Official SEOW

Hello everybody

First of all, i want to congratulate to the SEOW Team for his great work.
Most of us, we would be still building mission without any continuity and looking in HL mission to join and fly.

Second, the new look and the new features added to the last version make of the SEOW are serious dynamic Campaign for the IL-2. Maybe the IL-2 Develop Team must take note. Just my opinion.

Finally I want to open a new post with some work that I will do unless it is already done waiting for the next version.

The next feature to help the last one would be the use of trains. Obviously my opinion.
I saw that in some scenarios there are Rail Stations made it and not in others so the first thing will be finish this datas.

There reason it is that after the Factory Production feature I found out that the supplies build it, they move to the closest supply point. This feature it is very accuracy to the reality but another solution could be a new way to use resupplies.
If there is a Railroad Station near to the Factory some of the production can be stock in this place to be move (only vehicles) by road or via trains to other cities or to the frontline.

Just a few questions to know if it is possible.

1.- Can be made that the Rail Stations use as supply point. So this way you can put units on the ground to be put it in the trains.

2.- Can you hide or put on the map without losing information a train inside a Rail Station. This way there will be a way to hide the trains if you don't want to use it.
Obviously if the Rail Station is destroyed with one train inside the train will be destroyed too.

3.- As far as I did manually you can freight units inside the trains and move it different points with a mix of FMB and SEOW. The hardest part it is to make the train movement.
I guess that the easiest way to do it, it is when you plan move trains from Station A to Station B. So if you record a route from Station A to Station B manually I guess that you can repeat this route many times. So finally it has to be defined the number of stations and motions between them, like a station schedule.

Also I know that there are other things that maybe are more important to develop and we are waiting for the next BoB.

I wait your comments.

Salute.

Funny thing, I was thinking of the trains myself the last couple of days, specifically about how to ensure trains run constantly on a given map. If they could also be made to carry the factory outputs...

Can a train (or road convoy) be set in a loop, by connecting it's start and end points? I have no idea if the FMB now allows that function. If not, the only way I can see to create a template that gives 'endless' train movement is to create enough waypoints on a map such that the train travels continuously in real time for many weeks (assuming a given campaign on a map would last that long...and what would happen if part of a train's route were taken over by the enemy?).

Can trains be added to a map (template) after a campaign has been started? Eg, take a generated mission, open it in the FMB and add trains? Would SEOW's analyzer function be able to cope with that?

Whatever, the latest additions of supply etc are another fantastic component in SEOW's ongoing development. Hats off to you chaps.

Nice thread guys.

Trains have not been fully supported in SEOW yet for a range of reasons, including the fact that they have no collision avoidance ability in IL-2, so therefore SEOW must support a schedule of train movements - much harder to code than normal ground movement. We do lack complete railway data for some maps (e.g. Gulf of Finland) so, Pavel, it would be great to have that filled in.

I can answer one thing about factory reinforcements. As we all know now, reinforcements generated from factory production are placed at the nearest supply points. By default, supply points are arranged around the edge of the map. However the supply points are easily modified/edited to suit specific campaigns. E.g. for a Stalingrad campaign, it might be reasonable to place a supply point in the heart of Stalingrad North industrial area to simulate tanks rolling off the Dzherzhinsky Tractor Works assembly line (represented by the surrounding factories) and directly into battle. The idea here is to place resupply points where it makes sense in your scenario, using the production reinforcements accordingly.

A final comment for discussion: Katana has a couple of jobs at the moment. One is producing the SEDB30 split databases that we all want, and another is looking at turning the DCS into a console application (something that can be executed via a web page button). While he is doing these things, I was considering writing code to support detailed fuel tracking in SEOW. I thought this might be the next high priority campaign feature. In my earlier view, trains came second behind fuel tracking on the priority list.

Cheers,
4Shades

Siggi,

It is generally a bad idea to add/subtract units from SEOW coop files and then continue to use them in the SEOW campaign sequence. This can cause internal database errors that can lead to corrupted campaigns.

Cheers,
4Shades

Thank you 4Shades for your answers.

I also think that the Fuel Feature is more important than Train feature.
In the next days i will start to get data.

I also think to made a small map, like Ardennes that can be a good map to test.

Salute.

P.S. Probably my poor english makes me a lot of bad explanations.
when a mean Schedule i was trying to say this:
Better with example.

1.- You select the train that you want to use. This train stays in Station A.
2.- You select the final destination. Station C.
So the SEOW what would suppose to do it is look for how to reach there.
Then you keep in the DB that for go to Station A to Station C you must take the railroad number X that it is already define and fixed.

I wasn't thinking in something like the ground forces complex movement. (REALLY GOOD JOB), if not something more easy.

About Trains collission, you are right, but i think that a good commander won't put two trains in the same railroad at the same time. (Under his own responsability). By the way, the trains collide or you pass one over other and follows? Because if they don't collide you must count the railroad as double railroad.

Salute.

Can this thread be moved to technical discussion?

I have to admit that I was thinking about train movement as well while working on a template which really requires train management.

I agree with Pavel in that its up to commanders to manage the rail network to ensure there are no conflicts.
I was hoping they could be built at factories and supplied to nearest station as per resupply point and having rail supply and withdraw points where rail enters the map.

I'm also happy to work on rail data that may be missing.

One thing at a time however as 4Shades has plenty to do and fuel tracking would be a great addition to implement.