All was lost today! WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?

[DocDocbruno]

I've been flying a single player, Iron Man campaign in BOS on the German side.  I "began" on Aug. 24, 1942, and I "flew" 47 missions through Oct. 20, 1942, accumulated many promotions, awards and a large number of victories/kills.  At the end of that mission all of my recorded victories were erased leaving me with zero kills, but I still had my Ritterkreuz, other awards and rank. Hmmm!   In my 48th mission I had a field day, shooting down 6 (six) AI enemy aircraft but credit was not applied.  Still, my total was listed as zero.  Hmmmmm!!  The 49th mission was a Free Hunt with no kills.  Total kills remained zero.  The 50th, a bomber escort mission, was a bad one and someone shot off one of my G2's flaps forcing me to return to base.  In the revetment, I turned off the power and sat there until the bombers returned and the mission completed.  I tried to start the 51st mission but there was nothing but sky and the sound of the engine.  Again I tried but got nothing.  My player, my rank, my victories, everything vanished. I rebooted and nothing!  Hauptmann Me has vanished, ist kaput, along with a month and a half of my real life!

 

After struggling to survive for so long only to have this happen begs the question "Do I really want to invest in further developments of the game?"  Am I the only one this has happened to?  BK

[Blooddawn1942]

Don't want to sound to harsh, but man. Are You serious?? After all it's a video game and it's kind of unlikely you would have survived 50 sorties in the war. 

Go over and start a new carreer. 

I don't get it why anyone can go nuts because of a video-game. 

[Lusekofte]

You did survive and know you made it to Hauptmann. 
I have not made it so far simply because I got too many careers going. I know this is frustrating but you still had fun doing it, reducing your experience down to numbers on a screen, somewhat devalue the fun you had. 
I fly for experience what pilots once did, historical interest or get a tiny taste of it at least. 
I spent much of early development to be frustrated by level of complexity and path developers chose. 
I wasted a lot of energy in insignificant details I felt missing. I could have spent that energy 

having fun. Now when I am not able to enjoy this, I take a brake, and result is no frustration

Edited December 25, 2019 by No.322_LuseKofte

[Leon_Portier]

Thats sad!

[sevenless]

4 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

 My player, my rank, my victories, everything vanished. I rebooted and nothing!  Hauptmann Me has vanished, ist kaput, along with a month and a half of my real life!

 

You posibly can revive that stuck career by using this method:

 

 

[DocDocbruno]

"Don't want to sound to harsh, but man. Are You serious?? After all it's a video game and it's kind of unlikely you would have survived 50 sorties in the war. 

Go over and start a new carreer. 

I don't get it why anyone can go nuts because of a video-game."

 

Good grief, perhaps I didn't make myself clear.  Of course it's just a game.  I'm not nuts and that's  why I always use quotation marks around "fly!"  Like others here, I play for the fun of it.  And, yes, I know those pilots died like flies and were fortunate to survive 50 missions, attain the rank of Hauptmann, and then survive the War.  Forgive me for snarling back but I probably read Clostermann's "The Big Show" before you were born.  Now back to the issue:  I "fly" against the computer and the game's AI, and I'd like to know how far I can go as an Iron Man before being trapped, and then killed or captured.  I've started several Iron Man campaigns and most of the time I've been terminated in fewer than 10 missions.  This time I completed roughly a mission a day, picking my AI opponents, avoiding the furballs, using short and accurate bursts of fire, avoiding flying debris, maintaining safe altitude so I could split-S if necessary, etc, etc, and etc.  But then it all vanished.  Maybe it was due to a new Kaspersky program (darn Russkies had to get me one way or another, huh?) or some other glitch in my PC.  But it might be a problem with the program and that's why I posted this.  Thanks to the preceding post by "sevenless" I know I'm not alone.  I'll try your above  links and let you know if it works.  If it doesn't work, I'll take an R and R break in the Alps (I'm really going to Fuschlsee mid January) and start/resume the campaign beginning in the next phase of the battle.  Merry Christmas!

