Brandenburger without Country ID

[BigDuke66]

As I scanned thru the German OOB16 I saw that unit 470 has no country ID, Is that intended?
At least I can't find them in the in-game encyclopedia.

PS:
In the same OOB unit 600 has nation 99 set, seems also not to appear for Germany in the game.

[Mobhack]

If you look above the name for unit 470 in red is printed the word "Unused" - which is what it is now. Same goes for the other unit, and the name string there has also been altered so it is easy to tell that it's a deleted unit too. 0 is now the default renationalised OOB ID, but any number <> the OOB ID works.

Renationalising a deleted unit means the end user wont see it, but if it is used in a scenario its data is still OK. That saves searching several hundred scenarios (plus looking inside the user campaigns etc) for that unit. If the unit was simply nuked and it was in use, then a phantom unit occurs in the scenario or saved game.

Andy

[DRG]

My usual procedure for removing units ( though there are variations...) is to re-nationalize it first then wait a year or two to ensure it's not been used in a sceanrio recently, then remove it but sometime I just leave them at way.

So the short answer to that question is YES, it's intended although it would require some investigation to say exactly WHY it was done for that particular unit


Don

[Ts4EVER]

IIRC there is one scenario that has brandenburgers on the eastern front. So that might be the reason.

[BigDuke66]

A changelog for specific changes would be good, helps the designer to identify whether or not they should take a look at their scenarios and rework them, and would help the guys working on the game to keep track of their changes and the reasons behind it.

At least I had to see that simply starting to work on a scenario(this was a TOAW III rework of DMBs Braunschweig scenario)without protocoling changes leads often to loops were you even end up changing values back to the original because you can't follow your own changes and the reasons behind it anymore.
It's a lot work to protocol every change but in the end it also saves a lot of work.

[Imp]

It's a lot work to protocol every change but in the end it also saves a lot of work.

Your looking at designing one scenario a drop in the ocean compared to the changes made in this game. Major changes are logged & you get a summary with the patch but to list every change so its easily findable would have consumed hundreds of hours. Do a unit count & then guess how many have been revised.

[BigDuke66]

Well if you would have protocoled them you surely would know how many have been revised and revised and revised and revised and so on because know one protocols it and can say "Yes those values are there for a reason even if they look strange.".

And I bet there are still some units left untouched that may need a simply check to adjust there values in a similar way like the other units did have, just look here:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...8&postcount=10
Tiger tank front armor wrong or at least not like other Tigers, I'm sure this would have been found earlier with changes noted.

Time is a factor but you simply underestimate how many times you may or may not have went over a unit and changed values back and forth from new to old and from old to new without knowing, or searched for informations just to stubble over the same old info that lead to the original changes, ever had the feeling of déjà vu working on those OOBs? Simply because you changed them again and again without know anymore what was changed at all.

Anyhow it's talk about spilled milk, tracking back all the changes now is impossible anyway, but you might consider it for now simply because all OOBs have got so much work that there are not that many changes in the future to them.

[DRG]

I can assure you that if I had been required to cataloged every change made to the game there is no way at all the game would have progressed as far as it has because both Andy and I would have walked away from it years ago.

It's all very well show up FIFTEEN YEARS after we first started making changes to the game and play " coulda-shoulda-woulda " but had every change been recorded I would spend more time digging through notes than I would actually moving the game forward so thanks for the "advice" on how we should have done it but I'm going to give it a pass.

Every year at least one person shows up and finds things "wrong" with the game then they learn how to play it.

And finally I will present some basic stats

There are 12,217 units in winSPWW2 and 4,672 weapons. In winSPMBT there are 36,015 units in the database and 15,617 weapons . TOTAL -48,232 units and 20,289 weapons....... and that's ONLY units and weapons

Oh Yeah....we should keep detailed files on every change made. .....


Don

[BigDuke66]

There is nothing "wrong" with the game and it has nothing to do with "learning the game" when someone sees a version of a unit that differs from other versions, it's obvious that something here doesn't fit and has slipped in the process of working on the OOB.
You say it there yourself "After a couple hours digging up info and emails exchanged on two continents" would not have been necessary if the version with the thick armor would have had the info why the front armor is so thick(and so much thicker than one would expect looking at the real life armor values) on them.
The Tiger is the best example why such info should be collect, as I saw the change you mentioned there I checked my own sources to follow why the armor is made so thick, not an easy process but in the end it was perfectly understandable and as you said "only took a couple of hours" for one value on one unit.
Now imaging that you wouldn't have change the others up but the 16er down to 12 like the others...
And keeping track of changes doesn't mean any change back since 1699 so we get a humongous changelog but any change that lead to the currently used values, like 16 on the front armor of a Tiger because of the mantle overlapping with the other front armor.