Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Gentlemen,

If you are interested to play-test the new PATCH for WinSPMBT, please post to this thread or send me an email.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

So far,

Scott Littleton - "user: Skotty702" ([email protected]), one of the best and most dedicated WinSPMBT players (+300 pbem games) has already accepted to playtest the patch.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I'll have a look if you want me to, but I don't play that many PBEM's with it.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Ok, Listy
I will send you an email with the address to download the patch.
Please try to experiment with the Airstrikes.
Testing time will be almost one week.

I will use the email address you gave me, so if you don't get the email post here an active email address.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I have sent the email to your Yahoo email account.
cheers,
Pyros

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I've got it..
Had a look at some of the OOB's so far... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Where does one put their reports?

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Here,

Don or Andy will take a look whenever you post something.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

This is from Scotty:

Hi Pyros,

Playing first test fight, USSR assault Muj forces in Afghanistan 10/83.

One armor CS tank coy, one BTR coy, 1 mine tank, 1 mech sapper plt,
1 on map 122mm gun battery, one mot FO, and 2 COIN sections.

COIN stikes tasked to hit mortars dug in outta FO/HQ LOS. So far, 3
passes by all 6 planes have hit mortars where plotted with NO deviation
or drift. My 122mm guns untouched. Ingress-egress passed have been
SE to NW and NW to SE. Mortars taking damage and suppression.

Dug in Muj troops seem to be much more resistant to direct fire, taking
about 50% more fire to suppress.

Still, dug in troops are breaking cover from thier foxholes all over
the map, running into their own mines. No VH hexes have been taken by
USSR forces. Should this be happening?
Also,should the new blast radius indicators show up for direct fire
HE shots from tanks? It is occuring now.


Files from mid game attatched if needed.

Cheers
Scott

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

One Minor Question not realy that important..
The US M249 has an acc 0f 24, the UK Minimi SAW has an acc 0f 21, yet it's (I belive) the same gun?

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Pyros sergested looking at the Air routines, so these have featured heavily (20 sorties each side).

Stuff from a meeting game Oct 2013, UK Vs Russia.

UK Light Rifle coy, only has One platoon in it.

RPV's are far better, and you don't now need to overfly with about 10 of them to get any information out of them.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Missiles, Sound bug: When Missing with an ATGM sometimes a Small arms sound kicks in, instead of the explosion. If the target has blown Smoke then the missile detonation sounds like a smoke grenade going off.

Aircraft Defensive maneuvers:
These seem a bit to good at the moment, So far I've had about 6-10 Apache's hanging at high altitude while a Russian army bangs away at them, and I've suffered one point of damage. Mostly due to Defensive maneuvers's keeping me safe.

Air to ground fire from stationary Gunships, with ATGM's seems to be extremely inaccurate.

There seems to be a bug (Was in the old version as well) where a tank fired upon by a missile will blow smoke to avoid it, and then pop smoke again after the shot. Possibly down to the suppression routine saying if you get suppressed enough blow smoke.

This is just a feeling from Observations:
AAA fire seems to go in three's. The first shot will be at 20-35% chance to hit, next will be around the 40-60% then a either a hit or a 70 % chance of hitting, followed by a drop back down to the start.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Primarilly testing the Air routines. Late 1980's.

Aircraft bomb run paths to actual targeted area seem to be fairly inaccurate at least for me. Some of them off by 20-30 hexes even with 50 vis and units in the open.

Damage to targets from Air-Ground missiles comes in spurts. Lots of misses followed by lots of hits but seem to average out over all. Bunkers still seem too strong against against hits, even direct hits by 1000 lb JDAM's.

Will test some more again tonight.
Helo's seem more resilient when shot at by ground fire. While they still retreat, its usually only a few hexes back and then they rally pretty quick to get back into the fight. Haven't seen any run off the field after a few shots at them.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Mike

In all my years of playing and developing this game I have never seen an airstrike go that badly wrong so when I see reports like this it causes nothing but questions that only save games can answer ( if I'm lucky ) with detailed information about where the attack was supposed to come in and info on what kind of air attack was it.

You don't tell me if it was a bomber, a regular fighter bomber attack or a COIN attack or a SEAD attack or what nation was involved. All that information is necessary to figure out what is going on. This is, a very complicated game with dozens of factors all calculated together for any given action on the map. If you are seeing airstikes go that badly wrong for you, in I assume , more than just one single test, then please, make saves. Make saves before the air arrives so that if it does screw up you can send me the turn just before the air attack so I can watch it.

I'm sorry but we get these reports of hugely inaccurate air attacks and every time I plot one it hits where I want it to hit so "perplexed" is the best word I can use for this problem and the only way it seems that I'm ever going to see something like this is if I have the turn before the airstrike arrives so I can check the targeted hex and see where it actually does arrive.

