Mysterious increase in officer cost

[Ormand]

I have run into something odd with a mod I am working on. While playing, I was surprised to find that the cost of purchasing an officer went up well beyond what should have happened with my previous purchases. I seem to have managed to reproduce it, and it is related to the TOE. I have a game, with my mod and a TOE template. At a specific point once I load the TOE template, if I go to the HQ and transfer an SFT (I did trucks) into the HQ, the cost of officers goes from 5 to 6. I tried this 3 times, and got the same result each time. If I do not load the TOE template, all seems to be OK.

On a related front, there is also clearly a limit for the number of NATO symbols for the TOE interface, but not in general. At one point, when I tried to edit a unit symbol in the template, I got a crash, and an array out of bounds message. However, there was no problem using these symbols for SFT types. Once I deleted several symbols, the crash problem went away. But, maybe this is the source of the other problem??

To file a mild design complaint. The systemgraphics/natocounters directory is kind of a bad place for this. Or rather, it is now not such a good place for the Loctype graphics. It seems to me that there is room for conflict here.

[ernieschwitz]

While I cannot answer the questions you have put forward, I can say this. I raised the same issue with Vic regarding the natocounters used for loctypes and unit symbols. Apparantly the game looks at the size of the file (dimensions) before determining if it is one or the other. So there should not be a conflict there...

[Ormand]

As an update, it also seems that if I assign an HQ to one of the HQ template models, if I then go and transfer to any HQ, the cost of officers goes up by the increment. What I have seen is load the template, transfer to any HQ, cost goes up one time. Then, set any HQ to a model, transfer to any HQ (not necessarily the same one), the cost goes up. But, it seems to be only once. So, if you set all HQs to the template model, it seems to happen only once. At least during that turn. I am not sure what happens in subsequent turns. And, I don't know if it happens with automatic reinforcement transfers.

Edit: The behavior is more universal than this. It happens if I transfer to any unit after I load the template, and then anytime I set one of the units to a template model. It doesn't have to be an HQ and it doesn't have to be the unit that was set. It seems to be only once, at least during that turn. I haven't checked, and I am not sure how to, if the number of officers is incremented. There are no new officers in the pool, however.

[Ormand]

ernieschwitz: yes it would seem that the way around the potential conflict would be to check the size.

[Tac2i]

This issue is only with your 4Seasons Mod, correct? If so, I assume it is only with the latest version of your 4Seasons mod. The earlier versions of your mod are ok?

[Ormand]

Webizen: I can't say for sure at this stage. I would need to do more testing. For sure, it seems that the Divisions/Regiments mod has this issue. I am not sure about the straight up graphics replacement for NewDawn3. I also need to examine if it happens if I try to create a template from scratch, which I would will to do for NewDawn3 (or download yours).

The interesting thing is that every time I set a unit to a model, the next transfer to any unit at all, triggers an increase in the officer cost. It would seem that this would, somehow, have to be executing that particular event. I haven't checked that. All that I can say is that I have seen an increment of 1 PP in the cost of officers when it happens. Being early in the game, that is on par with what happened if I purchase an officer. Hopefully, I can reproduce this in general, rather the one specific case that I have. But, I think so.

[Ormand]

So, maybe I have this sorted out. It is clear that each of these action execute event 45. And looking there were a few changes in this even with NewDawn3. This wasn't that obvious, and I was still using the events from NewDawn1 that introduced officers. The models check historical units, which officers are. Perhaps I have this fixed. I just did a quick check, and it seems to work. Not fully sure, and unfortunately, I had other commitments tonight.

[Blond_Knight]

Divisions/Regiments mod

Where is that?

[Ormand]

ORIGINAL: Blond_Knight

Divisions/Regiments mod

Where is that?

It is on the Community web site in the Four Seasons Scenario files. I am reworking Divisions right now, and frankly, a regiments-scale masterfile would only make sense for short scenarios, and not a random game, as the time scales don't match well.

I am "debugging" a Division level masterfile, where most land SFT units would be company level units. I have been trying to research scales, and was also influenced by the old GDW Europa series. So, for random games, I am experimenting with 16 mile/hex and a two week turn. I am scaling this to also go to 8 mile/hex, and 7 days turns. The biggest difference at this stage would be stacking. In either case, your typical division would be roughly 55 stack points. In the 16 mile/hex case, it would make sense to have the stacking limit to be roughly two divisions/hex, while obviously in the 8 mile/hex, it would half that, or one division/hex. Right now, I am trying to work through a random game with the 16 mile/hex masterfile, which is where the mysterious change in officer cost popped up. I'll then see if some of you will beta test it. I want to try my hand at a few WW2 division-level scenarios as well.