Slitherine

My obsolete post deleted by me.

PoorOldSpike wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:48 am I'm going to try to track down a few of the people involved in the BA2 development (below on page 33 of the Ba2 manual) and drop them a few emails to see if they can offer any words of enlightenment.
I'll post their replies in this thread if I get any..

Philip Veale (aka pipfromslitherine) is the chap who could possibly advise.

The skirmish logic was a complex beast even back then! If you can be more specific, or ideally come up with a very simple repo case for something you think is an issue, then I can take a look - though it was implemented a very long time ago! Remember that you can also check the skirmish logic in their scripts DATA/BATTLE/SCRIPTS/MAPGENERATE2.BSF

Cheers

Pip

pipfromslitherine wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:50 pm The skirmish logic was a complex beast even back then! If you can be more specific, or ideally come up with a very simple repo case for something you think is an issue, then I can take a look - though it was implemented a very long time ago! Remember that you can also check the skirmish logic in their scripts DATA/BATTLE/SCRIPTS/MAPGENERATE2.BSF

Cheers

Pip

Thanks Pip,

I'll take another look at those scripts when I get a chance, but too be honest I think I can solve most of the problems I have come across, it will just take some time and maybe some lateral thinking!

There probably will not be a new update to the mod today, the ideas are flowing, but unfortunately do not have much time to work on them today, lots of family issues, blast them!

cheers

Paul

PoorOldSpike wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 1:40 pm
GERMAN-
Jun 41- A nice selection of units but the Sturmpanzer SiG33 is noticeable by its absence. (Incidentally the Pz IIIJ (long 50mm gun) shouldn't really be in June 41 as it didn't appear historically til later in the year)

I initially agreed with you on the Pz III J, but we were wrong. The games Pz III J is actually equipped with the 50mm L42 gun. The only Pz III with the 50mm L60 in the game is the Pz III M. The games Pz III J also has to see duty as all the earlier marks of Pz IIIs armed with the L42.

I shall change the availability of the Pz III J back to what it was.

Paul59 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:28 pm..The games Pz III J is actually equipped with the 50mm L42 gun. The only Pz III with the 50mm L60 in the game is the Pz III M.

Yes mate it was sloppy of me not to notice that the Pz III F is only the little 37mm version, I wrongly assumed it'd been phased out after the battle of France..
Historically therefore, although the IIIF was still around in Russia in 41, it's 37mm gun was somewhat outclassed by the 45mm guns of the numerous BT-7's and T-26's.[/color]

After some investigation it seems that the following factors all play a part in the unit allocations in the random Skirmishes:

Type, Cost, HERating, APRating, ArmourRating, Bombard_Shots, SkirmishInfo, SeasonalMultiplier, and Scenario type.

Most of these I cannot touch, as it would alter the units performance on the battlefield. I have had another look at the scripts in MapGenerate2.bsf, and I am starting to understand them somewhat. So I might include a modified version of this file in a later version.

The Scenario type does seem to play a big part in the unit selections:

Attack is normally a quite boring selection with mainly just the core units. Strangely, there is much less chance of Soviet heavy tanks appearing.

Defend gives more chance of artillery and heavy tanks.

Symmetric seems to throw up more unusual units more often.


This is the latest version of the mod:

LINK DELETED SEE REVISED MOD HERE:

viewtopic.php?f=312&p=817400#p817400

I am quite happy with it. There are a few little problems I would like to iron out:

1) I have got the KV tanks appearing quite often in Defend scenarios, about 30% of the time in 1941. I am happy with that, but cannot get them to appear in Attack scenarios. This is probably something to do with the MapGenerate2.bsf.

2) I would like to get mortars to appear more often, but nothing seems to have any effect. They count as an artillery unit, and artillery are limited in their appearances by some scripts in the MapGenerate2.bsf. I have worked out how to increase the amount of artillery in a scenario by editing the scripts, but the game nearly always picks gun artillery rather than mortars, I don't know why!

Here are the major changes:

I have changed the Stuka zu Fuss SkirmishInfo to 3 (was 4). I was reluctant to do this as I did not want it appearing in nearly every scenario. But it seems to only appear in Attack scenarios, and very rarely, if at all, in the others, so I think I can live with it.

Su76i availability changed to Mar 43 to Mar 44 (originally it was Mar 41 to infinity!)

IS-2 SkirmishInfo changed to 3 (was 4). It appears much more frequently now.

Lots of unit availability dates changed, as the game was not reading them correctly. The effect is now as originally intended.

BA10 given an end date of June 43, was infinite.

BA64 start date changed to April 1942, was Jan 42.

