Persistant Battle of Britain Campaign Dev Log

|450|caveman wrote:I must say you have made a once hated program that people did not like to fly and even today trying to convince some of them to come back is hard because they just remember the old days of Clod.

But i take my hat off to you, this has now become a program that when i have the internet working properly, I can't wait to fly when i get home every night, its like being a young child again and you cant wait to get home from school to play with the new toy you have just been given,  so once again thank you very much.

That's high praise indeed, Cavey. Thank you very much. I'm sure part of that is due to the company we keep here, though. All the guys deserve credit for making it an amazing game. It's only ever as good as the people you play with.

Added in Woolston Supermarine Spitfire Factory and Brooklands Hawker facilities to produce parts. Also created Dover Docks facilities.

I'm planning to put in some fuel facilities and a couple civilian targets tonight and complete the working concept map. At that point we can start devising some rigorous testing.

Added a fuel storage facility at Sittingbourne and Fuel refinery at Thameshaven. Also, put in Westminster Abbey / Parliament buildings as a civ target.

Fuel now operates with a cap based on storage capacity. The storage capacity is reduced by bombing storage facilities. If a storage facility is knocked out, the total possible fuel is reduced. If fuel is produced that is above that amount, it is leveled off at the cap. So if you refineries and convoys are bringing in tons of fuel and you have no place to put it, you'll constantly be operating with low fuel reserves.

Been logged in remotely to the server this morning running a few easy tests.

Fixed a bug with the fuel cap and its working. Manston was hit by a raid last night and was out of action this morning, so that worked. The aircraft repair and resupply rate is working I believe (still watching some tests). Morale also appears to be calculating appropriately. Convoys have deposited their cargo effectively.

So far so good with nobody trying to bomb England :P

Wait. Is the BoB server up?

StiC wrote:Wait. Is the BoB server up?

It was. I've tweaked the mission timer so that the server runs for about 5 minutes and restarts so that I can test the persistent features like aircraft repair, fuel storage, morale, etc.

I've taken it down and put Warfront back up, but the tests were all good. There was a slight hiccup when I hadn't realized that the convoy had been shipping in aircraft parts like crazy during my tests, but that was just random luck of the draw. The convoys just happened to be carrying aircraft parts. Once I realized that, all my numbers checked out.

Fuel cap and production: working
Aircraft repair and resupply: working
Aircraft parts industry production: working
Convoys delivering resources to operational ports: working
Morale system based on successes and failures: working
Squadron strength tracking of both combat ready and unserviceable aircraft: working
Repair systems for all types of targets (airfields, fuel depots, factories, ports, civilian): working

All we need now are targets to be built (and corresponding bomber raids) and slid into the system. Last night I left the server running to allow a Manston raid to reach its target. This morning when I logged in remotely, Manston was out of action after the server had restarted.

Server's been maintaining its sub 80 ping through all of this when this mission is running.

I'm still confident we can have this thing up and running by late June.

Mission will be running for the next 10 hours for a longer form test.

Feel free to hop on. If you want to start a blue bomber raid, the only raids currently available are for most of the Red airfields. I think three aren't done yet. None of the other targets in the game have a bomber raid yet.

Hopped on with Squiz last night. Amazing! Seeing all the targets dotting the landscape ,the radar stations at Dover and Wilmington (Eastbourne?), the features at Dover Docks, the new menu system....I was blown away.

StiC wrote:Hopped on with Squiz last night. Amazing! Seeing all the targets dotting the landscape ,the radar stations at Dover and Wilmington (Eastbourne?), the features at Dover Docks, the new menu system....I was blown away.

Yeah, it's pretty neat. I fixed the problem you and Squiz encountered with the airfield becoming active when it shouldn't have. It was a silly logic error on my part. Fixed, though, and in a way that should put less stress on the server than the original code.

After reviewing today's logs, discovered Eastchuch was missing spawn point files. They have been created and the problem solved.

Last night Squiz came up with a great way to get Stuka raids to dive bomb on mission targets that load in from other mission files. It's a little trick to get them to attack a target in their own file that is cleverly placed on top / inside / underneath locations of targets in the main target file.

A smashing stuka dive bomb attack on Dover Docks was tested and it looked great and did significant damage.

Added in a command for Red to trigger a random enemy AI raid without having to switch sides. Tab 4-6

Were you up all night?

StiC wrote:Were you up all night?

