For former playtesters of The Next War

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expanded)

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> The Operational Art of War IV >> Mods and Scenarios >> For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expanded)

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expanded) - 2/3/2021 5:40:41 AM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

@Hellen and any others who may have playtested Mussey's expansion to the The Next War - 1979 scenario.

If you experienced crashes to desktop, questions:

- Were you running Windows 10?

- Do you recall what you did in the game prior to crash?

Thanks and Cheers

Post #: 1

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 10:10:11 AM

Hellen_slith

Posts: 1990
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline

Yes, running Win10 Larry and I both experienced the CTD.

For me, I recall that it seemed to be most prone to crash if you highlighted a naval unit, and then scrolled the map around.

I switched to playing on a Win7 machine, I don't recall it ever crashing under Win7.

I remember at the time, there was some talk going around about a possible "memory leak" in Win10<-->TOAWIV but I don't know whatever came of that.

I hope this helps! Looking forward to the next The Next War!

PS I just started another game of Bob's original "Tension" option on the Slither Server Sender, it is just a fun old warhorse of a game.

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 2

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 11:15:14 AM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

Thanks for the feedback.

Would you by any chance have that scenario you played back then that had the CTD issue? Mussey has provided me with a version of his work, but it has undeployed units etc. and cannot be played without me inserting more design decisions. If you have a playable version, please email me or PM it.

If you're playing the "Tension" scenario, please do the same thing with a selected naval unit and map scrolling. Would be ideal if on a Win10 machine. I can try on mine here (Win10) as well. Something weird going on, but often the visual problems don't directly point to the cause of crashes.

Cheers

(in reply to Hellen_slith)

Post #: 3

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 1:27:05 PM

Hellen_slith

Posts: 1990
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline

The version that Larry and I were playing is the one Mussey posted in this thread

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4601852

but I don't have a .sal or .pbl file from that game we played back then.

Larry might have the old .sal or .pbl from that.

Are you all planning another followup to that one? Last I recall was some cool artwork for guard towers (I think from Telumar? can't remember) and expanding the map to include Yugoslavia etc. down to the southeast. Would be cool to thrown in some Afghanistan if you could :)

ps I think the guardtower artwork was Cabido's? well here is excerpt from that thread talking about the CTD issue

quote:

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

Might be useful to have the computer play itself with the -original- Next War scenario to see if CTDs occur.

<Hellen>: I've been playing the original Next War (both Tension and Sudden versions) since ACOW, both PBEM and hot seat, probably at least four dozen times, maybe even 100 times to various points. Played it maybe five or six times through in TOAW4. I can't remember ever having that CTD issue happen in the original.

Anyway, here is how to reproduce in Expanded: move naval a lot, move air a lot, embark / debark some Marines for naval transport (not necessary, but seems to "help"), fly some helos around (w/ or w/o troops aboard), then scroll around the map, moving ground units, and sooner or later, it WILL ctd. It is a time sink making it do, but it do. I get the feel that it has something to do with that old hitch in the map movement that used to be in ver. 1.1 of TOAW4, the one that was fixed? Can't remember the details of that. Anyway,

It can do CTD both during NATO movement and Pact movement, just seeming randomly. But it do. That ain't gonna keep me from playing it, though!! Just have to remember: save those formation movements and just save save save every 10 or 15 minutes. Better that than losing 45 minutes.

< Message edited by Hellen_slith -- 2/3/2021 1:35:13 PM >

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 4

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 4:08:37 PM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

@Hellen

ETA: Looked at the version you linked to, it appears to be the one I already have that has undeployed units etc. The file may have been updated at some point.

As far as a follow up goes, it depends.

If the reason for the CTD behavior cannot be found and fixed, there is not much point in going with the scenario as it is.

"Fixing" may imply testing modified versions (no naval units for example) to see if stability improves. I'm trying to get a better fix on what changed from the original version to the expanded version (besides the map); my working assumption is that something added with the expansion enabled the instability. But no guarantees; code can be sensitive to a variety of influences and only "act out" in certain circumstances.

The expanded version enlarged the map and added a lot of new location names. That shouldn't be an issue as scenarios like D21 have large maps and even more location names. Hard to say, maybe if I can prompt a crash, a log file might hint at the source of the problem.

Cheers

< Message edited by cathar1244 -- 2/3/2021 4:26:22 PM >

(in reply to Hellen_slith)

Post #: 5

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 5:04:01 PM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

One thing I've just noticed are deep water hexes that have other terrain artefacts like super river, forest, entrenchment, cropland, etc. Wonder what happens if naval movement is made (or plotted by the game) through such a hex.

Easy to assume the game just ignores the other items in the terrain definition, but not something I'd bet on. That may be a mess to clean as the hexes only display the deep water terrain icon.

