Baltika

Hi Bandy, As ever, deceptively simple once sussed out, but of course, the last thing I thought of to try. The number of times I re-worked strategic nodes from the ground up, to no avail It seems to work like this:- The campaign engine controls the front line on the basis of each Force's possession of strategic nodes. Nodes are defined in the [campaign]_data.ini, and must match TargetAreas as defined in the [terrain]_targets.ini. There are various rules for setting up strategic nodes which are covered in detail elsewhere on these boards. TargetAreas with airfields can be used as Strategic Nodes - various of my working builds were set up that way, and I had ground units showing up at Airfields which were also defined as strategic nodes. All hunky-dory, except Western France. After the Offensive Phase started (when a Force's overall supply level exceeded the SupplyForOffensive= value) all the airfields in Western France turned allied. BUT, confusingly, the front line didn't appear to move. Cue months of frustration. The other night, I had a good long look at the map, aided by a glass or two of German vino. What was different about France? Answer:- Only 1 TargetArea which did NOT have a runway, namely the Freya Radar station near Calais. While Britain has a proliferation of non-runway target areas - ports, Factories, RDF stations etc. The solution:- Add a few non-runway target areas along the Northern Coast of France, defined as ENEMY in the [terrain]_targets.ini. In my working build, I plonked an extra 7 Freya Radar Stations strung out from Dunkirk to Brest. The result:- All the occupied airbases in France now remain Axis when the campaign enters offensive phase. The frontline behaves as it should (i.e. rock solid across the Channel), and all the Allied and Axis Air Units stay at their assigned bases. Halleluyah! I should say, that an immediate side effect is that I can now ensure that the Luftwaffe remain more or less in a permanent series of AirOffensive phases, and that air activity (on both sides) is substantially increased as a result. Things are looking good Now, we can spend the next hundred years arguing about whether Sealion was (a) militarily feasible standing the Royal Navy's dominance, and (b) anything other than a feint to increase political pressure on Britain to come to the negotiating table, but, this is a game, and it seems to me that it would be entertaining, depending on how well your campaign goes, to see the Panzers rolling across England's green and pleasant land, or not. It would give each mission a definite sense of purpose, and I have to say, flying for the RAF and looking at a planning map with Division after Division of tanks lined up along the French coast waiting for the starter's gun, really gives you a sense of impending threat. Adds a certain sense of urgency to intercepting those bombers when you know a clock is counting up successful air offensives to a total required to launch an invasion. . . Of course, I now have to re-work those strategic nodes, again Any info on ground units greatly appreciated, thanks very much Cheers, baltika

Nailed that sucker. Just been checking my diary. I first started speculatively typing the RAF & Luftwaffe OOB for BoB into a campaign file over a year ago. Shelved the damn thing a couple of months later because of the above bug. That was what stopped this campaign being anything other than a beta. To say that I am happy this evening is the understatement of the year. I put it down to a rather nice Reisling which my wife brought back from Germany for me, and which I cracked open tonight after we put the bairn to bed. It was obviously stimulating the old brain cells Just opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities. Anyone know which Wehrmacht units were stationed in France in 1940? We shall fight them on the beaches. . .

Thanks guys The really hard work is done by the terrain builders and plane builders - guys like Edward, Charles, Gepard, all of the A-team members, RussoUK, WOLF257 etc etc - there are many others who have put all the building blocks in place. Thanks also to everyone who ever posted an answer to a question on the boards about how these sims work, or ever posted a mod here at combatace (or wherever). And while I'm at it, thanks to everyone who ever downloaded a mod and said something nice - although personally I thought someone would have pointed out by now that my RAF Blenheim squadrons in BoB campaign are flying THE WRONG TYPE OF BLENHEIM I feel rather disappointed no-one has. Don't worry, it will be fixed in v0.60. As I say in the readme, feedback welcome, good or bad, and I am thick-skinned. Everyone rocks (Group hug)

Wellington gets my vote.

