General

I've mentioned this at the H.U.L.L. before, but I believe this is the proper forum to post it. When an ASW A/C is sent on a long distance patrol, it seems to stay pretty much in one spot dropping buoys at random. The 5-6-5 Distro plan (see attached diagram) was the most popular plan we used to use in these situations. The Kingpin position and Road are based on the area you wish to cover and the Spacing is based on CZ conditions in that area. I realise it's probably not practical to have an A/C in the game drop bouys at these precise locations, but I would suggest an on station Patrol be given a detection area based on such a plan. Input from the player could be limit…

I thought I'd just add a note that I've uploaded modified versions of my toolbox and my extended version of TonyE's lazGUI so as to operate with the GEs since 2017.05. While the internal game changes are being implemented by TonyE these two tools may or may not work, but I'll try to keep them upto date. Also I'd be interested if there are any comments on features within my extended lazGUI that users of toolbox would like (eg the expanded unit information within startgroup?) I also haven't done anything to my other tools such as AAR-report, so any comments would be interesting. (I kind of play with this stuff on the assumption no one else finds it useful so I don't exac…

As some of you may remember, years ago we implemented in HCE a delayed turn rate for aircraft such that they could no longer "turn on a dime" and fly in the opposite direction. Essentially it delayed the ability to turn by a period of time (i.e. wait X number of seconds before executing a turn) and the values varied between types, e.g. more rapidly for maneuvering fighters and more slowly for large transport types. These turning rates (so to speak) are still quite simplistic and still allow an aircraft to change direction relatively quickly. The time has come, perhaps, to further adjust these values to impose a further degree of realism. Note that these ar…

It would be appreciated if someone could test the following torpedo guidance flags: 1. Unknown 2. Passive 3. Active/passive The 'active/passive' flag seems to be producing 0% hit probability, and since the code appears to treat all three flags the same, we'd like to see if all three are being affected. Thanks!

Following on from changes to aircraft turn rates (the results of which I am pretty happy with), I am now wondering whether there is anything we can do with putting an end to 'over the shoulder' missile shots. Basically requiring the aircraft's direction of travel (within limits) to be consistent with the direction of the missile shot. Perhaps the forward 180 degrees (or less), or tied to the radar coverage ... just tossing the idea out there. (Maybe eventually we can adapt some of the code that was used for 'man in the loop' guided weapons and port it over to the semi-active radar guided missiles, but that's for later).

With the new abilities provided by Tony via the exportDLL functions I've recently pondered how can we level the playing field a bit for poor old AI? Any ideas? What do people see as AI's short comings?

One major challenge with modern Harpoon Classic is detection. In the older versions of Harpoon you were able to spot the enemy at ranges of 200 miles and more, when they were coming at you. Most of you probably recall those NACV scenarios, where you were defending Northern UK and were facing volleys of Su27s/Su24s from Iceland and Norway. The E3s were able to spot those formations at long range, giving you ample time to vector in your F15s/Tornadoes. In the current versions detection is really challenging. Most of the times I pick up aircraft at ranges less than 100 miles, some times only after they have fired upon me and this despite the fact that multiple unit…

Priority ranked list of capabilities to add to the ExportDLL interface: Implemented: Write functions that can look up platform information from the database. This doesn't necessarily need to be via the ExportDLL interface but is required to do things like see which weapons are in a loadout. Expose the disk_id_to_annex_id function. Expose the GetLoadoutIndex function. Expose a CheckLocationDepth-like function that takes lat/lon instead of map coordinates. See SCENCHEK.C ~ ln 707 for components. Expose functions to the ExportDLL to replace the EventHead, TopGroup, and such passed by the GE. Currently the DLL is notified when there is a change but the DLL cannot chang…

