Thank You and DCG.

[Pen32Win]

Bravo! Sounds like you've got a plan and a good one at that.
Right now I've got about 25 little pieces of a big puzzle I'm working on. GSL, aircraft, missions and such ,which I plan to roll up into three releases. Two of them are DCG based. 2 back to back six month campaigns.The PNG AoO is getting busy again.

 

[Talon]

Interesting stuff,I've been working on some DCG campaigns also the last month.I haven't really worked with the DCG in years but I'm learning it again.I got my TF's to do what I wanted and get have gotten my butt kicked several times.I n one mission all I had left was 2 carriers and a cruiser in my TG but got 1 of the Japanese carriers.

I was also working on NG using P-40's but nothing historical just fun missions.I'm also working on the CATF and have 15 historical missions done so far.


Talon

 

[Pen32Win]

I've been doing a lot of PNG Stuff. I'm revamping all of the srock GSL's but I haven't figured out what to do about PM. That'll be a challenge I may have to take up with MR. I did a revamp of them several years ago but so many new objects are out now that they really need some work. I'n the past week I've done Lae, Salamaua and am working on Cape Glcstr right now. Even though MS put that one in the wrong place too.

I've got to get back to work on Rabaul too....Crap, that's what I forgot!!!

Anyway, my objective is to update, create, what ever is need to fix up all of the Airfields from Kavieng to Rabaul to PM to Hollandia. As far as Ship we're in pretty good shape, Aircraft we're good other than I've got a bit more work to do on a base P-40 and P-39 airfile. I think I've finally got an P-38 airfile that the AI's and player can use realistically in all missions. Though TR's double MOI's didn't work with the original DCC P-38 airfiles/CFG. I based it off the stock one and the only thing I haven't been able to do is get rid of that nasty turning stall, even when doing 300knts. That one I can't figure out.

I'm drifting again! Time to go back to work.

 

[Ettico]

Sounds like you guys are doing some good. I'm looking forward to seeing the new Rabaul and Port Moresby.

My little program may be ready sooner than I expected if I can figure out how to finish it off. I've gotten it to the point where it changes the flight formations, converts ground formations to columns so they can run on roads and rr tracks, allows the player to change player squadron payloads, creates escprt waypoint paths for each strike flight, and collects info on the locations and numbers of CAP fights.

The final step is to assign the created escort waypoint paths to the spare CAP's. Sounds simple, but it's not. I'm beginning to get a glimmer of an idea how to go about it, but it's still not quite clear in my mind.:isadizzy:

Here's a better version of the code I posted before. The "Hit ENTER for no change" part wasn't working right in the earlier version. QBasic works different from older forms of Basic. Anyhow, this fixes the "change payloads" part. This isn't the latest version, just a fix of the earlier one I posted.

A real programmer could have done this job a lot better and a lot faster, but the end result is all that matters. If the final version works, it won't matter how clumsy and inefficient it is.

'change formations: change player flight payloads
100 CLEAR : CLOSE : line$ = "": load = 0: count = 0
200 OPEN "Mission.MIS" FOR INPUT AS #1
300 OPEN "Missionx" FOR OUTPUT AS #2
400 IF EOF(1) THEN 1600
500 LINE INPUT #1, line$
520 IF line$ = "is_player_aircraft=1" THEN load = 1
530 IF load = 0 THEN 600
540 CLS : PRINT "Assign payloads to your flight"
520 IF line$ = "is_player_aircraft=1" THEN load = 1: count = 0
530 IF load = 0 THEN 600
545 IF LEFT$(line$, 7) <> "payload" THEN 600
550 count = count + 1: PRINT : PRINT "Assign payload to aircraft "; count; " "; line$
560 x = LEN(line$) - 8: x$ = RIGHT$(line$, x)
565 y$ = ""
570 PRINT "desired payload (hit ENTER for no change)"
575 INPUT y$
576 IF y$ <> "" THEN x$ = y$
580 line$ = "payload=" + x$
600 IF LEN(line$) < 13 THEN 1400
700 IF RIGHT$(line$, 14) = "-500,-1000,-10" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "-300,-600,0": GOTO 1380
800 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-1000,-2000,-20" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "300,-600,150": GOTO 1380
900 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-1500,-3000,-30" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "600,-1200,150": GOTO 1380
1000 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-2000,-4000,-40" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "1200,-1200,300": GOTO 1380
1100 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-2500,-5000,-50" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "900,-1800,300": GOTO 1380
1200 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-3000,-6000,-60" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "1500,-1800,450": GOTO 1380
1300 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-3500,-7000,-70" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 26) + "1800,-2400,450": GOTO 1380
1310 IF RIGHT$(line$, 14) = "-1000,-500,-10" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 37) + "-30": GOTO 1380
1320 IF RIGHT$(line$, 13) = "1000,-500,-20" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 36) + "-60": GOTO 1380
1330 IF RIGHT$(line$, 13) = "200,-1000,-30" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 36) + "-90": GOTO 1380
1340 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-2000,-2000,-40" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 38) + "-120": GOTO 1380
1350 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-3000,-3000,-50" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 38) + "-150": GOTO 1380
1360 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-1000,-3000,-60" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 38) + "-180": GOTO 1380
1370 IF RIGHT$(line$, 15) = "-1800,-4000,-70" THEN line$ = LEFT$(line$, 38) + "-210
1380 IF load = 1 AND line$ = "points=2" THEN load = 0
1400 PRINT #2, line$
1500 line$ = "": GOTO 400
1600 CLOSE
1700 KILL "Mission.mis"
1800 NAME "Missionx" AS "Mission.mis"
1900 CLEAR : END

