Base Air Patrols Loosing their Base

[eeustice]

I found in my current game that somewhere during the game my air patrols for Guam lost their identity and went out of their patrol zones. They lost the number of aircraft that were in the patrol in the Formation Editor. I found the file where the patrols lost place in the formation and started playing from there. I played for awhile saving the game every second. I checked the Formation for Guam and all planes were where they were supposed to be.

I turned the Formation Grid off in the Staff options and the patrols lost the number of planes and their patrol area.

Whats even stranger, the information was lost in earlier  turns that were saved  that were never opened. I looked at them after they were saved. I had 35 Saved seconds of game time and all seemed to be fine until I turned off the Formation Grid.

I am wondering if there is a limit to the number of patrols a base can have.

I haven't illuminated DonT's Tool box or other export dll's because of older saved games becoming corrupt. Some where around Saved Game 190.0015, I must have turned off the Formation Grid that started the issue.

There are a lot of saved game files to play with, but I am afraid to do more until TE and I chat.

Included in the zip file is the latest copy of my db, saved game and saved file

Test 3-190.0015.zip

[donaldseadog]

Last night I had two c-130 run dry while patrolling a base. I would think likely the same issue. Of course, once they've run dry and ditched it's a bit late to see why or to ask the crew what went wrong. I might tonight ask for a volunteer crew to do a patrol and get ATC to do a better job of logging their activity. Perhaps some other clew is evading us?

 

[donaldseadog]

My only progress is still in a moderately large scenario but have two units in a group patrol that have the old tell tail incorrect notation of patrol in the F4 Formation command window. Looking with AIWindow there are no AIR_PATROL_EVENT for the two errant units.

I'm now on GE 2024.003 and have put another bird up on patrol, being an eternal optimist I'm hoping it will behave.

Screenshot to show the Formation editor window and the errant two patrols.

I'll keep nibbling at the edges, so far the new bird is staying in proper patrol

 

 

[donaldseadog]

More non conclusive 'stuff': I found a game save from the scenario where I lost two hercs that went bad in a group formation patrol but before they stopped proper behaviour. I playedd the game in 2024.003 and all patrol begaved correctly. I'll try the same game save reverting to 2024.002 and see if there's a difference.

[TonyE]

11 hours ago, donaldseadog said:

More non conclusive 'stuff': I found a game save from the scenario where I lost two hercs that went bad in a group formation patrol but before they stopped proper behaviour. I playedd the game in 2024.003 and all patrol begaved correctly. I'll try the same game save reverting to 2024.002 and see if there's a difference.

Thank you for all of this effort, it is truly the hard part of improving the game.  Changing the often < 5 lines of misbehaving code is the easy part!

[donaldseadog]

On 7/13/2024 at 2:08 PM, donaldseadog said:

More non conclusive 'stuff': I found a game save from the scenario where I lost two hercs that went bad in a group formation patrol but before they stopped proper behaviour. I playedd the game in 2024.003 and all patrol begaved correctly. I'll try the same game save reverting to 2024.002 and see if there's a difference.

Oh well. another deadend, I played it in 2024.002 and all went well.

[donaldseadog]

15 hours ago, donaldseadog said:

Oh well. another deadend, I played it in 2024.002 and all went well.

Or maybe not? I played again starting scenario from scratch and back in the latest beta 24.003 and same problem, different base, so I wasn't watching and wasn't able to catch any useful info.

I might try a simple scenario on long auto play and see what happens.

[donaldseadog]

long plays at high time acceleration (threee games about 5 day game time each) gave no reproduction

BUT after saving a game and opening it I got a hit, I'll sift thru my game saves to see if I can narrow done more info.

[donaldseadog]

My best guess is that the problem, when it occurs, relates to the start of a saved game.

I'm certain that my base patrols for ABb were good when I saved the game, but now seemingly no matter which of the 40 odd saved games I open the group formation patrols are 'adrift'.

I'll see if I can duplicate in a simpler scenario, I'm wondering if it also relates to old scenario written on a previous ScenEdit? So I'll try some of my old simple test scenario form yesteryear.

[donaldseadog]

3 hours ago, donaldseadog said:

My best guess is that the problem, when it occurs, relates to the start of a saved game.

I'm certain that my base patrols for ABb were good when I saved the game, but now seemingly no matter which of the 40 odd saved games I open the group formation patrols are 'adrift'.

I'll see if I can duplicate in a simpler scenario, I'm wondering if it also relates to old scenario written on a previous ScenEdit? So I'll try some of my old simple test scenario form yesteryear.

I ran another old scenario (unfortunately one I'm quite fond of but had forgotten it, and got totally distracted playing it to a win), part way thru I had a save and restart and when I checked surface groups for their patrols one was incorrect with the telltale misdescription of the patrol in the formation edit popup.

This isn't such a big scenario but I'll see if I can prune it down and still get the error.

[donaldseadog]

I'm currently working on an idea stolen from Tony that the problem relates to iterative saves. So far it does seem to be that an iterative save needs to be in the saved game history.

[TonyE]

Thanks guys, I would not at all be surprised if the corruption is either in the save game or load save process.  I would be surprised if it is autosave specific.

[donaldseadog]

7 hours ago, TonyE said:

Thanks guys, I would not at all be surprised if the corruption is either in the save game or load save process.  I would be surprised if it is autosave specific.

Yep, the auto save was another red herring. I was lucky enough to get another 'hit' last night where no iterative saves were involved. A some what smaller scenario but still a seemingly random trigger, although once it starts it seems to be consistent.

[donaldseadog]

A possible new track, but still needs some testing.

Two choppers in a group formation patrol, I split off one chopper to go on individual patrol and the remaining chopper still in group formation patrol was incorrect with the 'faulty' notation in the formation editor.

[donaldseadog]

attached is a zip of a simplified version of the last comment.

Use BS westpac, Database HCDB2-170909
I used GE vers 2024.003
start with saved game Patrol-good.hpq, where airfield AAa has a group formation patrol of two Hawk, select the base and split off one of the patroling Hawk, enter a new course for the split off AC (eg RTB). Look at the patrol editor for AAa, the patrol notation is now wrong for the remaining Hawk (this is one of the indicators of this problem).

This gets you to the included Patrol-bad.hpq file.

If you let the game play on the hawk in group patrol will run dry and crash.
This is reproducible every time.
This might not be the same cause as in the original post report but it appears to be the same effect.

patrol-good.zip