War Cabinet 0.8.0 is available!

[ErikCumps]

Hello fellow wargamers,

I am delighted to announce the release of War Cabinet version 0.8.0!

The release can a be found here (on GitHub), screenshots can be found here (also on GitHub).

The development of 0.8.0 has seen many difficulties and challenges, but I hope
you'll agree with me that it was well worth the wait.

This release introduces many new features:

Full support for the SP:WaW and winSPWW2 games:

• date-specific OOB nation info and flags
• map hex connection and tramlines detection
• map hex height range expanded and unified
• unified unit and formation types
• (SP:WaW) formations can contain core units as well as support units
• (winSPWW2) month-only battle/turn dates
• (winSPWW2) Disabled time-based axis for dossier graphs.

Unit History Tracking. The entire history of units in a campaign is now tracked.
This includes additional units commissioned after the start of the campaign,
units decomissioned before the end of the campaign and units cross-attached to
different formations during the campaign.

Full campaign history preference. This preference enables full campaign history,
which also shows data for decommissioned units on the following Dossier tabs:
Overview, Status, Progress, Kills, Losses, Roster and History.

Full, limited and None intel mode. Three intel modes are available (full,
limited and none) to select the amount of information about the opponent forces
that should be available.

• Full: all information is available
• Limited: limited information is available:
  • The opponent's OOB is available, but the battle status is not.
  • The stratmap shows the uncertainty of the frontline.
  • Only destroyed, abandoned or spotted opponent units are indicated.
• None: no information is available:
  • Victory hex ownership by the opponent is not available.
  • The opponent's OOB is not available.
  • The opponent's unit history is not available.
  • The stratmap shows the uncertainty of the contested map.
  • Only destroyed, abandoned or spotted opponent units are indicated.

Additional height color fields for stratmap. To liven up the stratmap a bit,
additional height color fields are provided:

• grey: the original greyish colors.
• topographic: washed out colors, derived from topographic maps
• terrain: washed out colors, based on the map terrain type

Campaign battle results. The results of a campaign battle (Decisive Victory,
Marginal Victory, Drawn Battle, Marginal Defeat, Decisive Defeat) are now
recorded and reported. Note: they are not reported for older dossiers (when
battle results were not yet recorded).

Local and global preferences. Warcab preferences can now be stored globally (in
the registry), or locally (in a warcab.ini file).

XML reporting. The spwreport tool now also supports reporting savegame
information using the XML file format.

Many other improvements are provided:

Much improved unit detection for SP:WaW. Based on information learned from
winSPWW2, the SP:WaW unit detection has been much improved, significantly
reducing the risk of misdetection.

Initial support for unit designations. Although unit names are initialized by
the games to reflect the unit equipment name, these names are actually unit
designations which can change during the course of a battle and/or a campaign.
Initial support for these unit designations has been added.

Changed unit 'radio' status to 'contact' status. The old unit radio status is
now reported as a unit contact status (No Contact, Radio Contact, Direct
Contact)

Updated loaded unit position recording. For the position of a loaded unit, the
position of the loading unit is recorded.

Victory hex statistics reporting. The occupation status of the victory hexes is
now reported for each battle turn.

Campaign battle index. The campaign battle index tracks the position of the
battle in the campaign, compared to other battles. It is used to distinguish and
sort the different battles of a campaign, replacing the date-based mechanism
which did no longer function with month-only dates.

Updated documentation.

• added SP:WaW and winSPWW2 OOB file format documentation
• updated SP:WaW save file sections format documentation
• added winSPWW2 save file sections format documentation
• updated existing and added some new demo dossiers

Enjoy!
Erik

[KAreil]

This looks great, thanks a lot!

Had only time for a quick test but 2 questions did pop up:

1) How do I get a whole campaign in my dossier? Do I have to add a savegame of each battle fought?
I tried with some old campaign savegames but if I did see correctly only the current battle was shown.


