US Pacific Midway

[Halvralf]

Is there a miss in the campaign version of this scenario? I killed all japanese CV's in Coral Sea and according to the editor some Japanese CV's should be removed at Midway or am I totally wrong? Posting Screenshots from editor with yellow marking on the subject.

[bru888]

Here is what I think is the deal.

In Coral Sea, the secondary objective briefing tells you to "Destroy enemy Fleet Carriers":

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The Japanese start with three carriers: two fleet and one escort or light carrier:

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Destroying either of the big carriers (both of them are class CV Shokaku) satisfies the primary objective "Destroy a Japanese carrier":

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As does destroying the light carrier Shoho (class Ryujo):

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However, going back to the secondary objective, if you sink both fleet carriers that activates the campaign variable. Remember, the objective only said "The enemy carrier forces will be weakened in upcoming naval battles":

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The campaign variable message is a bit overstated in that only the fleet carriers needed to be destroyed; the light carrier may have survived, but whatever:

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Moving ahead to Midway, the Japanese start with the four historical fleet aircraft carriers that were in that battle; Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu:

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And one light carrier:

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The trigger checks to see if the campaign variable is active. If so, it only removes the light carrier:

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The other effect, as you pointed out, shows a missing unit:

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I believe this is vestigial; that is, something carelessly left behind but of no importance. The reason I say this is, the designer would not have wanted to sacrifice the historic accuracy of the scenario by removing any of the primary Japanese carriers that a player who knows about the Battle of Midway would be expecting.

Incidentally, the third effect is to turn on a message:

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Which is this:

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My points are:
1) I believe that this is working as intended. The only prize for destroying both FLEET carriers in Coral Sea is the removal of one LIGHT carrier in Midway. Else the player would miss the historic four big Japanese flattops in the battle.
2) The "(missing unit)" is not an error; just sloppy design work, leaving a vestigial effect behind.
3) The various descriptions could be phrased better, however. Here is how I would put it:

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[Halvralf]

Thank you Bru for an incredible detailed and pedagogical explanation. I did however kill all three japanese carriers at Coral Sea but the Light carrier Ryujo classs CVL still turned up. Shouldn't it be removed on turn one for the Japs?

I'm playing the campaign for the second time in a row as I realized I had not played it at all (Shame on me) and after first disaster I found Airboys excellent AAR here on the forum and thought I'd improve my gameplay and tbh I have

[bru888]

In all my years of gameplay, no game has ever occupied so much of my time (in aggregate; I do take extended breaks from time to time) or caused me to shake my head in wonder as much as Order of Battle.

Here it is, eight years later, and we are still digging up bugs! And this one was another one of those really subtle jobs in which the investigator is thrown off the trail by the red herrings described above (albeit those being all true).

One thing always in mind about OOB editing is that there is ALWAYS a logical answer to an anomaly, barring a programming bug in the tools themselves. It was right there while I was preparing my post above and I still missed it. After reading your latest post, I had to do a playthrough, encounter the error, then return to the editor with sleeves rolled up, sweating brow, and madly staring eyes. And I did find it.

First, the playthrough. I nuked the campaign to Coral Sea, then johnconnored the Japs to immobility. I sailed my warships to find and sink only the two enemy fleet carriers. (Naturally, the randomiser had to place one of them all the way on the other side of the map.) That accomplished the secondary objective:

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Then I finished the scenario:

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The campaign gave me the appropriate message:

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But when I started Midway and lifted the FOW, there was the Japanese light carrier, both at Deployment and Turn 1:

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The trigger that was supposed to remove CVL Ryujo did not activate. Why?

Here is why. See the campaign variable specified in the Coral Sea scenario and in the Campaign Variable:

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Now look at it in the Midway scenario:

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Wrong variable name! In these Midway triggers, it should have been "coral_carriers_killed" to match the way it was set up in Coral Sea.

Eight years, Halvralf. Eight years it took to unearth this bug!

Thanks to you bringing it up, that is. Look, I will be honest two ways: 1) My opinion matters naught because I am not official and know next to nothing about the status of this game other than my own impressions, and 2) Those impressions tell me that this game is in mothballs and that the likelihood of this getting fixed in a future patch are nil. Heck, I have seen stuff pointed out in this manner and ignored in patches as they concentrated on things of their own interest, the latest being multiplayer mode.

So, if I were you, I would do what I have been doing, which is correcting the campaigns for such errors in my personal copies. At least you would know your own versions are working. (Caveat: should there be another patch, it will overwrite your edited copies so save them elsewhere).

In this case, in those two Midway triggers, change the campaign variable to "coral_carriers_killed" and consider making the changes in the text messages that I recommended in my previous post.

[Halvralf]

Bru you are the true master in digging and explaining in this forum!
I will edit the Midway scenario as you described and keep a copy elsewere.


PS: I sank all Carriers anyways including the Japanese light carrier

[Halvralf]

I did as you suggested and it worked fine. Tested to use #orbitalcommand after first turn and no Japanase CVL on the map!

Thank you Bru!

[bru888]

My pleasure.

[ralfmartin73]

I came back to this game, maybe because Steam told me of the big July patch. I am now playing US Pacific campaign for the second time and also stumbled across this bug. When opening the scenario editor, in my case Triggers->Setup->Campaign:Jap Carrier losses was set correctly to the variable coral_carriers_killed, while Triggers->Setup->Message:Coral Sea Fail had the incorrect variable coralsea_carriers_killed, which caused the popup message as soon as I place my first naval unit. I corrected this with the scenario editor (using it the first time) and the message disapeared. Have played through this scenario, destroyed all four carriers but did not get the secondary objective for destroying all carriers, I restarted and used orbitalcommand to check if there where only four carriers, which was the case. So the whole thing about the japanese carriers is really buggy.

[ralfmartin73]

I will now amend the Philippine Sea scenario to use coral_carriers_killed instead of midway_all_carriers_killed to get the result I have achieved.