Cheers

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 6

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 9:35:56 PM

Hellen_slith

Posts: 1990
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

If the reason for the CTD behavior cannot be found and fixed, there is not much point in going with the scenario as it is.

Delete all the naval units and fix the water hexes.

I bet that will fix it. I don't think it would matter much to just 86 naval etc.

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 7

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/3/2021 11:34:32 PM

76mm

Posts: 4688
Joined: 5/2/2004
From: Washington, DC
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: cathar1244
That may be a mess to clean as the hexes only display the deep water terrain icon.

It might not be too bad if you work from the XML file--find which field in the Map XML indicates deep water and then "cleanse" those lines of other terrain. But I'm not familiar with the scenario so am not sure how many deep water hexes we're talking about...

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 8

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/4/2021 7:44:33 AM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

Messed around with naval unit selected and map scrolling in Bob Cross' "Tension" scenario. No issues. I note that Bob's map -- the deep water hexes are mostly simply "deep water" with no other terrain, although I saw a couple that have super river definition as well in them. Of course, no idea if that is a link to instability or not.

But -- in the expanded version, one of the NATO naval units starts off in a hex that IIRC is both deep water and cropland.

Cleaning those hexes up is something to do. 76mm is correct, the map XML file is probably the easiest way to identify those hexes and sanitize them.

I may try to put out a version with no naval units simply as a test item to see if the crashes still occur.

I also want to review the changes to events and remove any artifacts that don't need to be there.

I am troubled by Hellen's mention of Win7 vs Win10. If that is ultimately the problem, a fix may not be possible.

One other difference between Bob's versions and the expanded version appears to be the use of placenames with "accented" placename characters (� etc.). That should not be an issue, but noted as a difference.

Thanks to all for the comments.

Cheers

(in reply to 76mm)

Post #: 9

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/4/2021 8:13:33 AM

golden delicious

Posts: 5575
Joined: 9/5/2000
From: London, Surrey, United Kingdom
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

Messed around with naval unit selected and map scrolling in Bob Cross' "Tension" scenario. No issues. I note that Bob's map -- the deep water hexes are mostly simply "deep water" with no other terrain, although I saw a couple that have super river definition as well in them. Of course, no idea if that is a link to instability or not.

I'd be very surprised. I used to do this all the time as a quick way of getting the river mouth to be visually where it's supposed to be on the map- before I realised that ferry units would then be able to enter the deep water hexes (oops). I never had any stability problems.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 10

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/8/2021 4:40:44 PM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

Update.

Terrain artifacts removed from map - check.

Events cleaned up, artifacts removed - check.

Found two army withdrawal events that targeted the wrong national armies - fixed.

To do:

There are more undeployed units than I realized. This fix will need two phases. The first will be quick and dirty to get the scenario into a playable condition to test for the crashes to desktop. Units will be deployed and formations without existing objective paths will be given a single objective. Then scenario testing for crashes can take place.

IF the crashes can be stopped, then the formation objective paths will be filled out. That will take some research to see if there is information on the planned deployment of Soviet armies that were based in the USSR.

If crashes continue, then based on information from those events, elements of the order of battle may be removed (for example, naval units) to see how this affects the crash situation.

Should only be a couple of days until I have the initial test version ready to download.

Cheers

(in reply to golden delicious)

Post #: 11

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/11/2021 12:58:44 PM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

Update.

Initial objectives set for all formations of both forces. Still some undeployed units in force 2.

Cheers

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 12

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/11/2021 5:08:42 PM

Zovs

Posts: 6668
Joined: 2/23/2009
From: United States
Status: offline

I have a color xml file for Bob's original files (modified so that they look like the old SPI board war game) you could probably use it with this one as well.

In fact I have at least 20 color files I still need to post and I have 20-30 modified (found or lost or neglected) scenarios that not only have the color mods, but I updated them to use some of the newer features of TOAW. I need to post them all someday when I have some time, for those that might be interested.

_____________________________

Beta Tester for:
Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm
War in the East 1 & 2
WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific
Valor & Victory
DG CWIE 2
SPWW2 & SPMBT scenario creator

(in reply to cathar1244)

Post #: 13

RE: For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expa... - 2/11/2021 5:24:27 PM

cathar1244

Posts: 1003
Joined: 9/5/2009
Status: offline

Thanks Zovs. Mussey set up a .col file for his version.

Update:

Undeployed units found and deployed. Scenario looks viable to test. Will look at it a bit more and probably upload the version tomorrow to check if it is still suffering crash to desktop. I suspect that will be the case, but we'll see.

Cheers

(in reply to Zovs)

Post #: 14

Page: [1]

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> The Operational Art of War IV >> Mods and Scenarios >> For former playtesters of The Next War - 1979 (expanded)

Page: [1]