ;)

[golden eagle 0]

33LIMA: "I hand-edited this to 'Fighter' with Wordpad and saved the dossier (I have done this before, to ressurect dead pilots so I know that pilot dossiers can be edited in this fashion)"

 

Question: Can I change the unit (i.e. transfer to a new unit)by editing of the dossier of an active pilot?

[33LIMA 972]

33LIMA: "I hand-edited this to 'Fighter' with Wordpad and saved the dossier (I have done this before, to ressurect dead pilots so I know that pilot dossiers can be edited in this fashion)"

 

Question: Can I change the unit (i.e. transfer to a new unit)by editing of the dossier of an active pilot?

 

Don't know; but looks very possible provided you accurately replace the text string squadron title in campaigns/CampaignData/Pilots/PilotdossierX.txt with a valid alternative unit ('valid' presumably = exists, same side unless you're feeling treasonous, same period unless you want to see if you can warp back or forward in time, maybe not same squadron role).

[golden eagle 0]

Might be worth an experiment to find out if it can be done! Thanks

[golden eagle 0]

For anyone interested... I edited a pilot career and successfully moved my pilot from one unit to another. This was important to me because many aces flew for more than one unit in the war and I found that to fly the planes they flew you need to move your pilot too. I like to role play as an actual pilot in the war and have also loaded the actual pilots photo for my dossier picture. So Max Immelman starts the war in FA62 flying Fokker E.III but if you don't move him to Jasta 10 then he ends up flying a Roland C.II in Spring of 1916. For what it worth to anyone else... it can be done.

[akulawien 0]

@Golden Eagle:

 

How did you made this,because I want to change the Jasta also.

Thanks for your answer.