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Formation patrols run dry and crash.


Tony

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I just  reloaded  HUCE then  updated from reload to 2015.27 to 2018.002 to 2020.04. I still get AI aircraft running dry and crashing and if I do not keep tabs on my formation patrol aircraft they on occasion  will still do this. I was wondering if virtual memory settings would help to remedy this as it seems to happen in scenarios in which large amounts units over whelm the ram. I am currently running 12GB ram. The scenarios do not freeze up so I think virtual memory is not the problem but thought I would check.  I run the block 2 med scenario and planes and helos start dropping about 4 hours game time. For this to seemingly be recreated it seems  to be able to  in one of the  larger more unit intensive scenarios is which large numbers of aircraft are basically have long  loitering time before reacting to the opposition aircraft. This I believe would create a needle in the haystack situation in finding the possible cause.  As 2020.03 a correction was made to prevent this would just reloading to 2020.03 instead of to 2020.04 have a different effect. Any other possible things to that might have a effect?

 

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Tony, that is a bummer, I was hoping that was fixed.  You definitely aren't running low on memory, HC uses barely any in today's terms.  What feels like overwhelming of RAM is more likely the accumulation of buffer overruns corrupting the state of the game.  Re-loading 2020.003 shouldn't make a difference but it would be an interesting comparison.  If you made a backup of your old install or left it in place you should have a Backups directory under your main HC directory that has the replaced files (see attached as an example from a machine here).  So you would copy the Winharp32_2020.0.0.3_00000000_000000.exe back into your game directory and run that to test 2020.003.  If you don't have it, holler and I'll send you a link to 2020.003.

More importantly, would you be able to send me a zipped saved game from immediately after you set up your formation patrols?  I may be able to use that as a jumping off point to debug based on friendly aircraft running out of fuel and painstakingly trace is backwards.

 

Thanks!

 

HCBackups.png

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I was crossing my fingers too as I like the long played out scenarios but when the AI kills more of their aircraft then you do it takes a bit out. Thanks for responding so quickly. Unfortunately I will need the link as I went right by 2020.03 to 2020.04. I have no problem with reloading the game to check. So sending me the link will be needed.  One other thing of possible  significance  is that as many times I have played block 2 the aircraft in the AI are more responsive now  to my aircraft meaning a lot more intercepting formations come at me then ever before since loading  2020.04 change. The lost of aircraft are mainly from bases and fleets I have not made contact with or them with me. The loses take place seem to take place with the first replacement aircrafts if the first  do not breakoff for an intercept. I believe you have mentioned this before but with my aircraft I monitor  the description of the separate  groups in the  formation editor  goes from their mission type to their aircraft type. Once this happens that cannot be recalled from the formation editor but must be split to send back to the base of fleet or they will run dry and die. So send me the link and I will see what happens.

 

Thanks again

Tony

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TonyE

I ran the game with the 2020.003 and it seemed all was running as intended. I saved the game and was going to continue the today. Upon loading the saved games I then notice that my flights in the formation editor had been changed form mission type to aircraft type. This resulted in with no action them crashing and even the the patrols not be refreshed with new aircraft. Red planes started to achieve similar occurrences of crashing aircraft. I then made a test scenario Bltest  by reducing the amount of bases and units to attempt to reduce amount of data produced. I have also provided several saves at intervals in the game. Everything was fine if no saves produced  after 6:21:45 were loaded  and no aircraft seemed to go into limbo on either side. The T4 saves are in the time between 6:22:00 and 6:21:00 where things changes. Saves T4 6:22:00  and T4a 6:21:45 when reloaded resulted in no changes to formation aircraft but when T4b was reloaded 6:22:30a squadron  of F18 went into limbo as well as a few Su35 squadrons of the red bases resulting over time all running out of games and crashing. I hope this helps. Letting the test scenario just run resulted in no formation aircraft lost to fuel issues. Each save after T4b seems to contribute to more squadrons going into formation limbo and eventual lost.

 

Bltest.zip

TESTSAVES.zip

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Thank you Tony, it may be a while before I dig into your saves, we are back to full time workers and full time childcare for a couple of weeks trying to avoid the lovely pandemic.  I appreciate the effort you've invested on this and will be taking a run at it as soon as time permits.

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Did some debugging tonight... Notes for next debugging session:

1. formedit.c AddFormRec, the formation record gets turned into a formation air patrol if there is an AirPatrolEvent associated with the unit.  The F/A-18F Block II UnitId=15 does not have an AirPatrolEvent in save TS4B.hpo.  The next unit which does show correctly in the formation editor is F/A-18E Block II which has an AirPatrolEvent.  

2. Does this happen right when the 'old' unit 015, the Growlers, land and units are re-numbered (they shouldn't be renumbered...Eric has mentioned renumbering going on).

 

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On number one that sounds right to me. At save TS4A all four units in the formations editor act as if they have an AirPatrolEvent associated with them is present. With TS4B it would seem by you debugging the reload seem to canceled the  AirPatrolEvent for that single unit and further saves cancel more AirPatrolevents as seen beginning with TS5 and TS6.

On the growler question I went back to check your question on the growler airpatroleven. What I notice was the growler landed as unit 015 but took off as 019. I then decide to produce a save right after the replacement growler took off and it seems that event trigger the  preceded or triggered the lost of the F/A-18F AirPatrolEvent.  I also notice that the growler assumed a patrol from the ASW ring to the outer most ring. Is this what you and Eric are seeing?

 

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The F/A 18F seems to have taken the growlers number of 015 without being replaced  while before it was 016 so I assume that is the renumbering you are referring to seeing and not so much the Growlers change.

.

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More notes for me:

3. RestoreUnitList used to (2009.097) read the unit->id from the saved game file like so...

save_id = unit->id;

add_unit_to_group(...);

unit->id = save_id;

 

sooo, I should look at whether the unit->id is being persisted in the current saves and restore it if able.  That bit may have been accidentally removed when we expanded from 127 to 254 units per group and added so many checks that there aren't too many units in a group.

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I'm pretty sure this one is fixed in 2020.005

HCE - 2020.005 - 2020-07-10
===========================
- Chg:00000 GE  When loading saved games, use the UnitIds from the saved
                 game rather than re-numbering the units.  This was a 
                 regression from increasing the number of possible units
                 per group from 127 to 254.  The result of the
                 re-numbering is that Harpoon Events didn't have the
                 associated UnitIds renumbered so events would be 
                 orphaned or connected to the wrong units.  This 
                 resulted in such behavior as formation air patrols 
                 being treated like ships and subs.  In short it
                 meant formation air patrols running out of fuel
                 and crashing since they didn't know they should RTB
                 and refuel.  (thanks Tony and eeustice)

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