2) Any chance to get the country flags in the dossier changeable?
Swastika is still forbidden in some (my) country and I prefer the alternative cross available with WinSPWW2.

[Kritkeen]

Thank you VERY MUCH Erik, for all the time you have put in this

Can't wait to go home and play with it.

[ErikCumps]

Originally Posted by KAreil

This looks great, thanks a lot!

Had only time for a quick test but 2 questions did pop up:

1) How do I get a whole campaign in my dossier? Do I have to add a savegame of each battle fought?
I tried with some old campaign savegames but if I did see correctly only the current battle was shown.


2) Any chance to get the country flags in the dossier changeable?
Swastika is still forbidden in some (my) country and I prefer the alternative cross available with WinSPWW2.

Thanks for your comments KAreil.

Yes, it is possible to track the different battles in a campaign.

For best results, I advise to add at least two savegames for each battle: one as close as possible
to the start of the battle (preferably at deployment time) and one as close as possible to the end
of the battle, preferably after the scoring.

Regarding the German country flag, I understand your request. The alternative flag you are referring
to comes from the "German Cross" graphics set? (See bitmap attched to this post)

If so, than it is a simple matter of replacing the bitmap in the warcab.res resource file.

For your convenience, I have already created and attached an alternative warcab.res file.
(it is zipped, so please extract this in your warcab installation folder to overwrite the original file).

Looking for a more structural solution, what do you think would be most appropriate?

1. A separate download with an alternative 'warcab.res' file?
   
2. Adding the alternative warcab.res file to the release,
   together with a small text file explaining how to copy it over the original warcab.res file?
   (like winSPWW2 is doing it)
   
3. Adding the alternative warcab.res file to the release,
   together with two small .bat files that can be run to copy the original or alternative warcab.res file?
   
4. A single warcab.res file containing both the original and the alternative flag
   and a warcab preference option to choose which type of flag should be visible?

I have a slight preference for option #4.

Erik

For your con

[Imp]

Hi Erik thanks for this had a little play with it seems to work fine so started a campaign saving at start & end of each battle & at least to start with saving every 4 or 5 turns.

Practice game showed me how lucky or not you can get with die rolls at end I turned on full intel.
On the status screen ( lists 5 best/worst units by several criteria I did well. My FOO & off map artillery both featured in top 5 for experience & artillery command. FOO most experienced unit arty 3rd best. Arty command 3rd & 1st respectively so fast response & hard hitters.
AI did not do so well laughed when I saw 2nd best experience & best armour command went to a Kubelwagen driver.

Thanks for the effort you have put in lets see if I can become more attached to my guys.

[ErikCumps]

Thanks to a crash report (provided by Kritkeen ), a bug was uncovered in the formation detection for winSPWW2.

Warcab incorrectly assumed the game supports up to 100 formations, but it should have been 200.

Because of this, for battles where the player or the opponent has more than 100 formations, the game would either crash,
or incorrectly limit the formations to the first 100. Of course, there is no issue for battles where less than 100 formations are
used and this explains why this bug was not discovered earlier.

The good news is that this bug has now been fixed, and the fix will be available in the next 0.8.1 release.

Note: the schedule for this upcoming release is not yet decided.
I am investigating another crash report (provided by Sigeena ) and if possible I would like to bundle both fixes together.

Erik

[Imp]

Erik I hope you do not object I am going to do an AAR & use War Cab to highlight major events in the battles along with screenshots from it.
Can you confirm for me please under the Turn Tab
Kill Tab - lists the units killed, damaged that turn
Losses Tab - lists the running total of killed, damaged units

Also & its I minor issue would it be possible to implement the save on exit better? When I close it it asks if I want to save but the function does not work as it comes up after the program shuts down I assume.
Alternatively toggle an autosave option when a turn is added.
I just add the autosave each turn so cannot recover the data if the game is lost as only make a save at session end normally.
Remembered to save War cab 4 times in first battle - yes I am useless.

