This Dummy Posts his experience

[Wolff]

Just wanted to start this thread regarding what I'm learning from a huge scen I'm currently playing against Herman and how critical it is to ensure the AI does not control your planes. It has resulted in a lot of game-crashing frustration due to the numerous buoy-drops(we think). Herman can probably speak more to this issue than me, but I was hoping to share this with other newer players like me who haven't run into this yet. Make sure your ai is doing what you want it to do and not overwhelming the system and depleting your reserves without your knowledge. I'll bet there's a vid for this already or has been mentioned elsewhere, and I'm sure I probably read it, but until I actually experienced it and put in over 10 hours into a single scen with the last 2 hours being a complete unplayable mess, I didn't really get it until now. Just hoping to save someone else and their opponent some grief.

[Herman Hum]

how critical it is to ensure the AI does not control your planes. It has resulted in a lot of game-crashing frustration due to the numerous buoy-drops(we think).

It should be clear that this is speculative as no one has been able to confirm a direct correlation between this behaviour and the constant server crashes.

The scenario in question is Ingress.SCN from the HDS II: GIUK Battleset. A loose description of the scenario could be, "Dance of the Vampires." This scenario ran for 8 game hours and was saved. A second session managed to run for another 11 hours and was saved, but this second saved game file was lost. So, we tried to re-start from the 1st saved game file with the same game settings. However, Ryan (Wolff) was repetitively dropped from the server without any notification. A crash log recorded:

Crash information for this process:
A crash occurred at address:
0x4e12f7
Access violation:

We have no idea why were were able to continue from the initial saved game file for another 11 game hours while we could not proceed at this time during our second attempt. It was noted that the AI had assumed control over Formation Air Patrols even though the player setting was disabled. (The AI had also assumed control of Formation Air Patrols during the second successful session where we were able to advance 11 hours. Unfortunately, we we unable to make any progress during our current session.) Therefore, it is not possible to conclude that the Air Patrol problem is the sole cause of the server disconnection problems.

The Formation Air Patrol problem has been noticed in many previous MP games, but no video or bug report has ever been file since it could not be replicated in any consistent manner. The fact that it does re-appear during MP sessions under variable circumstances is irritating, but not helpful or justifiable for a bug report.

The Formation Air Patrol anomaly appears to only affect MP games, but not enough solitaire scenarios are played with the ANW game engine to confirm this theory. The anomaly primarily consists of the AI taking control of air assets and placing them in Formation Air Patrols even though the player starts the scenario with this AI function disabled.

Sometimes, the function is enabled either deliberately or accidentally by the player. When a player either creates a Formation Air Patrol or joins a plane unit to a group (incidentally or intentionally), the Formation Air Patrol function is enabled for the remainder of the game and cannot be disabled.

The anomaly can also manifest itself at seemingly random times within an MP scenario. A scenario can start with the Formation Air Patrol function disabled only to find it self-enabled in the middle of an MP match without any ability to de-activate it. No cause had been found or reported for this behaviour.

We believe that this anomaly may be contributing to Wolff's client crashing and being dropped from the server due to the AI deployment of numerous sonobuoys from the unwanted Formation Air Patrols. The sonobuoys may be overloading the server with unnecessary calculations thereby causing it to disconnect. With hope, and if he can cancel the Formation Air Patrols, we may be able to successfully finish the scenario.

[Wolff]

Thanks for clarifying, Herman. The larger part of my post was meant to serve as a reminder to keep the AI on a short leash and to triple-check them so you don't find yourself into a monster scen with your aircraft all tied up in AI missions. It was not actually meant to complain about the game itself or say it was a bug without proof.

The game works the way it does and I've played it in its various forms for many years. I've not had a finer time playing MP with HH in the last 2 years. I still think of myself as a noob since I'm still learning all the little ways this game works and what to watch out for and how to work around it. I chalk it up to "fog of war" and how things just aren't managed perfectly and I think would be the case in real life. I've never really paid much attention to what the AI is doing in my patrols until pointed out to me by HH and the pitfalls that can happen.

I can report that thanks to Herman's work with testing, etc. we had a successful continuation of this epic battle on Sunday with no crashes at all. We are now roughly 12-13 playing hours in and I think over 40 hours of game time. As Herman said, there's no way to prove that my connection was being lost due to anything involved with ANW. It could have been something going on with my machine that night, my isp, etc. we don't know. I was frustrated with the 2 hours of constant crashing/restarting only to find that the AI had started grabbing my aircraft and doing their own patrols after I meticulously armed them and plotted their routes by hand. I know that I'm going to double and triple check the staff handles formation air patrols as UN-checked each time I play from now on.