[sevenless]

38 minutes ago, DocDocbruno said:

 I'll take an R and R break in the Alps (I'm really going to Fuschlsee mid January) and start/resume the campaign beginning in the next phase of the battle.  Merry Christmas!

 

When you are there at Fuschlsee don´t miss to reserve some time for Salzburg and St.Gilgen at Wolfgangsee. Wonderfull town and area. Happy x-mas!

[cardboard_killer]

8 hours ago, Blooddawn1942 said:

After all it's a video game and it's kind of unlikely you would have survived 50 sorties in the war. 

Go over and start a new carreer. 

I don't get it why anyone can go nuts because of a video-game. 

 

I don't know about going nuts, but when I buy a game, one that's been around for four years, and a bug causes the loss of my saved games, I can understand dumping the game. I hope the OP doesn't, but I can understand the frustration. I am not Charlie Brown and I won't continue to try to kick a football held by Lucy after experience has taught me to know better.

 

So, it's disappointing to hear, but understandable that this kind of bug costs the game players. Attacking the guy who lost many many hours of a career is blaming the victim.

[Tipsi]

Merry Christmas!

[Gretsch_Man]

Losing a campaign midway through happening to me before, too. And I can confirm it IS annoying.

 

Ah well, as the saying goes - "War is Hell" - why should a game portraying war been any better.

[unreasonable]

I sympathize with the OP: if you role play for immersion, when random glitches interfere this is not a trivial disadvantage for a game.   Possible solutions to bug proof for future careers:

 

1) Do not tick "Ironman" in the game, but play it that way anyway.  If you are "killed" due to technical glitch, cat on keyboard, internet outage or whatever, refly. Up to you to be honest with yourself.

 

and/or 2) Keep a pilot's logbook outside the game - hardcopy or on PC desktop. Record victories and whatever you want.  Then you can start anew from whatever date you want and accumulate victories in the logbook - ignoring the in game data.

 

IMHO the game should have gone with (2) as a default anyway. The on screen records in the the career are poorly designed - it should have looked like a contemporary air force document, not like some teenager's first mobile phone GUI project.

[DocDocbruno]

"1)  Do not tick "Ironman" in the game, but play it that way anyway."   

Agreed.  I experienced a glitch once when my anti-virus program kicked in with a download, and I lost video and control (couldn't even pause action) while my aircraft corkscrewed into the ground!  I was finished!  I keep a log by date, mission type, and kills on paper.

 

2)  I took an imaginary R & R and "returned to the front" in mid-November (the next phase of the battle).  

 

3)  "War is Hell - why should a game portraying war been any better."

There is some comfort in knowing I wasn't the only one digitally eliminated, and it wasn't because of my system.  

 

4)  I forgot to mention that I "fly" with options set at "Hard, Realistic, and Dense."  My second Nov 15 mission was tough as the sky turned "Red!"  There were red stars everywhere.  A quick view of the map showed only two of us in blue.   I got two IL-2s before hugging the ground and running back to Pitomkin, tail between my legs, and checking my six.  "Dense" is an understatement..

 

5)  I've traveled to the Salzburg area many times over the last 36 years, always in winter.  It's a wonderful place for us combat  "pilots" to relax

 

 AND FINALLY,  dumping the game never occurred to me.  I have Kuban and will get the newer ones once BOS has been successfully completed.  Attached for fun are pix of my 1st Ed. Le Grand Cirque

[danielprates]

On 12/25/2019 at 5:39 PM, DocDocbruno said:

Good grief,

 

"Good grief" is exactly what went through my mind when I read your post.

[Zeev]

As far as I understand, Career data is saved into SQL database file.
Isnt it possible to somehow edit these values?
Also, make sure to backup career, input and other valuable files into different folders, once a week/month.

