PWCG P-38 Lightning Strikes Co-op Campaign

[Perfesser]

I did a search of the forums for controller issues and found damn little. This thread appears to be related

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/62290-i-need-help-please/?tab=comments#comment-961436

heh... or not... he had a loose wire

[Painless]

I for one did enjoy the mission (dream)Tom.
I hope the multitude of re starts and tech issues we have consistently experienced is not putting some of the guys off ? 

The importance of staying at the very least a pair in combat was the main learning point for 485th from last night. I lost my wingman (Crash) due to tech issues and Horus lost his (Pooka) on takeoff. Sid, myself and Friar regrouped and stuck together, scored two kills which could be confirmed. Unfortunately Horus became separated, scored a kill and then was killed himself. His kill could not be confirmed so it did not count.

I hope we can make progress with the reliability of this campaign because it is potentially brilliant fun.

[Crash]

From what I remember, there was a stutter, the game froze up I heard bandits being called. The view was locked, no externals and the  contols had no effect but I could sense that I was going down fast. The view didnt show it though. Windows showed a error about a device disconnect and that all I know

I think it would be wise to start quite a bit earlier if possible.

[Crash]

Another thought, ask everyone to delete the coop cache before connecting for the mission.

[Sid]

Chaps, some observations. I hope you don't mind and I don't intend to be openly critical, my comments are observations of how GBS and the Dogz interact with eachother in the game personally and technically.

I believe that the issues we are finding when we fly together may be influenced by factors such as

GBS

PWCG

Windows

communications

pilot error

key mapping

controller

mods issues 

Any factor on it's own could be enough to give a flyer an issue so if one or two or more are occurring at the same time it becomes difficult to pin anything down. When the after action chat took place last night I got the feeling that the issues are becoming overwhelming as we aren't always able to separate them from one another.

Comms 

This is how the Dogz can be with comms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f5MvVx8RM8&list=RDOdKa9bXVinE&index=2

Or even a bit like this sometimes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCmhR2JK1VE

It would be great if we could try and be a little bit like those vids ie. the fun side but I think what would be better is if we could try to be a bit more aware, when necessary, of the need to listen to what is being said during briefs, startups, restarts and when flying. Please don't stop a bit of banter but let's keep it to a minimum when we are waiting for orders, instructions, directions etc. This may have an influence if people are trying to rejoin the server and aren't carrying out what they have been asked. I know we are the Dogz but sometimes we need to focus.

Mods

The question was asked last night if Mods affect the game and could they influence any issues we get. FT said that Mods do affect the game and he is right. Up until recently I have only looked at and used mods that change something visually for example the default skins, replacing the in cockpit picture with a technical info sheet or changing the size of the sun. I believe that these mods aren't an issue. However, one mod I do know could be an issue is the 'Torpedo' mod. This mod not only replaces the 1000kg German bomb object with a torpedo object, in itself probably not an issue, but importantly changes the physical action of the bomb object. The 1000kg bomb is dropped and basically stays where it hits the ground whereas the torpedo when dropped dives for a short period before doing a run for an amount of time. The reason I know this is a problem is because when cooping last week I was hosting with Painless, Pooka and Sweper and I ran a JU87 dive bombing mission where I took 1 x 500 and 2 x 250kg bombs and Swep took a 1000kg bomb to use on the ships. I didn't think anything of it until my game froze and I had a message box appear that mentioned an error with a torpedo. This occurred when Swep dive bombed and hit the water/ship with his object. To his pooter it was a bomb, to mine it was a torpedo. My game didn't like it and told me so. I only had to click the 'X' in the box to clear it and everything was ok after. This isn't a poke at anyone but last Thursday the four of us flew four Vander generated coops in two hours and the only issues were this torpedo one and the worry that the runway might not be long enough for the 262s to take off along...as it happens it was.

Maybe me and anyone else using the torpedo mod is creating an issue because if, when flying PWCG, a random German AI spawns in with and uses a 1000kg bomb there is potential for an issue. 

Perhaps we do need to look at what mods we are running.

Key mapping

Please check for double binds on keys in the key assignment sections - look for any yellow/orange boxes on the key assignment that, when the mouse is placed over it, tells you where there is a double or multiple assignment. Ask for advice, I and others are quite happy to help.

Controllers and Windows

I have put these together because possibly they are sometimes linked.

Like I said before please don't take anything personally, these are thoughts and observations.