 

[Ettico]

It was a grim struggle between me and the code. The program now looks like a monkey has been pecking around on my keyboard. The really strange part is, the thing actually works. After finding and eliminating all the stupid bugs in the code, it now changes the fighter formations to Finger Four, spreads the bomber formations vertically, changes ground formations to colums, allows editing of the player flight payloads, AND ASSIGNS ESCORT FLIGHTS.

Now all that remains is some flight testing and figuring out how to edit the Mission Summary text to reflect the changes - which might turn out to be the most hardedest part of all.

The goodest part of the whole deal is, now that I have the code, I can keep tinkering with the formations until I get collisions down to a bare minimum.:d And I'm pretty sure I can get some choo-choo trains running in Europe.

The other goodest part is, players can now fly long range escort missions in Europe. It's just a matter of getting assigned as a CAP, and then getting piggy-backed on top of a bomber flight that's going deep. But fighter strikes and sweeps will still be limited to a 200 nm radius.

The other other good part is, players who like to fly bombers will now get some help from the little friends. Just load your airfield up with P-51's, and you're bound to pick up at least one flight of them.

Later on I'll take a stab at cleaning up the DCG editing bug in the "squadrons" file, and do something to prevent strikes from being assigned to SUNK task forces.

I've been putting this off for months, fearing I'd never get it done. But once I got started, it only took a couple of days. My head sure hurts though.:isadizzy:

 

[Pen32Win]

That's absolutly great E!!! This little program of yours is really going to enhance DCG. I have just one question about the transforming of ground formations into columns. Is it going to do it to ship formations too?

 

[Ettico]

That's absolutly great E!!! This little program of yours is really going to enhance DCG. I have just one question about the transforming of ground formations into columns. Is it going to do it to ship formations too?

Hi Pen,

No, the program should leave the ship formations alone. It looks at the formation coordinates generated by DCG to determine which ones to change. Each DCG-generated formation type has a unique set of coordinates.

But you made me look...:d

Still not finished debugging it though. I forgot to do something to prevent it from assigning more than one escort flight to each bomber flight - which would be disastrous. If that happened, the escort flights would appear at the same place at the same time and would anhiliate each other. I created the escort waypoint paths by starting with the bomber waypoint path and adding 2000 to the altitude, and a couple of other minor changes.

 

[Ettico]

Dang. I found a DCG editing glitch. It happens to waypoint 3 when the player squadron gets assigned a fighter sweep. I've seen it happen twice. There's an integer missing just after the "=" sign at waypoint.3
It doesn't happen with other squadrons that get sweep missions, just the player squadron.

[waypoint_path.19]
id=5019
waypoint.0=2,1,N51* 17.43',E0* 36.90',+0,,,,0,,9084,1,1
waypoint.1=1,1,N51* 21.97',E1* 8.91',+15038,,,,295,0,0,1,1
waypoint.2=1,1,N51* 13.59',E1* 10.2',+15038,,,,295,0,1,1,1
waypoint.3=,1,N51* 21.39',E1* 18.00',+15038,,,,295,0,1,1,1
waypoint.4=1,1,N51* 13.59',E1* 9.36',+15038,,,,295,0,1,1,1
waypoint.5=1,1,N51* 27.63',E0* 47.1',+15038,,,,295,0,0,1,1
waypoint.6=4096,1,N51* 17.43,E0* 36.90,+0,,,,295,,0,0,1

I can rig my program to look for it and clean it up, but that's another fine mess Mr. Lowengrin has gotten me into. This might explain the occasional "corrupt mission file" messages.

