yojimboguy

Can you use the scenarios written for 3.6.3 and/or 3.9.4 in 3.11? Is there any reason to keep the other versions at all, other than for some obscure "historical record" rationale that I have no interest in?

Update which version? There are 3. And no one but me has yet mentioned ver 3.9.4. Is that the idiot cousin game kept chained in the basement?

I don't even have that choice. If I have "Run in Windowed Mode" checked, my only two choices are 640x480 or 800x600. The other two options are greyed out and can't be selected, which is weird because my computer is pretty new and has a better resolution than even the highest res option.

What about versions 3.6.3 and 3.9.4? Those are the ones bundled by Matrix into the the anniversary issue. A bit of good news to start. I went into the H3 config options, and was able to get the mouse operating normally in versions 3.10.0 and 3.9.4 by unchecking the "Run Windowed" box among the Sound and Video options. Ver 3.6.3 remains entirely unplayable as the mouse doesn't work. But now it doesn't work differently that it used to not work. With the new config, now the mouse appears normal as I scroll it from my desktop over the game window. But when I make any selection within the window, the mouse disappears and nothing is selected. But it seems I have two out of 3 versions working, though in neither case can I re-size the window, which is something of a drag. So, are these 3 different game engines? Is there any reason to keep all three? Since 3.6.3 seems not to work at all for me, what is the downside to dumping it? Should I salvage Battelsets or scenarios out of the directory that can be used in one of the other versions?

I'm a long-time player of HCE, but I never explored ANW because I ran into operating problems from day 1. At the time, I posted them to the Matrix support desk, but they didn't have even one suggestion. So I'll re-post here what I posted there: Problem 1, This happens in both version 3.10 and 3.63. If the game window is centered, or on the right half, of my desktop, the cursor disappears when I move it over the contents of the window. It will reappear on the other side of the window if I keep moving the mouse. Also, it does work over the blue bar at the top of the window, so I can move the window around on the desktop. If I move the window to the far left of the desktop so the left edges of each are flush with each other, the cursor works within the window, Could this be related to the fact that the desktop is a widescreen (16:9) format? Problem 2: In version 3.10, the box at the top of the window to either maximize or resize the window is grayed out and not working. (The minimize and close window functions work). In version 3.63, the box at the top of the window to either maximize or resize the window works to a degree, but maximizing it only fills about 1/3 of the available screen. I cannot enlarge the window to take up any more of the desktop.

I never explored ANW because I ran into tech problems from day 1, and at that time I was posting such questions to Matrix. The main problem is that my mouse doesn't wanna play with it properly. It disappears as I run it over the ANW Window. Maybe I'll post something about that here, because the game looked really promising if I could get the interface working right.

Unless I know exactly, pretty much to the degree where they're coming from, I can't place BARCAP directly in between incoming stealth fighters and my AEW. They might choose to attack my BARCAP if they pass close enough by it, or they might just fly right past it because they've already targeted the AEW. Of course, I can use my BARCAP radar, and make them the target in the first place, but that's asking them to be decimated by enemy stealth fighters. Hidden Airfields? How do you make one of those? The only way I know is to use one of those Mitchel type CVs, or maybe a barge or other ship that can land VTOL. The only reason my 32-bit machine isn't in the trash already is the hope to get some more use out of the SE.

You're assuming that there aren't other enemy aircraft enroute, ready and willing to shoot down your next AEW&C aircraft as it comes up. Or that there isn't a strike already bearing down on your airfield which will destroy your wasted AEW&C asset that you just landed. If you've let enemy aircraft get so close to your AEW&C aircraft (and your airfield) that you have to escape by landing, then you're already hurting. Like I said, that is only the case when the enemy has stealthy fighters, and there is really no choice other than to "let" them get so close, pretty much by the definition of stealth. If there's a conventional strike headed in, or conventional fighters headed in, none of this would be necessary to keep the AEW alive. They would be seen far away and my defensive fighters would be moving to keep them all at a safe distance. I would love someone to write a scenario where I would have to defend against an enemy that is ALL stealthy, including ships and subs. That would be a real challenge. Of course that would involve even more "gaming the game" to stay alive. I'm really missing my ability to write my own scenarios, as my 32-bit machine blue screens every hour or two. Kind of a funny idea to have an all-stealth fleet action where the enemies can't find each other. 'Course what I really want is a two or multi-player game where my enemies won't fall for the same tricks over and over again like the AI does. But I'm not holding my breath.

LOL, "less than ideal" is putting it mildly. This methodology might best be described as "how to keep your AEW assets on the ground and useless to you". Well, not exactly. If you have 2 AEW planes, you can launch the next one a minute or two later. This is only possible because the AI won't retask the original attacking fighters to go after the new AEW even if they are just a few miles out of range. They will be headed for home no matter what, and the new group of fighters assigned to hit the new AEW will likely be hundreds of miles away. By the time they arrive, there's a pretty good chance your first AEW will be ready to fly again. And then you just switch them again. Also, better on the ground for a while than shot down, never to be useful again.