KV2 end date changed to June 1942, was infinity.

German Sniper given sniper sound effect, the vanilla unit had only infantry firing sounds.

Early war German units that previously had late war camo, now changed to show Pz Grey camo instead.

Panther A given special skin.

T34 1941 Guards added with special skin. Available September to November 1941.

Pz III M renamed Pz III L, and availability changed to December 1941, as it has to represent all 50mm L60 armed Pz IIIs in the game.

New model for German 120m mortar.

Many infantry units have had changes to their SkirmishInfo values to increase or decrease the frequency that they are chosen.

1.4 is looking good, all the main units are there, I've only tested June 41 so far and can't fault it.
As you pointed out, the Attack selections can be pretty bland, but Meetings and Symmetrics give us a much more colourful variety of units, and I think larger forces also give us a more varied selection than a small force size.
I'll test out the other war years later..

Hello Paul, I just installed your new skirmish mod for BA2, It's working fine. Was very surprised to see two tiger 2 tanks appear in the first try. I have been waiting for something new to pop-up with this very well made game. Hello to Spike as well, remember you from OOB WWII. MAybe you could figure out how to string skirmish mods into a campaign? that would be the best. thanks.

ME262 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:54 pm..Hello to Spike as well, remember you from OOB WWII. MAybe you could figure out how to string skirmish mods into a campaign? that would be the best. thanks.

Hi mate, Pauls the file expert to ask around here, I'm just a grunt wargamer and the only way I know how to string randoms into a campaign is to use a piece of paper and write down the results of each one year by year and hope to end up with a tally of more objective points than the AI..

Further tests, Pauls Random Skirmish mod 1.4

As we discussed previously, Attack/Defend tend to throw up a fairly bland selection of units, but Meetings and Symmetrics produce much more varied selections, so I've just tested Meetings and there seem to be no omissions at all, so well done..

For the record I can confirm that all the units below appeared in 'very large' force size Meetings, (some more often than others of course) and some naturally carried over from one year to the next. (Smaller force sizes might not produce such a wide variety).
For brevity I haven't included armoured cars and light tanks below, but I can confirm all the following units did appear.

RUSSIAN
Jun 41- T34/41, BT-7, BT-7A, T-26, T-28, KV-1/41, T-35, KV-2.
Jun 42 new- KV-1/42, Katyusha, Churchill, Matilda.
Jun 43 new- T-34/43, SU-122, SU 152, SU-76, SU-76i, PT-34 Mineroller, Sherman, Stuart, Valentine
Jun 44 new- IS-2 Stalin, T-34/85, SU-85, OT-34 Flame, Bren carrier.
April 45 - same as Jun 44 but in different proportions.

GERMAN
Jun 41- PzIII F, PZIII J, PzIV A, PzIV D, PzIV F1, Pzjg1, StugB, Pz38 T, Stuk Fub, Sturmpanzer SiG33.
Jun 42 new- PzIII L, PzIV F2, Marder.
Jun 43 new- Tiger, Panther, PzIV G, Stug G, Stug H42.
Jun 44 new- Kingtiger, Sturmtiger, Elefant, Hetzer, Jagdpanther, Nashorn, Flamm PzIII.
April 45 new- Jagdtiger, Jagdpanzer IV.
Dec 45- the Maus appeared.

PoorOldSpike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:45 am

ME262 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:54 pm..Hello to Spike as well, remember you from OOB WWII. MAybe you could figure out how to string skirmish mods into a campaign? that would be the best. thanks.

Hi mate, Pauls the file expert to ask around here, I'm just a grunt wargamer and the only way I know how to string randoms into a campaign is to use a piece of paper and write down the results of each one year by year and hope to end up with a tally of more objective points than the AI..

To be honest that would be well beyond my abilities. It would need a whole new Random Campaign Generator, like what we have in FOG2, new menu screens, a new button for the main menu, and the scripting work would be considerable. I can only work minor miracles, not major ones!

Speaking of miracles, I think I might be on the verge of creating a new model for a KV-85! I have absolutely no 3d modelling skills or equipment, but I remembered an old trick I used in Pike and Shot. That was taking the text information from one model and putting in it another, that way you could add a part from one unit to another unit. So I have taken the turret from a T34-85 and put it on a KV-1 chassis. I nearly created a IS-1 last night using the same technique, but unfortunately the textures for the turret and the chassis were conflicting with each other, but I don't think I will have the same problem with the KV-85.

Paul59 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:48 pmI think I might be on the verge of creating a new model for a KV-85!..I have taken the turret from a T34-85 and put it on a KV-1 chassis...

