FIXED 5.1.25 - Start Timings Bug

[Daz]

I am trying to set up the attack on Overloon but the start timings keep jumping around with no warning.

The orders with the red border are what I am trying to set, but as soon as I press play, and the game advances a minute, the timings jump to the ones indicated by the orders with the blue border.

I am unable to provide a save with the original orders I set, as indicated by the red border, because these settings don't survive a save either.
On saving they jump to the start timings as indicated by the blue bordered orders, even without running the game for a minute, so Ill provide a save with the wrong orders set and to replicate this you will need to set the start time, with the aid of this image, to what I have set in the red bordered orders set.

I am running the latest patch 5.1.24 but this bug may go way back further as this is not something I have to do very often when playing a game.
Its quite rare that I have to set a start time and an assault at time, manually together, in the course of a scenario.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Which Overloon scenario were you playing?

 

[Daz]

Ordeal at Overloon part 2
Have sent a save.
For your information, you can find the name of the scenarios under the mini map these days
Some kind soul added the extra information a while back

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Got it thanks Daz.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

I think what is happening here, because I don't have a save taken before the order was issued, is that the Assault At time has been set (as indicated by the unchecked Auto box next to it). As such the AI will treat this as fixed and then when it works out the advance to the FUP and FUP Reorg durations it then deducts these from the Assault At time and derives the revised start time. It does that to minimise the duration in the FUP, which is when it is at its most vulnerable. Why do you want to set both the Start and Assault At times?

 

[Daz]

The main reason for a Start and an Assault At time is the bulk of my forces have remained hidden all day, and the start time is set to when its fully dark, in order to conceal my intentions and also so they can form up on the start line in relatively open terrain unspotted. This usually has the result of a better assault formation as they have more space to set it up and avoids direct and indirect fire in the FUP reorg phase.
Its a stealthy attack and advance to contact under the cover of darkness, although the massive bombardment I have planned is sure to wake them up
I intend to keep a Regiment of artillery in reserve to simulate them being on call with a smoke round already in the tube. This is to simulate my counter to the possibility of them using illuminating rounds during the advance over that open terrain to protect the left flank, especially of the armor that will be following in reserve with its own orders.
In the historical account I read, a lot of the tanks actually succumbed to mines, but I have already sent my engineers to construct that bridge over the Peelkanaal, so I cant have them lead the assault.
That was a bit short sighted of me actually, so good job mines are not modeled in game yet!
Obviously if I was able to dismount them I would have formed them up inside the tree line but this work around will have to do for now

I have given the closer Bn's an hour to form up which is plenty of time, but the AI advances this leaving them less than 30 min which is cutting it fine especially if they were to run into any problems.
I cant then adjust the start time to take into account this extra time that the AI HQ adds because its inconsistent.
Like you said they seem to want to set up their own time to reach the FUP, which isn't long enough obviously.

In fact I have played around with it a bit and on a few occasions they never made it to the start line in time.
Then guess what happened?
Yep, that problem/bug/game design fault, I keep pestering you with that the community helped make a decision about several years ago. Instead of slipping the start time (even if they only missed it by a few minutes), and following through with the attack, they decided to hang up their boots, and abandon the attack, leaving the other Bn's that did make the start line to attack unsupported
Can you imagine what would happen to a Bn commander that did that for real?

 

[Daz]

I have an earlier save about an hour earlier if you want it?

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Well that places the AI in a bind. What happens if we allow both the start and Assault At times to be fixed and there is insufficient time between the two set times, which takes precedence because one or both of them will have to change?

 

[Daz]

Well at the moment it is allowed because the other does not get greyed out when one of them is set, so will obviously lead to confusion.
I would say the players set timings should always take precedence over the AI's timings.

If you role play it out you have the Brigade commander briefing his Bn commander before the battle.
In this case 2 hours before they need to move out.
Brigade Commander says "No move before 21:00 it will be fully dark by then to conceal your activity. The Corps medium artillery will commence firing on Overloon at 21:00 slow rate of fire to cover any noise.
The creeping artillery barrage will begin at H hour which is set for 22:00. on the forward edges of Overloon and the nearby forest.
Your Assault is to start at H hour. If for any reason you should get held up continue the Assault as soon as you are in position.
If you decide to sneak of for a cup of tea because you are 2 min late in arriving at the FUP, you will be court martialed!"

If the player sets both a start and an Assault at time the Assault at time should slip if the player has not allowed enough time for the units to get to the FUP.
So in answer to your question the Start time takes precedence over the Assault At time but the Assault at time should never be cribbed, only slipped.

 

[Daz]

Also the Bn Commander should move out towards his FUP, at the Start time, no matter how much earlier it is set by the player, then wait in attack formation for H hour.
This will cover the role play option of the Brigade Commander saying "DONT BE LATE!", when he is confident the FUP is secure.

Unless you want to go to the effort of providing an option of allowing the Bn commander to decide his own travel to the FUP time, as a check box or something.
That method would probably be handled just by setting an Attack At time I guess, with no player set Start time.

This is all in my humble opinion of course, I would welcome a discussion on it.

 

[Daz]

While your looking into it Dave I also think that unchecking the Assault At time, should set them to Assault right away, without an orders delay.
This will help to simulate the orders I have given to 1st South Lancashire Bn.
Their Assault At time has been delayed an hour to ensure their left flank which comes close to Overloon has been secured before their Assault begins.