There are some aspects of the games AI that make certain tasks almost ridiculously easy, and I wonder how it might be changed to make it more challenging. For instance, your mission is to knock back the opposition of a heavily guarded base and destroy it. Send out an AEW plane, put some fighters with AMRAAMs out 30 or 40 miles ahead (between the base and your AEW bait), and make these recurring patrols so you always gave some fresh fighters with their AAMs. The enemy fighter patrols will, without exception, head straight for your AEW plane and right into your missile range. You can empty out their base of fighter defenses without ever doing anything more than refreshing your patrols. There's only one exception to how this play out that I've found. That is, if your AEW plane is a Hawkeye, and the opposition fighters are stealthy like Rafales or Raptors. Then they may not be visible until they're already in missile range of your AEW plane (sometimes they don't become visible -- period), and so you're going to start losing planes. (Sentries are often fast enough to get back out of range of the first missile, but your BARCAP has to get the enemy before it can fire again). I've found only one solution the that, which is less than ideal to say the least. Keep your AEW plane at 'zero' miles from your base, and it can land before the AAM can get to it and shoot it down. Then launch another AEW plane. Obviously if your base is a carrier, there's lots and lots of problems of exposing it like that to enemy planes just to be the escape hatch for your AEW. In those cases I use an F14 for AEW, and hope I can afterburn away when the Rafale pops up to take a shot at me.

I will definitely go after an AEW plane if it's loitering on an independent patrol and not part of a base formation. Usually (not always -- I wonder how the AI decides this) firing at any planes in the formation will cut one or more of the fighter patrols, and again put freshly armed and fueled patrols right over the primary target. So if you're attacking from the south, even if the fighters are patrolling the north quadrants, attacking the AEW gives you new enemies right in the center, closer than they would otherwise be.

I'm surprised you would pick an F-111 over, say, an F-16 or F-18. Sure they're not as fast, but depending on their missile load they might have anywhere from 50 to a hundred miles less to travel. As far as weapon choices go, there's lots of ground ordnance I never or hardly ever use at all. I understand that it's a good thing that the database is reasonably comprehensive, but sometimes I wonder if there's any practical point. The SLAM does as much damage as the Harpoon with the same accuracy, but from twice the range. The JAASM adds another 50% or so to the SLAM's damage, and increases the range by an even greater percentage. When all these are options, there's really almost no choice involved unless choosing to deliberately handicap yourself. There are a few scenarios with B52s that can be armed with those thousand plus mile land attack missile, Even though they're not nukes, a half dozen b52s can destroy a base in one mission, often as fast as they can take off, fire, land and relaod. Makes the game almost boring unless you park them and forget them And if I do that, I kinda feel like I'm cheating myself. You don't win wars by giving the other guy a break.

For bases that have large center formation zones (60 miles across is common), the aircraft assigned to the center zone will almost always cluster at the northern edge of the zone. So unless there are patrols set in the formation's southern zones, the best approach to attack the base is from dead straight south. Typically, I fire a pretty large volley of ARM missile at the base and the SAMs around it, and I try to NEVER fire at the planes in the formation around the base. Firing the ARMs will draw the missile fire of the defending fighters as well as the SAMs, and if the volley is big enough and/or the number of defenders is small enough, you might entirely clean them out of their long range AAMs. To me, that's usually an even higher priority than knocking out the ground radars, unless I'm going in with iron bombs or very short range stuff like Paveways. The worst thing in most cases is shooting at the formation's planes. If you shoot at them, they will split off from the base, and the base will launch more patrols to replace them. Not only that, the planes will of course be taking off from your primary target, and their full stock of AAMs will be perfectly positioned to shoot down the greatest number of your incoming planes or missiles. If you restrict your missile firing to ground targets, there's a pretty good chance the base will not split off the CAP and replace it with new fighters. The ones already in the air will just continue to loiter around with empty or depleted missile racks. The other benefit of the formation planes clustering at the northern edge of the zone is that if you fire cruise missiles from the south, often the AEW plane to the north doesn't pick them up at all and the base radar picks them up when it's too late.

Yes, something along these lines. I would look at an even stronger (overlarge) thermocline effect. Give the subs distinct advantage when they hide below it (like no passive detection with hull mounted sonars and sonubuoys) but use the current easy going detection when above it. Then twist engagement rules a little more, for example force subs to have to raise above the thermocline for surface attacks and commanders will need to take heavy tactical decisions on both sides. Nowhere near the real thing but could stir up the pot of submarine warfare. I like the idea of an attack making the subs more vulnerable at least for brief periods. Right now they are vulnerable if you happen to have an ASW plane nearby the origin of the torpedo tracks. Maybe also something like opening the torpedo tube doors or missile doors makes noise that can be detected passively. As far as a thermocline, I think modeling one would be a bitch unless there was always one at an arbitrary depth over the entire map. But perhaps that depth could change from one scenario to the next, or even over time within a single scenario. That, though, would require some gear to detect it, or at the very least one of those usually annoying staff notes to pop up and report that the thermocline depth has changed. Though, then we might have to start defining sub depth in terms of actual feet instead of general terms like shallow and deep.

Ok, if you folks ever get to revising the code for ASW and AI, here are my thoughts: 1. Don't have an attacking plane prompt the player to fire a torp unless the plane is in a position where dropping it will put the sub into the target cone of the torp's seeker. 2. Leave the option in place for the player to manually fire a torp under less than optimal conditions. 3. Reduce the acoustic signature to '0' for submerged subs at a dead stop. 4. How about adding an ocean current, on the assumption that even though the sub (or ship, for that matter) is stopped, the presumption is that they have to remain in that location, and have to run their engines (at least at creep speed) periodically to stay on station? I dunno, the more I think about this, the more complex it seems. Surely a sub or ship should be able to drift to remain silent, even if a current carries them for miles. 5. Add the snorkel requirement for non-nukes, so they aren't as undetectable as nukes for all practical purposes. Snorkeling would also require running the engines, so it wouldn't be entirely silent either. 6. Those vintage holdover subs from the Cold War, made in the 60s and 70s, or even earlier, remain detectable by passive sonar at creep speed. 7. The newer nukes (LA class and since) are undetectable at creep speed except by active sonar or MAD. Same goes for the newest non-nukes with the elaborate quiet power plants (fuel cells and the like).