Winter War 1940 Beta Test

[GabeKnight]

The 15Turku scenario is updated. This scenario is the same as the standalone The Raid on Turku v2.0 scenario. The changes are as follows:

- removed the deployment phase and hexes, took away the initial resources for purchasing core planes, and returned the original 12 aux fighters, all Fokker D.XXI according to the historical squadron which inspired them.

Good thing you did. One reason you've already stated: too many core dogfighters that I won't need anymore and will carry with my core forever (like the thousand arty pieces from WW39 ).

The second reason may be unknown to you: The sec. obj. to "not lose >3 aircraft" does NOT work with CORE units like that. Those can be reformed/revived and then the counter goes down again.


Winter War 1940 v0.93

12Lemetti

- this module redesign will also resolve "The map has been completely cleared at the 15th turn... but the sec obj counter said that there was 24/30 units destroyed." Again, the surrounded tanks were being removed and thus exited.

Nope. Still there. And when do I get my reward unit? Next scen?

[bru888]

Winter War 1940 v0.93

12Lemetti

- this module redesign will also resolve "The map has been completely cleared at the 15th turn... but the sec obj counter said that there was 24/30 units destroyed." Again, the surrounded tanks were being removed and thus exited.

Nope. Still there. And when do I get my reward unit? Next scen?

The devil is in the details, Gabe:

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It had nothing to do with the tanks exiting after all. Good spot; thanks for persevering.

Regarding the prize tank; you do get it:

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but the popup message doesn't move to the Vehicle Park to call your attention to it:

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I will fix that too when I take care of the engineer mismatch. There will be a version 0.96.

[bru888]

There will be a version 0.96.

Version 0.96 is uploaded. Changes:

- in 12Lemetti, fixed the year mismatch between six Soviet engineers in the scenario and what the trigger was looking for in the "Kill or capture all enemy combatants" trigger. Swapped out 1940 engineers for 1939 engineers (which is correct for the date, according to units.csv).

- in 12Lemetti, moved all six popup message for each possible prize tank to the Vehicle Park where the prize is spawned so that the player will notice it.

- in 15Turku, I boosted the fuel on the Ivanov Su-2s to give them an extra punch, using my "Drop Tank" manual trigger method (patent pending).

[GabeKnight]

Regarding the prize tank; you do get it:
but the popup message doesn't move to the Vehicle Park to call your attention to it:
I will fix that too when I take care of the engineer mismatch. There will be a version 0.96.

As I always cycle through all units, I would've noticed a new unit. I took a look in the editor, and now I see the problem. I'm sorry to say, but there's a logical error in the sec. obj. setup. You'll either have to redesign it, for however you want it to work, or change the sec. obj. description text to something that fits.

In the current setup with the random pick on scen start, I'm gettin the reward only after killing one specific tank, the rest is deactivated. That means, that in the worst case I'll have to destroy all six tanks to finally get the reward.
I'd suggest to keep all six tank triggers active and with the first kill deactivate the other five. Would that work for you?

EDIT: Waaaait, after re-reading your changelog of the scen, you wanted it to work like that? Then you definitely have to rephrase the obj. description to include the words "if you're lucky" and "might" instead of "will". Maybe: "On or before Turn 12, if you're lucky, destroying an idle tank might capture it instead.[...]"

Was like this on my playthrough. I've destroyed three tanks, just not the "right one". And I wanted the BT so bad...

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PS: A small favour, if I may: Could you please make the updates on the WW40 campaign available with only the scen and text files included, if possible. I'd only need the scens from 12 upward. I'm sorry, but currently I do not have enough bandwith to download around 300MB again and again and again. Most are pics and such anyways.

[GabeKnight]

The irritating thing was, that after the engineers destroy them remaining tanks on turn 13, the objective actually changes to "complete" and I get the popup, but still no unit spawn:

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BTW, I haven't read any feedback from you about the engineers issue. Did you change the AI tasks?

[GabeKnight]

This solution worked for me, as I thought you had intended it to work:
(and the engineers swap to '40 did indeed fix the other sec. obj. 24/30 issue)

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And I would also suggest to switch the BT-7/OT-130 rewards to units out of the Finnish roster.

