PWCG 7.1.0 Released - Fixes and Improvements - lots of them

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG 4.2.1

Incorporated improved graphics (Riksen).

Disassociated pilot name from campaign name (prelude to multiple human pilots)

Bugs:

Incorporated fix for Kuban taxiways (Murleen).

Increased PWCG memory.

[dburne]

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Kuban map after July 1943.

 

Actually if you select April 43 it will be available then.

Unless you just changed it.

I found that by just selecting each month and checking until I got it.

[Yogiflight]

Thanks for your work, guys. Nice addition , the flight altitude on the in game map.It happened so often, that I was asking myself in which altitude my mission is, which is important, when losing contact through a fight, to find my squadmates again. Also the speed to the next waypoint mentioned at the front line is a good addition, however the climb speed for the Bf109 G2 at 230, must be measured in nautical miles, because my squadmates climb at 420-440km/h.

[Murleen]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

Thanks for your work, guys. Nice addition , the flight altitude on the in game map.It happened so often, that I was asking myself in which altitude my mission is, which is important, when losing contact through a fight, to find my squadmates again. Also the speed to the next waypoint mentioned at the front line is a good addition, however the climb speed for the Bf109 G2 at 230, must be measured in nautical miles, because my squadmates climb at 420-440km/h.

 

Unfortunately the speeds shown on the map don't relate to the actual waypoint speeds, as far as I can tell the game just fills in what it thinks the cruising speed for the planes is...

[Yogiflight]

31 minutes ago, Murleen said:

Unfortunately the speeds shown on the map don't relate to the actual waypoint speeds, as far as I can tell the game just fills in what it thinks the cruising speed for the planes is...

OK, but the cruising speed was shown correctly with 420km/h, like I customized it. But anyway, like I wrote above, a nice addition for PWCG, thanks a lot.

[dburne]

I love PWCG and have for quite some time. The customizability it brings is just incredible and it keeps getting better.

I used to use it all the time, then after the new Career Mode was implemented I flew that for a  while, and just recently began a new PWCG Campaign in my Spit over Kuban.

 

I have flown 15 missions so far in my Campaign, and am a little flustered. I don't know if this is by design in PWCG or if it is a limitation of the game or what, but I keep getting missions with no enemy aircraft at all to fight. Today especially, I flew for a few hours and had maybe a mission or two where I got to fly as a fighter pilot in actual combat, the rest were a couple of ground attack missions - one me and one wingman were assigned to attack 4 large ships - course that was futile.  And the remainder were intercept missions with a patrol or two, and those came up goose eggs. No enemy AI around to be seen, either in the sky or on the large map.

I probably spent at least 2 - 2.5 hours today just flying around sightseeing as no enemy to fight.

 

I made sure to follow both the speed to waypoints and the altitude assignments for the mission.

So I am wondering, is PWCG designed to generate these no enemy ai missons to reflect how it was in reality, or is it just the game and how PWCG interacts with it?

I know previously I would run across these at times, but here in the last few days they seem to be happening more often than not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG generates flights that are going about their own business.  Whether you see them or not depends on whether you cross their path.  A flight will spawn into the game when it is triggered by a check zone - 20 or 30 km I think.  During mission generation PWCG does generate targets for other flights into your general area to increase the odds of contact.  PWCG then does a proximity calculation and keeps the flights that you are most likely to interact with.  Increasing air activity to high causes a greater number of flights to be kept.

 

There is less chance of an encounter in PWCG because the flights are not set to spawn at a fixed point along your flight path.  That is the downside to PWCG's implementation.  The upside is much greater variety and much more spontaneous occurrences, like a friendly or enemy flight coming along while you are engaged with a previous contact.  

 

I can look into the Spitfire campaign specifically to see if there is anything about the map or location that is causing flights not to be there.

[Skipper-]

Would it be possible to replace the ship attack mission with a different kind of ground attack for the Spitfire? Cannons and machine guns don’t seem able to damage ships, they only damage something at the front of the ship, not sure if thats an AA gun or not.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

PWCG generates flights that are going about their own business.  Whether you see them or not depends on whether you cross their path.  A flight will spawn into the game when it is triggered by a check zone - 20 or 30 km I think.  During mission generation PWCG does generate targets for other flights into your general area to increase the odds of contact.  PWCG then does a proximity calculation and keeps the flights that you are most likely to interact with.  Increasing air activity to high causes a greater number of flights to be kept.

