French and Italian campiagn spawn and supply units

[ColHut]

G'day Lo.

 

I am building a new French/Italian Tunisia campaign for 1940. I have my well thumbed copy of Tailspin's Guide and the newer Lonestar's guide. But a lot of the old detail on the old Jg1 has been lost so I'm a bit unsure on a few things. If there is an up to date guide or manual it would be great if you could point me in the right direction:

 

I take it the Italian Columns will work for supply (except 'C'):

10_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnA 2

11_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnB 2

12_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnB 2

13_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnC 2

 

The French don't seem to have any.

 

Can I 'define' a vehicle column in some way to do this job or do I need to use another - say British column?

 

What will spawn for the Italians from their supply columns?

 

I recall there was an fobjects file to overwrite the default spawn items, but I cannot remember how it worked and whether you could tie them to particular columns (might be a great feature!).

 

I recall their were some river crossing or amphibious non-beachead mechanism, but cannot seem to find them

 

regards

 

Wol

 

 

[Lowengrin]

No, Italian car columns won't supply like the German, American and Russian ones. (When did Italian columns appear?) You'll have to use the German columns. And, no, you can't define your own French columns.

 

Check the stock Burma campaign for ferries (river crossings). Look in the .RDS file.

[sniperton]

I take it the Italian Columns will work for supply (except 'C'):

10_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnA 2

11_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnB 2

12_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnB 2

13_Chief Vehicles.ItalyCarsColumnC 2

 

These are units from the HSFX mod' date=' they are not included in the stock game (there's an asterisk after their name in HSFX to signalize it). Special hardcoded features of DCG (like supply and replenish) only work with stock units.

 

These are the supply columns you can use (1 is for Allied, 2 is for Axis):

 

Vehicles.RussiaCarsColumnA 1

Vehicles.RussiaCarsColumnB 1

Vehicles.GermanyCarsColumnA 2

Vehicles.GermanyCarsColumnB 2

Vehicles.USACarsColumnA 1

Vehicles.USACarsColumnB 1

Vehicles.JapanCarsColumnB 2

Vehicles.JapanCarsColumnC 2

 

And these are the columns which turn into fighting units in contested zones:

 

Vehicles.RussiaCarsColumnC 1

Vehicles.RussiaCarsColumnD 1

Vehicles.RussiaCarsColumnE 1

Vehicles.GermanyCarsColumnC 2

Vehicles.GermanyCarsColumnD 2

Vehicles.GermanyCarsColumnE 2

Vehicles.USACarsColumnC 1

Vehicles.JapanCarsColumnA 2

 

From Tailspin:

 

FRONTLINE DEFENSE/CONTESTED AREAS

The howitzers, et al are placed by DCG at ‘contested’ areas. They vary depending on the ‘type’ of vehicle car column present. The frontline units have no impact on the movement of the frontlines (beyond killing tanks).

 

No column type present = 3 ATGs or BT-7s (if 1941 Eastern Front) or M3 Stuart (if 1941-42 Pacific).

Any column type present = up to 6 ATGs or BT-7s (if 1941 Eastern Front) or M3 Stuart (if 1941-42 Pacific).

Any Rocket column present = 3 RL trucks and support trucks.

Any Command column present = 3 howitzers and support trucks.

 

As of version 3.11, DCG has an ‘active frontline’ option so you can turn this on/off to suit your needs.

 

Several things have changed since Tailspin's times, e.g. now Matildas are placed for the British, etc.

 

Anyway, you can use the fobjects.dcg to specify which units should appear for the Axis and the Allied player in the given campaign scenario.

 

As to HSFX specific units, you can't use them with DCG unless you have modified DCG data files. I don't know whether such ones have already been created for HSFX 7.0. As a starting point you can use PVI Eagle's Libia 1941 campaign here (as you may have already done so).

 

Hope it helps

[ColHut]

Thankyou both.

 

I have not got the Libia41 campaign. I will take a look. I have just finished the rds and rls files and was starting pretty much from scratch. I hope to update my Nomonhan campaign as well since some of the missing aircraft are in the Stock game now too.

 

Anyway I understand that I will need to add any new objects to DCG by modifying the relevant files (gobjects, all payloads etc etc). I am happy to give that a whirl and see how it goes. I cannot help it, the release of the MB152 and Potez540, as well as the AI only LeO451 are just too tempting!

 

As a 'feature' request (relevant to this discussion) could you (Lo) make supply columns user-defineable? That way it might actually simplify coding since you only need 5 or 6, can use any vehicle column, and this could even possibly be matched to an fobjects style user definable spawn type for those columns which spawn something.

 

regards and thanks for the help, its been a while.

[Lowengrin]

User-definable supply columns would have been a great idea...way back when I started coding. Unfortunately, now, it's probably faster to add to the hard code....

[ColHut]

Thanks Lo

 

Sorry to be a headache!

 

BTW even the Italian Columns appear to be 'columns' for the sake of spawning some additional units.

 

regards

 

 

 

Wol

[Lowengrin]

I looked at the code and yes, any column with "CarsColumn" in it will work as a supply column (but won't work as an artillery or oil tanker column).

 

But you've figured that out already.

[ColHut]

Outstanding! Much appreciated

 

regards

 

Wol