Didn't take too long actually. All the bomber stuff was in there for the Blue side, just had to make a randomizer and dump the same data into it as an option for red.

I've also updated the Frontlines code as well. Now, if you ditch or parachute into water close to friendly shores, you'll have a greater chance of rescue. Open water is still deadly.

It's also quite clear that the 'Unknown' airfield bug is caused by staying low to the ground on take-off. Everyone should operate in the following manner for take-offs now:

As soon as you're wheels up, keep the power on full and gain at least 100 to 200 ft relatively quickly until you get the message that you took off from the respective airfield. Once that occurs, you're set. Otherwise, crash landings, etc won't return the aircraft to the appropriate location (they'll go to North Weald).

Wolverine wrote:It's also quite clear that the 'Unknown' airfield bug is caused by staying low to the ground on take-off.

Nice Find!

Mission updated with more bomber raids on targets, and several new active ports. Still chugging along with target creation!

Let us know what we can do to help.

I'm hoping I can get a few more targets in tomorrow night.

Let's maybe put the call out for a larger test this coming weekend? I'd like to try and get at least 12 per side. We'll need more Red pilots as well as a lot more Blue...

Persistent Battle of Britain Campaign Map now officially dubbed "No.401 Squadron Presents "Finest Hour"

Couple of small fixes since the test:

1. Headshake realism setting has been found to have been off for all this time. It is now enabled. Thanks Kalinka for the heads up on this one!
2. A small code error with the Sittingbourne and Thameshaven targets was not carrying their damage over the restarts. Fixed!
3. The time required for an AI raid before another AI raid can be launched has been adjusted to 2 hours down from 2.5 hours.
4. Notification that the timer has reset the AI missions to available will now be broadcast to both Blue and Red teams (in case the Red team wants to launch another random raid in Blue's absence).
5. Adjusted the RDF damage triggers to make them a little easier to knock down (still very hard though).

Things being worked on:

a) An easier way to get damage reports on JUST the damaged targets for Red. Currently, they have to comb through the entire sector list which is 35 different reports.
b) Tweaking the resource levels to try and find the right balance of difficulty for both teams
c) More targets!

New changes:

Added the Sim-Goring.

In the Luftwaffe claims and losses menu option, a Sim-Goring will now give his opinion on the battle's attrition. If the loss rate is kept at a suitable level (over 50% pilots returning safely) he will remain satisfied with the conduct of the war. Should the loss rate dip low, he will begin to grow angry and petulant. Eventually, even the Fuhrer will get involved and if the loss rate remains very low for too long, the order to postpone the invasion of Britain will be signed.

Wolverine wrote:New changes:

Added the Sim-Goring.

In the Luftwaffe claims and losses menu option, a Sim-Goring will now give his opinion on the battle's attrition. If the loss rate is kept at a suitable level (over 50% pilots returning safely) he will remain satisfied with the conduct of the war. Should the loss rate dip low, he will begin to grow angry and petulant. Eventually, even the Fuhrer will get involved and if the loss rate remains very low for too long, the order to postpone the invasion of Britain will be signed.

Cool! Is this for human pilots only?

StiC wrote:Cool! Is this for human pilots only?

Right now, yes. Since the AI can't make intelligent decisions about heading back in the face of bad weather/odds/mechanical failures it's not fair to hinge the Blue team performance on the AI's ability to survive. Not to mention that certain bombers are quite easy to take out if you're a good shot.

Pilot loss rates for Blue are based entirely on the player flown aircraft.

I think I might adjust the format so that the ratio 'resets' with each day. Otherwise, it's kind of a sliding slope where it's hard to claw back up. We'll observe how things go and adjust as necessary to make it fair.

Added a very simple mechanic in case an RAF player accidentally lands an aircraft at an ineligible base: it gets returned to their originating airfield as unserviceable. So it's not lost, but it's not a free ride.

I see it like this:

Landing back at home airfield is most preferred
Landing at any eligible airfield is next preferred
Crash-landing or landing at an ineligible airfield is least preferred

Any of the above situations preserves the airframe, but the final option means it becomes unserviceable until repaired.

Made a few new fuel depot targets at Chelmsford, Slough, and Salisbury. Including Sittingbourne, that takes care of 4 out of 7 sectors. We still need a fuel depot target for Kenley Sector, Tangmere Sector, and Biggin Hill Sector.

These targets are placed in and around locations of map placed fuel tanks so they make a nice big boom when they go up.