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

No problem. I was just posting to see if others had run across the same thing. It was pretty small map so I will be changing some variables and running some things again.

I'll start saving some stuff as I run them. Playing with the other changes seem fine, the way off the mark bomb runs just kinda stood out.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

<font color="red">FALSE ALARM!</font>

I figured it out. I had some SP-SAM units I had set the range to 0 and hid out of the way in the woods while I was running different tests. It seems they must have ben emitting their radars as the planes were occasionally trying to take them out. Since I had the flags off and the planes didn't kill the SAM's there were no extra explosions. Without the flags I didn't see them hidden in the woods. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif
I ran some other tests with a fresh scenario and things seem ed to work really well. I did notice that planes occasionally targeted the SP-SAM's this time BUT at least now I know what they were off chasing. These were fighter-bombers aremd with missiles, not bombers. The bombers went straight for the original targets.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

More on the Helcopter ATGM problems...

Useing UK Javelin teams next to ammo canister's and WAH-64's in June 2010 Vs Iran. the following results where recorded.

Javelin:
29 Missiles fired, 31 Kills (Somehow despite haveing only 4 rounds some units got 5 kills? Maybe take into acount destroyed units carried?)

WAH-64:
37 missiles fired, 9 kills. (This is discounting the moveing apache's).

I'll run a couple of test games.

EDIT:
Test game 1, UK Vs Iran, Same ranges for all units, Only 1 turn played:
Shooting at Ferret AC's
Javelin: 8 missiles, 5 kills
WAH-64: 20 missiles fired, 3 kills

And as a side note: I had the Iranian Deploy and Pick as human, but AI controlled. I tried to load the autosave game and it had the Iran side as human controlled.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

29 Missiles fired, 31 Kills (Somehow despite haveing only 4 rounds some units got 5 kills? Maybe take into acount destroyed units carried?)

[/quote]


If you destroy the vehicle and the crew bails out then you "neutralize" the bailed out crew that's two kills

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

If you slot the vehicle, the bailed crew, and any passenger units that can be a few kills added.

BTR + bailed crew dies on bailing or in the co-ax MG spray + a carried rifle section + a carried SA-7 team = 4 kills credited for the 1 fire event.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I had disabled all weapons apart from ATGM's for the purpose of the test. I also chose vehicles with no carry capcity.

I still feel that there is some form of Inaccuracy from helicopter ATGM fire. I've had that feeling for some time, but the above figures at least add some back up information.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Supper accurate first turn hits.

I've found that on the first turn, you have a vastly increased chance to hit the other sides units.

I've just got 100% on a volley of fire at over 2.5 KM against dug in enemy units. One BTR-152 was hit at 2950 when he was dug in.

Yes it was 100% hit rate against dug in enemy units. 8 shots fired, 8 hits and Kills.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Listy, don't you think mentioning what you were firing WITH would be useful information to include in a test report?

I do.

If it's not too much to ask from everyone if you make reports about game performance include ALL the relavant information PLEASE. BTR-152's went out of service with the Russians in 1960. Am I to assume you were firing at them with Centurion Mk5/2 ??? and scoring 100% at 50 hexes?

Have you checked your preferences lately? Is everything set to either 100% or XXX ?



Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

And just how did you manage to see these BTR's dug in 50 - 59 hexes away?? Just what was the map like? Maybe a save game would be useful?

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Ahhhh but BTR-152k's are in service in th Iraqi army in 2004. Are we talking about Iraq in 2004 Listy??

Ya see what I mean about "information" and how useful it is?

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Ahhh.... these were attack helos weren't they?? And it's the first turn and they havne't fired or been fired at and they are not moving

And if you try the same thing again only this time only kill half you can kill the other half on turn 2 for all the reasons listed above. I just did.

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

LOL sorry, good point.

It was UK Vs Syira in 2008 (Cam't quite remember the month.

An over flight of UAV's spotted them.

8 Hellfires later from WAH-64's and we have 8 hits...

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

OOB mistake:
Japan 7/2005, "Attack Helo" formations have no units in it.

Edit:
Problem is this:
Unit 336 ends on 3/2005.

Units 363 and 364 start on 1/2006.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Israel Vs PLO 2012ish, October I think.

1. On the Israel buy list it has 3 engineer APC's under infantry.

2. Something odd. As I was just messing around to see how effective cluster weapons are I hit a massive AI controlled clump of PLO guys, and saw how effective cluster weapons now are.. However on the Israeli turn 3-4 units had been spotted despite not moving or shooting. They where pinned in LOS of other units hand had taken kills from the arty.

