In the GE when you change zoom levels with the formation editor open, the units often don't draw in the correct locations, something is amiss with the scaling.  They can also be drawn in the wrong location when first entering the Formation Editor

Tony,

 

Looked at the 2021.006 update the ships disappear in the Unit window, but the formation looks pretty good.

I checked this on one my laptops.

This also confirms that my monitor didn't cause the issue.

TonyD is seeing the same thing on his PC.

Eric

 I also notice the locations not right when different zoom levels used. Seems also to vary depending on number of units in the group as to the zoom level having that affect.

 

Postulate: unit->xOff, unit->yOff are supposed to hold the desired unit offsets in distance units (DUs) from the group center as specified in the Formation Editor. 

As I look into this issue, the postulate above is something I will prove or disprove.  The unit structure has unit->rings, unit->sectors to define which sectors of the formation a unit is meant to occupy.  I suspect that unit->xOff and unit->yOff store the actual position specified in the formation editor.  This allows ships and submarines to occupy a particular position in the main body of the formation for instance but would also be used to show the units in the formation editor, even outside of the main body of the formation.   

It'll be nice if the scaling gets fixed even if nothing else.

Last night I made great progress on positioning!  My Spruances were no longer abandaoning the formation for more peaceful waters.  Then again they aren't sprint/drifting anymore so some more work to go.  This does help the scaling somewhat as well but isn't the whole answer there.

"Postulate: unit->xOff, unit->yOff are supposed to hold the desired unit offsets in distance units (DUs) from the group center as specified in the Formation Editor. "

Postulate was wrong.  The desired offset is stored in formation editor events.  That also explains why there are so blinking many formation events to process!  

Ships are sprinting and drifting again; now without getting lost!  The next test may be to resize the formation zones and see if the ships in formation bother to try to get to the new relative positions in the formation.

Doubled size of formation zones, ships travel out to their new positions properly.  The only hiccup is that the group did not resume its original speed of 19kts, rather stayed at the reduced 13 kts the GE imposed when reforming.

Then halved size of formation zones, ships came back to their new positions properly.  Same hiccup as expanding formation zone sizes.

I've played with this in 2021.010 with a simple air unit in patrol formation about a land base. An issue I see is that in the formation editor (within the group window) the positioning of the air unit relative to land and other groups depends upon the scale set in the group window. Here are some screen shots to illustrate (I hope) what I mean. The unit window (now) shows the correct position of the blue patrol unit but looking at the group window in formation edit mode the 8x scale is showing it correctly but the 32x scale is wrong.

Making good learning progress on this which means I have the units drawing in the expected spot at each zoom level but not in a way that can be released for public consumption.  Call it proof of concept that now needs to be operationalized.  

Fixed coded!  Yay team .  I hadn't done serious trigonometry in a while but had to pull it out after 10pm.  Shortly after I gave up for the night it came to me so of course I popped back up and that bit worked.  In short, instead of storing unit offsets from group center as pixel x, y values, we now store them as distance units.  Distance units are a strange unit of measurement, 6211 DUs per nautical mile that the original developer conceived or copied.

HCE - 2021.012 - 2021-12-22
===========================
- Chg:31898 GE  The formation editor will draw units in the correct location
                 now for most situations.  This includes changing the group
                 map zoom level while the formation editor is open.
                 Limited testing also suggests units will properly adapt
                  to changing of formation zone sizes.
                 When you select a unit in the unit list, the unit should 
                  have a dotted box drawn around the current position of
                  the unit and the formation zone(s) it is assigned to 
                  should be highlighted.  This means the units will not
                  always show in their assigned zones (aircraft transiting
                  to their formation position, ships catching up after 
                  a formation or course change, etc.).  The Unit window
                  will show the actual positions of friendly units, even
                  for the group that is currently having its formation
                  edited.  That can give you some manner of before/after 
                  comparison.
                 (thanks eeustice)
  https://harpgamer.com/harpforum/topic/31898-ge-formation-editor-units-dont-draw-at-correct-location-on-group-map/

I've done a little testing using GE 2021.012 and TonyEs test scenario from the parallel running issue GE crash editing speed in unit window.

For all the different arrangements positioning in formation seems to be good, sprint and drift seems to be working good, moving to different patrol segments seem to be good, patroling centre inner circle zone is good.

My only (slightly) negative observation (not a critical problem) is if I'd been zoomed into a group then on opening the formation editor I need to reduce the scale one 'notch' - that might just be to do with my group window size I'm using a 14" lap top, there is no problem if I'm going from a zoomed out (say 4X) group window view.

I'm itching to look at 2021.013