Another issue with Turku: With two Finnish factions in the scen, I'll start the following one with the amount of RP from the second faction, and that's: nada.

And BTW, it's really hard not to lose more than three fighters in higher difficulties now. Nice.
But upping the health of the two ships was not so good IMO, as the tac. bombers are rather afraid to attack them now and doing almost no damage to them still.

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[GabeKnight]

Damn, I can not edit a post with two images in it without messing it up.
Just a little info on Turku: I only downloaded the single scen and copied it into the campaign. Maybe the "real" campaign-version of Turku does not have the RP problem (?)

[bru888]

Thanks for all this valuable input, Gabe. Let me take notes as I go along. First, 12Lemetti:

- The prize tank module is WAD. Yes, it's a gamble; on a randomized basis, only one tank (not the first, or the third, or all) will yield a prize tank. Those are the fortunes of war.

- However, fair enough about the objective description. Sometimes these are written early and the scenario evolves away from original intentions. I will take your suggestion to rephrase the text to mention the measure of luck involved. I think this will suffice:

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- Regarding "after the engineers destroy them remaining tanks on turn 13, the objective actually changes to "complete" and I get the popup, but still no unit spawn," now THERE is a logic error:

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When the Soviet engineers destroy the remaining tanks, they remove by killing them. If the selected tank capture trigger is still active, however, killing its tank will fire that trigger (on the next combat event). I believe I have fixed it by including, in the "Engineers destroy tanks" trigger, "Set Trigger State" effects to turn off all "Tank capture" triggers:

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- Sorry about the download but no dice on parsing it up and only offering updated pieces at a time. This process is complicated (especially with two campaigns going at once) - you should see my computer desktop at times - and it would be very confusing to other players who may come along and wish to try their hand at beta play. What I will do is try not to upload so many updates (like three in one day, yesterday?), holding off and consolidating them instead.

Now let me look at 15Turku again.

[bru888]

Oh well. I signed on for this gig and I will see it through. It is my responsibility to make sure that all identified bugs are out before official release - thank goodness for beta and volunteers - and I will resolve this latest issue.

Pep talk over.

Sure enough. Care to explain, if you know, Gabe, why this is? Yes, I use two Finland factions in 15Turku:

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Finland has been building up the resource points in this campaign walkthrough:

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But when I start the scenario following 15Turku, 12Lemetti (the scenario numbers do not necessarily indicate campaign order), there are no RPs in the bank:

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[bru888]

Sure enough. Care to explain, if you know, Gabe, why this is?

I bet it's this: The second Finland faction is the new one. The game says, "First Finland faction, check. Second Finland faction has zero RPs, however. Therefore, Finland RP's carryover = 0." The second faction rules.

Part of the problem here is that I am a scenario designer by trade. I only got into campaign building recently.

Well, live and learn about OOB. I will make this work.

Good thing you came along in this thread, Gabe.

[GabeKnight]

- Regarding "after the engineers destroy them remaining tanks on turn 13, the objective actually changes to "complete" and I get the popup, but still no unit spawn," now THERE is a logic error:

When the Soviet engineers destroy the remaining tanks, they remove by killing them. If the selected tank capture trigger is still active, however, killing its tank will fire that trigger (on the next combat event).[...]

What I don't understand is why the spawn unit part of the trigger was not executed?
The engineers blow up them tanks on the Soviet turn, maybe then it's not allowed to spawn player units?

- Sorry about the download but no dice on parsing it up and only offering updated pieces at a time.

Don't worry, I've started playing RedSteel. And should have more bandwith again in a few days, I hope.

Sure enough. Care to explain, if you know, Gabe, why this is?

I bet it's this: The second Finland faction is the new one. The game says, "First Finland faction, check. Second Finland faction has zero RPs, however. Therefore, Finland RP's carryover = 0." The second faction rules.

Yeah, would be my guess, too. The second information set simply overwrites the first one. If you had added a third Finnish faction, then that would've "ruled" probably...
There's just no cumulative mechanic/check implemented.

[bru888]

You know, that extra Finn faction came from the coastal defense ships problem.

