PWCG 3.0

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG 3.0 is actively under development.   

 

Immediate for the user will be the addition of new planes.

Next will be the addition of the Kuban map.

After that any other planes to be released.

 

I have been spending many hours reworking aspects of the code.  You won't see most of it, but it will result in a more stable product.  It will also open the door to more possibilities.  These include encoding weapons/mod loads to allow them to be selected.  Another possibility is to save a PWCG mission and have persisted (written to disk) for later use.

 

Some people do directly edit input files.  All input files are being reworked as JSON.  This reduces my IO routines from hundreds to thousands of specific (error prone) lines to a quick invocation to write an object.  JSON is still human readable, but admittedly not as easy for a person to work with.  Advanced warning: I cannot guarantee backwards compatibility to PWCG 2.

 

 

[dburne]

 

 

Sounds great, really looking forward to it Pat !!

[LLv24_Zami]

That's good news! I'm glad to hear that PWCG development continues

[Stlg13/Sgt_Schultz]

Awesome! Thanks for all your hard work Pat  Can't wait to fly over the Kuban map in PWCG.

[Yogiflight]

Thanks Patrick, for continuing your work on PWCG. I am looking very much forward to flying on the Kuban map, as well.

[Beazil]

I dub thee St. Pat for thy work on PWCG and in supporting this community. Arise Sir Pat!

[Thad]

Outstanding news.

[OrLoK]

Good stuff! Cant wait!

[Cybermat47]

Very glad to hear this news, Pat, I can't wait 

 

By the way, I've modified the aircraft info files to make things a bit more accurate. The only changes are that Bf-109 E-7s won't be given fighter missions, and Bf-109 Fs and Gs won't be given ground attack missions, as I couldn't find any info about those aircraft doing anything else at Moscow or Stalingrad.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ypx0csdy5l1di3o/AircraftInfo.zip

[Dfwtd]

Niceeeeee news indeed!

[Bando]

Great news!!

This may get me back into the cockpit, as I haven't been flying since January.

[TheSNAFU]

Hey Pat, so glad to hear you are back at work on PWCG. Its so good now and I look forward to seeing what you do to improve it further. 

[Dauntless]

[DD_Arthur]

Thank you for your continuing hard work for our enjoyment Pat.  Appreciate it

[BMW801]

PWCG is my primary use for this sim. It is superb!

Looking forward to more of your excellent work.

Thank you again, Pat.

[aust3298]

Thanks Pat, looking forward to V. 3.  I know it will be good.  I very much appreciate what you do.

Thanks again.

[Jack59]

I had been waffling about whether or not to buy BOK. This announcement pushed me over the edge, and I have now made the investment. Being able to use PWCG on the Kuban map will be fantastic. Thanks Pat!

[BladeMeister]

To all who use PWCG. Don'T forget there is a Paypal Donation button on the PWCG download page. There are presents at 5$, 10$, & 20$ that can be given as appreciation for all of Patrick's hard work. I cannot even imagine how many lines of code Patrick has written to provide PWCG for both ROF & BOX. Now he is going to add Kuban, simply awesome. This is a shameless plug to ask those that enjoy and use PWCG to show your appreciation for what Patrick does to add an actual Career Mode to the BOX series. To me 20$ is the least I can do for all of the fun I have had in ROF PWCG, and all the fun I will be having in BOX PWCG. Thanks Pat.

 

S!Blade<><

[Azdack]

Done. Thanks for the recall BladeMeister. So great to play with PWCG, thanks Pat.

[an_Axolotl]

I have maybe a little idea for the german Campaign: a new medal. Now a german figthter pilot gets a iron cross 1st class for 10 victories and the knight cross for 40 victories. its a long way in between. Maybe we could put in the german cross in gold for , let's say, 25 victories? It's just a thought. What do you think?

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/8505/wuWbFy.jpg

 

micha

Edited September 13, 2017 by micha

[Yogiflight]

Nice idea, micha, it is really a long way from 10 to 40.

[PatrickAWlson]

I have maybe a little idea for the german Campaign: a new medal. Now a german figthter pilot gets a iron cross 1st class for 10 victories and the knight cross for 40 victories. its a long way in between. Maybe we could put in the german cross in gold for , let's say, 25 victories? It's just a thought. What do you think?

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/8505/wuWbFy.jpg

 

micha

 

Sure.  It would occupy the same space as the Hohenzollern did in WWI.  

