Pipe Dreams

Ever since the Israeli Navy’s Z class destroyer Eilat fell victim to an SS-N-2 Styx in 1967, and even more so since the loss of the Royal Navy’s Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to an Argentine Exocet in 1982, the prospect of sudden and devastating attack by a previously undetected and hostile missile has been a major headache for ship captains. Reducing the potential warning time to mere seconds was the principal means by which early anti-ship missiles sought to guarantee their terminal approach to an intended target. This was achieved primarily by “sea skimming”, i.e. flying at such a low altitude in the terminal phase that enemy sensors (usually radar and/or the Mk …

While we're thinking about victory conditions something I sometimes ponder is how to account for bad actions. As an example a surface group in hostile waters sinks a neutral sub before getting a positive id. Maybe that sort of thing should be available as a victory condition for the opponent? Or maybe a neutral side could be triggered to align with another side, thus joining the enemy? Or the scenario aim might be to defend a transiting surface group but not to escalate the strategic situation by taking out enemy bases or distant ships?

For the first patch I want to have a basic game launcher ready, expanding greatly upon the idea after that. Patch 1 Features: Show scenarios within the HC directory and subdirectories. Show orders of selected scenario. If player chooses to launch the currently selected scenario, check that a valid DB is present somewhere in the HC directory structure and put the DB into place. Alert user if appropriate DB is not on the machine. Allow launching of saved game. Also include the battleset scenarios if possible (this may not be feasible for first patch) Similarly launch the SE (this may have to be basic, i.e. just starts the SE with chosen DB, doesn't load a p…

My final birthday present for the year came in last week, a book of graph paper which I put to work today when keeping the 7-yr old company and sketched out thoughts on expanding the 4096 items per annex database limits. This is the culmination of at least a decade of pondering the topic. The core question comes down to, "How do we blow away the limits while reducing dependence on code we don't own?" As I continue designing, I'll update this thread. For now, a photo of the page of notes.

Pipe Dream #2: I know I'm not the only person who has run out of <insert ammo type here> and wished I could stop off at my nearest floating, friendly 7-11 (the AOR) and pick up some more of them. Particularly SAMs, as the AI seems to think 12:1 ratio is nessessary to shoot down incoming threats. What I propose is a simple, yet workable solution to this problem in several points. Each ship/land unit has 4-6 different types of supplies that it can consume. Fuel Food/Water Ammo Spare Parts AV-Gas AV-Ordinance Each ship unit and base has a finite amount of each. Each is consumed at a set rate. For example: CV …

I'm convinced that the market is headed towards these devices (I love mine, and I'm an old time PC guy), and all manner of 2D war-games would go extremely well with a touch based interface. The little thing is just so damn slick and the battery lasts forever. Anyway, I wish I knew how to program, because I would definitely focus my efforts toward this new growth area. There's not even one serious war-game on the app store and - like I said - the device is tailor made for that sort of thing (much better suited than, for instance, the plethora of first person shooters that are available for iPad 2).

SAR is a longtime dream of Unclepoon (Don Gilman) so it is one of the few directives we have, to implement SAR in HC. Chat 9/26 on IRC: [22:36] TonyE: one thing DonG wants to see is Search and Rescue, I'm interested to hear what he has to say. [22:37] AOA: I like that [22:38] TonyE: seems easy enough to me in HC, we have mobile land units, we just need to make a land unit type that the friendly side must detect (player side as it stands can see all player units, all the time) [22:38] AOA: simulate emergency beacons after the destruction of a unit? [22:38] TonyE: yah, I suppose that would help [22:40] AOA: then the unit has to be "attacked" with rescue e…

Basically as it sits now, subs have nothing to stop them from firing all their weapons and reloads in a single 1 second attack. They are immune to ROF or reload limitations. The fix to this is of course to code in Magazines so that all the Torpedos are not located on the mount. The mounts also need to be made to adhere to the ROF restrictions assigned in PE. From that point, it will need to be decided what constitutes a ready round for the sub, that is does it keep Harpoons ready to fire in the torpedo room or would it take a few minutes to load one up? How long would it take to move a torpedo from the storage rack in the torpedo room to the point it is ready…

Sorry about Word document, will convert to a regular post at some point. The formative ideas came from TonyE, pmaidhof, Brains, CV32, Akula. HC_Amphibious_and_Land_Warfare_Expansion.doc