Hi keith, Thanks for the encouragement, glad you're having fun with it, but of course I am merely standing on the shoulders of giants. Cheers to all devs and modders whose work is featured, without which this campaign would not exist. Further progress update:- Success! I have got the phase campaign working. It's all to do with the interaction of individual unit supply levels compared to the SupplyForOffensive= flag in the [Forcexxx] section of the campaign_data.ini. We now progress nicely through Channel Convoy/ Port facility missions, Airfield and Radar defence suppression, warehouse/industrial targets, and finally terror attacks on London - Just loved it when I was tasked to attack Buckingham Palace for the first time, re-creating that infamous (Brit propaganda?) raid. But this has brought the "scrunching" of air units bug back with a vengeance. The problem is, this now tasks the Luftwaffe to strike missions on airbases in Western France. Everything west of, and including, St Andre de L'Eure Bomberhorst turns allied. Like I said, you nail one sucker and another little problem pops up. I still haven't given up. Meantime, if everyone who has seen this bug could please tell me at what stage in their campaign it happens, I can maybe work out a pattern. I have been running missions for what feels like months with a tweak here and there, and still don't have it nailed down. Cheers for now, baltika

Fantastic stuff, CA I am loving your beta release which I now use for my WW2 installs, and it's great Looking forward to the full package. Great work, Cheers, baltika

Hi keith, A little bit of .ini editing is required to the [aircraft]_data.ini to implement gun convergence, and in this (as in real life during BoB) there are differences of opinion as to what works best. Personally, I have my guns harmonised to converge at 250 metres, or 225 yards, which falls nicely into the 200 - 250 yards harmonisation I have read about the RAF using. Others may like it a little bit closer, or a little bit further away, depending on personal preference. Anecdotally, (Len Deighton is good for this) pilots would talk to their mechanics to fix their guns just how they liked them. I know that B Bandy RFC has added a little bit of y-axis positive pitch to help with lead pursuit targetting, which seems pretty fair. So I probably won't go so far as to alter the settings for the planes included in the package. I would require permission from the authors concerned before doing so in any event, and not everyone may like my settings. A reasonable compromise would appear to be to include edited.ini files to be dropped in to the aircraft folder if people wish to do so, which would take away the hassle of having to do all the editing, but would not impose a so-called "standard" setting on everyone - as no such setting existed in RL. In general, my preference would be to implement things where possible, and to make the package as much of a one-stop install as possible. All 3rd-party contributors have been extremely understanding and helpful in that respect, so I don't anticipate any problem. Thanks to all concerned. Progress update:- Following some helpful advice from Wrench and others over on the "adding Destroyers" thread, the phased campaign is coming along, although, as ever, I get to the bottom of one problem to find another spring up in its place. Targets for strike missions are picked according to the target type set in the "AirOffensive.[XXX]=" series of flags in the campaign_data.ini for each force. Those correspond to the targettypes set in the [terrain]_types.ini The problem is, not all types seem to be implemented, eg EW_RADAR appears as a type in the terrain file, but even if I set every AirOffensive flag to that setting, all i get are endless recce missions. Change the setting to WAREHOUSE, HANGAR, OIL_REFINERY, or, say COMM_BUILDING, and the campaign will fix strike missions on Radar masts, provided you change the setting in the terrain_types.ini to an implemented type. Yahoo! (Took a long time to figure that out!) Problem is, I now only get one strike mission, interspersed with the odd Anti-ship mission, and stacks of recce missions, and the engine does not want to advance beyond the first AirOffensive type. I'm still scratching my head over that one, but I haven't given up yet. Cheers all, baltika