 

There is less chance of an encounter in PWCG because the flights are not set to spawn at a fixed point along your flight path.  That is the downside to PWCG's implementation.  The upside is much greater variety and much more spontaneous occurrences, like a friendly or enemy flight coming along while you are engaged with a previous contact.  

 

I can look into the Spitfire campaign specifically to see if there is anything about the map or location that is causing flights not to be there.

 

Ok thanks Pat  I would appreciate it. Today Kuban was like a barren wasteland for me. I don't much mind the occasional, but when it is the majority like it was today can be pretty depressing.

 

Thanks again for all you do!!

[PatrickAWlson]

2 hours ago, Skipper- said:

Would it be possible to replace the ship attack mission with a different kind of ground attack for the Spitfire? Cannons and machine guns don’t seem able to damage ships, they only damage something at the front of the ship, not sure if thats an AA gun or not.

 

Scrub the mission.  I can also try to make the role 100% fighter to avoid any ground attack missions.  It doesn't carry any bombs so that might make sense.

2 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Ok thanks Pat  I would appreciate it. Today Kuban was like a barren wasteland for me. I don't much mind the occasional, but when it is the majority like it was today can be pretty depressing.

 

Thanks again for all you do!!

What date?

[TheSNAFU]

I have noted somewhat less enemy opponents lately too. It doesn't seem to happen every time I play but last time I played I flew 4 missions and only encountered enemy in a scramble. I view it as the luck of the draw in a war zone but on the other hand I have limited time to play.  I'm  flying 109's with jg52 at Stalingrad in August 42. I do t find this to be a problem as it does help me build up completed missions at much less risk of dying! 

 

I do love all the changes to PWCG. The new graphics, pilot and equipment and the rest of the new stuff.  Top flight man  top flight indeed. 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by TheSNAFU

[PatrickAWlson]

Little trick: maybe I can get some help and insights.

 

Go to advanced settings -> campaign preferences.  Set show all missions to 1.  

Now on the briefing map you will see the path of every mission in PWCG.

Accept the mission.

Now go back to the mission and return to the briefing map.  You will see the paths of the missions that PWCG decided to keep.

 

I do think PWCG is tossing too many.  I'll look into why.  

[Black-Hussar]

4 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Little trick: maybe I can get some help and insights.

 

Go to advanced settings -> campaign preferences.  Set show all missions to 1.  

Now on the briefing map you will see the path of every mission in PWCG.

 

Thanks for that hint. Gonna give this a try today. 6 missions over Stalingrad and we got a single message that anywhere else one (1) IL2 was shot down.

 

We thought that we already doubled the amounts of flights,  but who knows what we really are doing there... 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Black-Hussar

[Yogiflight]

For those, who have difficulties, getting enemies in their missions, did you change the 'Air Density' in 'Simple Config', as by default it is set to low, which might be the reason, why there are less enemy flights in the air.

[Skipper-]

7 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Scrub the mission.  I can also try to make the role 100% fighter to avoid any ground attack missions.  It doesn't carry any bombs so that might make sense.

 

It's role was as an interceptor but it was often used to strafe enemy trains, convoys and supply depots, so I definitely wouldn't make it 100% fighter.

Maybe add a 'destroy the supply depot' or 'destroy the loading of supplies at the docks' mission type instead, that would be more fun and you could keep the ship element too.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Skipper-

[dburne]

8 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

What date?

 

From yesterday:

 

1943-05-12

1943-05-11

1943-05-10

1943-05-09

[PatrickAWlson]

Using the same techniques I am seeing some results that I do not like.  Going to take some time (as in a week or two, not a month or two) but I will get to the bottom of it.  As Yogi points out, jack air activity to high and see what you get.  The same tests that show less than desirable results from the algorithm also show a marked improvement with higher levels of air activity.

 

One further tweak that I can make is to set air activity to medium when a new fighter campaign is created.  Not that big of a deal since the user can do it at any time anyway, but for newer users it might help,

Edited August 9, 2018 by PatrickAWlson

[dburne]

38 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Using the same techniques I am seeing some results that I do not like.  Going to take some time (as in a week or two, not a month or two) but I will get to the bottom of it.  As Yogi points out, jack air activity to high and see what you get.  The same tests that show less than desirable results from the algorithm also show a marked improvement with higher levels of air activity.

