The Bug Thread (Read before posting bugs!)

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:38 pm

Hmm, something must be up with KV-1Bs... I'm sitting adjacant to it with a Tiger, and I can't even scratch the damn thing. Nope, I'm not talking about bad luck, I'm talking about even the projected odds show I can't scratch it. This with... another 2 tanks adjacent to it for extra initiative. Hmm!

And that KV wasn't even entrenched.

I attack, sure enough I don't even scratch it, but I end up taking damage. Well, I decide then to move my Tiger one hex elsewhere adjacant to that KV. Now what's interesting here, is despite my initiative should drop down by 1 for my next attack against that KV, since my Tiger is spent, instead I see my Panther-G shows that it can score damage, despite the fact it was showing 0 chance to do that with the extra mass initiative just before.

Hmm!

Again, let me re-iterate something... Tiger has an 88mm, I don't think a KV is supposed to stand up to that. And if it could, I have no understanding why the communists bothered re-designing their tanks after that model for.

apanzerfan · Post by **apanzerfan** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:52 pm

When Operation Barbarossa began, the Red Army was equipped with 508 new KV tanks.[11] So effective was its armour that the Germans were incapable of destroying it with their tanks or anti-tank weapons and had to rely on air support and 88 mm anti-aircraft artillery (flak) or 105 mm howitzers to knock them out.

So Tigers' 88mm should tear those kv-1s apart ...

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:53 pm

Obsolete wrote:Hmm, something must be up with KV-1Bs... I'm sitting adjacant to it with a Tiger, and I can't even scratch the damn thing. Nope, I'm not talking about bad luck, I'm talking about even the projected odds show I can't scratch it. This with... another 2 tanks adjacent to it for extra initiative. Hmm!

And that KV wasn't even entrenched.

I attack, sure enough I don't even scratch it, but I end up taking damage. Well, I decide then to move my Tiger one hex elsewhere adjacant to that KV. Now what's interesting here, is despite my initiative should drop down by 1 for my next attack against that KV, since my Tiger is spent, instead I see my Panther-G shows that it can score damage, despite the fact it was showing 0 chance to do that with the extra mass initiative just before.

Hmm!

Again, let me re-iterate something... Tiger has an 88mm, I don't think a KV is supposed to stand up to that. And if it could, I have no understanding why the communists bothered re-designing their tanks after that model for.

We'll check out KV's stats, judging by description from you and other people they are not correct right now.

As for the situation with combat prediction, hard to say anything without seeing the logs. After combat you invoke log using L hotkey, but you can also see it before combat ("extended combat prediction") - Ctrl+click the target for that.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 6:17 pm

I even bought another Tiger in order to deal with the KVs. Unfortunately, you can kill everything else, but those KV b's & c's keep running around immune to fire. They should be easy prey for both Tigers & Panthers so I'm guessing here that some typos may have found their way into the defensive stats or something. They have some awfully high numbers for defense.

Razz1 · Post by **Razz1** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 6:27 pm

We need a consolidated list of all bugged units.
As far as I can see most of them are bugged.
Then fix that delay of animation and release another patch.
What is the deal with no automatic replenishment in between scenarios?

Game is pretty much unplayble now.

apanzerfan · Post by **apanzerfan** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:38 pm

Why cannot you simply take the unit stats from the original PG?
I think the unit strengths were balanced in that game.

(or even better: Zerstorer's equipment file..)

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:49 pm

We need a consolidated list of all bugged units.
As far as I can see most of them are bugged.

I noticed that the over-priced pioneers are almost useless. But the cheap paratroopers are great for all occasions. Which made me wonder what was the point in expensive pioneers? They didn't even remove entrenchement or ignore it when I used them.

Anyhow, I don't have TOO MUCH a problem with not getting FREE STUFF between scenarios. I found that a little cheasy in the originals. I think its fine as is... maybe.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 7:53 pm

Why cannot you simply take the unit stats from the original PG?

Not sure about PG1, but in PG2 there were some glitches in the original e-files... Sometimes units with lower stats than another had a habit of costing more prestige for some reason.

Anyhow, I really should look into the stats of Kings vs IS-2. From memory of the SSI release, it sure FELT as though the IS-2 used to be even stronger than the Kings. I think the graphic was even slightly bigger.

uran21 · Post by **uran21** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 8:12 pm

There is something like minimum and maximum values stats can have.

For example recons had (in some nations still do) so low GD that they could simply not survive so you make them have minimum values for sake of gameplay.
The issue with KV tanks is they should not have values bigger than defined maximum (which is for GD somewhere around 23-24).
It is changed now. Tiger I against KV-1A gives -4, 1B -3 and 1C -2 predictions. AD will also be lowered

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 10:15 pm

uran21 wrote:Who cannot have nice things? Those who didn't move a unit because it is a "bug"!?

I was making a humorous reference, pointing out that because of the few who didn't realize the intent behind the Karl and simply thought it was bugged, you are reconsidering the unit altogether, which affects everyone. Your use of ! and ? makes me believe you understood my intent and the sarcastic humor, but I just want to make sure.

We need a consolidated list of all bugged units.
As far as I can see most of them are bugged.

To which I reply:

I completely agree a lot of balancing and stats need to be redone and re-worked, but honestly I'm more interested in seeing the finished game before we get too invested in stat and unit and scenario balancing.
For example, how can you possibly balance a multi-purpose unit if the multi-purpose unit feature doesn't exist yet? Multi-purpose toggle is that bottom right icon with the armored unit inside of cross hairs. You may have noticed it doesn't do anything yet, but I can definitely tell that button is going to be a factor in unit stat balancing.