The attachment has 3 saved games in it.
#14: before the strikes.
#15 when I first noticed the bug, however you can't ID the units that are spotted.
#16: after another set of strikes, here's a list of spotted units.
Malita support squad (Unit D1) Is spotted, Yet AL Aqsa Group (BO2) on the same hex is not spotted.
Unit R0 is spotted as well.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Thank you. Now fixed. There was an ealier one as well. A gap between 4/2000 and 1/2001

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Don and Andy! Do you have enough testers?

Reason I ask is I only see a few posts here and since I have been tied down with RL issues, I hope I'm not delaying the progress too much. The changes you have implemented are 1st rate and I hope they can be as fully tested as possible before release.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I loaded save 15 and watched what happened from the Palestinian perspective then the game switched to the Israeli side and I can see two PLO units. One Milita support with one man and one with three. ONe shows pinned and one shows moving and both can be seen by Merkava unit C0, C1 and C2. B0 and B1 can see the three man unit. That's normal behaviour. They were spotted by one of the tanks after the barrage
Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

The more people we have looking at this the less chance of finding something big and ugly lurking someplace two days after the patch is released so any further input is welcome

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Question, if they where spotted by the tanks, how did the tanks spot them?

The Squads moved to that position, the tanks didn't spot them. The arty landed. THEN the tanks spotted them. As I had control of the PLO side at that time, I know I didn't move them. They where way out of range, sitting still not taking any actions apart from losing men, and they got spotted?

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

They were spotted becasue one or more of the tanks had those hexes in view and the game determined, through calculations, that there was sufficient movement in the hex, after the bombardment, for whatever reason to cause them to appear. Remember.......EVERY time you run save fifteen you are going to end up with a slightly different result becasue the random number generator and you are now in full view of Vision 50 tanks. Why don't the vision 50 tanks pick up the other units out in the open? Well ,for one they aren't moving. At least, I didn't move them when I ran that turn and it looks like the units that were spotted , in at least one case, was shown to be moving. Maybe it was all that jumping around beating out the flames on their uniforms.

There are abstractions in the game because warfare is not chess and strange things happen sometimes. Occasionally the game rolls snake eys for some poor bastard and he's spotted out in the open and 100 yards away someone else doing the same thing and the game rolls box cars and he gets away unspotted. Sometimes you can sneak scouts through enemy lines and sometimes you can't. That's just the way things go sometimes. Life isn't always " logical " and the game reflects that.

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

**shrug**
I know all that, I just thought it was odd, so I reported it.

There was the curving bullet from hell, that was fired square on the posterior of BTR, and hit it's front slope, but that's just one of those things.

One thing about AI deployment, is there anyway to spread it out a little more? I mean a pre-game SEAD will often end up with a huge tally of kills due to the AAA radar being in the middle of a column of tanks, and if the SEAD's armed with cluster munitions, it's all over..

I've also noticed "splash" damage coming from tanks main gun HE rounds. By splash A I mean infantry units a hex away from the aim point is getting casualties. I'm guessing that is intended?

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

1) if the SEAD plane is firing ARM, and you have the new 2.0 exe then the plane will fire a stand-off PGM attack now (ie it will fire ARM and remove itself from the map).

2) Yes, tanks main guns WILl do splash damage in the next hex, as noted for the blast circle changes. MMG teams at range will sometimes have a 1 hex radius as well. Bith intentional.

Cheers
Andy

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Hi Pyros,

Playing a new scen by Ulf Lundstrom, "Cornered Rat", USMC v Iraqi rebels
in 2004. Just have 2 Harries attack with Mavericks against fortified house
spotted by a scout helo with LOS. Both Harriers fire their Mavericks with 99%
accuracy reported and destroyed both forts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cheers
Scott

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I am playing a pbem with Davide and here are some comments:

1. On turn0 (setup) I have planned ahead several air missions (sead) in random. Then in turn1, my sead have targeted unseen AA mobile platforms very effectively!

2. On turn2 I have executed several airdrops (para) behind/next to the enemy positions and the only known issue is that when my unfortunate para troops got shot and had to retreat (run for their lives) they used to pop up a smoke grenade and then come closer to the enemy (since they have airdroped behind the enemy lines,they have by default to retreat towards their home-side and this way they used to come closer to the ones who shoot at them. I don't know if it possible to make somehow the unit to retreat to a safe zone of control or at the worst case to remain pinned.

cheers,
Pyros

p.s in another test scenario I noticed that the best bunker-buster aistrike attacks (Vietnam era) were the 250 or 500 bomb attacks

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Set up a generated battle on a 100 x 100 map with 10,000 points. Choose two "European" opponents but this will work the same with any nation. Set the battle to Meeting engagement.