 

One further tweak that I can make is to set air activity to medium when a new fighter campaign is created.  Not that big of a deal since the user can do it at any time anyway, but for newer users it might help,

 

Great, thanks so much for looking into this Pat, much appreciated!

[Black-Hussar]

52 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Using the same techniques I am seeing some results that I do not like.  Going to take some time (as in a week or two, not a month or two) but I will get to the bottom of it.  As Yogi points out, jack air activity to high and see what you get.  The same tests that show less than desirable results from the algorithm also show a marked improvement with higher levels of air activity.

 

One further tweak that I can make is to set air activity to medium when a new fighter campaign is created.  Not that big of a deal since the user can do it at any time anyway, but for newer users it might help,

 

...sure, but if you are new to this, how should you even divine that "simple settings" will still have an Impact once you tried to configure the mission via the "advanced settings"? In my understanding advanced settings will always override simple settings.

 

Anyway, thank you so much for the hint and the time you spend for the community!  

[dburne]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

One further tweak that I can make is to set air activity to medium when a new fighter campaign is created.  Not that big of a deal since the user can do it at any time anyway, but for newer users it might help,

 

Btw I use the advanced config and currently my max enemy flights are set to 3.

[Yogiflight]

41 minutes ago, dburne said:

Btw I use the advanced config and currently my max enemy flights are set to 3.

I use medium air activity and the default max enemy flights is 5. So there is a difference, that might be worth trying it. And even with the same min enemy flights setting to 1, the chance to get enough flights, to meet one during your mission, might be higher with medium or even high air activity.

[dburne]

10 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

I use medium air activity and the default max enemy flights is 5. So there is a difference, that might be worth trying it. And even with the same min enemy flights setting to 1, the chance to get enough flights, to meet one during your mission, might be higher with medium or even high air activity.

 

Ok thanks will give that a try.

I was thinking when I was flying a campaign some time ago I was getting too many enemy flights and finding myself outnumbered considerable.

Will make the change and see  how I make out.

( looks like changing to medium air activity in the simple config went ahead and changed max enemy flights in advanced config to 5).

 

[PatrickAWlson]

59 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

Btw I use the advanced config and currently my max enemy flights are set to 3.

 

That config defines the maximum number of enemy fighter flights but no the maximum number of flights.  The reason for it was actually prompted by you when you noted that fighter flights were too prevalent and not enough bomber/attack flights were encountered.  IMHO 3 is fine for fighter campaigns (it defaults to 1 for ground attack).  Use the simple settings and set advance it to medium or high.  See if that helps.

[dburne]

3 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

That config defines the maximum number of enemy fighter flights but no the maximum number of flights.  The reason for it was actually prompted by you when you noted that fighter flights were too prevalent and not enough bomber/attack flights were encountered.  IMHO 3 is fine for fighter campaigns (it defaults to 1 for ground attack).  Use the simple settings and set advance it to medium or high.  See if that helps.

 

Ok will do thanks.

I definitely enjoy the bomber/attack enemy flights the most.

Edited August 9, 2018 by dburne

[PatrickAWlson]

Good progress on this issue tonight.  Quite a few changes.  Here's an example of a Spitfire offensive patrol with the new algorithms.

 

[dburne]

 

Sounds great Pat!

[Columbar]

Hi guys,

i´ve noticed that if you have campaign which works well (i mean you have enough flights in your missinos) and you upgrade new version of PWCG by simply rewriting old one, something broke. The result is significantly less flights in newly generated missions with same setting as was in old copy of PWCG.

 

Allways i had to start new campaign with new version of PWCG. Maybe if i will backup my campaigns, delete old PWCG, install new one and copy backup into new PWCG it will works, but ididn´t try it yet.

 

I setup PWCG this way: simple config - air medium, ground low or medium and then tweak settings in advanced menu (like no climbing waypoints, injuries 4, heavy clouds 40 etc.

