INSIDEPW (V1.06) Copyright 1994 by Frank Tinschert ********************************************************************** This program is FreeWare. It may freely be copied as long as all files remain unchanged. Use this program on your own risk. I will not be liable for any damage that may result directly or indirectly from running INSIDEPW. "Gary Grigsby's Pacific War" is a copyright of Strategic Simulations, Inc. "Second Front" is a copyright of Strategic Simulations, Inc. ********************************************************************** 1.0 Overview: The idea behind INSIDEPW was born, when I downloaded the PWREPORT created by Mr. Baldwin. PWREPORT is a very usefull tool to get a quick overview on all units in the game and enables the user to easily modi- fy the savegames of "Pacific War". However, it lacks the ability to get some statistics on the current gameturn and to create a *handy* (10 pages or less) printout for that turn. So I remembered those old days when I was playing "Second Front" on the Amiga. Bothered by the bad manual, I decided to write a program to analize the savegame-files to get a deeper understanding of the game mechanics. By the time, the programm grows to a fullsize Analysis, which produced a 3- (7-) page printout with all the units data and some statistics as well. The Programm was written in Basic, so the execution took a while to finish. For more than 1.5 years the programm offered a great help, when I was playing two pbem-campaign-games with a friend. This positive experience is now continued by INSIDEPW. INSIDEPW offers a detailed report on *all* your units, the replacement pool and your factories in the game. It also produces some statistics about your units and compares them to the status of the last turn. You may even compare them with any turn in history you have currently saved. INSIDEPW may create two reportfiles: "IPWlong.asc" or "IPWshort.asc". The one created depends on wether you want a fullsize (10 pages) or a short (3 pages) analysis. To achieve such a compressed format, it was necessary to use a very small printer-fontsize. Therefor the programm for now does only support the HP Deskjet Printer Series. The reportfiles can be adopted via ESC-Sequences or by using a "WINDOWS"-based TextEditor to other printers as well. However theses printers must support a 24cpi and 12 lpi fontsize as a minimum or be able to in "WINDOWS"-supported graphic modes to get all the data onto the paper. If you don't own such a printer you can still view the reportfile with your favourite text-editor. In Addition, the printout is formatted to Standard European Papersize. (This is 297 mm x 210 mm). If you are using a different (smaller) Papersize, you may experience slight problems in printing the reports. The Option -a will strip away all those HP Deskjet specific - Codes. If you are using a "WINDOWS"-based Texteditor like "WinWord" or "WordPerfect" (or whatever you own) you can try this: 1. Load IPWLONG.asc or IPWSHORT.asc as a Dos-Text. 2. Set your PaperSize to US Legal Letter (you probably use this by default) 3. Set all PageBoundaries to 0 (or experience with it) 4. Change the Font to "NewCourier" (or if you don't own that experience with other Fonts) 5. Set the FontSize to 5 (you have to type that, it will not be offered by default) 6. If necessary, change the LineSpacing to Minimum (e.g. 2) 7. Insert some PageChanges on positions that will preserve the the DataStructure. 8. Print the Text I have tried those Settings and it worked fine for me. If you still have problems, experience. INSIDEPW will further create two Statistic-Files "weekly.chg" and "old.chg" for internal use. 2.0 Getting started To run INSIDEPW, it is necessary to put the programfile into your pacwar-directory or whereever your savegames are located. . Start INSIDEPW by typing insidepw [-s] [-a] savegame Replace savegame with the letter of your savegame-file. The Option [-s] will produce a short analysis. If unused, the programm will do a full analysis by default. Example 1: insidepw -s a This will do a short analysis of savegame a. To print this file type copy pwishort.asc prn or print