Simple PWCG/IL2 workflow question

[bongotastic]

Trying PWCG for the first time and trying to understand the dark magic on how the PWCG and IL2 are talking to each other.

 

1) Must the sim be closed when generating the mission in PWCG? The intro guide suggests to turn on the sim after saving the mission.

2) Must PWCG remain "on" all the way to the debrief?

 

I think that my issue is that I generated a mission before, had to shutdown my computer, came back and played the mission. However, PWCG isn't seeing my attempt at flying the previously generated mission. If the answer to Q2 is yes, then I guess that I need to regenerate a new mission and pretend that I have not died, twice, trying to fly the first one. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by bongotastic
Added a clarifying detail.

[Winkysmith]

1 hour ago, bongotastic said:

Trying PWCG for the first time and trying to understand the dark magic on how the PWCG and IL2 are talking to each other.

 

1) Must the sim be closed when generating the mission in PWCG? The intro guide suggests to turn on the sim after saving the mission.

2) Must PWCG remain "on" all the way to the debrief?

 

I think that my issue is that I generated a mission before, had to shutdown my computer, came back and played the mission. However, PWCG isn't seeing my attempt at flying the previously generated mission. If the answer to Q2 is yes, then I guess that I need to regenerate a new mission and pretend that I have not died, twice, trying to fly the first one. 

I am not a PWCG expert, but I believe that I have the answers to your questions:

 

1: In my experience, the sim must be closed for you to be able to generate a mission in PWCG. I believe that this is because as the game uses the mission file directory when it is open, it isn’t available to write files into while the game is open.

 

2: PWCG only writes the missions and reads the game’s output logs from said missions. Once you have created a mission, you can safely close PWCG, fly the mission, re-open PWCG, and file your combat report (do a debrief). As I said before, when you press the combat report (debrief) button PWCG reads the output log from the game to figure out what happened during the mission. This log, to my knowledge, isn’t deleted or overwritten until you fly the next mission, which means that it can’t be lost if you shut down your PC.

 

If what you are saying is that PWCG is not detecting that any mission has been flown, then you may like to check if IL-2 is set to create the output logs that I mentioned. To do this, you must find the ‘startup.cfg’ file in the ‘data’ folder, which is in your main IL-2 directory. Open that file, which you can do with notepad, and change the number after ‘mission_text_log =’ to 1. If I recall, by default it should read 0. If it does indeed read 0, that is the cause of your trouble. If it reads 1, then I’m afraid that I’m not sure what the trouble is, and someone more knowledgeable than me will have to help you.

 

TL, DR:

1: Close the sim before writing a mission using PWCG.

2: PWCG does not need to be running while you fly the mission, and you can just reopen it to do the debrief.

 

I’m sorry for the extremely lengthy reply, and I’ll excuse you if you don’t read to this point, but to explain how PWCG works the long length of this post was necessary. 
 

I sincerely hope this helps you in some way.

 

Regards,

Winkysmith

[bongotastic]

37 minutes ago, Winkysmith said:

I’m sorry for the extremely lengthy reply, and I’ll excuse you if you don’t read to this point, but to explain how PWCG works the long length of this post was necessary. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond. This answers my question perfectly. I realized that my real issue is that I looked at the wrong place for the debrief. 

 

Interestingly, I thought that I died, but I apparently survived with serious wounds (it was sketchy whether the chute had opened enough or not). Sgt Mendelev will fight another day!

 

Oh, seriously wounded probably means that I should create a second pilot right? Are we talking week/months out for a serious injury? 

Edited June 15, 2022 by bongotastic

[Hotaru_Ito]

PWCG defaults to seriously wounded as the maximum possible injury level. If you want to be able to actually die, from the campaign screen (not the main menu), go to Configuration-->Advanced Configuration-->Campaign Preferences, and change the setting "Select Max Pilot injury" from 3 to 4. Mouse over the option to see the effects of various settings.

 

If you were seriously wounded, you'll be out of action for a while but can return to flight after a few weeks. When you go to start another mission, there will be a "Heal Wounds" button. Click that, and it'll tell you how much leave you have to take to recover. Enter the number, hit "accept leave," time will advance, and you'll be ready to fly again.

 

Hope this helps!

[bongotastic]

Ha! Setting fixed to enable death. We'll give Andrei a free pass this one time because I'm really low on the IL2 learning curve. Thanks.

[Varibraun]

5 hours ago, Winkysmith said:

In my experience, the sim must be closed for you to be able to generate a mission in PWCG. I believe that this is because as the game uses the mission file directory when it is open, it isn’t available to write files into while the game is open.

 

5 hours ago, bongotastic said:

I realized that my real issue is that I looked at the wrong place for the debrief. 

 

Just an FYI that I keep both PWCG & IL2 open and Alt-Tab between them when playing without any issues.

[Winkysmith]

3 hours ago, Varibraun said:

 

 

Just an FYI that I keep both PWCG & IL2 open and Alt-Tab between them when playing without any issues.

That is strange, as I tried to keep IL-2 open once, and got an error message when I tried to write a mission. Mind you, I could have been doing something wrong.

[FodderMonkey]

4 hours ago, Varibraun said:

 

 

Just an FYI that I keep both PWCG & IL2 open and Alt-Tab between them when playing without any issues.

I keep IL2 open while using PWCG (Alt-Tab-Del to get to task manager, then from there the "windows" key gets me to the menu to open PWCG).  I then close both of those to get back into IL2.  I tried keeping PWCG on my old computer but it didn't have the memory to run both.  I haven't tried it on the new rig, but don't want to risk the performance.

[Varibraun]

17 hours ago, FodderMonkey said:

I tried keeping PWCG on my old computer but it didn't have the memory to run both.

 

I am running 32GB of RAM, maybe that makes the difference with keeping them both open?

[PatrickAWlson]

I run both simultaneously.  PWCG is a bit of a memory hog because I preload the map images to eliminate lag on map displays.  It can consume upwards of 1G.  However, PWCG at rest uses near zero CPU.

 

Mechanically, all you have to do is alt-tab between them.  To see the new mission in the game just leave and reenter the missions screen.  The game rereads the mission directory every time you enter the screen.

17 hours ago, Winkysmith said:

That is strange, as I tried to keep IL-2 open once, and got an error message when I tried to write a mission. Mind you, I could have been doing something wrong.

 

PWCG writes directly to a folder.  It does not interact with the game to write a mission.  The mission gets into the game by reentering the mission screen, which causes the game to reread the mission directory.  There should be nothing that would prevent PWCG from writing the mission.

17 hours ago, FodderMonkey said:

I keep IL2 open while using PWCG (Alt-Tab-Del to get to task manager, then from there the "windows" key gets me to the menu to open PWCG).  I then close both of those to get back into IL2.  I tried keeping PWCG on my old computer but it didn't have the memory to run both.  I haven't tried it on the new rig, but don't want to risk the performance.

PWCG mostly consumes memory.  At rest, CPU usage is near zero.  The only background processes that PWCG runs are the initial map load, which terminates after it is done, and sound/music.  Other than that, it only does something when you press a button.