Ghost Platoons

[1.JaVA_Pion]

Problem: Mission planning of 4 tanks but 16 tanks in actual mission!

Hi,

Yesterday, in the Java campaign, some of us couldn't believe their eyes. We planned 4 tanks heading east, on a road. When we flew over the road there was an armada of 4 times 4 tanks, 16 in total ! This is not the first time this happens. In an earlier mission I also saw 4x4 tanks, I was certain we didn't had that much armor so I started an attack and received a friendly kill message



This is definitely a bug in the seow software. It results in confusion, unfair tank battles and heavy load for the server.

I suspect the Mission Planner. Maybe after 'reject latest waypoint' or 'reject all waypoints' some rows are not properly deleted and when the mission builds, all undeleted rows are treated as valid ones.

After the mission, we cannot see this in the statistics and the ghost platoons are not on the map.



Hope you can solve this problem in the next version, making seow better and better.

S!
Pion.

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi Pion,

This sounds very strange. I do not doubt your report, but rest assured we have been running similar kinds of campaigns for years without seeing evidence of this kind of problem.

In order to investigate, is there any way that I can get a copy of your DB?

Cheers,
4Shades

[1.JaVA_Pion]

Hi Pion,

This sounds very strange. I do not doubt your report, but rest assured we have been running similar kinds of campaigns for years without seeing evidence of this kind of problem.

In order to investigate, is there any way that I can get a copy of your DB?

Cheers,
4Shades

The war is administrated by =69.GIAP=, please contact Alexey or RedVo for a copy of the DB.

I am sure of the existence of ghost platoons, I've seen them two times with my own eyes and fellow pilots confirmed it. Check for the LT35 engineers (red ghost platoons) in the missions of 27-feb-2008 and 23-jan-2008.

In mission 20-feb-2008. we also destroyed the majority of a japanese engineer column (5 x 4tanks). Perhaps a ghost platoon but it is always possible that these were planned by =69.GIAP=.

Hope this helps,
Pion.

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi Pion,

OK, 69.GIAP are the admins. I suggest that you confirm with them that these things are really happening, if you haven't already. If the admins agree with you, they can pass on the DB to me - they know how to do this.

The first things that occur to me to check are:

1/ Unit Strengths: When you say you plotted 4 tanks to move, did you mean 4 different tank icons plotted to move (which is 4 tank platoons), or did you plot 1 tank platoon of strength 4 tanks? Every platoon can have its own strength of up to 4 tanks. So four platoons plotted to move could potentially give 16 tanks mobile on the ground.

2/ Task Forces: Task Forces can consist of many platoons; each Task Force is moved by plotting a course for the Task Force Leader platoon. All TF members will automatically follow the leader.

These are basic things to check before escalating the issue to a DB analysis.

Cheers,
4Shades

[1.JaVA_Pion]

1/ I had planned one platoon of 4 tanks. There were 4 platoons (together 16 tanks) when we flew over the tanks in the mission.

2/ No task forces.

3/ Not sure if =69.GIAP= noticed this problem too. I'll put a question and this link on their forum.

4/ I know it sounds strange but believe me: this is a bug!

S!
Pion

[1.JaVA_Pion]

New evidence in our mission yesterday 2-mar-2008.

See http://www.baseclass.modulweb.dk/69giap ... t3func]=12

=69.GIAP= Admins will investigate this problem.

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Interesting thread, thanks.

Let me state for the record that I have never seen anything like what is being reported there (duplicate units etc). I am also suspicious when I see that "factories are not working", since they have been working fine in standard SEOW releases for a long time.

This concerns me somewhat, since I want everyone to have the same detailed and sensible experiences as I do when I run SEOW. However, I know that people do have a lot of fun customizing their SEOW campaigns. Sometimes this introduces new errors that are hard to predict and code for. Maybe this is the case in your Crimea campaign with 69GIAP, maybe not. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of things.

Cheers,
4Shades

[1.JaVA_Pion]

Also =69.GIAP=shura (admin) noticed duplicates in the DB.

I call them ghosts because they are there when we play but you don't see them during mission planning nor on the map after the mission. You only notice their existence in the stats when they are killed!

Because this is only happening in the Java campaign, it's better to discuss this issue in the =69.GIAP= forum.

Thanks for your support,
Pion.

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

One thought - if the LT-35 tanks were changed to "VEN" class in the Object_Specifications table, then whenever they were moved on the map, the DCS would plant the Mobile form "4-LT35" in the mission file for each moving tank. That would probably reproduce the error you describe.

In general, armour class objects (classes starting with "T") should not be changed to other classes "V" or "A" without modifying the mobile form to use "1" as the maximum combined strength. E.g. "4-T34" would become "1-T34" in the Mobile form.

Cheers,
4Shades

[1.JaVA_Pion]

Thx 4Shades,

This is a question for the =69.GIAP= admins

S!
Pion.

[=69.GIAP=PAVEL]

Hello

That's probably the problem.
Probably my fault.
We tried to found out a better enginner solution and looks like we found another problem.
Basically we tried to avoid use the default enginner column because we found out that if you destroy a single unit from this column you destroy the entire enginner column so we decided to change by an armour column that has better result into combat.

Sorry to JaVA.

Lesson learn!!!!!

S!

[Ala13_Nachote]

Hi Pavel.

Hola

We tried to found out a better enginner solution and looks like we found another problem.
Basically we tried to avoid use the default enginner column because we found out that if you destroy a single unit from this column you destroy the entire enginner column so we decided to change by an armour column that has better result into combat.

Our custom "solution" to this was also use halftracks as engineers, allowing in the rules of the campaign to group them in pairs in TFs and move them as one unit as exception. Then if one of them is destroyed, the other remain active, but takes more time repair the bidge.

Also, of course we have care to increase the repair time of the bridges. If there are 2 halftracks at the correct distance of a destroyed bridge, the real repair time is a half of the specified in the settings.


S!
Nachote