Go for it Baron Frankenstein..
PS- Speaking of the KV-1, I don't know if it's worth mentioning but it sometimes appears twice in the same selection screen, look, both these are the /41 model-



Incidentally you know of course there are two KV models in BA2, namely the KV-1/41 and KV-1/42.
The /41 model costs 128 points as in the above shot, and the later /42 model costs a bit more and has heavier armour.
Both models appear in your mod at the appropriate time and they're very welcome..

PoorOldSpike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:29 pm

Paul59 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:48 pmI think I might be on the verge of creating a new model for a KV-85!..I have taken the turret from a T34-85 and put it on a KV-1 chassis...

Go for it Baron Frankenstein..
PS- Speaking of the KV-1, I don't know if it's worth mentioning but it sometimes appears twice in the same selection screen, look, both these are the /41 model-



Incidentally you know of course there are two KV models in BA2, namely the KV-1/41 and KV-1/42.
The /41 model costs 128 points as in the above shot, and the later /42 model costs a bit more and has heavier armour.
Both models appear in your mod at the appropriate time and they're very welcome..

Thanks Spike,

The KV-85 seems to be working perfectly! I feared the turret animation might have been a problem, but it worked great without me needing to do anything to it.



The KV-1 will very rarely appear twice, as you have noticed. This is a consequence of my method of fooling the game into picking the KV-1 a little more frequently, with the SkirmishInfo value set to 4 they were appearing very rarely, so I created several duplicate KV-1 units, that way I can fine tune their rate of appearance. I did not have to do the same with the KV-1 1942, as when it appears in 1942 KVs should be a much more common vehicle, so I was able to set their SkirmishInfo value to 3.

The original KV-1 has an end date of June 1942, leaving just the KV-1 1942 up until the end of the war. I will change this in the next update, giving the KV-1 1942 an end date of April 1944, and the KV-85 becoming available in September 1943.

Paul59 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 3:07 pm...and the KV-85 becoming available in September 1943.

Ivan certainly needs it to counter the Tiger which had historically been running rings round them for months..

Would you guys be willing too make the ZIS376mm Show up a little bit less or have it so it isn’t just a ZIS3 76mm without the bombardment option? At least have it so the 76mm has better AP and AP effectiveness, but poor HE. but the 76 mm has better HE and bombardment value and weaker AP. It’s just a suggestion though.

TankerOne wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:39 pm Would you guys be willing too make the ZIS376mm Show up a little bit less or have it so it isn’t just a ZIS3 76mm without the bombardment option? At least have it so the 76mm has better AP and AP effectiveness, but poor HE. but the 76 mm has better HE and bombardment value and weaker AP. It’s just a suggestion though.

The choice with the Zis 3 is either the current rate of appearance (I am talking about the mod here), or hardly at all. The only way I have of controlling the rate of appearance is by altering the Skirmishinfo value, 4 gives the current rate, 5 gives only very rare appearances. Artillery is the Russian God of War anyway, so I think the current situation is probably best.

TankerOne wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:39 pm Would you guys be willing too make the ZIS376mm Show up a little bit less or have it so it isn’t just a ZIS3 76mm without the bombardment option? At least have it so the 76mm has better AP and AP effectiveness, but poor HE. but the 76 mm has better HE and bombardment value and weaker AP. It’s just a suggestion though.

Hi, I don't understand your suggestion.
Look, these are the 2x ZIS-3 76mm Guns in BA2, the one with bombardment is more expensive-



PS- don't get them confused with the 57mm AT gun below-

I have just seen the Jagdtiger in action for the first time, I'm not happy with the model, it is way too small. Also the stats look a bit wrong, it has a shorter AP range than a King Tiger, I have not checked it out yet, but that does not seem right. I can fix the stats, but the model is beyond my abilities to fix. I might just delete it from the mod.

PoorOldSpike wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 9:00 am

TankerOne wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 5:39 pm Would you guys be willing too make the ZIS376mm Show up a little bit less or have it so it isn’t just a ZIS3 76mm without the bombardment option? At least have it so the 76mm has better AP and AP effectiveness, but poor HE. but the 76 mm has better HE and bombardment value and weaker AP. It’s just a suggestion though.

Hi, I don't understand your suggestion.
Look, these are the 2x ZIS-3 76mm Guns in BA2, the one with bombardment is more expensive-



PS- don't get them confused with the 57mm AT gun below-

I am talking about both of them, as it seems there is no reason to have both Zis 3s, as the bombardment option isn’t very effective to me. Maybe if they had a stat difference, for example the bombardment option is more effective and base HE is more powerful, but AP is only good against say, the side armor of the Panzer four G. Then that seems to make sense for two of them to exist.