mavfin

Even better info than what I posted. Main note is that this scenario doesn't really exist. It just loads a scenario that's the same as the one before it in the IOPG battleset. :-(

I guess my criteria for 'good enough to use' would be: 1) no position reports from neutrals to either side 2) no changing to enemy out of the blue and firing on me, unless I fire on them first. Anything else shouldn't be an issue, unless I missed something obvious.

Good to know, then. There are various merchants running around *some* scenarios that would seem to be neutral, while others are 'definitely belligerent'. Nice tool to use.

Yeah, I just looked at dates and didn't read orders. Thanks for catching that. There's another flipped instance I'll look at: NACV 8 and 9. And on the EC2000/3, I'm guessing he wrote EC2000, and you were involved in moving it to HCDB. That would explain your name in my head. Of course, it could just be the HCDB.

Sorry, I should have said 'minimum version of HCDB' to use neutrals. I'm currently using the latest myself. Thanks for the info that they work great for you! Still wondering what minimum version of the GE recognizes neutrals. Thinking of what notes to put on any rebuilt scenarios I post. And Brad, any 'rebuilt' scenarios from original or HDS battlesets would be built using the HCDB. I might use the HCCW for something older at some point, but I doubt it. Same for HCWW. I'm happy to use it to play a scenario, but I probably won't write one for it. Now, while I'm mentioning DBs, I'll toss in a derail. Does the HCDA have anything particularly that the HCDB doesn't cover? Or has it been mostly overtaken now, too? (I don't think that's your creation, Brad?) I looked at the HCCW, noticed it says 50-75, and HCDB says 80-2015. Should we fill the 75-80 gap, or would we not miss anything in that gap anyway?

I know we have the option in the Scenario editor now. I also know there were some bugs with neutrals giving position reports to the enemy before. Are those and similar known bugs fixed? If/when I start rewriting older DB stuff, I want to know if I can include neutrals with it and not mess up anything. Also, what would be the minimum GE/HCDB version they could be run under?

FWIW, my old 2008.044 directory of HCE that I bought from Matrix before HUCE doesn't have Digital art. My HUCE does, and has the image files. 2009.072 package has the DigMilArt.dll in it, so that may be where you got it from.

That all sounds great, till you realize we have *one* volunteer coder who has other obligations, including a new baby, not a team of well-paid coders working full-time. For a team, that would be simple, as you say, but, Tony's done wonders with things as it is, but there's a reason this is in Pipe Dreams. I'm also with Tony that if implemented, it would need to be optional. Logistics in H2/3 *still* doesn't necessarily work correctly all the time, and afaik, you still can't reload ship's magazines, afaik. To me, it doesn't make sense to limit the aircraft coming off the carrier to what's in the carrier's magazines for the whole scenario, when there's an AOE or other ordnance-carrying ship right there in the task group. Now, (and here's even MORE pipe dream) if you could integrate the whole thing, to where you could reload ship's magazines from the supply ships via UNREP, or whatever, and some system to replenish airbases, that would be nice. However, having said that, having to do *that much* logistics in Harpoon would bore me. If I want to play quartermaster, there are other games more suited to it, IMO. What I think would be a much better/more plausible to code aid would perhaps be something implemented to let you see how much you would usually have available on that size of airfield, or on a carrier, or how many torps/missiles that ship usually carries for its helos, and then let you know how much is on ready/readying aircraft, how much has launched, and can count 'landed' ordnance against the 'used up' count. This is informational only, but, if you want to restrict your play in that way, this can be a help, but, it doesn't take near the coding that anything binding does. Then it's player choice to change loadouts to reflect the supply situation, or not.

Didn't the digital art come with the Ultimate Edition? Did you buy that, or did you have an earlier version?

I noticed there are no dates on the EC2003 Battleset orders. Anyone have any insight on chronology of that story? (Were you involved in the writing, Brad, or am I remembering wrong?)

Well, even in the CDB the Oslo class has Sea Sparrows that Display says are SURF capable...but it won't fire them unless there are air targets. GIUK will, though, as well as the Juno's (Leander) Seacats. Maybe they're flagged such in the CDB so they can't fire in SSM mode, even if Platform Display gives them a Surface range? If the AI can't fire them in SSM mode in the CDB, then I'm fine not using them myself, and that was the result of my testing. I pulled a Missouri in visual range of an Oslo/Leander pair, absorbed the Exocets and Penguins, then got into gun range. In GIUK, they'd both empty their SAM magazines at me. CDB they did not. (Used a Missouri for easy to see target, and shrug off missiles.) TL;DR: If it's something done for both sides, I'm fine with it. If you mean the HCDB (I don't know what the CDB is), then I can confirm that while some surface-to-air/surface-to-surface capable missiles (such as Seasparrow) do have a surface-to-surface range value, they intentionally lack a surface capable flag. This is because the AI has a nasty habit of bombarding you with those missiles, using them up when they might be more valuable held back in the surface-to-air role. You have observed this behaviour. Yes, CDB = HCDB, sorry. Ah, very good. Thing is, the GE doesn't seem to give me the opportunity to fire them anyway in the old DBs that allow it, while the AI gets to do so. However, since it's confined to the old embedded DBs, I'm fine with that.

