AJ Heredia

In the end, the scenario is all about telling a story, albeit convincing or plausible one, but that's my style. I like focused scenarios, sometimes it's about showcasing a new weapon system, but more often than not, I try and tell a story about a particular maritime environment - it took me about three months to come up with my last one, the Southern Philippines. I even interviewed some SoF guys who had just rotated from "training" AFP units and were in my area attending NWC, just to get a feel for the place since I had left decades ago. I try not to fall into a rut, but small forces make for more challenging gameplay. The challenge is to make the player "feel" for their forces, not as an emotional attachment (although good commanders have that characteristic), but to encourage the player to make good tactical decisions using the forces they have at hand. The key is to write a plot and have clear, unambiguous objectives. Truly, it all boils down to "X Merchies must survive" AND "convoy on station for 48 hours." Then you give a secondary objective like "X number of enemy a/c attacking the convoy must be destroyed." Those objectives then let you string together a series of scenarios. So the next time, the convoy heads out, not so much air axis threat, but now they face a sub challenge. Continuity is important - I will reuse a map but then start a ledger to figure out who's dead or not and fix the map accordingly, like a stage between acts during a play. That's really hard to do with a huge scenario. Key to that is to write good orders that reflect commander's intent. If you don't want Blue player to destroy themselves pounding away their inadequate aviation assets against AAA-infested island bases in Scenario 1, say so. Zones like in ANW would be useful here. Instead, you'll have to actually beef up the defenses so if they do decide to go off the reservation, they get the message the first time. :-) Also, if the damaged Merchies escorted by healthy gunboats are lost, the AI should recognize that and allow them to go full speed to escape the wrath of air units seeking a platform instead of mission kill. Make it as unambiguous as possible and keep the story straight, simple and plausible. I can't write a BIG scenario that fits that to my satisfaction. It's not a lack of tools, there are ways to do it I'm sure, but I think the story would not be adequate or compelling to me.

Hi Folks, Finally getting up to speed on this platform. I modified a scenario to game out using different blue assets. It's the VN- RP one in the Spratlys, Westpac Battleset. I added a Burke to come in from the West and launched a Romeo with four Hellfires and LR tanks. The helo tracked and ID'd the Skunks and eventually they turned Red once Side ID was established. I tried launching at that point, but the allocation screen kept saying no illumination for the AGMs. Thinking it was a min range, sensor problem, I moved the helo out a couple of miles, went active on SS, tried again, no dice. Finally got to bingo state and okayed the staff message to RTB as soon as I got it. The helo made it all the way back, only to crash, with some sort of error saying the Burke wasn't an appropriate landing spot?! I read through the Air Ops tutorial again, no clues to what went wrong. Help please? Thanks! -Armando

Dale is a member here. Send him a PM. Thanks Brad. To confirm please - he is VCDH?

Hopefully I'm not breaking the rules by asking this, but is there any way we can get access to the six Dale Hillier scenarios that came with the Get The Gouge demo? I'm specifically interested in "Spratley Island Scrap" and "Littoral Warfare." Thanks!

Thanks again Gunny!

Congratulations!

Thanks! I played around int the H3 launcher and figured it out last night. Appreciate it. What steps would I need to make sure a scenario worked correctly with a particular database? Would I need to recompile the scenario using the editor?

Hi Folks, I finally got on-board with ANW! but apologies, I have poked around and could not find any FAQs on HUD4. is the concept similar to swapping out the active DB in HCE? I download the latest or preferred version of the HUD file, and copy over the original files in ANW? Do I need to recompile any of my scenarios? Thanks, -Armando

Thanks. I see Northrop made the announcement today. From what I can tell, Block 10 now comes in two-tone! From a sensor state, the USAF G-Hawk is already omniscient in many ways, the wide swath it's surface radar cuts exposes a lot, and the ECM hits you get while airborne is really helpful. I'm wondering if it's too much of a game balance changer for my scenario.

For database purposes, is there any differences in using a Block10/20 Global Hawk versus a separate BAMS entry? From what I can tell, it's a navalized G-Hawk, but no distinct differences jump out at me. I have an HoA scenario almost 90% done, but just wanted to eke out as much authenticity as possible. Thanks

Brad, Thank you very much. I'm not sure which ones are armed -although I did find a recent photo of a 600t CMS PB - looks like it has a 14.5 quad mount forward and some RHIB type units aft. http://www.defence.pk/forums/chinese-defen...atrol-boat.html Perhaps it could be combined into a single 2000-3000t "cutter" - with 14.5 quad, RHIB and a helo pad aft? That would be pretty representative of the extreme capabilities of a CMS unit at the most. Whatever you think is appropriate. Thanks! -Armando

I'm back after a long hiatus (real life work takes up too much time but I gotta eat) - anyways - I managed to get HCE working in a VM sandbox. I'm trying to build some test scenarios to get back into the groove - looking for suggestions on how I can create/substitute some China Marine Surveillance Vessels. (link below) My practice builds will eventually continue my South China Sea/Sulawesi Sea Triangle series that I had small success with a few years back. http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/marine-surveillance/ship.asp Thoughts? Recommendations? If it's in the latest HCDB build/other database I do apologize, I haven't swapped out the Commonres.db yet, but I am on build 050 of the GE.

Okay - got it working - took a little bit of work, mostly due to my unfamiliarity with working with files on Host Versus the VM. I ended up having to map an extra "drive" to the Host C:\Games\HCE\ subdirectory. Now trying to build a base scenario (again - I'm rusty as heck!). Seems a bit sluggish, so I may need to up the RAM allocation to the VM - it's currently running a paltry 512MB.

Another LATE LATE reply, but the square he's pointing to is referred to as the Sulawesi Sea Triangle, the area between Malaysia, Indonesia and the RP. It's a marked zone of common maritime concern between the nations, and is also an area of interest by US Special Forces in support of AFP operations (Abu Saayaf, Al Qaeda in the Philippines, MILF offshoots).

A bit late, okay REAL late but thank you for playing! It's a real joy and an honor to have the HaprGamers take a go at my scenarios. Hopefully, I'm back in the saddle with VMLite and start cranking out moe WhatIfs based on the recent flurry around the joint US-RP Balikatan exercises and the almost-dust up at Scarborough Shoal. The RL addition to the PN ranks of two Hamilton WHEC cutters is giving me some great matchup ideas...