Moggy's Log January 2024

[Moggy]

After a bit of a pause, getting myself back in to working on the Italy/Balkan/Ukraine theatre.

The main problem I have been having with this is the old non-functioning airbase/CTD on aircraft selection one. This may be down to use of slightly different targets.dat etc files between the eastern front scenarios and the Italy based scenarios. It may also be down to the old "nationality of airbases" problem.

So I am going to experiemnt with dividing up the mod between the Italy based scenarios and the Balkan/East front scanrios, and seeing if I get them to stabilise separately.

[rotton50]

Pretty complex issues.

What would happen if you just took a functioning setup, like SPAW, and just renamed and relocated the bases to appropriate positions on the map?

[Moggy]

Certainly something worth trying.

The other cause of the problem may be my frontlines, which switch bases from Axis to Allied side.

There's plainly a trick to this and its probably something we've already discovered at some point.

[rotton50]

Spitballing.

Use the SPAW target set, which as far as I know doesn't have any CTD's, and switch capital cities. Then see if the CTD's show up.

[Moggy]

I will try this.

[Moggy]

I do think this problem comes down to the "default airbase" bytes in airfields.dat.

In the default setup every airbase is designated either as the default base of a particular aircraft slot, or as the default base of all allied or axis slots.

When we move the bases all around with the target editor, it doesn't change those default designations.

What I think I have is a situation where some of my front lines mean that certain aircraft slots don't have a default base on their side of the line. So when you choose that slot in the single mission screen it can't disignate the default base which appears in the single mission setup screen before you actually start changing the mission parameters. So the game can't setup the single mission parameters screen and CTDs.

So I'm trying to ascertain whether changing those bytes in airfield.dat so that certain bases which despite front line changes in the four EAW years are always either on the allied or axis side of the line, so that they are ther default base of any allied or any axis aircraft slot will do the trick, or whether all aircraft slots must have a base which is dedicated to that slot.

It is noticeable that problem arises much more with allied aircraft slots than axis aircraft slots, and I presume this must be down to the smaller number of allied bases in the original setup.