mine clearing not working

[DRG]

scJazz said:
It may be a bit premature but I think I may have found a bug in the mine clearing routines. The rules for mine clearing as we know it are...
1) Be in adjacent hex
2) Face toward the mine
3) Don't be suppressed
4) Don't fire weapons
5) Don't move around a bunch

The bug that I think I noticed involves saved games. Restarting a saved game (Iwo Jima Part 1 DOS SPWW2) yielded no mine clears until I had moved all units away from and back to mines. I am probably wrong. I'll work on finding out if I am right tonight.

When you run your tests save the turns before AND after if possible and if you can duplicate this in WINSPMBT it would me more helpful than in SPWW2

Don

[DRG]

Thexder said:
<SNIP>
Thanks for the test scebario, but I've tested the engineers several times before and after experiencing this bug. In the test scenarios I've built I've never had any problems. And as for the Finland vs. Sweden game, my opponent (the attacker) was experienced player and also found the bug.

I attach a screenshot from the Egypt vs. Israel game. It's somewhat misleading as those engineers have just suffered couple of losses in artillery fire. But before that they were unsupressed and didn't move for four turns.

Is there any explanation for the fact that in the Finland vs. Sweden game my own engineers were able to clear barbed wire and mines but the opponent wasn't?

Cheers,
Jukka

**IF** you see this again make a save of the turn that shows the engineers doing nothing but continue to play your game. Once you are done your game go back to that save and see if the engineers behave any differently when you restart it. If they still just sit there forward us that save game with info on where we should be looking

Don

[scJazz]

DRG said:
When you run your tests save the turns before AND after if possible and if you can duplicate this in WINSPMBT it would me more helpful than in SPWW2
Don

Of course I could always run the tests in the Beta version of the WinSPWW2 release. All you have to do is send it to me!

[DRG]

scJazz said:
It may be a bit premature but I think I may have found a bug in the mine clearing routines. The rules for mine clearing as we know it are...
1) Be in adjacent hex
2) Face toward the mine
3) Don't be suppressed
4) Don't fire weapons
5) Don't move around a bunch

The bug that I think I noticed involves saved games. Restarting a saved game (Iwo Jima Part 1 DOS SPWW2) yielded no mine clears until I had moved all units away from and back to mines. I am probably wrong. I'll work on finding out if I am right tonight.

There DOES seem to be a problem but it's also seems to be a narrow series of events that trigger it. I saw it last night in a test save but Andy says his tests work just fine. It *IS* releated to saving the game though. Just starting it up and playing through won't trigger the problem and neither will starting up a save game then moving the engineers to new hexes to clear mines. If you do they will start clearing again.

We are looking at this now from a number of different angles

Don

[scJazz]

DRG said:
There DOES seem to be a problem but it's also seems to be a narrow series of events that trigger it. I saw it last night in a test save but Andy says his tests work just fine. It *IS* releated to saving the game though. Just starting it up and playing through won't trigger the problem and neither will starting up a save game then moving the engineers to new hexes to clear mines. If you do they will start clearing again.

We are looking at this now from a number of different angles
Don

I tested last night as I said I would.

The mine clearing bug occurs if...
The game is opened and a saved game is started where mine clearing units are already in hexes adjacent to the mines.

I'm attaching several saves just because I said I would and you asked but obviously your on top of it.

[DRG]

What I discovered in my testing today was the engineers would start clearing again after a one turn pause. I did have one test where the engineers just sat their looking at the mines for more than one turns but in that test they were clearing their own mines and that may be a factor to consider.

However, this goes a long way to explain whey there are conflicting reports about the bug. Anyone who sits down and plays a game right through will never see this. Anyone who plays PBEM or only has a short amount to time to play in any given day and makes a lot of saves will see this all the time. Anyone who is somewhere in the middle and may play a number of turns one day then have to save every turn for a couple of days for one reason or the other will see it seemingly inconsistently. Your tying it to the save game was the piece of the puzzle we needed. Thank you for that clue. It helped a lot. This is why we need as much info as possible when we get a bug report.

Don

[DRG]

scJazz said:
The mine clearing bug occurs if...
The game is opened and a saved game is started where mine clearing units are already in hexes adjacent to the mines.

I'm attaching several saves just because I said I would and you asked but obviously your on top of it.

I just tested your " Mine test T4 start " and it duplicated what I saw today. They sat there and did nothing for the turn after I re-started the game but started clearing again the turn after that.

Is that what you saw as well?

Don

[scJazz]

No what I saw was from the moment I opened a saved game (open app, open save, commence play) the Engineers just sat there looking stupid for as many turns as I wished to sit through UNTIL I moved them away from mines and back again. At one point I opened Save 2 and pressed End Turn repeatedly with no mine clears for 5 or 6 turns.

Mine clearing worked fine as long there was no "End Game" & "Open Save".

Mine clearing worked fine after saving game as long as game progressed after save (End Game not clicked, no return to Desktop, etc).

BTW the bug exists in DOS SPWW2 as well.

[Mobhack]

DRG said:
What I discovered in my testing today was the engineers would start clearing again after a one turn pause. I did have one test where the engineers just sat their looking at the mines for more than one turns but in that test they were clearing their own mines and that may be a factor to consider.

However, this goes a long way to explain whey there are conflicting reports about the bug. Anyone who sits down and plays a game right through will never see this. Anyone who plays PBEM or only has a short amount to time to play in any given day and makes a lot of saves will see this all the time. Anyone who is somewhere in the middle and may play a number of turns one day then have to save every turn for a couple of days for one reason or the other will see it seemingly inconsistently. Your tying it to the save game was the piece of the puzzle we needed. Thank you for that clue. It helped a lot. This is why we need as much info as possible when we get a bug report.

Don

Looks like we found what was wrong in the save game process. (Being able to debug with real breakpoints beats the old DOS print to text file debug method no end ! )

Testing the fix out now.

Andy

[DRG]

Confirmed fixed

Don