First of all thank you Tony and testers for your work. I check the forums a couple of times a year and every time I find new patches, new scenarios, new ideas, even now that you are left with no support whatsoever. Now, I just installed 2015.012 (on top of a 2014.XXX) and it crashes at start. I'm on Win7 64 and the last patch was working fine. ge log: Logging begins. Version = 2015.012, Build Date = Aug 5 2015, Build Time=22:20:26 0 harpoon.c:902 - done processing arguments. Activating logging for: 0 harpoon.c:946 - OpenMP enabled=200203 0 harpoon.c:947 - OpenMP num_procs=4 Crash info: Problem signature: Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: W…

Notes for investigating air to air refueling. Automatic refueling is instigated from CheckStaff. CheckStaff is called in a few places, the key one being CheckGroupStaff. CheckGroupStaff is Harpoon Effect #20, in ExportDLL parlance, HCEffect20. In other words, if one wants to replace the built-in auto-refueling behavior, HCEffect20 must be handled in an ExportDLL instead of in the stock GE. General Process: 1. Effect21/HCEffect21/CheckGroupFuel decides a refuel is merited and creates a AirRefuelEvent that will be processed in 30 seconds. 2. AirRefuelEvent is processed after those 30 seconds, game decides how much fuel to give to each recipient plane.…

After you have submitted an issue I highly recommend you click on the "Track Issue" button to set up e-mail notifications when the issue is updated.

This post is intended as a STOVL rocket booster for programmers who are looking at starting out with the CodeTyphon IDE, like myself, e.g. to shorten the time you can get airborne and start to build your own ExportDLL code. ExportDLL is an API for HCE that Tony generously provided, right now he is working to enable access to the Harpoon Events which as he put it is the soul of them game and will enable the self proclaimed programmers to try their hands on modding Harpoon. The recommended programming tool is for ExportDLLs is CodeTyphon, a free Pascal based public IDE. Here I'm sharing my baby steps with it buildling an ExportDLL, that is installing CodeTyphone and then …

In my toolbox utilising the export DLL functions I'm currently playing with reassigning targets of anti surface missiles and also capturing and repairing bases . I'm wondering if people have thoughts on these actions - or if I should just proceed for my own amusement (which is significant, it has me laughing frequently like the time I captured a ship with a whale) Don

Thanks Tony!

Development of Harpoon (Classic) has stopped as of 2013-10-28. AGSI is not pursuing future (commercial) computer Harpoon versions. Matrix Games no longer has a publishing agreement for new releases of Harpoon. That leaves us in more limbo than usual. We would like to continue developing the game. If you would like that too, please contact Bond and/or Carlson and let them know why. You can find their e-mail addresses at: http://theminiaturespage.com/rules/mod/harpoon.html

Please use this thread for questions about the ExportDLL interface. If some intrepid user wants to start creating some documentation that would be most fantastic.

Hi Guys, I added a long-sought capability to 2009.098, the ability to rename units in the SE. It needs testing. To change a name, select the unit in the Unit window and press Ctrl U or go to the Misc menu and rename unit. Please reply with your findings on the following test cases: 1. Change a ship name in a EC2003 scenario. Load the scenario in the GE and also in the SE. The custom name should be present in all instances. 2. Change a ship name in a EC2003 scenario. Load the scenario in the GE then save the game. Load the saved game, the custom name should still be present. 3. Change a submarine name in a EC2003 scenario. Load the scenario in the …

Always thinking about improved map interfaces...

Interested in seeing what the AI sees? Check out turncoat.ps1 under Downloads.

Hi HC players, Please help out your fellow players by being good beta testers. This means when someone posts an issue report, you go and try to recreate the situation. If you find the same lack of, or unwanted, operation of the game, mark the issue as "Confirmed". Add any commentary that you feel was missed from the original report (more detailed instructions to replicate the situation, desired behavior, etc.). Once someone has marked the issue as "Fix Coded" and the mentioned game version is released for testing, please go and test the issue to make sure it really is fixed. The original reporter would mark it as "Fix Accepted by Reporter". Anyone else would mar…