I can post my advanced settings if it will be usefull for someone. This workflow produces lots of aircraft in mission and everything is o.k. Until new version of PWCG 

 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

There should be no need to start a new campaign if the existing campaign has preferences set.  As long as the new version of PWCG does not break backwards compatibility, as far as the software is concerned there is no difference between how it operates with an existing campaign vs a new campaign.

 

Sharing settings might help.  One thing that I did do at home was increase minimum enemy flights.

[Columbar]

Here is advanced setting from my campaign from version 4.2.0. There it works perfectly.

In 4.2.1 i flew three or four missions without contact. Maybe it was just bad coincidence...

 

config.zip

[Skipper-]

Are placements random Pat or can you prevent units spawning inside rivers like this?

 

[PatrickAWlson]

I draw the front lines to try to avoid rivers but the fact is that I do not have a reliable way to determine what is water and what is not.  

[oho]

When I look at my  missions I see a lot orange lines in your example I see none. What do the different colours mean?

Can you also look into AI bomber escorts? IIrc you said there are no pure AI flights generated, with  bombers and fighters as an escort.

btw: the performance has improved a lot since your change to the ground attack units for AI flights. Thanks a lot. Ican finally fly CAP missions?

Edited August 12, 2018 by oho

[Azdack]

@Columbar : thanks for your settings. Works great for me.

[Black-Hussar]

3 minutes ago, Azdack said:

@Columbar : thanks for your settings. Works great for me.

 

...using PWCG 4.20. or 4.2.1?

[Azdack]

4.2.1 Black-Hussar. Plaid a few missions with action in each one. Up yet with Columbar's settings I didn't play a mission without crossing ennemies.

[Black-Hussar]

...silence.  Hope you're still optimistic  @PatrickAWlson 

[PatrickAWlson]

Formal release of version 5.0.0.

 

PWCG 5.0.0

Support for multiple players and coop mode.

How to create a coop campaign:

- On the campaign creation screen choose coop campaign at the top/center

- Complete campaign creation process

Adding another human pilot

- In the campaign, choose "Add Pilot"

- Enter the rank and name of the new pilot

- Select the AI pilot to be replaced.

Added fog of war setting in advanced config.  Makes victories less descriptive.
- Advanced Config -> User Preferences -> DetailedVictoryDescription
- Set to 0 for less descriptive victories.  Default is 1.
 

New visuals:

There is a small icon on the right of the pilot name, giving pilot status.

 

I don't have a mission button

- All of your human pilots are dead or wounded.

- You can create a new AI pilot

- You can go on leave to heal your human pilots (info is on the leave page).

 

Bugs

Fixed: missing LuaScripts\WorldObjects\Ships\torpedoboat38.txt
Fixed: Planes sometimes do not take off (Murleen).
Fixed: Too many out of mission AAA losses.
Fixed: Player not being made commander after promotion to major. 
Fixed: Duplicate entries in squadron log

Fixed flight not taking off at Dugino  airfield.
Fixed planes not being replaced when squadron transitions to new arch type

 

 

 

 

For those who have been downloading the betas, this is the delta between the release and the last beta:Added fog of war setting in advanced config.  Makes victories less descriptive.
- Advanced Config -> User Preferences -> DetailedVictoryDescription
- Set to 0 for less descriptive victories.  Default is 1.

Bugs

Fixed flight not taking off at Dugino  airfield.

Fixed planes not being replaced when squadron transitions to new arch type

[TheSNAFU]

Thanks Pat and Murleen. Always happy to see a new version! 

[Black-Hussar]

Same here. Thank you very much Pat & Murleen!  

Edited September 16, 2018 by Black-Hussar

[TheSNAFU]

I did a clean install of PGCG 5.0.0 and am having a number of problems. I cannot seem to take leave. It appears the request goes thru but the date stays the same. Maybe Im doing something wrong. I put a# of days in the request but the date doesn't change and nothing changes. I also could not get thru the AAR without error after a mission. Error reports attached. Note, I am using an established career not a new ones started with 5.0.0. Hope this helps.

 

 

Otto Rahl201809160709137.zip

Otto Rahl201809160709178.zip

Otto Rahl201809160709551.zip

Otto Rahl201809160709740.zip

Otto Rahl201809160809109.zip

Otto Rahl201809160809281.zip

Otto Rahl201809160809806.zip