Oh well. That's another advantage of having a DCG mission file editor. I can fix minor DCG bugs with it.

 

[Ettico]

Well, the program basically works now. It leaves at least one CAP at each airfield and distributes the spare CAPs out to the strike flights, including fighter strikes. If you want to play defense, you just have fewer or no bombers in your lineup. Even without bombers, strike-capable fighters will get strike missions, sometimes with escorts.I flew a test mission yesterday, with 10 squadrons at my airfield. It was mighty quiet. No AI screaming all the way down after colliding. All I heard was the drone of the engines as they all headed toward the continent. It was a mighty big strike. Only one lonely CAP was left at the airfield.The program still has one glitch that I know of, but it's not a glitch that corrupts the mission file. It just prevents the glitchy stuff from being included in the mission file. I still haven't figured out what causes it.The player flight still isn't getting any ling range escort missions, because DCG almost never gives the player flight a CAP mission. When it does, the other CAP's always snatch up the escort missions first. The player flight is at the very end of the mission file, and always gets left out. I'll figure out something to do about that, so the player can get some long range escort missions. There's also the occasional DCG glitch I mentioned in my previous post. That needs to be looked for and fixed when it happens.Overall, I'm happy with the results, if not the code itself. A real programmer would probably laugh at the code. I don't care as long as it works. In fact, maybe I'll put some funny variable names in the code, just for chuckles. Funny variiable names can produce some hilarious phrases.

 

[miamieagle]

Ettico I"am willing to pay Lowengrin if he is able to upgrade the DCG with the quality of IL46 for CFS2. I think its worth it.

We can make a petition through the community.What do you think!

 

[Ettico]

Ettico I"am willing to pay Lowengrin if he is able to upgrade the DCG with the quality of IL46 for CFS2. I think its worth it.

We can make a petition through the community.What do you think!

I'm all for it, miami. I haven't talked to Paul about it. He just mentioned it once in his forum. Programming is hard work. He deserves to be paid if he'll do it.

My little program brings DCG up to the point where it is viable for certain kinds of ETO campaigns. The lack of escorts and the wrong formations were the main things holding it back. But there is so much more that could be done.

Everyone who is iinterested should send Paul an email. If he gets enough emails, he might decide it's worth it to do an upgrade and offer it as payware.

P.S. But either way, I'm almost ready to start building an enormous DCG campaign for the ETO. I mainly just needed long range escorts and columns for ground formations. It won't have all the goodies IL-46 has, but it should be interesting enough to keep a guy busy for a long time.

 

[Pen32Win]

Hey E,

I'm going to say this but I don't want you to stop from trying it. I made a 12 month long DCG Campaign with 12 Ship formations, 1 popping up each month, it didn't work, DCG Freaked Out.... Couldn't even finish creating the mission. Cut it to six and it was OK, haven't gone back to find the exact limit.

 

[Ettico]

Hey E,

I'm going to say this but I don't want you to stop from trying it. I made a 12 month long DCG Campaign with 12 Ship formations, 1 popping up each month, it didn't work, DCG Freaked Out.... Couldn't even finish creating the mission. Cut it to six and it was OK, haven't gone back to find the exact limit.

Hi Pen,

I've had up to 8 ship formations in a campaign and it didn't freak out. The Leyte campaign I uploaded has 7 or 8. I've also had up to 21 ground formations in a campaign, and up to 52 squadrons.

But I don't recommend having that much stuff active in a mission. When I talk about a big campaign, I don't mean having that much stuff in one mission, or even having that much in one set of campaign files. When I do Europe I plan to break it up into several areas, with a different set of campaign files for each area.

Europe is too big to fit into a single campaign. The squadrons would get too spread out, and you couldn't get all the infrastructure in. Think in terms of several campaigns, with each campaign being focused on an area.

I think my QB program is ready to go. I've fixed all the known glitches in it, and I've even got it fixing a DCG glitch. The problem I mentioned about the player flight not getting any long range escorts will work itself out when the targets are more than 200 nm away. DCG keeps fighters within 200 nm of their bases. When the targets are further away, the fighters just get CAP missions, which makes them available to be switched to escorts. When the targets are within the 200 nm limit, the player squadron gets lots of short range escort missions and strikes assigned by DCG, and practically no CAP missions.

