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RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix.

 
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RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/23/2013 7:58:16 PM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: governato

quote:

ORIGINAL: kmitahj
Speaking of patch deficiences here is one discovered in latest tests. As I said above it is rather dumb patch: it is allowing literally all units in range to participate in AAA fire. All units in this case means that also AIR units within fixed range (50km) may contribute to AAA fire as if they were equipped with long-range SAM missiles. BAD!!!
I'm going to find a way to exclude AIR units (and only AIR units) from participating in AAA procedure. However such bit smarter version won't be ready before weekend when I should have some time to work at it.


Hey Obertst et al.
What do you think of the above feature? I gave it some thought and I am actually fine with nearby Air units contributing AA. These are not really 'SAM missiles', but rather a possible representation of what would happen in real life, fighters closeby would definitely be scrambled to intercept incoming planes. So why not in TOAW? My only concern is to make sure that they can be hit as well and that these planes use us supply and readiness as they intercept. Curious to get some opinions on the topic.

Think it won't affect your scale scenarios and yes, even my test showed it's producing the desired results, e.g. run test with the Yom Kippur 1973 scenario. The air losses on both sides were VERY close to historical.

Klink, Oberst

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(in reply to governato)
Post #: 31
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/23/2013 8:19:34 PM   
Shazman

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: governato

quote:

ORIGINAL: kmitahj
Speaking of patch deficiences here is one discovered in latest tests. As I said above it is rather dumb patch: it is allowing literally all units in range to participate in AAA fire. All units in this case means that also AIR units within fixed range (50km) may contribute to AAA fire as if they were equipped with long-range SAM missiles. BAD!!!
I'm going to find a way to exclude AIR units (and only AIR units) from participating in AAA procedure. However such bit smarter version won't be ready before weekend when I should have some time to work at it.


Hey Obertst et al.
What do you think of the above feature? I gave it some thought and I am actually fine with nearby Air units contributing AA. These are not really 'SAM missiles', but rather a possible representation of what would happen in real life, fighters closeby would definitely be scrambled to intercept incoming planes. So why not in TOAW? My only concern is to make sure that they can be hit as well and that these planes use us supply and readiness as they intercept. Curious to get some opinions on the topic.


You can already set the appropriate air units to intercept. Do you really want them to possibly intercept the same air units twice? Also, if all air units AA strengths are used then the bomber units can also take part. And then will bomber units also conduct bombing missions or ground support? The air game should be left as it was meant to be where you assign air units to missions and that is all they do.

(in reply to governato)
Post #: 32
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/23/2013 9:18:43 PM   
governato

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shazman
You can already set the appropriate air units to intercept. Do you really want them to possibly intercept the same air units twice? Also, if all air units AA strengths are used then the bomber units can also take part. And then will bomber units also conduct bombing missions or ground support? The air game should be left as it was meant to be where you assign air units to missions and that is all they do.


You make good points and yes I see the value of having a clean 'ground-only AA'. kmitahj is looking into how the code works (..from the executable, did I mention that I am impressed?), so we can make an informed decision. I agree that there is no need to do things twice if the code already takes care of air intercepts.

(in reply to Shazman)
Post #: 33
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/23/2013 9:41:45 PM   
r6kunz


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kmitahj, very impressive. Who would have thought just a couple of weeks ago we would have work being done on the code to resolve the AAA issue. I am not a big fan of the smileys, but.... And much thanks to you guys who are testing the alpha version of the patch (if we can call it that).

signed
Kunz, HPTM

(in reply to governato)
Post #: 34
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/23/2013 9:42:13 PM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: governato


quote:

ORIGINAL: Shazman
You can already set the appropriate air units to intercept. Do you really want them to possibly intercept the same air units twice? Also, if all air units AA strengths are used then the bomber units can also take part. And then will bomber units also conduct bombing missions or ground support? The air game should be left as it was meant to be where you assign air units to missions and that is all they do.


You make good points and yes I see the value of having a clean 'ground-only AA'. kmitahj is looking into how the code works (..from the executable, did I mention that I am impressed?), so we can make an informed decision. I agree that there is no need to do things twice if the code already takes care of air intercepts.

Things will work out fine. I am already pleased from what I saw, tested, verified. Choppers get shot down now by V-C if they enter a hot L-Z ;)

Klink, Oberst

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Post #: 35
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/25/2013 6:14:50 AM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HPT KUNZ

kmitahj, very impressive. Who would have thought just a couple of weeks ago we would have work being done on the code to resolve the AAA issue. I am not a big fan of the smileys, but.... And much thanks to you guys who are testing the alpha version of the patch (if we can call it that).

signed
Kunz, HPTM

Rob,

tested it with your 3.7-beta; because your Air units are off map, the 'SAM' issue is not present, but the Germans can at least defend themselves with the unit internal AA weapons when the skies clear up. Everything else WAD. Kapitan Kloss (my nickname for the lad) done a good job. Vietnam scenarios now WAD, because 'Charlie' has for the first time in 3.4 the opportunity to shoot down choppers and low-level strike aircraft like the A1 Skyrider.

