Does your scenario have duplicate unit IDs which could cause a crash? How to check and see...

[Volcano]

In the pre-4.1 legacy versions of Steel Beasts, the possibility existed that duplicate unit IDs might exist when creating a mission.  4.1 includes a new debugging feature that allows to check for duplicate unit IDs.

 

Basically each vehicle and infantry unit receives an ID which the program uses to determine the actor's status, and if those IDs became duplicate, then strange conflicting behavior could occur between units, sometimes resulting in a crash to desktop (CTD).

 

In general, if you ever observe strange situations in a scenario, especially a CTD, then the first thing you should check is whether or not duplicate unit IDs exist on any of the sides in the scenario. However, it is also recommended that when you update a scenario to 4.1, you should also test to see if duplicate IDs exist as part of the scenario updating process.
 

Here is how you do it:

 

1. Open the scenario in the Mission Editor (if it hasn't been converted to 4.1 then you will have to do that first).
    
2. Go to top menu File -> Mission Debugger...
    
3. In the Mission Debugger dialog, you will see a row of buttons along the top. On the far right is the button "IDs".  If this button is red in color then you immediately know you have a duplicate ID, but sometimes this button may not be red in color, and you will have to run a check.
    
4. Press the "IDs" button.
    
5. After pressing the "IDs" button, you will see a white central pane where some units, in the current selected party/side, might be listed which have duplicate IDs. 
   
    
6. Make a note of which units these are (in the example the unit is an infantry unit in the BMP-2 2/1/A vehicle (1st platoon).
    
7. Press "OK" and find the unit on the map. To fix the duplicate ID simply rename the entire vehicle unit the infantry is attached to (platoon if combined, vehicle if separated) to some other unit name, then rename it back to what is was. In this example, the platoon of BMP-2s that the unit with the duplicate ID belongs to is 1/A, so that platoon is renamed to something else (like 6/A or 1/B) and then renamed back to 1/A. Or, you can find the exact infantry unit and just rename that unit to something different, but the unit renaming method is the quickest.
    
8. Go back to the Mission Debugger dialog, and press the "IDs" button again, and at the bottom of the dialog press "Check for duplicate IDs". If none are listed in the pane, then there are no more duplicate ID units on that side/party.
    
9. Be sure to also check all other parties/sides in the scenario as well, as by default you only see the first party (in this case Blue). Change the party in the list by changing the "Player" drop down to next party. After selecting the next party, press the "Check for duplicate IDs" button again to run the check to find units with duplicate IDs.  Repeat this process for all remaining sides in the scenario.

 

NOTES:

 

• Sometimes you will load the Mission Debugger and the "IDs" button may not appear red in color, but a duplicate ID might exist on another party, so its always good to select each side and run the "Check for duplicate IDs" test.
   
• When making a brand new mission in 4.1, it is not possible (as far as we are aware) to create a situation anymore where duplicate IDs exist. So, if the scenario is new, you don't have to worry about checking for duplicate IDs.