Blitzkrieg Banzai? (SP1 Conversion)

[MarkSheppard]

I may have caused the database crash earlier -- I kept trying to upload a ZIP file; and the system kept refusing my uploads. Who knows.

[Killbasa]

I tested converting a SP1 and a SP2 scenario and I must say impressive work! Thank you for making this! I do have one question though, I briefly tested both scenarios I converted and am noticing the AI isn’t really using opportunity fire. They won’t ambush vehicles or fire on moving enemy units, even one hex away. They will use opportunity fire when fired upon, but will not use opportunity fire if they weren’t the unit being directly attacked. Have you seen this happen to your scenarios you converted?

[Killbasa]

I seem to have found what is happening. It looks like after conversion all units become set to a maximum firing range of 0, which results in them holding fire until fired upon.

[MarkSheppard]

Thanks for the info, Killbasa.

It does make sense that everything defaults with my current code to a max fire range of 0; because that setting the fire range for each unit was a feature added by SPCAMO; -- and my guess is that for backwards compatibility it had to be in an area of the savefile already padded with zeros.

[Mobhack]

IIRC, setting the range with the Y key was always per-unit in the original SSI code,

What I added was the selection of specific hexes in a list, or choose to put in a typed range which I think was the original method SSI used -- its 20 odd years ago.

I also added the Formation option, so you can do things a platoon at a time Y-F-range and all 4 or 6 or whatever elements have the same range set.

[MarkSheppard]

OK, the bug is:

Byte 127 in each unit's Section 1 portion is the "maximum fire range"; which when bought by the in-game editor; sets it to the maximum fire range of the longest ranged weapon in the unit's inventory.

Thus; for a Headquarters unit with M16 Rifle, it gets set to 8.

If it's a M48A2 Patton, it gets set to 88.

Because I didn't have any information on Byte 127, my tool(s) were writing them as zero (0) which led to the bug.

Currently rearchitecting the program to include weapon ranges in the database (only weapon names are currently in).

[MarkSheppard]

Bug with unit fire ranges is appearing fixed.

I'm currently investigating SP2's behavior, regarding unit max fire:

SP2 Scenario Editor: You can't set unit fire ranges.

SP2 In-Game: You can set unit max fire ranges for each unit.

So while it's theoretically possible someone could have tried "make scenario in editor; then run scenario with both sides set to human; set unit ranges and then rename the saved game file to a scenario file"...it would be a low probability of happening.

[MarkSheppard]

Fixed unit facing errors during importation:

For SP1, I forgot to put in remap codes for N and S facings for SP1 scenarios; so they all remapped these units to 0 = East instead of the correct 270 = North.

For SP2, SSI went wonky; I found this out while quality checking SP2 Scenario "Good Day My Brother" in an actual SP2 install in DOSBOX.

//   Direction | SP2 value | SPCAMO value | Note
//   ──────────┼───────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────────────────
//   E         |     0     |      0       | identical — no translation needed
//   SE        |    63     |     63       | identical
//   S         |    90     |     90       | identical
//   SW        |   117     |    117       | identical
//   W         |   180     |    180       | identical
//   NW        |   243     |    243       | identical
//   N         |    14     |    270       | ← DIFFERS — must be translated
//   NE        |    41     |    290       | ← DIFFERS — must be translated

Some more unit import refinements:



I added "fallback" alternate translated unit as an option, along with commentary to explain why.

  [/\bJS-III\b/gi, 'IS-2', 'T-55AM',
    'note: SP2\'s DDR OOB incorrectly lists the JS-III (IS-3). ' +
          'The DDR only ever received the IS-2, which was retired around 1978. ' +
          'Pre-1978 scenarios map to IS-2; post-1978 fall back to T-55AM.'],

This was my prompt that I used to add that support:

I just realized something; sorry to bother you on this; but we also need to add some sort of interactive "note" in the unitimport system -- we need to consider the POV of the "Average" user who just wants a simple click and done system.

He's going to see JS-3 (or T-10) translated to either IS-2 or T-55; and go "what? Why is this wrong?"

Thus, we need to add support for descriptor lines:

[/\bSomeUnit\b/gi, 'PrimaryName', 'FallbackName', 'Commentary on Why'],

So that a user hitting the user import button will see in the list of possible units available for T-10, a comment at the top of the list going:

"DDR never bought IS-3"

'DDR planned to buy T-10, but canceled, IS-2 became only heavy tank. This falls back to T-55 in case scenario is after DDR retires IS-2 in 1978'

to explain things to them, so they don't have to dig into the SPCAMO_UnitImport_Names.js and read the comments (nobody ever reads the manual, ever).

We also need to figure out how to add commentary for both use cases (a single primary name + primary and fallback); perhaps with comment: note?

From the above, you can see that "vibe coding" still requires you to think and explain what you want.

EDIT:

Some commentary from the translation lists for W.Germany:

[/\bLeopard 1A6\b/gi, 'Leopard 1A1A1', 'note: The Leopard 1A6 was a proposed variant that would have combined the Leopard 1A1A1 chassis with the 120mm L44 from the Leopard 2.'],

[/\bLeopard 2 \(Imp\)\b/gi, 'Leopard 2A6', 'note: At the time of SP2, this model designation [2A6] had not yet been announced.'],

[/\bMLRS Section\b/gi, 'MARS Section', 'note: Euro Name for MLRS.'],

[/\bF-4E Phantom II\b/gi, 'MBB F-4F', 'note: West German F-4Es were for training in the USA only.'],