In the end I might still decide DCG is not the way to go in Europe. But if nothing else, the addition of AI escorts will make things much more interesting in the PTO. Look at it this way. Your carrier is attacked by a flock of bombers - and they have escorts. You think kates are easy to shoot down? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. Depends on what's on your six.:d Or, your fighter squadron is assigned a strike mission against an airfield. Normally in DCG missions you'd be on your own, often facing too many bandits that are just waiting for you to attack the airfield so they can swoop down and wipe out your squadron. But this time you have escorts.

 

[Ettico]

I just flew a test mission. This was the first one I flew all the way from start to finish. We won, 38 to 7.

I really wasn't expecting it to go that way. I've generated so many missions in this campaign testing my program that all the crews in the campaign are now aces. The AI escorts must have had a chilling effect on the Germans. No American bombers were lost.

There were zero collisions. I don't know if that was due to the formation changes, or the skill of the AI, or a combination of the two. Whatever. mission accomplished.

Things didn't go so well for the Germans this time. Hopefully this wasn't a representative mission. I don't want it to be so one-sided. Things started going bad for the Germans right away. Halfway across the channel, one of their squadrons of Heinkels ran almost head-on into my horde. They were jumped by two squadrons of fighters and wiped out. The assigned escorts aren't really escorts. They're fighter sweeps that just happen to be sweeping just above a flight of bombers. They'll attack anything. It only took them a couple of minutes to eliminate the heinkels, then they continued on their merry way.

I escorted my bombers to Calais without opposition, then headed south along the coast looking for trouble. I found it in the form of a squad of 110's that were chasing a flight of bombers headed my way. I and my squad eventually wiped out the 110's, but they put up a good fight for 110's. Judging by their shooting and flying, they were obviously all aces, but overmatched by my aces and their P-51C's. I got 3 of them. One of my kills happened when I was shooting at a 110 from close range and missing high because I couldn't hold the P-51's nose down. Then another 110 flew right in front of me, right through my bullet stream. Surprised me so much I forgot to take a screenshot.

The 110's kept peppering me with their defensive guns until they damaged my engine. With only 44 rounds of ammo left, I headed for the house, only to be chased by the sole surviving 110. With my engine damaged, I couldn't outrun him. I tried to set him up for a shot by my wingman, but he kept gaining on me and got close enough to start shooting. Already damaged, low and slow, and not wanting to get hit by the 110's nose guns, I decided to do something even if it was wrong. I started turning on him, and just then my wingman nailed him. My engine didn't quit, so I made it back in one piece.

I don't like fighting 110's. They can be had, but they always damage my plane with their defensive guns.

So that's how it went. No bomber losses, no collisions, no mission file corruption. There was a lot of fighting going on somewhere. Kills kept getting called out. But my side only lost 7 planes, against 38 German losses. Since I don't like 110's anyhow, I may sideline them. The Germans probably need more top-line fighters.

 

[Pen32Win]

That's odd about the ships. It happened in the very first month when the 1st Convoy went active, no other shipping units had activated yet, only one per month. Going to have to revisit that one at another time.

Post the Gunstation section of that nasty 110. I'll tone it down a bit.

Sounds like things are working great. Leaps and Bounds ahead of the 20 collisions per mission we used to get.

Gotta get back to my Beaufighter, working on one that'll work well for both player and AI. Got the A-20 and B-25C/D Pappy Gunn Strafer done!

 

[Ettico]

That's odd about the ships. It happened in the very first month when the 1st Convoy went active, no other shipping units had activated yet, only one per month. Going to have to revisit that one at another time.

Post the Gunstation section of that nasty 110. I'll tone it down a bit.

Sounds like things are working great. Leaps and Bounds ahead of the 20 collisions per mission we used to get.

Gotta get back to my Beaufighter, working on one that'll work well for both player and AI. Got the A-20 and B-25C/D Pappy Gunn Strafer done!

I dunno. I've never had TF's activating at different times, or at least not more than 6 of them. It is odd. Unactivated TF's are OK. Activated TF's are OK. But a combination of activated and unactivated are not OK. Go figure. If it's like that, it probably means deactivating the SUNK TF's won't work. They'll have to be edited out.

Lol. There were several nasty 110 tail guns, and they hit me all over. But I hit them where it hurts the most, so I guess we're even.

Looks like you've got a lot of good stuff in the works, Pen. Infrastructure, planes, campaigns...Well, you keep doing the hard stuff and I'll keep doing the easy stuff.:d