darroch
Posts: 210
Joined: 3/13/2001
From: US
Status: offline
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Spent several hours testing.
Could not recreate the problem playing in scenario mode - only in campaign mode
Using a nominal core force of 67 units in 20 formations I played a test campaign of incrementally increasing AUX force size to see when the crew no-show problem occurred.
With this size core force, the crews continued to appear until the AUX force exceeded 218 units and 50 formations - at 50 formations, crews appeared in damaged and destroyed tanks (yes, once in awhile the whole crew got snuffed but usually 1 or more survivors pops up) - at 60 formations and 268 units, no crews showed up - a sure sign was when the little yellow plus sign on the tank just turned off after a lethal shot was received - this is normally followed by a crew appearing but not when there are more than 60 formations (in my test)
I went back to my campaign game to apply the patch and to my surprise, found the problem persisted..
In fact, in a battle with 114 units in 34 formations (well below the apparent no-crew line) destroyed tanks still did not produce crews.
Then I noticed that the highest formation designator (i.e. your HQ is designated A0) was BC01...it occurred to me that the game thinks I have 55 formations - over the "derived" 50 formation limit...and thus no crews. This had come about because the game orginally had lots of units but many of these units were deleted to fix playbalance issues - so even though there were only 34 actual formations, the designators were not sequential and some of the initial units had Bxxx designators.
So, I deleted all of the Bxxx units, repurchased them (and the game assigned them to open slots starting with the lowest available open slot - in effect backfilling in where units have been previously been deleted). I ensured that the highest designator was AMxx. Saved and tested.
On cue, a little crew survivor popped up when the T34 he was riding got plinked by an 88...repeated crew bail out confirmed that the game now generates crew survivors. Whew!
So, in addition to 400, 100 as unit maxima, designers should also keep the figure 70 formations as an overall limit if crew bail out is desired. The 50 formation AUX force plus the 20 formation core force shows that somewhere above 70 formations, the game decides there just aren't enough slots left to make crews with. No actual playability issues occur above 70 formations (that I noticed) but those elite crews you've been nursing through game after game won't appear to get re-tanked at battle's end.
Oddly enough, the number of units did not appear to be the trigger in this instance - in my testing it turned on the number of formations.
This will actually benefit our campaign game: Russian Steel, because it acts as a damper for players who purchase a very large number of cheap units initially in order to upgrade them into an overwhelming tank force later in the campaign (thereby screwing up the playbalance we worked hard to get). This is not prevented but now if too large a force is purchased (like over 65 units and 20 formations) the player will have a self-inflicted no-crew problem that will make it much harder to build up the elite combined arms force he/she will really need to win the battles...
By the way (shameless plug here) we are now 2 weeks away from releasing the first 9 battles of Russian Steel, covering the first 5 months of Barbarossa and ending with a Wild Bill battle at the very approaches to Moscow. Fabio Prado has kindly agreed to host our game for download so stay tuned for a near-term announcement.
The first release contains 9 battles. We have 23 built and another 15 in design. The next release of 10 battles is scheduled for 15 April and will take you through the Soviet Winter Counter Offensive. The next 10 battles will take you to Mamayaev Kurgan and is planned to culminate in a Mosh-designed bloodbath on that fateful hill. The last release will let you play through the Uranus and Saturn battles and try and shut the door on Army Group A at Rostov in January 1943.
Cheers.
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Crews Do Not Appear - HELP PLease - 
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Were crews killed? Too pinned to show up? This last have happened to me many times. Shoot at the hex where crew should be amd see if they appear, works in pbem ![]("wink.gif")
mosh
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