Their Objective is the factory's to the south of Overloon, and the track running through the woods, in order to give them an overlook of the bridge by first light.
If I could simulate it, I would have them in attack formation, waiting for the order to attack over their radios, or alternately by field telephone, flare or flashing lights. During the day for units without radio this could also be by flags.
They also have a lost coms plan, which is to attack at the designated time set on the Assault At order.
They have already been briefed on their objective, and done the planning, so all that is left is for the order to GO, so unless the Attack Marker needs to be moved I don't see a need for a re-plan for this option.

This way I can send them in early if all goes well in Overloon, or I could set an Assault At time a lot later in the initial planning stage, say midnight for example, then they would be 'on call' for their Assault, at any time I choose up until midnight just by unchecking the Assault at time.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

If the player sets both a start and an Assault at time the Assault at time should slip if the player has not allowed enough time for the units to get to the FUP.
So in answer to your question the Start time takes precedence over the Assault At time but the Assault at time should never be cribbed, only slipped.

I foresee problems with this. It works fine for an individual attack where no other task is dependent on that time. As you know, we don't have a formal link or relationship between the tasks. The timing fields are provided to allow you to manually coordinate things. So picture this. If one of the attacks in your example is forced to slip because you didn't allow enough time for the advance to the FUP then it's assault will start later that the others. Moreover, if you had also set the time for a bombardment to start at the original Assault At time then it's still going to occur at that time and probably not give you the covering fire you were counting on. In the absence of linkages I think it best to give precedence to the Assault At time over the start time.

Now I appreciate why you want it the other way but it effectively duds the whole idea of setting an Assault At time. The right way to give you what you want is to support full linkages. That's going to involve a lot of work. It can be done but there are a lot of cases to consider. I'm not going to do anything about that now. That will have to go on the Feature wish list. With a bit of luck we can address this as part of sequential tasking, even though it is really concurrent tasking. We'll see what we can do.

But I have dug around a bit.

Re Est Start Time. This data is provided as a guide. It should be based on timeNow + estimated orders delay. Alas it was being set to Start At + estimated Orders Delay. I have fixed that now.

Re Start At time adjusting. I have a pretty good idea now that this is adding the orders delay when it develops the plan. It should be checking to see if the Start At time that you have set is greater than timeNow + ordersDelay and if so not add the orders delay. I have yet to fix that but I will do so before putting out a new build - hopefully today.

 

[Daz]

If I am conducting a multi formation attack, in this example 3 Bn's, but it could also be other sized formations, 3 Regiments for example, and not using a superior HQ to co-ordinate the attack, I as the player am taking the responsibility of the "full linkage".

If one of the attacks in my example is forced to slip because I didn't allow enough time for the advance to the FUP, and it's assault started later than the others, then that would have been my fault for not allowing them enough time to make it to the FUP.
In such an example I would be cursing myself for not setting the start time early enough or if they were late as a result of enemy interdiction, for not having properly secured their route.

If one of the attacks in my example is forced to slip because I didn't allow enough time for the advance to the FUP then it's assault will start later than the others but at least they will start.
I wouldn't expect my timings to be wildly out, assuming they meet no resistance, and if they did, the whole attack would probably need a re-think anyway.

If I had also set the time for a bombardment to start at the original Assault At time then I would probably let it start early anyway to support the formation that made it to the start line in time, or if it looks like neither of them will I can re-plan it.

In the absence of linkages I think it best to give precedence to the Assault At time over the start time.
Now I appreciate why you want it the other way but it effectively duds the whole idea of setting an Assault At time.

So what happens when they arrive late for the prioritized Assault At time, because they never started early enough?

The right way to give you what you want is to support full linkages.

I think we are getting out wires crossed Dave.

The link in my player organized 3 Bn attack is me, the player.
If for timing reasons the individual Bn's are late for the Assault At time its my fault for not having started them early enough.
All the planning is down to me. All I require them to do is move out at the time they are ordered (Start time), wait in formation for the Assault At time, or attack right away if they miss the Assault At time because they never got into the FUP fast enough.

If I wanted them to attack with an 'AI full linkage' I would assign them to the Regimental HQ that would co-ordinate all 3 of them for me.
Hopefully not as effectively as me or I would be out of a job

The idea behind my co-ordinated Bn attack is to do away with this AI link, so I can co-ordinate them myself, but the tools that allow me to do that are not working right at the moment.

But I have dug around a bit.

Re Est Start Time. This data is provided as a guide. It should be based on timeNow + estimated orders delay. Alas it was being set to Start At + estimated Orders Delay. I have fixed that now.

Re Start At time adjusting. I have a pretty good idea now that this is adding the orders delay when it develops the plan. It should be checking to see if the Start At time that you have set is greater than timeNow + ordersDelay and if so not add the orders delay. I have yet to fix that but I will do so before putting out a new build - hopefully today.

That's great news, thank you mate

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

My original hypothesis about the reason for the adjustment to the Start time was wrong. It had nothing to do with the AI at all. Rather it was a bit of UI code that was making the same error with the Start time as it was with the Estimated Start Time. Once I fixed that it seemed to hold the originally inputted Start time. I'll consider this FIXED! But we need to keep an eye on it as I haven't done a lot of testing. I am going to press on now and put out a build.

 

[Daz]

Great stuff
Looking forward to putting it to the test for you