Hi again,

whats about the camp40**.dat files?? As i wrote before, i also got CTD´s with the normal camp40**.dat files, that comes with V1.3, but V1.3 include two camp40**.dat.SD files, did you try them as camp40**.dat files??

Poland1939 comes with its own flight files, ECA1.4 and ECApanel are not needed and can cause trouble, if they are in the same folder.

Greetings,

Knegel

Hi,

Nice saga

Are you sure the name of the german operation is not "Dynasty" ...or "Dallas" ??

OFF

Knegel, yes I deleted the campxx.dat files, actually renamed them camp40xx.bak then dropped the .sd ends for the new dat files. Didn't help. I went back to Front lines and downloaded the whole campaign just in case the original files were messed up, and am using the second set tonight to try again. This time without ECA etcera. The combined readme files are confusing to say the least.

Anyway in the meantime I'm flying a 109g-6 over Normandy using the Frontlines Site Emil's 'Normandy 1944'. I had to fly between the trees to get away from a very nasty P-47. The cannon hits are amazing to see in that campaign.

W.C. I believe the correct title should be "Damn If I Know" Out. Or, en Francais "Merd*"

Hi Mike,

I have taken this campaign apart and it has a number of disabled targets, about 80 or so. It's these which will cause problems because the game will try to use them anyway. It's not directly clear to me if any of the other targets were moved but I'd say that this is very likely the main culprit.
You can't simply remove targets, let alone 80, without paying the penalty.
The default**.MSN may look for any of these to set up the basic single missions and if one can't be found a CTD will be the result (see my previous reply).
There are many more consequences when targets are simply removed but without going to deep into the problems I think it's easiest if you'd remove the targets.dat from the campaign.
This will restore the game's original targets and put the missing one's back on. As I wrote before, if you want to keep the unused targets then at least a new set of Default**.MSN must be created, this allready seems necessary because the frontlines.dat was also changed so targets may no longer be on the right side of the frontline. Removing the frontline.dat is therefore another option and possibly required also.
Without these files you are basically playing a stock campaign but at least you should be able to fly in it, however the outcome of the campaign is influenced by the terrain elevations and may cause more AI to crash into the ground then normal.
It's taken me a long time to find out that the above problems are very common in most campaigns and there is no quick cure for it, it needs addaptation to the latest knowledge.
This means that the 80 unused targets must be put back, a complete set of Default**.MSN files must be created and worst of all, ALL campaign files must be addapted to suit these or new frontlines and target placements.
Without this you'll be left with nothing more but a graphical addaptation of the stock game, but at least it should work. Still playing it might still be fun.
Before you do any deleting though, I might be tempted to create a set of Default**.msn files which might allow you to use the campaign as is but only in single and quick mission mode. The way things are now playing a full carreer is simply out of the question.
Once the basic single mission targets and bases are right, the game won't allow you to select the unused targets/airfields so you can then select from those which are still visible on the map.
This is the easiest solution for now but a lot more work is needed to turn it into a fully working campaign, which may possibly take a year or more.

VonBeerhofen

Hi,

After reading all the posts above ....I came with a hurting question....
Provided ...the players with problems made a good install ...and playing the campaign for a first time ...run in big problems (CTD ...etc)and not able to correct them quickly...the evident question is :
How the creator(s) don't seen any problems when they tested the campaign..?
Testing is not dependent of any knowledges .. so it's by itself a easy task.
Or maybe they don't test it ..... ?
If it's true ...that's a shocking discovery.

OFF

Hi Chief,

they tested it allright but it wasn't known that the Default**.MSN might accidentally point to a valid target/base in their campaign but that on other machines these files might point to something which isn't allowed. These files get updated all the time and are campaign specific.
They also didn't know that disabling targets could cause problems. I discovered this only recently and adviced to add these files when targets are moved with Mr. Jelly's target editor.
The problem may not surface for a long time as long as the game doesn't select any of the unused targets, and you might be playing for months without problems. For this reason I asked Mr. Jelly to include savedata folders in OAW so any changes the game will make to these files will be stored and can be loaded when switching campaigns.
Testing becomes almost impossible due to all the different hardware and machines too and we can only test what works on our own machines and try to use what we've learned about other machines.
Sadly not many keep up with new knowledge or perhaps they don't understand what it means or what consequences it may have.
Perhaps by now people believe that what I discover are all lies and is meant to descredit their work, who knows.

VBH

The last few posts make some interesting reading. I wasn't able to do any experiments last night. A 12 hour day at work then an early morning was just too much to handle. I guess that the mission files are different for each side (duh), so the Poles work, their targets are inside of Germany which was recognized in the original EAW. The German missions take place outside of the basic maps, are over redrawn territory which makes things stupid? Well, I'm going to tinker about with it and see what may come. Thanks for all.

Hi Mike,

it appears that all British airfields and targets were set to unused and I came to the same conclusion as you have. The first mission I tried immeditately set me behind the wall and I crashed into what looks like the most surrealistic environment I've ever seen. Well I allready saw it before but this was really a short one.
Another problem seems to be that not all planes in the selectionscreens are available but it's not entirely clear to me how grave this mistake is. For one it doesn't allow me to create a Default**.msn for this slot.
Still the addon did run first time off and without changes. So what you need to do for each slot is first select a valid base and a valid target. This will create a proper Default**.MSN for that slot and once you've done this for all slots there shouldn't be anymore problems.
BTW, I moved my own alternative campaignfiles into seperate folders and gave em stock filenames (as suggested by Ralf). This allows me to select any combination of these alternatives from any of the 3 folders named:
AlternativesDefault
AlternativesORI
AlternativesGR
where each folder contains
CAMPGR40.DAT
CAMPUK40.DAT
PLANES.DAT
This allows me to overwrite the files at will manually, without needing a filemannager.

VonBeerhofen

P.S. there is no restriction for using ECA after having created all proper Default**.MSN files

Hi,

while playing around, switching from plane to plane in the single mission mode and back to the career mode i also suffer a CTD.

Thats the most strange CTD i did encounter for now.

This is what i do to cause the CTD:

1. I start EAW
2. I go to the singlemission mode and choose one of the german planes.
3. I start the mission.
4. I end the mission.
5. I go to the EAW start screen and click to "career".
6. CTD.
7. I restart EAW.
8. I click to career again.
9. I can start a new career(no CTD)
This i can repeat again and again and it dont matter which of the german planes i choose to fly in the single mission, afterward the game CTD if i wanna join the "career" section, so i also cant play a polish campaign. But after a EAW reststart all work like it should, as long as i dont fly a single mission before to join the "career" section.

I can do the same with the polish planes, without CTD!!

Thats very very strange i must say, though this isnt the same kind of CTD that you suffer.

btw. i did test Poland with ECA1.4 and it dont cause your CTD.

Greetings,

Knegel

Hi,

Aaaahh... well.. it will be so interesting to have here few comments of the original creator (Andy) and the author of the patched version (Knug)
My crystal ball ..tell me they must be in the vicinity ...but maybe shy to drop in......

OFF