Combat Reporter Version 1.0 May 2010

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WITP AE Combat Report

Visualization Tool

Version 1.0

Written by: Bret Godwin

May 2010

Combat Reporter Version 1.0 May 2010

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1 CONTENTS 1 CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................ 2

2 Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 3

3 Installation ............................................................................................................................................ 3

4 Setup ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

5 Running Combat Reporter ................................................................................................................... 6

5.1 Stopping monitoring ..................................................................................................................... 7

5.2 Viewing combat Reports ............................................................................................................... 7

5.3 Map zooming .............................................................................................................................. 10

5.4 Map Scrolling .............................................................................................................................. 10

6 Folders ................................................................................................................................................. 10

7 Memory ............................................................................................................................................... 10

8 Troubleshooting .................................................................................................................................. 10

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2 Overview This is a beta version of the Combat Reporter tool I developed to assist WITP AE players in viewing

combat information during the game. This tool runs in parallel with WITP AE and will automatically scan

for new combat reports each turn and display the information in a windows explorer like view so that

players can easily find information they may be looking for in the combat reports without having to

scroll through each report serially.

3 Installation Prequisites: You will need an unzip tool like winzip or jzip or 7zip to extract the archive file. You can

download these tools from the internet.

You need Java 1.6. You can get it from sun at the following link.

https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_Developer-Site/en_US/-

/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=jre-6u20-oth-JPR@CDS-CDS_Developer

You don’t need to register to download java. Just download and install version 1.6 and you are ready to

use CombatReporter.

Unzip the combatreport.zip file and save the contents into any directory that you like. It can be

anywhere on your hard drive, but I recommend you put it in a folder by itself.

4 Setup Combat Reporter needs to know where your have WITPAE installed and where you are keeping your

saved reports. Usually you will find saved reports in the WITPAE <home dir>\SAVE, however, if you have

the –archive option set when you run the game, then you will need to point combat reporter to the

archive directory like so WITPAE <home dir>\SAVE\archive.

To get started, double click on combatreport.bat. This will launch a command window to run Combat

Reporter and will present you with a screen like the one below:

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Figure 1 Combat Reporter splash screen

The first time you run CombatReporter, it will notice that the preferences need to be populated and

you will see the following dialog box prompting you to configure the tool.

Figure 2 Combat Reporter preferences dialog box

Type or use the browse button to populate the two directories. The WITP AE install directory is where

you installed WitP AE. Combat Reporter needs to know where the install directory is located so it can

load the WITPAE map.

The second directory is where the game stores the combat reports after each turn. If you are using the

–archive command line option on WITPAE, you should refer to that directory instead of SAVE. Here is an

example

E:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\SAVE\archive

NOTE: you can use the browse button to find the directory on your hard drive.

Next , select the monitor start date. This date refers to the file creation date of the reports and is used

to filter how many reports you want displayed. For example, if you want to see all reports starting the

last time you played on Wed, April 10, 2010 at 2:00 am, then enter the date using the calendar by

pressing the Select Date/Time button.

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Figure 3 Calendar entry for the monitor start date

NOTE: this is the date/time stamp for when the file was created/modified. It is not the file name of the

combat report. This tool looks for recent activity after the date specified in the Monitor Start Date

field.

Keep in mind that CombatReporter will find all combat files after that date and time. It does not use a

range (i.e. start and end date) because the primary purpose of this tool is to scan for recent activity

while you are playing the game.

You can always change this date to reduce or expand the number of reports you wish to view at a given

time.

The monitor interval indicates how often Combat Reporter will scan for file changes. The default is 60

seconds, but this can be reduced or increased as needed. I would suggest leaving it at 60 seconds.

Figure 4 Monitor interval spinner defines how often files are scanned for

Finally, the last item to configure is the side you are playing. Select either Allies or Japan to see reports

related that the side you wish to view. Note, you can see both sides if you change this setting, but you

are not able to see both sides simultaneously. To change sides click one of the radio buttons

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5 Running Combat Reporter Run the combatreport.bat file by double clicking on it from the windows explorer or by opening a

command window and running it from the command line.