[Guest deleted@1562]

Fantastic news! Thank you for your work and the many hours you invest in your campaign creator.

[=SqSq=switch201]

I would like to make a feature request if that is ok.

 

It would be cool if the other pilots in your squad ranked up kills/missions every day even if they were not on the mission you are currently flying. Right now, as the human player, It doesn't make sense that I get to attend 100% of the missions taking place,  while each AI pilot maybe gets to fly on 20% of the missions. this leads to a huge discrepancy between my victories and that of the rest of the squad.

 

There should be some sort of behind the scenes number crunching that randomly gives some of the AI pilots a completed mission, from that subset you can randomly decide if any of those AI players get a victory, get killed, get injured. 

 

Right now it just seems that everything revolves around you as the player. no missions get flown unless you are there flying them, and for this reason I end up with 15 victories before the next highest member even has 3

[Yogiflight]

This is not quite correct, as I see from time to time announcements in the AAR of pilots of my squad been killed, seriously wounded or bailed out behind enemy lines, and IIRC also air victories, however not quite sure about the last. I had several missions in the Bf110, where aircrafts of my squad were flying escort for us. But I absolutely agree, it could be more.

[=SqSq=switch201]

This is not quite correct, as I see from time to time announcements in the AAR of pilots of my squad been killed

 

The key here being that you were part of that flight and had to bring those guys along with you. Only then can they die/ get kills etc. What I am requesting is that pilots generate all of that stuff on "side missions" that you are not a part of. Like I said before, you go on 100% of the missions that take place in PWCG, while all the other pilots don't go on every single mission. as a result the player ends up having way more opportunity than everyone else in the squad to earn kills. 

 

The way I see it working is like this:

 

after submitting your after action report, all of the pilots that were not on that particular mission have their missions count increased by one (they go on another mission you were not a part of). After that, based on pilot skill each pilot is randomly given 0-x victories and each pilot has a chance of becoming wounded or killed.

 

So you might come back from your mission and see that so and so died on a different mission and see that your Lt. was able to get a couple kills on his respective mission. etc. I think it would really even things out. cause right now I am a private having gone on 10 missions and I have more victories than my whole squad combined which doesn't seem right.

Edited September 18, 2017 by =SqSq=switch201

[PatrickAWlson]

I would like to make a feature request if that is ok.

 

It would be cool if the other pilots in your squad ranked up kills/missions every day even if they were not on the mission you are currently flying. Right now, as the human player, It doesn't make sense that I get to attend 100% of the missions taking place,  while each AI pilot maybe gets to fly on 20% of the missions. this leads to a huge discrepancy between my victories and that of the rest of the squad.

 

There should be some sort of behind the scenes number crunching that randomly gives some of the AI pilots a completed mission, from that subset you can randomly decide if any of those AI players get a victory, get killed, get injured. 

 

Right now it just seems that everything revolves around you as the player. no missions get flown unless you are there flying them, and for this reason I end up with 15 victories before the next highest member even has 3

 

They already do.  Every squadron member is assumed to have flown a mission whenever you do.  For those in your mission their progress is determined by what actually happened in the mission.  For those not in your mission a set of calculations takes place to determine if they scored any victories, were killed, injured, captured, etc.  Better and more experienced pilots are more likely to score and less likely to die.

 

If you look at the end of the AAR process you will see notifications of pilots lost and medals or promotions received for pilots who are not in your mission.  The actual AAR report (what is in your journal) only refers to yous mission.  Your squadron logs contain events for both actual and virtual missions.

 

When you take leave all of your squadron mates fly a mission once every three days where the same calculations are imposed.  That is why you are presented with the same summary as you get during the AAR process.

 

Per a perceived lack of activity: one thing to note is that events were not as rapid as you might think.  Your squadron is made of "normal" pilots.  Some may rise to ace and PWCG takes that into account.  However, the fact is that the vast majority of pilots really did not score much.  They also died much less often than you might think.  If a unit lost one pilot per mission that would amount to complete turnover in a matter of a couple of months,and things just were not that bloody.  What got pilots was their number coming up eventually after months or years of fighting, but there were usually not empty chairs at the mess hall every other day.

[=SqSq=switch201]

Ok I will try and do some testing to see if this is working as intended, because I have not noticed any of my squad mates doing missions without me present. Maybe it would be a good idea to expose these values in the advanced config as well? that way each player could set the chance an AI pilot gets a victory while on his "side mission" so to speak.