Set the purchase to Computer and the deploy to Human

Press continue

When the next screen appears press Auto Deploy

Take a look around the map. Go to preferences and set the ID tags on so you can see the units clearly then Zoom the map out

Now press the ' = ' key. You will see the units redeploy

Now do that 50 more times. That ' = ' key is doing exactly the same thing as the "AI" does to deploy every time you press it.

Note that the units set up differs each time. Sometimes you get a concentration of force, sometimes the units are spread out across the map, sometimes you get two groups. Sometimes you get groups on the north and south map edges with a light screening force in the middle of the map and it's different each time. It varies each time the ' = ' redeploy key is pressed and in many cases, unless you are playing with maximum points on small map it does spread the units out and sometimes it does not and it does not always concentrate and all that is coded that way so each time you play the AI something a bit different will happen

Apologies if you already "know all that" but the game does NOT always concentrate it's force and is fully capable of spreading out it's troops but it does not do that all the time because if it did people would complain it never concentrates is force.


The above test will also work on larger and smaller maps with larger or smaller forces. However, if you pick a smaller map and allow a high point count there is less room to spread out the deployment

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Ok it was just an oddity I've noticed before.

Another thing i've noticed is the AI's use of Airmobile units. When It by's them it tends to wait until it's very last turn then it come screaming forward and tries to get the V hexes.

I personaly have never seen it do an air assualt in the middle of a game.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I have, several times. Near the objectives, or near the centre in a meeter, or in the rear (rarer) to overrun your gun line. As designed. As is the near the end attempt on objectives. Guard your rear http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cheers
Andy

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I have, even in previous versions. And I like it, another justification for existance of the noble anti aircraft branch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Oh don't worry I always have some Cloud-punchers and Rock Apes about... but I've never had the AI pull one like that on me, so I figuered I should mention it.

I feel kinda deprived now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

feedback from Scott Littleton &lt;[email protected]&gt;


Hi Pyros,

Two scens have been effected by OOB changes it seems.

Scen 25: N Alliance T-54 SPA tanks have 107mm rockets and 130mm field
guns in weapon slots 2 and 3

Scen 39: Indian Centurion tanks have 30cal cmg in slot 1, 105mm L7 in slot 2

Actually, all the Indian tanks in Scen 39 are messed up, some have three
main tank guns in place of MGs.

Here's a couple more OOB screw ups:

Scen 21: US armor all messed up

Scen 22: Iraqi arty, SAMs, and some light armor are messed up.



Cheers
Scott

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

It is not possible to fix this for the patch without delaying the patch two weeks as I am leaving for a weeks vacation on Saturday. We have NO idea how this could have gotten this screwed up and I'll need to check the release verson and the CD release version to see if these errors are recent or old. I'm suspecting this may be an "old" problem

I had already considered releasing a "official" scenario package in a couple of months and if need be any corrections can go into that but we will check through the other scenarios and issue a mini patch on the forum if need be

Therefore, it would be helpful to have a bit nore detail about the problems than "some light armor are messed up" if that's possible

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

OK we just discovered we DO have a big problem . This is not OOB related and it's not scenario related it's right in the EXE and how it's processing the info. We are debugging now and the patch release *IS* on hold

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Andy tells me the problems came from code which fixed weapons deleted on a unit in scenario editor, which some other code change had screwed up. This change buggered up some scenarios where the unit was marked as "changed" for some reason (the scenario designer had changed something not necessarily weapons and that's why some sceanrios were affected and others not. I'm testing this and so far it looks good . Good catch on Scotts part.

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Can we maybe mention something to that effect in the public area of the forum? It appears a few of the natives are getting restless with at least 1 badmouthing Shrapnel. Bi#%@ing and moaning are 1 thing but making comments about Shrapnel or even Camo is another. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I am currently uploading a corrected version of the patch to Shrapnel. Right now that is all I'm prepared to say.

Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

No problem. Just wanted to make note of it before it snowballed. You know how some people run off at the mouth at the drop of a hat and with none of the facts.

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

I've posted a note as to why the patch was delayed yesterday and two of the guys who do indeed "run off at the mouth at the drop of a hat" and who have both, in the past, over reacted to remarks posted on the forum and been doing a rather spectacular job of doing what they do best including misquoting remarks made today

This time around we tried an experiement whereby we kept people informed virtually every step of the way the patch was being developed. Unfortunately some peoples overwheming sense of entitlement to information has proven what a complete PITA that approach can be. I doubt very much if we will follow the same path a second time. Next time, whatever we release, will come as a "surprise" to everyone and that will elliminate all the "are we there yet? crap that really REALLY gets on my nerves.


Don

Re: Playtesting WinSPMBT patch
 

Don,

I hope you will enjoy your upcoming vacations! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

cheers,
Pyros