Japanese Rising Sun Campaign Specialization Bug?

[bloodphoenix]

Hello...I'm a late-comer to this game, and have mostly played the original Pacific Campaigns plus the Morning Sun China campaign.
To illustrate just how recently I started playing, I never even saw the original Specialization system.

There are many things I like about the game, but I am saddened to report that so long after release, there seem to be many bugs.
When Multiplayer scenarios work, I greatly enjoy playing with a grognard buddy of mine...but the multiplayer games crash and lock-up
so often, I've virtually given up on playing them. I played the American single-player campaign through the return to the Philippines,
but that scenario locked up and I have been unable to progress beyond it. I even tried going back to a save in the previous (naval) scenario,
but it still crashes when it gets to the land campaign.

I've considered deleting and reinstalling the game, but don't know if that's advisable. I'm aware there is a function on Steam that double-checks
if all the updates are installed (though I don't recall how to access it, lol) I'll probably try that...

After having my progress in the American Campaign blocked, I shifted to the Japanese Campaign, and was enjoying it, until.....
Carefully poring over the specialization choices, I purchased "Elite Air Groups" very early, in the theory that by the time I faced the USA in carrier
warfare, they might be leveled up to a full 5 stars. HOWEVER...only the first plane I bought was given the promised 3 stars at start, when the
specialization clearly says the first TWO. Do they have to be bought at the same time? (I didn't have the resources to buy two planes during one scenario).

I really like this game. If I liked it less, I wouldn't struggle to keep playing it with so many sea-mines laid between me and enjoyable gaming.
But I soldier on. Any advice is appreciated.

[adherbal]

Looking at the code, it should actualy give 3 stars to the first three air units you purchase. Note that this includes both fighters and bombers.

It does not affect aircraft already purchased however, while still counting them toward the limit. That needs to be fixed. Is this the issue you are seeing?

As for the problem in the USA campaign, does running the game in "tactical map" display mode make a difference for this scenario?

[bru888]

I just did a quick #igotnukes thing to whip through the U.S. Pacific campaign. All scenarios started properly but I noticed that Leyte, which I think is what he is talking about ("the return to the Philippines"), and Operation Downfall took the longest to load.

Largest maps? Most units initially placed? I had to wait on these two scenarios with the loading status bar stuck in the middle longer than for the other scenarios in the campaign.

I am used to this but for somebody playing on an older computer, it may take even longer and appear to have crashed because nothing seems to be happening. Or maybe it did crash at that point because if it was going to, loading these large scenarios would be a good time to do it.

[bloodphoenix]

Looking at the code, it should actualy give 3 stars to the first three air units you purchase. Note that this includes both fighters and bombers.

It does not affect aircraft already purchased however, while still counting them toward the limit. That needs to be fixed. Is this the issue you are seeing?

As for the problem in the USA campaign, does running the game in "tactical map" display mode make a difference for this scenario?

Thanks for the response...I definitely think you've found the source of the issue, with the phrase "while still counting them toward the limit".
I'm sure that's a mistake, as it can't possibly be the intent that if you've already bought 3 air units, you get no benefit for your point investment?

I finished Morning Sun with several 5-Star units, some with attached officers. This included my "Ace" Fighter and Tactical Bomber unit. While the situation in the Chinese theater prevented the complete redeployment of these Veterans, their experienced Command Staff were transferred, and gave intensive training to their new units raised for Operations against the British and Americans. (That's how I'm choosing to interpret the "sort-of" import of core units). Bottom line...wanting to have functional units asap, I "resurrected" several of those 5-star units into "star and a half" units. That included two aircraft. My first priority for Specializations was to have all my Infantry start at 1-star (you really want that in place as soon as possible!) I was planning to take the "start at 1 star" specialization for all my air units before the big carrier battles, but then I saw the "Elite Air Groups" option. If you can, as it implies, buy two 3-star air units (or even better, three!) then its worth the points. If not, then...

[bloodphoenix]

I just did a quick #igotnukes thing to whip through the U.S. Pacific campaign. All scenarios started properly but I noticed that Leyte, which I think is what he is talking about ("the return to the Philippines"), and Operation Downfall took the longest to load.

Largest maps? Most units initially placed? I had to wait on these two scenarios with the loading status bar stuck in the middle longer than for the other scenarios in the campaign.

I am used to this but for somebody playing on an older computer, it may take even longer and appear to have crashed because nothing seems to be happening. Or maybe it did crash at that point because if it was going to, loading these large scenarios would be a good time to do it.

Thank you for taking the time to do that bru888! Yes, it is Leyte, I hadn't noticed the scenario title at first. You're absolutely right about this scenario having a ridiculously long load time (and with this game, I've gotten used to walking away from the computer and "checking back later", lol.) But having said that, it doesn't just "hang"...it crashes, closing the game and taking me out to Steam. I'm sure the age of my computer has much to do with it. After writing that first post, I went back and tried to load it multiple times, and eventually it did load. Though it seemed unstable.

"does running the game in "tactical map" display mode make a difference for this scenario?" Not sure, I'll have to give that a try.

[bru888]

Thank you for taking the time to do that bru888! Yes, it is Leyte, I hadn't noticed the scenario title at first. You're absolutely right about this scenario having a ridiculously long load time (and with this game, I've gotten used to walking away from the computer and "checking back later", lol.) But having said that, it doesn't just "hang"...it crashes, closing the game and taking me out to Steam. I'm sure the age of my computer has much to do with it. After writing that first post, I went back and tried to load it multiple times, and eventually it did load. Though it seemed unstable.

My pleasure. Also try the following:

• Defragment your computer and make sure there is sufficient hard drive space left.
  Close all other programs running in the background, including your internet browser.
  Consider either temporarily turning off your anti-virus program or seeing if you can eliminate OOB's folders from its monitoring.

[Horst]

When something hangs then it's most likely related to aircrafts. I've noticed that too many times so far. Aircrafts have the largest action-radius which requires a circular scan of all hexes for valid targets. If the Air Seek & Destroy behaviour is set to 999 distance then it can take a very while to compute.
From own playing experience, I haven’t noticed any stoppage for quite some time during vanilla campaigns, except on a very large custom map. I haven't played Leyte lately, so can't say for sure.

Measuring the loading times of empty scenario maps without triggers and objects, the loading noticeable increase on anything larger than 60x60 maps on my rig.
The Leyte map is 99x69 hexes, so drops in performance are very likely.

[Erik2]

Interesting.
Both Air and Naval Seek & Destroy are set to distance 999 by default.
I wonder if it would help if the scenario designer reduced this to something appropriate for the specific scenario map...?

[Horst]

I honestly haven't done a test with this Air Seek & Destroy behavior either yet. I mainly know from Panzer Corps that movement speed quickly hammered the performance to a near-freeze if you increase the speed above 20 or something. OOB most likely does a different AI computing but similarities are likely. No idea how much target aquisition within the movement radius and the Seek & Destroy radius relate to the general calculation times. What I do know though is that I could sometimes progress a turn during a large campaign scenario like Midway in OOB in the past when I switched from my own old mod's higher MP values to the vanilla lower ones.