[ZikoEgy6]

Great news Pat 

[Yogiflight]

The example, I wrote about was about pilots, who were not in my flight. We were four pilots, flying a ground attack mission and in the AAR I read, that our escort was also aircrafts of our squadron. But this was only one example, I noticed this several times, that pilots, who were not in my flight were killed or captured or had air victories. Just look for this in your AARs.

[GenMarkof007]

S! Thanks Pat, looking forward to V. 3.

 

Cheers,

Gen

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

awesome! is this going to be CO-OP compatible once this gets in place, for BOS?

[=SqSq=switch201]

So I have another request   and if this is the wrong place to do this let me know.

 

Would there be a way to have damaged squad mates break off and "land"? right now it's kinda silly cause your squad mates will fly a whole mission while leaking oil and end up crashing when I would expect them to break off and "land" I know right now that they can't land for some such reason, but maybe you can have them despawn once they reach the airfield?   I have just had many a squad mate captured because they kept flying on borrowed time. 

 

I was reading in another thread that you might be able to set a damage threshold for the AI pilots and then give them a new waypoint/ command based on that condition

 

And I suppose another thing I am wondering is if IL2's Mission Success/Failure message post sortie has any impact on PWCG. I ask because sometimes when I get damaged myself or run out of Ammo I will cut the sortie short and return home before I have reached all the waypoints in the mission. this results in a mission failure but I am wondering if that even matter for PWCG.

Edited September 19, 2017 by =SqSq=switch201

[PatrickAWlson]

Mission success/failure doesn't matter in PWCG.  PWCG calls mission success any time you didn't crash or your squadron suffer serious losses.  The only impact of success vs. failure is the splash screen in the game and the music in PWCG.  Otherwise it is not used.

 

Damage threshold is set as is RTB.  Fake airfield entities are included in the mission.  I have not experimented with different values to determine AI reactions.

[EisenWaffel]

Do you think for the 3.0 or 2.0 version you could put a GUI option to invert the map scrolling, that way it matches the ingame map scrolling?

[yeikov]

Hi Pat, great news to hear that you're working in v3.0.

One thing that in my opinion would add a lot of atmosphere is to add some ambient smoke in places (villages, airfields, around ground battles or strategic places) close to the front in the mission area. As you already have the front lines defined by dates, maybe you can map some smoke positions around them for each date range, and then only activate in the mission those that are close to the mission area, oriented as per the wind setting defined in the mission.

Just a suggestion in case you think it's feasible, I really appreciate and enjoy PWCG as it is already.

Thanks!

Edited September 21, 2017 by yeikov

[PatrickAWlson]

Hi Pat, great news to hear that you're working in v3.0.

One thing that in my opinion would add a lot of atmosphere is to add some ambient smoke in places (villages, airfields, around ground battles or strategic places) close to the front in the mission area. As you already have the front lines defined by dates, maybe you can map some smoke positions around them for each date range, and then only activate in the mission those that are close to the mission area, oriented as per the wind setting defined in the mission.

Just a suggestion in case you think it's feasible, I really appreciate and enjoy PWCG as it is already.

Thanks!

 

Seems reasonable.

 

One thing to understand about 3.0: the initial release will look just like 2.1.2 but with Kuban.  Under the hood a lot has changed, but that is more about me firming up the foundation than providing new capabilities.

 

In order, my to do list looks like this:

1. Restructure and author more tests for PWCG code.  Less bugs and faster future fixes, but otherwise not really noticeable to the user.

2. Kuban.

3. Fix reported bugs.

4. New features.

 

Given the workload I probably will not get to new features before 2018.

 

I am continuing work, so new features will be added over time.

[=SqSq=switch201]

Pat you are a beast. thank you so much 

[katdog5]

I have a dumb question...will you (we) be able to use this awesome app for building coop missions when coop mode is officially released? 

Edited September 21, 2017 by katdog5

[=SqSq=switch201]

Pat, do you have a list of all of the bugs you plan to fix for 3.0? I know that there is a thread for bug reporting, but it might be helpful to start a new one starting with a list of all the bugs you know of so that we can go over and see if there is anything obvious that's missing from the list. just a thought I had.

 

Or maybe just edit your first post in the bug reporting thread with all of the bugs you have addressed and plan to address in 3.0 so that we can easily keep track of what bugs have already been reported. I'm sure that would cut down on people posting the same bugs over and over too

Edited September 21, 2017 by =SqSq=switch201