Bug: Possibly artillery bug?

[cyberdisc]

This bug should affect also spww2.
I will try to explain:
STEP 1)
Select an on-map artillery commander unit (the X0 section of a mortar battery for example, where X is for B, C..etc) and go to bombardment screen (B-key, any X0 is able to do that).
Now select an (useful for your bombing plan) hex on the map and exit to the map, without doing anything else.
In the screenshot I choose the southern Chinese VH.
STEP 2)
With the same X0 unit selected, go again to the B-screen and push the HE (or smoke or cluster) button.
The result will be a bombardment plot, in the hex chosen in the previous step, with 0.1 delay instead 1.3 (see the proper screenshot).
You can do this trick also with already plotted X0's barrages (that means "free" bombing displacements around the map).
Only on-map artillery seems is affected.

So, in any turn, you can have (all) your X0 artillery sections fire with a 0.1 delay in any hex of the map!

bye
cd

p.s This bug is not a my "discover", but come from another member of NWI (see signature).

[DRG]

Bug confirmed. This will be corrected for the next release

Don

[DRG]

Originally Posted by cyberdisc

This bug should affect also spww2.

p.s This bug is not a my "discover", but come from another member of NWI (see signature).

I'm not sure where to look for the signature of the player who discovered this but thank you for reporting it. In doing so you gave me one the rare times in the last few years where I actually discovered something really "new" about the game.

Yes, that's a bug and a nasty one too. It goes right back to SP2 and exists in a slightly altered form in SP3. The fact it's never been reported before and Andy and I hadn't caught it either is nothing sort of amazing. We both thought all the true original game bugs long fixed.

I can only imagine how many veteran PBEM players have been sitting on this little gem for years.

The problem is fundamental to the code and would require re-writes the save game code as well as big chunks of artillery code all because the original code used the same two variables for observer's fire-mission coordinates AND artillery FIRE coordinates.

Not fun and not going to happen

What will happen for both games in the next release is on map arty units will not be allowed to spot. This squashes a rather nasty bug and cheat without ripping the game code apart

Thanks Again

Don

[cyberdisc]

Originally Posted by DRG

I'm not sure where to look for the signature of the player who discovered this but thank you for reporting it. In doing so you gave me one the rare times in the last few years where I actually discovered something really "new" about the game...

Thanks Again
Don

In my signature you will find only the link to NWI. The nickname of the NWI member that discover the bug is Basileus Romaion.

bye
cd

[JohnHale]

Cyberdisk:

To attract more people to NWI, you need a banner signature like this:

[Marek_Tucan]

I am not an "veteran PBEM player", but tinker and play with SP series for a long time already and never noticed it. Interesting But than, at work, we also often find bugs in our sw that are either long forgotten or occur on such occassions that they are very, very hard to find by any systematic experiments (open menu 1, open menu 2, choose item a from menu 2, open again menu 1, choose item c, click into the main window, add module, modify it, turn three times clockwise on your chair and if it is raining on that day, the bug appears )

[Kovski]

Here's another problem I discovered in my last PBEM game:

I was relocating my mortar units, and when I disembarked them from their trucks, one of them came under sniper fire and was pinned. Now, when I was plotting my arty strikes that turn, I noticed that the pinned mortar could be plotted, while the ones that were in ready-status could not, having moved that turn. In effect, getting suppressed seems to remove the moving-status from the arty unit.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Kovski

Here's another problem I discovered in my last PBEM game:

I was relocating my mortar units, and when I disembarked them from their trucks, one of them came under sniper fire and was pinned. Now, when I was plotting my arty strikes that turn, I noticed that the pinned mortar could be plotted, while the ones that were in ready-status could not, having moved that turn. In effect, getting suppressed seems to remove the moving-status from the arty unit.

yes - being pinned can move your hexmoved counter back to 0. Because going flat on your face is being stationary, not moving at 20KPH or whatever it was before. Obviously, other things may look at that variable and come to different conclusions. Such is the ball of spaghetti that is the code.

Andy