Klink, Oberst

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Post #: 36
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/25/2013 6:26:20 AM   
BigDuke66


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From: Terra
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Good, good, now I wonder if there are any negative effects not yet discovered...

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Post #: 37
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/25/2013 6:39:49 AM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

Good, good, now I wonder if there are any negative effects not yet discovered...

I always run tests with the toaq_log, ubderdude=Y settings and all the other debugging mechanisms. With off-map 50km+ airbases there are no 'SAM' affects at all. In scenarios with one side without any a/c it really works like ace. Boonie Rat's Vietnam Combat Series is more enjoyable now, because the choppers get shot down. The Middle-East 67 and 73 produced historical results in terms of air power being reduced by hand-held SAMs and so on. The 2 weeks in Normandy, funny enough though, the difference was marginal, slight in fact. Not sure if it was caused by AAA lethality settings, have to check them out; but the Allies lost maybe just a handful of planes due to Flak; which seemed a bit too low.

Klink, Oberst

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Post #: 38
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/25/2013 7:44:12 AM   
BigDuke66


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Good, very good, if he can turn off the SAM effect a big stone will be out of the way.

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Post #: 39
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/27/2013 9:34:16 AM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

Good, very good, if he can turn off the SAM effect a big stone will be out of the way.

He did it in record time!

Now it's all WAD. Tested with Korea, Middle East, Vietnam and my
WW2 stuff.

Klink, Oberst




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Post #: 40
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/27/2013 7:10:01 PM   
BigDuke66


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Oh very nice, I wonder if he can take down that "ignore losses" problem too, I'm not sure what exactly the problem there is but I guess it will be an even harder nut to crack.

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Post #: 41
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/27/2013 9:28:57 PM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

Oh very nice, I wonder if he can take down that "ignore losses" problem too, I'm not sure what exactly the problem there is but I guess it will be an even harder nut to crack.

Not sure, would be nice though. One step at a time. If he can find a solution, great. Then we can continue 'producing' smashing scenarios, revise older ones, give our TOAW community some spirit back it was lacking in the last 1-2 years. Kharkov '43 is ready for beta-testing now. Looking into a Mius '43 scenario project...

Klink, Oberst

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Post #: 42
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 2:31:56 AM   
Shazman

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kmitahj

Hi,
It seems it is common opinion that AAA fix is conceptually easy. I wonder if there is indeed an agreement WHAT the fix really should look like? I mean it would be possible - maybe even easy - to make binary patch of a game which would make all units behave kinda like AA units - that is all units would have a chance to contirbute to low alt. anti-aircraft fire. But would it be a solution?
I didn't test it really but I suspect that it may result in switching "no AAA loses" problem into "much too much AAA loses". The thing is that - as far as I understand - air attacks aren't resolved as point attacks (like one air unit againt one target unit) but rather as area attacks against whole hex. That means that in general program adds up AA fire strength of all units in the hex (and for some map scales probably even units from nearby hexes) and then uses such total AA fire strength together with attacking airunit defense strength in procedure which decides about airplane hits if any. Currently when adding up AA strength program skips over all units which are not designated as AA-units and perhaps, just perhaps it was done so deliberately because otherwise attacking hexes dense packed with land units with internal AA equipment would often - though depending on particular scenario and map scale - result in prohibitive, unrealistic loses of airplanes?

If the simplest fix would really turn out to be more the problem then a solution then what the refined solution should look like?
- should it simply disciminate non-AA-units by adding only a pctage (how much?) of its AA fire strength to the total?
- or should it maybe select only one non-AA-unit from the whole hex stack (in addition to AA-units if any) to contribute to AA fire? (if so which one? one with highest AA strength, one on the top of the stack, randomly choosen one?)
- or maybe it should scale down AA fire totals by factor related to aerial density of AA equipment (i.e. same number of AA equipment in a hex will result in a AA strength scaled down depending on the map scale/hex size)
- or it should rather scale it down based on AA equipment pctage compared to total of all equipment in the hex (that is based on how much of other equipment in a hex has to be covered by single AA barrel)
- something different yet?


Excellent fix. Well done. Tested it today and all seems to work well.