You're more than welcome to consolidate a list of unbalanced units or units with incorrect stats. I'm fairly certain the dev team is at least aware of this issue, but giving them specifics couldn't hurt. I would ask that you don't use this thread for that purpose though because the most I will do is just add one line that says: Several units need stats corrected and balanced. If a tank has flying movement, that's a bug. A panther moving 7, that could be intentional or it could need re-balancing. You're starting to get into an area of opinion though. A tiger's firepower is too weak because it can't dent a KV tank. Well, it annihilates T-34s and BT-7s, so if you buff tiger damage, what happens to the lesser Russian units? A KV's armor is too thick. Good game balance would mean the germans have an armored counter to the russian KV. Okay, at the start of Barbarossa, what german tank could stand toe to toe with a KV? So an unstoppable KV might have historical balance. Are we talking about historical balance or game play balance, or what? Shermans and Churchill tanks aren't even in the game yet, do you want to balance all of your existing units now, only to have to go back and rebalance those stats against the addition of two whole nation's worth of equipment? Either way that discussion has moved far beyond the issue of bug reporting, so I'm not updating these issues in this thread.

On top of that, if you try to balance X unit vs Y unit, and ultimately achieve your balance, you may have unbalanced a whole host of other units as well. Which leads to more balance changes, which may undo your changes to X and Y causing you to revisit those two, and round and round it goes. Balance discussion is not bug reporting. As broken as units may seem, 'broken' is a matter of perspective and opinion. They are not bugged.

As for why they don't copy paste stats from earlier PG games, the only answer I have to that is the changes in combat mechanics. I don't think the current initiative and suppression and long term suppression systems existed in a Panzer General, so would carbon copy stats really be a good idea? Maybe use them to get a general idea of what stats should be, but the values are going to need tweaking to fit new game mechanics.

Lastly, yea the pioneer is funny(terrible) and way overpriced. I think I mentioned this somewhere before, and it was even worse when they weren't immune to ambush either.

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 10:44 pm

#44 Autosave does not automatically save.

I find invoking autosave will often send me to completely different scenarios or campaigns than the one I am currently on. It feels like autosave is having trouble over-writing previous autosaves and just doesn't want to do it. If I manually delete the autosave file beforehand, this seems to help.

After some experiments, I made a few realizations:
Are you aware there are currently two directories that autosaves get saved to? (Windows XP)
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save
C:\Games\Panzer Corps Beta\Panzer Corps

I also noticed the game default for reading autosaves is
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save

But after I deleted all 4 autosave files(2 from each location) I played one turn of Poland. After one turn, I quit the game, and attempted to load the autosave to put me at the start of turn 2. No autosave was written into
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save
So after I pressed load, the list didn't have autosaves, but I noticed there were autosaves in
C:\Games\Panzer Corps Beta\Panzer Corps
And when I moved those over to
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save

Low and behold it put me on turn 2 Poland.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:53 pm

37 Pegged with a loss after taking last city on last turn. (Tested and disproven)
(/Greece related)

I would not consider this bug solved. I have experienced this type of issue myself in the current patch.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:59 pm

It does feel off when I move into a victory hex, and the prestige or ownership status does not change unless I de-select first or something.

But it feels even more wrong when I don't see newly spotted units, even if they are adjacent. Often when bombing a target, I have to de-select after moving, and then select my bomber (again) just to re-fresh to see if there is an AA or whatever beside me.

A system like this seems very wrong.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:02 pm

I guess this may not be a BUG, but the start-up screen does not have an 'Options' option.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:04 pm

I forgot to mention also, when I hit 'c' for casualties, all I get is some white line.

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:28 pm

Obsolete wrote:It does feel off when I move into a victory hex, and the prestige or ownership status does not change unless I de-select first or something.

But it feels even more wrong when I don't see newly spotted units, even if they are adjacent. Often when bombing a target, I have to de-select after moving, and then select my bomber (again) just to re-fresh to see if there is an AA or whatever beside me.

A system like this seems very wrong.

How to do it better, considering that until you deselect the unit, you still can undo your move?

adherbal · Post by **adherbal** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:38 pm

How to do it better, considering that until you deselect the unit, you still can undo your move?

IMO the ability to undo is less important than the trouble of having to unselect things to "confirm" a move. It's also fairly confusing for new players.

Perhaps undo should only be possible when the move has not affected the fog of war. So if you move & reveil, you can no longer undo.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:53 pm

Just a small aesthetics issue, when I leave a scenario to go to the main menu, shouldn't the music change to a different track or something?

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:55 pm

The button for going to the PREVIOUS unit does not work. Is it not implemented yet?

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:56 pm

adherbal wrote:IMO the ability to undo is less important than the trouble of having to unselect things to "confirm" a move. It's also fairly confusing for new players.

Perhaps undo should only be possible when the move has not affected the fog of war. So if you move & reveil, you can no longer undo.

As long as undo is needed to see combat predictions, it is VERY important. And so, what you suggest is not really an option, because very often some small insignificant revealed hex will prevent you from returning back. It will also be very confusing, because its quite hard to predict if you will reveal anything or not, until you actually move the unit - but at this point it is already too late.