The P38 we fly in GBS is the same for everyone. The keys and bindings available in the game ensure that by pressing a button or controller assigned to that key then a particular action takes place on the aircraft.

Real P38 pilots would turn up to fly and they would all have pretty much the same buttons and levers in the real cockpit to carry out the actions to fly the real aircraft. What we, and any other virtual flyer does, is bring our own cockpit to fly our virtual P38. All our cockpits are different and can be used to fly anything from a Sopwith Camel to an F16 to a spaceship and consist of various makes of controllers in any combination enhanced by personal Heath Robinson  boxes along with combinations of software. Again, this is the Dogz and we do what we do and I marvel at some of the stuff produced. However, is there not the possibility that some of these custom hardware/software combinations are telling Windows do do something that when combined with GBS net code the game basically says 

I know that when running GBS the game will allow me to use five controllers. I tried six (Painless was there and saw the result) and one wasn't recognised. So to me, the limit is five within the game - Hotas, rudder pedals and three lever quadrants. Outside of the game I run three other hardware devices - TrackIR or VR, wireless headset/mike and a Realteus seat gamepad. These generally work flawlessly together.

 

Like I have said a couple of times, these are my thoughts and observations. I can't think of any reason why we would get spawning issues when we go to start Tom's P38 campaign. I don't know anything about PWCG to comment other than to sympathise with Tom's frustration. However, perhaps something I have mentioned above could point to something and that we as Dogz could look to checking a few things.

Cheerzen because ouch

 

 

[Painless]

Good points Sidly,  some of them we can address but as we know a post on the forum may not be enough.... A session on TS with everyone checking mods, key assignments and functionality would probably be productive, slightly painful 😂and worthwhile ?
Comms issues are a very old chestnut and really need to be split into               A  : informal free for all with added banta, side stories and singing.
B  : formal disciplined brevity with any whispers taking priority when announced.

“B” only when appropriate for the type of mission obviously .

We could even have say, one coop (so it doesn’t alter the light hearted nature of the DDz), in a normal Coop session declared “Formal” just for practice when we all form up in flights on the same side (Allied or Axis) and make surviving the priority rather than a good individual haul of points ? 
 

Not sure if this idea will appeal to the majority or not ?
 

 

 

[DD_Arthur]

2 hours ago, Painless said:

Good points Sidly,  some of them we can address but as we know a post on the forum may not be enough.... A session on TS with everyone checking mods, key assignments and functionality would probably be productive, slightly painful 😂and worthwhile ?

We could even have say, one coop (so it doesn’t alter the light hearted nature of the DDz), in a normal Coop session declared “Formal” just for practice when we all form up in flights on the same side (Allied or Axis) and make surviving the priority rather than a good individual haul of points ? 
 

Not sure if this idea will appeal to the majority or not ?

I think these are great ideas and I can't see any problem with putting time aside during our normal coop sessions to practice for our campaign.  The mission generator we are using for normal coops can easily produce a mission for us that mimicks the PWCG ones; eg start on the ramp with engines off, etc.  This should also help us understand more any problems we're having with launching our PWCG mission.

Mods?   'Feckin' mods' certainly can upset IL2 1946 but this is a completely different game.  I note from Sid's post and the torpedo mod he was the actual host at the time and had this mod activated on his game and therefore his hosting machine.  Our server is merely running in 'mods on' mode and does not need to nor should have any actual mods loaded. Again, this is something we can test ourselves but I would caution against getting too worried about them. 

Server disconnects and joining problems; one thing Oleg really did get right is that the netcode in '46 is much more robust than GBS which would seem to me a more fragile set up but something I'm sure we can get right with a little practice and adopting a standard opperating procedure for our campaign starts.  I think we're already working out what we all need to do when the mission is put up.

Comms?  Wellllll.............we're Dogz............   I'm quite sure we're now all old enough and ugly enough to understand when the CO says "shut the f#ck up" what we must do!  I know I've got to set up whispers on t/s as this is something I've never had to do before.

Controllers and key mapping?  Yes!  Everyone should go through their control assignments to check there are no potential conflicts.  It's not difficult and the game shows you if you have one by the use of the little boxes described above.  One more thing about about controls;  if you have start up engines, throttle and mixture controls mapped to separate levers/bindings/franken boxes so you can control individual engines on a twin-engined plane.....can I ask why?   There is nothing to be gained and it introduces another set of potential problems.