Burning Sands '44 has Boston, He-111 and Ju 87B as flyables, but of course that is Desert terrain, not Euro. As you say, CA, there are Luftwaffe bomber squadrons available in BoB campaign. v0.60 of BoB (I am getting there, just slowly) will have a Blenheim Mk1 flyable bomber squadron, so that counts as Euro WW2 Bomber campaign. However, Gepard's BoB map is (deliberately) light on continental European target zones, so Blenheim raids will be restricted to airfield harrassment - which is fine, as that is historically correct for the BoB timeframe. (OK, destruction of German invasion barges was also on the agenda. I'm working on it ) As to "In the works," well, a gleam in my eye is the Channel Front 41-44 Campaign for the excellent Euro WW2 terrain hosted at Major Lee's Aerodrome. That has a stack of continental target areas, extends all the way to Berlin for a full-on strategic bombing campaign, and has recently had an SP4 face-lift courtesy of Sopwith Snipe hosted here at combatace. Currently my favourite terrain to fly over. The concept was born out of some (understandable) frustration that folks are having trying to shoot down German bombers with 8x .303 MGs on Spit 1As and Hurri 1s in the BoB campaign. The more I read about it, the more I reach the view that it's as hard as it should be in the BoB campaign - I keep finding pictures which say "This Do-17Z had 300 bullet holes in it when it returned to base - that would require 2 Spitfires to release their full ammo load at it to achieve, on average." Of course, extend the campaign timeline into '41 (and beyond) and lots of juicy cannon-armed machines become available. Then, of course - realisation dawns - to do so I'm going to have to find out a lot more about Eighth Air Force and a stack of "Pursuit Squadrons" (whatever the hell they are) to do it justice. However, my current list of priorities is this:- 1. Get BoB v0.60 out (days, not weeks, hopefully - promises, promises ) 2. Burning Sands '44 v1.1 - A huge expansion to 1.0, extending the campaign timeline from '40 to '44 (and beyond) with Regia Aeronautica, SAAF, RAAF, RCAF and, yes, finally, a stack of USAAF flyable squadrons (slow to catch on, these Yanks ) - including B-17 and B-24 flyable squadrons. More or less done, but stacks of screenies to do, various squadron texts and campaign intro/win/lose messages to write, many permissions required, and, most problematic, I have to put together an install package - ouch 3. North Africa '40 & '42 campaigns for Edward's outstanding North Africa terrain. At the playtesting stage, a few problems with Strategic Nodes to sort out, but at least I know now how to sort them. Would somebody please release a Gladiator and maybe a CR.32 & CR.42, else we will be flying appropriately badged Tiger Moths over the Western Desert? (Not that there's anything wrong with that ) 4. Just read Osprey's "Kasserine Pass" campaign title, and am fired full of inspiration for Edward's Tunisia terrain. That campaign can easily be built on the work I've done for Burning Sands '44 v1.1, so makes sense to be next in line. Plus, I like the idea of Rommel vs US forces in a historical setting where the outcome is, um, less than predetermined, shall we say OK, I just realised I have to give up work and family life. Shame Cheers, baltika

Hi - squashed this particular bug, which embarrassingly enough I caused myself by borking my attempt to create a separate "armed" CargoShip, which crashed the game every time it tried to fly an antiship mission. Cheers to Typhoid for putting me on the right track. I have gone with a modded CargoShip which is armed, but which doesn't crash the game. A release of v0.60 is therefore creeping ever closer. Any requests, comments, bug reports meantime? Cheers, (It's friday night and mine's a) baltika

Hi Wrench, I think what you are describing is what I am playing about with for Destroyer-escorted Cargo Ship Channel convoys for the BoB campaign (I have posted some screenies at Post #62 in the BoB Campaign Feedback thread for some examples). And yes, the armed ships attack incoming bandits, which is great, but of course, the ships don't move. I am having difficulty forcing the campaign engine to pick the ships as targets - I understand about the terrain_types.ini, but it appears some types are not implemented. I note that you say define the ships as "MISC" objects - does it have to be that? I see in the excellent WW2 Euro terrain that there is a degree of "creativity" in the target types, eg AIRCRAFT_FACTORY, NAVAL_BASE. Are these implemented, in the sense that if I put them in the Airoffensive flag in my campaign.ini, they will be selected as objectives in strike missions? Or is it a degree of wishful thinking? I have been testing this, and, for example, I can't get the campaign to select EW_RADAR as a strike mission target, despite that being a "stock" TargetType. Obviously a pain when you are trying to get Erpr.Gr.210 to take out radar stations. Fubar - thanks for the tip, I see where you are going with that, but does it really address the question of mixed types i.e. Carriers with Destroyer escorts? Cheers, baltika