 

Edit:

After a little search, the database type is SQLlite, and you can edit everything with "DB Browser for SQLite" Software.
For example, "Grisha" marked pilot in picture below is my player in the latest cereer:

Edited December 27, 2019 by Zeev

[=TBAS=Sshadow14]

Gaming should all be done in free time where otherwise you are staring at wall doing nothing. 
so its never time wasted.

better than sitting at pub with mates talking crap :D

 

[DocDocbruno]

No!!!  I should've gone to the pub.  3rd mission after R and R, flying without a map, shot down one La5 attacking Stukas, but got nailed by another on my 6.  See you guys when/if I return from the gulags.

 

The recovery suggestions are beyond my tech abilities.  Thanks but I'll just fly.  B

[ST_Catchov]

What can be better than talking shit with your mates at the pub. World issues are solved, chicks are ogled, you go to the toilet a lot and laugh at anything. Everyone's a comedian and not once is flight modelling mentioned. Then the bliss is broken when you get back to the reality of gaming.

 

So before you go the pub, take heart DocDoc, to lose a campaign IS ANNOYING TOO BLOODY RIGHT IT IS! Oh yes it is. But please remain calm. And as to your question WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN? Well I don't know. I just hope you will get over this eventually and begin to enjoy the game again. Good luck. Remember YOU WILL LAUGH ABOUT THIS one day I hope.

[DocDocbruno]

Yep, it's a game and it's fun.  Been laughin since it happened but curious as to why and how.  Back from the gulags, I started a new campaign in the November phase, flew 5 missions and ran up my kills.  Then, while on a free hunt, I tangled with too many Yaks over the city and they got my engine.  I was careless.  Captured!!  But no more Iron Man and gulags for me, and I went back for a second try and nailed a bunch of them.  Flew a "ground troops cover" mission and got 3 fighters and badly damaged 2 A-20s (they shot the hell out of me and I bailed).  I'm sure one of those Havocs wouldn't have made it home but the mission ended after I bailed out.  Poof!  Normally, I can watch the action after bailing out or landing but the show spontaneously ended.  Maybe that's because I paused for an hour to do something insignificant.  Maybe there's a built-in time limit?  Maybe I wasn't supposed to shoot down 2 A20s.  After relocating to the west, we went on another free hunt and my leader got us mixed up with a swarm of Yaks and La5s.  He went down, I got one of them, and split-essed for home.  Eight of them chased me all the way!  Flaps at 50%, throttle slowed and flying in circles at zero elevation around the wind sock (AI can't get me when I'm on the deck), we went around until we were all low on fuel.  One by one they finally left.  I was exhausted!  When the last one turned for home, I was p-oed, raised my flaps, put the pedal to the metal, chased him and blew him apart.  I landed, taxied to a hardstand and the engine ran out of fuel.  By then I needed a martini but the pub was closed...Yep, we should all laugh.  Doc

[Gretsch_Man]

6 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

Eight of them chased me all the way! 

I sympathise with you! That sound all too familiar to me!

 

Anyway, I just lost another campaign - not because I was shoot down, but simply because I couldn't start any new mission, whether I selected to participate or just let the AI to tackle it. The game just kept crashing back to Desktop. So I just had to delete said campaign. 

[Lusekofte]

Just to clearify my motivs for doing a campaign in SP. 

I  actually like the insignificant feeling of not be important you get in the big picture, Your one of many, you attack drop your bombs and try to survive. 
I do not like the lack of fear for screwing up among my fellow comrades in arms. The lifeless atmosphere you experience. Somehow they manage that in DCS. I cannot remember why, but I had that feeling in old IL 2, to belong to a group, importancd to try making all go home, and yet I cannot express what they did 

different. I like the SP all in to do one specific mission, but you feel alone while doing it. 
point does not matter at all, I want to feel or a taste on what the real pilots went through

Edited January 1, 2020 by No.322_LuseKofte