Saving each turn now despite my earlier post that way get a good record & you could go back & delete turns later if desired.

Otherwise good little tool thank you.

[ErikCumps]

Originally Posted by Imp

Erik I hope you do not object I am going to do an AAR & use War Cab to highlight major events in the battles along with screenshots from it.
Can you confirm for me please under the Turn Tab
Kill Tab - lists the units killed, damaged that turn
Losses Tab - lists the running total of killed, damaged units

Also & its I minor issue would it be possible to implement the save on exit better? When I close it it asks if I want to save but the function does not work as it comes up after the program shuts down I assume.
Alternatively toggle an autosave option when a turn is added.
I just add the autosave each turn so cannot recover the data if the game is lost as only make a save at session end normally.
Remembered to save War cab 4 times in first battle - yes I am useless.

Saving each turn now despite my earlier post that way get a good record & you could go back & delete turns later if desired.

Otherwise good little tool thank you.

Hello Imp,

Sure, no objections at all. I think AAR is one of the things that warcab was made for!

Do you mean the "Kills" and "Losses" tabs, under the "Core force", "Support force"
and "opponent force" tabs, under the "Turn" tab?

The "Kills" tab lists the force information about recorded kills during that turn.

The title states the total number of recorded kills in that turn.

This is followed by a list of units for which kills where recorded during that turn.
The (number) after each unit is the count of kills for this unit during that turn.
The list is sorted on kill count, from high to low.

This is indeed not a running count.

The "Losses" tab lists the force information about recorded losses during that turn.

This is split in three parts: destroyed units, abandoned units and damaged units.

For destroyed units, this lists the total number of units recorded as destroyed during that turn,
followed by a list of these destroyed units, sorted on unit ID. This is a running count, because
once a unit is recorded to be destroyed in a turn, it is of course still recorded as destroyed
in all following turns.

For abandoned units, this lists the total number of units recorded as abandoned during that turn,
followed by a list of these abandoned units, again sorted on unit ID. this is not really a running count.
If a unit was abandoned in turn 2 and then taken back in use by the crew on turn 4, then the unit
will be listed as abandoned for turns 2 and 3, but not anymore for turns 4 and following.

For damaged units, this lists the total number of units for which damage was recorded during that turn,
followed by a list of these damaged units, sorted by the recorded damage, from high to low.
This is not a running count, just a reporting of the actual damage points that units have suffered during that turn.

Regarding the save at exit:

Thanks for reporting, you have discovered a bug!
I'll make sure to fix that and I will also consider your suggestion for an autosave feature.

Thanks,
Erik

[Imp]

Thank you for such a full explanation that is what I thought.

A further question if I may is overall readiness based on killed units & the suppressed status of the remaining forces?

[ErikCumps]

Originally Posted by Imp

Thank you for such a full explanation that is what I thought.

A further question if I may is overall readiness based on killed units & the suppressed status of the remaining forces?

You're welcome.

Writing the explanation did make me wonder about the destroyed units in the Losses tab.
For the Turn tab, I wonder if it would make more sense to just list the actual destroyed units
for that turn only, instead of the running count of destroyed units up until that turn?

Unit readiness is not an actual game data point, but a value based on a heuristic defined by me:

/* readiness calculation: max and actual values, calculated per-unit and summed.
 * A unit's readiness is influenced by:
 *    damage        more damage means less readiness
 *    headcount     less available effectives means less readiness
 *    suppression   more suppression means less readiness
 *    abandonment   means total loss of readiness (-100%)
 *    crew          means significant reduction of readiness (-90%)
 *    status        additional readiness reduction
 */

The formation readiness is just the average readiness of all the units in the formation.

The overall readiness is just the average readiness of all the units in the force.

Again, readiness is just a synthetic value derived by warcab using some heuristic, it is not an
actual in game data item, but I believe it gives a fair approximation of the relative ability of a
unit to participate in combat.

Erik