Would it be equally possible to make 3.4 more like the unfinished 3.5 version by increasing the map size, place name, unit limits and formation limits to 3.5 standards? The map was to be 700 x 700. Place names increased to 4,000. Unit limits were to be 10,000. Formation limits were to be 1,000. Not sure how the game handles these data structures. Just curious but there are those who are working on scenarios for 3.5 that cannot possibly work under 3.4 unless these limits are increased. And I really don't think 3.5 will see the light of day.

In any event, thanks for your work on the AA problem.

(in reply to kmitahj)
Post #: 43
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 4:05:32 PM   
BigDuke66


Posts: 2013
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From: Terra
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BTW maybe a Checksum could be published by the Author of the patch to make sure the EXE is really THE EXE he did, larry send me already a link to a download location I'm sure that is OK but sooner or later that EXE might show up on very different locations and some may not be secure at all, a way to verify that this EXE is the original would be good.

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Post #: 44
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 4:25:41 PM   
Oberst_Klink

 

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Joined: 2/10/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

BTW maybe a Checksum could be published by the Author of the patch to make sure the EXE is really THE EXE he did, larry send me already a link to a download location I'm sure that is OK but sooner or later that EXE might show up on very different locations and some may not be secure at all, a way to verify that this EXE is the original would be good.

Disclaimer including checksum is in the making... Kapitan Kloss will report about it in person.

Klink, Oberst

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Post #: 45
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 4:30:11 PM   
kmitahj

 

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Hi Shazman,
thank you for the kind words, I'm glad the patch seems to be working for you.
Unfortunately I must disappoint you. I'm a fan of big scenarios myself but the change you are looking after are beyond a realm of possibility (imho). Thing is binary patching is a tool best used (if at all!) to make small, well localized changes - kind of unpleasant but sometimes neccessary surgical intervention. However resizing of various internal data arrays has global effects, in fact it is likely to affect virtualy all parts of the code. Trying to do it in binary format would be like cuting the patient to pieces and then trying to put all these pieces together in reliable way: chances that patient will be alive are basically zero.
This kind of changes are best to be done in source code where compiler & linker are taking care of puting all that pieces back together (though programmer must still do the cuting so to say! :-). As for 3.5 version, I have no clue but I think/hope there is still a chance. Maybe after summer holidays there will be some official statement?

(in reply to Shazman)
Post #: 46
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 4:45:15 PM   
kmitahj

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink

quote:

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66
BTW maybe a Checksum could be published by the Author of the patch to make sure the EXE is really THE EXE he did, larry send me already a link to a download location I'm sure that is OK but sooner or later that EXE might show up on very different locations and some may not be secure at all, a way to verify that this EXE is the original would be good.

Disclaimer including checksum is in the making... Kapitan Kloss will report about it in person.

Klink, Oberst


Hi,
noticed your posts just after pushing finish on the above one. Yes, there is kind of readme file in preparation which contains checksums to allow verification of the patch identity . I think I will follow the advice I got and post it (the readme) in separate thread for reference.


(in reply to Oberst_Klink)
Post #: 47
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 8:39:07 PM   
BigDuke66


Posts: 2013
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From: Terra
Status: offline
I guess it's best to stay with the latest patch as base for this fix but could the fix be worked into the latest beta?

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Post #: 48
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 10:04:02 PM   
Telumar


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From: niflheim
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The AA bug is fixed in the latest beta version. It was one of the first things that had been done.

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Post #: 49
RE: No AAA losses in combat? Suggested fix. - 7/30/2013 10:20:20 PM   
Shazman

 

Posts: 118
Joined: 1/4/2009
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quote:

ORIGINAL: kmitahj

Hi Shazman,
thank you for the kind words, I'm glad the patch seems to be working for you.
Unfortunately I must disappoint you. I'm a fan of big scenarios myself but the change you are looking after are beyond a realm of possibility (imho). Thing is binary patching is a tool best used (if at all!) to make small, well localized changes - kind of unpleasant but sometimes neccessary surgical intervention. However resizing of various internal data arrays has global effects, in fact it is likely to affect virtualy all parts of the code. Trying to do it in binary format would be like cuting the patient to pieces and then trying to put all these pieces together in reliable way: chances that patient will be alive are basically zero.
This kind of changes are best to be done in source code where compiler & linker are taking care of puting all that pieces back together (though programmer must still do the cuting so to say! :-). As for 3.5 version, I have no clue but I think/hope there is still a chance. Maybe after summer holidays there will be some official statement?


Too bad. Some are working on large 3.5 scenarios and they will probably never see the light of day. All that wasted time. At least 3.4 is more enjoyable than it once was.







Only did a little work since Panama. Not doing more till 3.5 is certain instead of just a rumor.

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< Message edited by Shazman -- 7/30/2013 10:33:34 PM >

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