Hi FL, As I understand it, ground units will only show up at target areas which are also defined as strategic nodes in the [strategicNodeXXX] section in your Campaign_DATA.INI file. So the first thing to check is whether your strategic nodes are set up properly, connected to one another and ultimately to the enemy BaseArea. As to start dates for Ground units, this can be defined so that a particular ground unit will show up only at a fixed date later in the campaign, but that is set by the "StartDate=" flag for each ground unit - it's not something the game will decide for itself. I have had trouble with ground units disappearing after an offensive phase when the strategic nodes are set too close together, but from the look of your map that's not the problem you are having. Good luck, baltika EDIT: Check this out:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=19858

This thread over at SimHQ seems to suggest it is possible to have wingmen give directional calls to targets - or SAM launches at any rate. Not much use for BoB, but calls to bandits also seem to be possible. Deuces has done some work on this and posted his results, so I will take a look at it and see how (if?) it can be modded for BoB. http://www.simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?...rue#Post2115490 Thanks to our voice artist volunteers The above thread also has info about the content of the various voice files, as I said there are a lot, but I will see if I can track down the main ones. Re-cycling wavs from "abandoned" sims would be a good short cut, but I don't want to run into licensing issues. CA - have been using your updated WW2 effects and they are fantastic - great stuff Cheers all, baltika

Thanks- It seems a shame the full mod won't be forthcoming, as it's good to have something with more of a story than the usual SFP1/WOV/WOE campaigns. . . Nice idea, great video.

Excellent What is it the girl who doesn't know much about war HAS to tell you?

Hi Typhoid, I have checked my install and I see that I have only 4 ships set to CARGO_SHIP:- The stock Cargo Ship My Allied Cargo Ship (same as stock but packing 4x .50 cal MGs for added bite) Destroyer KriegDestroyer I get each of these types from time to time on anti-ship missions. I have other ships installed, but they are set to WARSHIP. Did you change all of yours to CARGO_SHIP?

Red, this sort of thing has been discussed previously, and so far as I understand it, it is possible. What is required is replacement of the game's various voicefiles with more theatre-appropriate alternatives. There are a lot of files, so it is a big job, but perhaps we can enlist some community assistance? If we identify what's required and share it out, with some suitably-accented volunteers we can maybe put something together. My Scots brogue might be alright for the token drunken Glaswegian of 602 Squadron ("Ah'm jist aff tae stick the heid on thae hun, ya bams") but what we really need are some BBC English Home Counties accents. Of course, BoB was a truly international affair, so Canadians, Poles, Czechs, Ozzies, Kiwis, South Africans and all the various nationalities from the Commonwealth should feel free to apply. We'll even take the odd gung-ho Yank pretending to be Canadian to circumvent Uncle Sam's ban on its citizens actively participating in hostilities against Germany at that stage in the war. (And no, I haven't forgotten the Eagle Squadrons, thanks guys, but as I understand it they weren't operational until early '41). So how about it? Who wants to be the new voice we hear bursting into our headphones, "I say chaps, Jerry at 3 o'clock, Tally-ho!" Toodle-pip for now, baltika

Redddevil911 & CA_Stary, Hi there & welcome to the fold - glad you're enjoying the campaign. I am also loving the BoB music pack, kudos to allenjb42 for putting that together - cheers mate Red, so far as damage effects are concerned, what you need are The Wrench's damage tgas which add bullet-hole effects for damaged aircraft, voila:- You can get them here at Combatace, in the skins section. There are three packs which between them cover the main WW2 planes. Wrench has granted permission for them to be included in the next update for the main BoB package, but as I said earlier, the changelog for v0.60 just keeps getting longer. Meantime, grab 'em & install them yourself for added battle damage. CA - OMG those screens of your new WW2 weapon effects are INCREDIBLE I use your earlier weapon effects pack on all my installs, so thanks for that, I think it's great, and d*mn right I would be interested in your new effects - the WIP shots are just stunning. Thanks for posting a sneak preview, I am off to D/L and install right now - well, my parents have gone home, I have put the baby to bed - she is sound asleep bless her - and my wife asked me if it was OK for her to have an early night - I could hardly deny her, now could I Time to take to the skies :yes: BTW, glad you're enjoying Burning Sands '44 - I have not forgotten my promised v1.1 upgrade, and it is coming together extremely well - it is a massive upgrade to the original. The reason it's not out yet is that I fired out the BoB campaign as a beta for those who may be interested, and I was simply stumped on how to take it forward, but the response has been great and it has absorbed all of my modding time recently. S! to all the WW2 propheads round here. I'm having a great time with this thanks to this community. Cheers all, baltika