Quick history. I thought this scenario up when I read a reference to an air raid on Turku. I had wanted to do a naval scenario for this campaign, and this is as close as I could come, reading about those icebound ships defending Turku with their AA guns. So I included them for the player in an air raid scenario.

Then came the problem of being able to repair the ships with RPs while in port. That was no good because they are targets that the planes are supposed to save and merely repairing them defeats the purpose.

I couldn't let go of the docks and piers - all city waterfronts have docks and piers - so the solution was to put the ships under AI control.

Next came the suggestion that it would be much more fun if the player could control the ships. Frankly, I agree with that.

So that is when I got the idea of having two Finland factions under human control, one with RPs and one without, so that the ships could be handled but not repaired. Well, we see how that idea worked out in a campaign environment.

But guess what? I had the answer in front of me the whole time. Port hexes by themselves don't make a port. A port hex and a village/town/city hex next to it make a port at which ship repairs can be made:

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So, how did I have the answer in front of me the whole time? Because there never were any village/town/city hexes next to the port hexes in question. Not from the beginning:

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So, there never was a problem.

I am beside myself over this:

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Quick question. Why is it that I put myself through all this exertion and frustration? Do you have the answer to that, Gabe?

[bru888]

Well, that was a close one. We almost lost Turku from the campaign.

You cannot change a faction's flag in the Alliances tab; you can only add or delete factions. And you cannot delete a faction that has been used without risking corrupting the scenario which is exactly what happened when I tried doing it.

So if I could not remove the second Finland faction, and it depleted the player's RP bank when the scenario finished, I was going to pull it out of the campaign altogether. I am certainly not redesigning Turku from scratch. It would have remained a standalone scenario.

Fortunately, moving the second Finn faction down and to the neutral column seems to have worked:

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So it stays in the campaign unless it causes any more significant problems.

[bru888]

So it stays in the campaign unless it causes any more significant problems.

Barring that unfortunate circumstance, 15Turku is ready for prime time. It is balanced with 12 experienced aux Finn fighters and full-strength coastal defence ships.

The reason I am saying this is shown as follows. (This is with no resistance, by the way, but that is the point of the scenario: Prevent this from happening!)

Turn 3 and the Ivanov tactical bombers are poised to attack (I had restructured their mission and these 6 planes are now focused and they have extra fuel):

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Turn 4 and the Ivanovs are all over the ships. Not shy at all:

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Meanwhile, two other Ivanovs whose mission it is to attack the city garrison have accomplished their task. (I will add to the message text "The objective will be failed when the garrison is either destroyed or exited." This will keep the player from wondering why the objective is not immediately failed:

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By Turn 11, the first cruiser has been sunk. The objective is failed:

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The situation looks grim by Turn 13. This is what I wanted to see from this test:

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And I will run 15Turku through the campaign "#igotnukes" test to make sure that the player's RP bank is not robbed after it. It was fine the first time, but I will test it again and make sure.

[bru888]

And I will run 15Turku through the campaign "#igotnukes" test to make sure that the player's RP bank is not robbed after it. It was fine the first time, but I will test it again and make sure.

Yep, a nice fat bankroll of 9249 RP's to start 12Lemetti (the scenario after 15Turku) so I think we are good to go. Version 0.97 is uploaded.

Erik, are you ready for a handover tomorrow (Friday) for official release of Winter War 1940? I think this beta has run its course. And a very successful beta it was, I must say, despite the ups and downs.

By the way, I propose to place the official version in your "Back to Erik" folder to avoid any confusion. Don't download it from the beta link.

[Erik2]

Nice work, Bru.
Looking forward to make it official.

[bru888]

Erik, I could not upload the file to the Dropbox folder. It could be because the account is full. I got these messages at the top and bottom of the screen:

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The lower message says "2 files" and "2 errors" because I tried to upload twice.

So I reverse what I said above; please download version 1.0 from the beta link. This is the official release version:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BU31hi ... sp=sharing

[bru888]

Here are some more details from the error message. The second screenshot is from clicking "here" in the message:

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[bru888]

Let us bid a fond farewell to this thread now. Further comments and suggestions are requested to be posted in the BrucErik Studio thread.

I learned a few things in this thread for which I am most grateful. Thanks.

Erik, I hope you resolved the Dropbox problem. Thread closed.