I've got a MSFFB stick and a custom made throttle box so I have access to five levers and four rotaries as well as a plethora of switches and buttons.   If I wished I could assign everything on the JU52 and it's three engines to separate controls but in practice I would gain nothing from it.  Much more reliable to have one button to start engines, one lever for throttles, one lever for rpm's, etc.

Generating a post mission report with PWCG;  as we have seen, since the game has a slightly 'nebulous' net code I suspect until the time we are all on hyper-fast fibre connected directly to our backsides we will always get occasional instances of people dropping out of the game for one reason or another. To then complete a long and rewarding sortie and then find we are unable to produce a result is disappointing and I'm sure for Tom extremely frustrating.

 We should ask Pat Wilson whether he can add something to his generator to deal with this.  When I say 'we' I don't mean Tom or FT either - infact I'll ask him myself on the forums later tonight.

S!

 

 

[FoolTrottel]

In the end, it looks like the complexity of all the items listed is giving us some challenges. Indeed. 

And the one that bother me the most, is the restart-mission issue. The fact we cannot seem to easily restart a mission ...

We will never prevent issues from happening with that number of pilots in a multi-engined a/c, spawning in a parking spot with engines off... Whatever we do to be prepared, the chance something bad happening is always there. Not saying we should ignore the technical issues, control issues, pilot errors. No, for sure we should test, and test and be focused ... be prepared.

I'd like to figure out why these PWCG mission restarts are so prone to failure - I mean, we have plenty restarts in normal coops, which are run from the same Dserver - only one difficulty settings was changed for PWCG - and I can't seem to remember any restarts being that troublesome - Some do fail, but mostly due to operator error : Generating a mission too late, while it's already loading in the Dserver, pressing the wrong button etc. To test this, and draw some conclusion is nearly impossible. I can run one server, and have two clients connected... tops... lol. 

 

 

[FoolTrottel]

lol, can't even use two pc's to test ... I have only one game account!! 

 

[DD_Arthur]

Wot a nice man Pat Wilson is!

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/61145-new-pwcg-issues-thread/?do=findComment&comment=965464

Thirty-eight minutes later

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/62970-pwcg-1000-beta-2-is-available/?do=findComment&comment=965497

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Ok lads and lassies, the DServer PWCG is now updated to v.10.0.0, which should include new routines to fix the issue of an entire mission having to be binned if one user suffers a game crash mid flight. 

I would like to test this one eve, Friday or Saturday after 2200 BST; if any one could assist it would be most agreeable.

[Jabo]

Friday would work for me Fen - the pubs are open on Saturday so...

[DD_Arthur]

Friday or Sat will be fine.... 

[FoolTrottel]

Saturday would work for me, Friday not.

[Pooka]

Fridays good,  not Saturday. 

Fourth of July,   Independence Day,  big celebration from you know who...

 

[Sid]

Could do tonight if it's on and probably tomorrow....not a busy social calendar at the moment

[Friar]

On 1 July 2020 at 7:22 PM, Pooka said:

Fridays good,  not Saturday. 

Fourth of July,   Independence Day,  big celebration from you know who...

 

Watched the filmed stage musical "Hamilton" last night on the Disney Channel.

enjoyable, a few US history "in jokes" . Twigged why there is Maddison Ave in New York etc.  I would give it 8/10

[DD_Fenrir]

Jabo and I ran a test session last night - a patrol from which we had a successful engagement then I deliberately forced a game crash from task manager to simulate a disco. 

Happy to report fully successful AAR process with all stats recorded. 

[Crash]

Good show

[Jabo]

9 hours ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Jabo and I ran a test session last night - a patrol from which we had a successful engagement then I deliberately forced a game crash from task manager to simulate a disco. 

Happy to report fully successful AAR process with all stats recorded. 

And six kills between us plus a medal for Tom, none of which will count - sigh.

[FoolTrottel]

1 hour ago, Jabo said:

And six kills between us plus a medal for Tom, none of which will count - sigh.

Ah, yeah, I know that feeling ...

[wingflyr]

Excellent! looking forward to Tuesday lads.

 

[Perfesser]

I'll have to miss this Tuesday

[Painless]

Dam, I will have to have my hair styled on Wednesday evening now ...🤬🤯😳

[BluBear]

Signing up for action tomorrow sir!