The program will take up to 30 seconds or longer to load the map and any combat reports. If you have

a large number of combat reports selected, the tool may take much longer to load as it has to parse all

of these files. I recommend that you select your monitor start date to something more recent so that

you are not loading hundreds of combat reports. First it will take a long time to load, and second, the

purpose of the tool is to review combat action as it is taking place, not as a general purpose review tool

(although, it can be used in this manner if so desired).

Once the Combat Reporter has started, you will see the following screen:

Figure 5 Combat Reporter Main Screen

Make sure that the map has loaded and you may see a list of dates as illustrated, or you may see

Reports with no combat reports present. In the latter case, follow the setup instructions in section 4 to

set the preferences so that Combat Reporter can find your reports. Reconfiguring CombatReporter

If you decide to change the configuration after you start CombatReporter, you may need to reset it. To

reset the configuration, choose the Monitor menu item and select “Restart Monitoring”. This will reset

CombatReporter to use the changes you made. See example below:

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Figure 6 Restart or stop monitoring for reports

5.1 Stopping monitoring

If you want CombatReporter to stop monitoring your combat reports, you can select Monitor and

choose Stop Monitoring and it will no longer scan for new combat reports. I’m not sure why you would

do this, but it is there if you need it.

5.2 Viewing combat Reports

Once you have started CombatReporter and is configured properly, you should see reports on the

screen. You can open a report by “double clicking” on it or by pressing the “+” sign. You can do this for

all of the elements to open or close them. The information about each report element is displayed on

the right side of the divider bar as shown in the example below:

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Notice that the Map will also change to display the location associated with the report. This is very

helpful if you don’t know where a location is or if the location is represented by a set of screen

coordinates.

Figure 7 The map will move to show a location in a report

There are three types of reports supported by CombatReporter:

1 – Combat Reports

2 – Ops Reports

3 – SigInt Reports

Each report type will allow up to see the map location where an event has occurred if the event includes

a base name or a set of coordinates.

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If a location is not identifiable or CombatReporter is unable to find a location, it will display the upper

left hand corner of the map.

You can also click on the right side of the screen in the Ops and SigInt reports and the map will change to

reflect the coordinates on the line of text you have selected. See example below: (note: highlight is for

this document and does not show up when you click an item.

Note: not all lines in a report have a set of hex coordinates or a location name. If Combat Reporter is

not able to identify a location, it will not refresh the current map location.

Figure 8 Combat reporter will move the map to show a location in a Ops or Sigint Report

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5.3 Map zooming

You can zoom in and out of the map by using the mouse wheel. You must have your mouse pointer

over the map in order to zoom. If you have zoomed out and the map does not extend across the

bottom pane and you try to zoom when your mouse pointer is not over the map, nothing will happen.

You can also click anywhere on the map and then zoom into a location using the mouse wheel.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could see your units too? Well, I would like to add that capability at some

point, but for now, all you can see is the map, which is very helpful when reading the combat reports.

5.4 Map Scrolling

You can use the scroll bars to move the map around or you can hold the left mouse down and drag off

the edge of the map to scroll in any direction.

6 Folders Combat Reporter needs to know where your WitpAE home folder is and the save game folder is located.

If you do not have these populated in the preferences, Combat Reporter will not function properly.

7 Memory Combat Reporter requires about 1GB of ram to load the WITPAE map and to display the reports. If your

computer does not have 4 GB of RAM, you may not want to run Combat Reporter and WITP AE at the

same time. You will probably be able to, but it may slow your system down considerably.

8 Troubleshooting If you are having difficulties with this tool, go to the forum and PM Bretg80 and I will try to help you

resolve your issues.

Here are a few other hints.

If the config file is corrupt the tool may not load. Download a new copy of the program.

If you don’t have the hi-res map images released in WitpAE patch 3, then the map may not load or be

viewable. Combat Reporter now depends on the hires images released in patch 3. Download the patch

and update your copy of WitpAE, it is worth doing.

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If you are not seeing any combat reports, make sure that you have the correct save folder in the

preferences and make sure you don’t have archive set and are not pointing to the archive directory.