pwishort.asc Example 2: insidepw -a j This will do a full analysis of savegame j. The results will be stored in PWILong.asc. However, this time no ESC-Codes will be included, so the file may be easily modified by a TextEditor. To initialze INSIDEPW for a newly started game, run it twice. This will reset the weekly change values to zero. 3.0 Description of "PWILong.asc": 3.1 The Ship/TF - Status Report These first 3 Pages summarize all ships/shipunits and TFs that appear in the game. They are listed as follows: Type: Abbreviation of the ShipClass CV - Aircraft Carrier DD - Destroyer AO - Fleet Oiler etc. Shipname: Shipname or # of MinorShips in ShipUnit Class: ClassName of the Ship (only 5 characters) Nat: Nationality of the Ship Dm: Current Damage Sp: Max. Speed of the Ship Flak: FlakValue of the Ship/ShipUnit Location: Current Base/TF (if Ship active) Arrival Turn (if inactive) Sunk (if destroyed) Capac: Load Capacity of Ship/ShipUnit Cargo: Supply, Fuel, Mixed, Airgroup, etc. This Listing is followed by an ShipStatus-Overview. It shows how many Ships are currently active, damged, etc. on each Side. Type: as above ActShips: # of *all* active Ships (ShipUnits brokendown) ActUnits: # of all active ShipUnits Pool: # of ships of that type currently in the Pool % Damage: # of ships of that type currently damaged SunkUnit: # of destroyed ShipUnits so far ToArShip: # of *all* ships still to come ToArUnits: # of ShipUnits still to come The next part on page 3 is the TF-Summary broken down for both Sides. TF: TF-# Mission: defines the Mission of that TF Headqurtr: The controlling HQ of that TF HomeBase: Current TF HomeBase DestinationB: Current TF Destination Shp: # of Ships in the TF Sp: Speed of the TF Leader: TF-Leader (Now hopefully correct V1.05) x7,x8: still unknown to me. 3.2 The SquadronStatus Report The following 2 Pages list all available Squadrons in the game broken down by side. Squadron: Squadron-Name Nat: Squadron Nationality Aircraft: Aircraft used by the Squadron Typ: Aircrafttype Rg: Range of the Aircraft Op: Operational Aircraft in the Squadron Dm: Damaged Aircraft in the Squadron Ex: Experience of the Squadron Location: Current Base/TF (ifactive) Arrival Turn (if inactive) Tr: This Squadron was transferred to another Base x2: Still unknown At the Bottom of each page is a summary of all Squadrons of a side broken down by Aircraft-type and Nationality. AcS: # of Active Squadrons InS: # of Inactive Squadrons Plane: # of *all* planes íPl: Mean-# of planes/Squadron íEx: Mean-Exp/Squadron The last line totals all above lines. 3.3 The LCU-Status Report The next 2 pages lists all LCU in the game sorted by side. LCU-Name: Name of the LCU Nat: Nationality Inf: # of Infantry Art: # of Artillery AFV: # of AFVs Ex: Experience Rd: Readiness E: Entrench-Level Size: Size of the Unit if to be transported by sea HQ: Controlling HQ Location: where to find the LCU x3,x4,x5,x6: still unknown At the Bottom of each page is a summary of all LCUs of a side broken down by UnitSize and Nationality. Active: # of Active LCUs of that size InAct: # of Inactive LCUs Exp: Mean-Exp/LCU Read: Mean-Readiness/LCU The last line totals all above lines. 3.4 The BaseStatus Report The following page summarizes all Bases in the game. ###: running ID-Number of the Base Base: Basename Nat: Controlling Side (Jap or Allied) A: Airfield P: Port T: Terrain Oi: Oil Re: Resource Suppl: Supply on Base Fuel: Fuel on Base Path: All Land-Connections of the Base HQ: Controlling HQ The last 2 lines total the above Data. On the left are the numbers for all Japanese controlled Bases, on the right all allied numbers. The second line lists the changes since last turn. 3.5 The ReplacementPool/Factory-Status Report Page 9 offers an insight into the replacement-pool and the factory-production. The upper half page shows the replacement pool of each side. It is further devided into a general section, a Aircraft section and the total section. The general section lists the Pool of all Squads, Artillery, AFVs, ConstructionPoints, Oil Reserve and Resource Reserve. It also shows the amount of Squads, Artillery and AFVs currently active in LCUs. All