In the ship's _data.ini, make sure this flag is set as follows:- GroundObjectRole=CARGO_SHIP The game engine only picks Cargo ships for anti-shipping missions. Setting the Ground Object Role as above will mean that sometimes those ships will be picked. I don't think it's possible for more than one type to be picked at a time, though.

Thanks Bandy, I hope this will work out. BTW, for those who missed it, RussoUK2004's Bf-109E-3B Fighter Bomber and 3 Staffel/Erpr.Gr.210 as a flyable unit equipped with it are included in the latest Hotfix to the Campaign pack, v0.59, available as a separate download to the main pack (currently v0.56). I have a release version 0.60 which will consolidate the two main packages, but it has been delayed due to the above, and a few other things which hopefully will be included which are more straightforward, but a bit time-consuming. Meantime, to get up to date, you have to install v0.56 then install v0.59 over the top of it. Cheers, baltika

OK, here are a few WIP shots to show you what I'm getting at:- Quick pass over convoy to ID targets Coming round to start my attack approach Lining up - Watch that defensive fire! Closing in - is that small arms fire coming from those Cargo ships? What the. . . Dodging flak on final approach to target - at least my wingman is diverting some heat from the destroyer escort Cargo Ship shooting back Too low for comfort. . . Watch out for the blast! Egress from target zone - a few ships going to the seabed. Getting out of there before the destroyers get lucky. Successful mission, generated by campaign engine - then CTD after pressing "accept" at mission result screen. WTF?

Probably, yes, however:- All strike squadrons are already tasked a high percentage of anti-shipping missions, e.g. "MissionChance[ANTI_SHIP]=60". Those Missions are assigned, as I understand it, depending on the "StartInterdiction=" flag for each force, the variable being the number of successful strike missions carried out. So, the lower the number, the higher proportion of anti-ship missions you get. The problem is, for that type of Anti-Shipping Mission, the game engine will only pick CARGO_SHIP objects as targets (which is why many warships have that as their object role) and only one type of ship. So it is impossible to generate convoys of cargoships with, say, Destroyer escorts, as a pure Anti_shipping mission. My workaround has been to add target areas with a mix of destroyer and cargoship targets, which at least looks like a convoy, and ensures you get a ton of flak fired in your direction when you are lining up to bomb a cargo ship - just more fun that way. So, if you have a low StartInterdiction number, you get a lot of anti-ship missions, or at least you ought to. I am finding that the way the game assigns strike mission targets is less than clear - at least to me. I am trying to set it up so you get a distinct phase of Channel Missions, followed by anti-airfield missions, followed by attacks on London. So far, it's not really working out. I will keep plugging away. There are so many variables that it is difficult to work out what exactly is happening when you change things, and get a CTD for your trouble. Next thing to try is effectively separate campaigns for each "phase" - but that will take a little time to set up. Cheers, baltika

Yes, it's a tough one, isn't it? A follow up question to my previous post:- Has anyone who flies strike missions ever been given a runway as a primary target? I am trying to force attacks on runways, for obvious reasons, and I can't make the campaign engine do it. And I am getting hard crashes to desktop a lot ever since I started messing about with the "AirOffensive[XXX]=" settings. It is getting so frustrating that I have taken up skinning for light relief - well, I can't have 603 (City of Edinburgh) Sqdn flying about with the wrong squadron codes, can I? Let me just say that that experience is making me realise how lucky we are with all the talented skinners around. S! to everyone who ever posted a skin. You guys are great Cheers for now, baltika