Well, even in the CDB the Oslo class has Sea Sparrows that Display says are SURF capable...but it won't fire them unless there are air targets. GIUK will, though, as well as the Juno's (Leander) Seacats. Maybe they're flagged such in the CDB so they can't fire in SSM mode, even if Platform Display gives them a Surface range? If the AI can't fire them in SSM mode in the CDB, then I'm fine not using them myself, and that was the result of my testing. I pulled a Missouri in visual range of an Oslo/Leander pair, absorbed the Exocets and Penguins, then got into gun range. In GIUK, they'd both empty their SAM magazines at me. CDB they did not. (Used a Missouri for easy to see target, and shrug off missiles.) TL;DR: If it's something done for both sides, I'm fine with it.

Yeah, defect 200 is still alive in 2009.076, whether I use GIUK original, or EC2003 with CDB. (It's on the Tracker.) I'm ginning up another test scenario related to the AI being able to fire SAMs in SSM mode, but the player never gets the option. (Never mind about this. Seems to only be an 'old DB' issue. CDB Scenario can't duplicate.)

Not sure what scenario you're looking at. Red has two or three carriers in the scenario. Vikrant/Cochin group starts somewhere around the horn of India, and the Viraat group starts out in the Bay of Bengal.

Next time I have it open, I'll move it so a window will be offscreen completely on the small screen, and see how it does. Edit: Tested. Even better than I expected from what you said. It *only* reset the window I had pulled far enough to be completely offscreen when I started it on the smaller screen, and left the others in place. Perfect! Sequence: started GE on bigger screen 1920x1080. Pulled left edge of Unit window almost to right edge, far enough it would be offscreen at 1440x900. Exited. Changed screens for the VM. Started GE at 1440x900. Unit window is back in default place over to the left, other windows still in saved spots.

I wouldn't move mountains on that for my curiousity. I can run a few of the already-made WWII scenarios and find most of them.

Are there any radars on the helos that are already aboard? Even a visual detection by a helicopter and an OTH Harpoon launch is better than both boats seeing the other. I'll have to look at this scenario in the next week. I'll have to check, but I don't think there are any air-to-air assets for the Indians except the Harriers from the CV. Pretty sure a quick look didn't show any fighters on the airbases, just search a/c. There's not very many of them, so if you pull them out of position chasing helos, they can't go after the group up north. TL;DR Any way of finding enemies that doesn't involve simultaneous exposure of your assets to the enemy is the key. He who can shoot w/o being seen wins. Possibly Scenedit and give yourself a couple old sub-hunters of some kind. P-2s? I don't know, I'd have to look at what would be plausible for the countries involved. Also, do the Pumas have radars? or ESM sensors? You can see a surface radar a long way with ESM.

Really depends if the ATA rating of a plane is solely by loadout, or changes when all the weapons are gone. I'm guessing the ATA is solely by loadout, but, jettison code could take that into account, too, and change to a clean ATA rating.

After loading it and looking at it w/o time to play, it looks like you may want to ferry pumas with exocets to the groups in reach, and let them do some of the finding. Won't help you up north by the carriers, but can help you down south.

Oh, I can change the INTL Airbase names and write them back with the hex editor w/o causing load problems? I was just going to use hex dumps to find out group/unit inclusion probabilities. (Obviously, can't change past the end of the string field...is there a length byte leading, or is there a terminator character after the string?)

Can you add tags after the fact? If so, how? I tried to figure it out, but I'm missing something, I guess.

It's in the CommonDB that Brad maintains, so any of the EC2003, Westpac, and the 'shell' battlesets Tony made, like SATL, SAFR, etc. Hadn't thought about hex dumping. If it's stored where searching for group name string finds me what I want, that'll be easy, actually, since I read hex pretty well.

to rename the generic INTL Airbase <size> when using them? I've looked for the key to do so, but either it doesn't exist, or I'm missing something obvious. While I'm asking about the Scenario Editor: Is there any way to see group and/or unit inclusion probabilities? i.e. for example, the original GIUK Dawn Patrol sometimes has 3 Nanuchkas, and other times has 4. Any way to find or display the probability? Would be nice to know the intent of the scenario designer when updating the scenarios.

Congratulations. Your life will never be the same, you know!

One note on this: I play HCE in a VM, and I have two screens, one being a 24" at 1920x1080, and one a 19" at 1440x900. I'm using Vbox, so I can tell it which screen to use with just a click. The current Harpoon saves the last used positions wonderfully. However, it will happily load the bigger screen's position onto the smaller screen w/o any protest, and just leave the windows hanging off the edge. Probably works because nothing is completely offscreen, so upper left positions are valid? To be clear, I'm not switching screens while Harpoon is loading. Just loading on the 19" after running last time on the 24". (It's not a major issue, so if fixing this is hard, don't worry about it. ) Edit: After further thought, as long as it will go back to default if a window is offscreen (i.e. can't be grabbed and moved) then it's fine the way it is.