Data is compared to the last turn in the wklchg-column. There is a further Pool called (by me) Other. I am still unsure what it is. The Aircraft section shows all available Aircrafttypes. It lists the current replacement-pool and all aircraft in the active squadrons. These numbers are compared to last week. The number of Squadrons using a specific aircraft is listed under the Sqdr-column. This is followed by a summary of the aircraft capabilities. The last column list the Date when an aircraft-type becomes available for production. The total section summarizes the above. Fighter includes Fighters and Fighterbombers, Other includes Patrols and Transports, Bomber includes all the rest. The lower half of the page lists all factories in the game. ### Running ID-Number of the Base Factory Base-Name, where the factory is located Product what is produced Type only for Aircraft-Factories Co Aircraft-Production-Costs ## weekly Production wklChg Change to last week Delay Production starts at Turn ## The last lines are the total values of all factories. 3.6 The LeaderStatus Report Finally, page 10 lists all leaders in the games devide by side. Leader: LeaderName Nat: Nationality A: AirRating L: LandRating N: NavalRating Ag: Aggressiveness Exp: Experience (I am 90% sure) Assignment: what the leader is currently doing 4.0 Description of "PWIShort.asc" Generally, the short version consists of all TOTALS of the long Version plus the ReplacementPool plus the FactoryOverview. It also lists the TF-Summary. 5.0 Known Problems I have tested the program extensively. However, sometimes strange things may happen. In the 1941 Campaign Rear Adm Flechter is listed to be the commander of TF 54, which does not exist. This also happens if you use PWReport, so its a bug in the savegame. Also in the 1941 Campaign, the Indish 19th Inf Div has a very strange Location listed. I didn't found the unit on the map, so I think there may be some corrupt data in the savegame file. 1941 Campaign: At the beginning, the game lists some MCS in the Pool which do not appear in the INSIDEPW list. On the other Hand, there are 2 DDs in the INSIDEPW listing, that do not appear in the game. Later on the Pool seems to be ok. I don't know the reason for this yet. Generally, the scheduled ArrivalTurns for Ships and Squadrons may vary by 1 Turn. However, at times I found that Ships scheduled to arrive the next turn did not appear. That may have to do with the current construction points, but I am not sure. 6.0 Comments I would be very pleased to receive some respond regarding INSIDEPW. If you experience bugs, problems, etc. please let me know. I will try to fix them. Another word about the FOG OF WAR. In my Second Front games, much of the fun derives from the open discussion with my friend about losses, wrong tactics, bombing production, etc. So we decided, to freely exchange the printout-files. In Pacifc War this questions is a bit more tricky to answer. If your opponent knows, that there are no more enemy Aircraft Carriers around, he might be a bit more aggressive then he would be otherwise. On the other hand, if you *really* want to know wether a particular ship is sunk, you can always cheat. So for me there is no great problem in having a complete printout. If you are using a kind of honor system not to *intensively* search all the printout data for the locations of your opponents units, you will still experience most of uncertainty of Pacific War. Another positiv reason is that you can recognize silly computer moves in a solitaire game and try to correct it, in order to maintain a challenging play. So finally I decided to give all the Information to each Player regardless of Side played. Please note my E-Mail Addresses: GEnie: S.Tinschert CompuServe: 100270,3147 PS.: I am sorry for my rough English. I am still on Training. 7.0 History: V1.02: Minor Changes V1.03: Minor Changes V1.04: Fixes the Bug with the Japanese Leaders, which did not appear on the TaskForce Overview V1.05: Adds Option -a to generate output files without ESC-Codes V1.06: Adds the Squadrons Missions (e.g. Training, etc.) fixes the wrong ESC-Sequences for the HP Deskjet