I am trying to work up 3 separate phases for the campaign, as Bandy suggested, Channel Shipping Strikes, Airfield/Radar Station attacks, then attacks over London. All the pieces of the puzzle seem to be in place:- The Airoffensive types listed in the campaign.ini for each force, the targets themselves on the terrain in the Battle of Britain_targets.ini, and the target types to match up with ther airoffensive types as defined in, you guessed it, the Battle of Britain_types.ini. I have successfully added extra target areas to give 5 or 6 Channel Convoys, complete with 7 or 8 Cargo Ships in each and a few Destroyer escorts (OK, they don't move, but hey, it's a start). However, when I start altering the Airoffensive types as defined in the campaign.ini, in order to force attacks only on certain types of targets at different stages of the campaign, the game engine seems not to like the targets I have selected. Very occasionally, I will successfully be assigned strike missions on my new Channel Convoy target areas. Most of the time, however, I get endless runs of Recon missions (even when set to 0 for the particular squadron) other times I get CTDs when clicking "Accept" after a failed or successful strike mission. There seems to be some rhyme and reason to it, but I can't fathom it out. Any suggestions on how this fits together? I have scoured the forums on this issue but info seems pretty scant in this area. Cheers, Steven

Hi Bandy, Fair comment, the Luftwaffe bomber formations do seem to have nerves of steel. However, the WWII Formations mod is simply directed towards (a) putting more planes in the air per formation than the stock install (whatever flavour) and (b) providing them with enough slots to sit in so you don't get planes "piled up" on top of one another in formation. There is a good thread on this somewhere, with screenies, who knows where now, that shows what happens if you have WW2 formation sizes without the formations mod - basically lots of overlapping planes. Now, by all means it is possible to tweak the WWII formations mod to spread the planes out a bit - look in the FORMATIONS.INI file and you will see a straightforward x,y,z matrix of formation positions (in metres) which determines where each plane flies in formation relative to the others (the base point being 0,0,0 or lead plane - the player). However, that is not the root of the issue. Charles has set it up so that bombers fly in combat boxes and their defensive fire is concentrated - the ultimate example of the technique being the USAAF B-17 style combat box. You'd have to be crazy to go anywhere near a formation like that But that's what the bombers did, for obvious reasons. The real issue you are getting at (and quite properly, too) is the AI behaviour of the planes in that formation when confronted with a mad RAF pilot making ahead-on attack and zooming between the individual bombers. Now, where do we get at the AI? A number of factors (as I understand it - I'm happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable) come in to play. There is the "Waypoint" transition routine which the AI will fly - I'm not getting into that argument here, but it has been the subject of criticism elsewhere - maybe the bombers just don't "see" enemy planes when they are en route. There is the overall training level of the particular nation's pilots (see the NATIONS.INI) and there is the morale and experience level of each individual unit (as defined in the BOB_DATA.INI). And then, as capun pointed out earlier in this thread, there is the [AIDATA] entry for each aircraft which controls game-engine AI responses for builds of the core game engine which were introduced after some of the planes included in this campaign were released. Where does that take us? There's a lot to fiddle with, basically. It might be worth looking at Stuka formations - I have noticed they do tend to break up when attacked, and replicating that response for other formation types is the name of the game. As ever with SFP1/WOV/WOE/FE, finding out how it all works can often become more time-consuming than flying the missions. But, hey, when something works out, it's fantastic. (Still loving that gun convergence mod). And the changelog for v0.60 of the campaign pack just keeps getting longer. One of these days I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and fire it out where I've got to already. But, as you know, Bandy, you got me started on implementing the different phases of BoB - Channel Shipping attacks, Airfield/Radar Station attacks, then the "Terror over London." Let's just say that it's not been as fiddly as I thought it would be - and it's damn scary sitting in your 109E-3B trying to bomb a convoy protected by destroyers with nothing but sea out to the horizon Cheerio for now, baltika

Thanks for that - further testing required. Cheers, baltika