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).

That would be enough for me, that the AI puts the attacking plane within the specs of the seeker head of its torpedo as far as range and bearing. Detecting the sub in the first place is a whole separate issue. I wouldn't be averse to the idea that subs are entirely undetectable except by active sonar, or when their speed goes above "creep". At least for modern subs. The oldies from the 60s and 70s could have their "creep" noise set loud enough to still be detectable (they probably already are), but even they should be silent and undetectable by passive sonar if they are at a dead stop under water. Oh, yeah, do the non-nuke subs actually have to use their snorkel periodically to recharge batteries, and then the snorkel becomes visible to radar? I don't recall ever detecting a sub in this manner.

I dunno how many times this has happened to me... I'm in the midst of a big engagement. I'm getting dozens of staff messages, it seems every minute. Planes come into range -- cruise missiles (lots of them) come into range -- do I want to attack? -- I should turn on my radar -- God knows what else. I am constantly hitting the escape to clear these messages so I can focus on the groups and attacks and maneuvers. In the middle of this all, up pops another message. It could be right in the middle of 6 other messages all delivered in the same second. But this one is different. It says I, or the enemy, have achieved minimum or total victory conditions. It asks if I want to play on. If I just hit cancel to clear that message like all the others, I am kicked out of the game and the game is over. $I)U)#A*%Y!! That pisses me off! Please change this so it can't happen. Make Esc = Yes, I want to play on.

I am so tired of being told every minute that I should go active with some group's radar or sonar when I've already decided not to. Ok, suggest it once, maybe even remind me once, but then STFU.

I recall reading that these two missiles have onboard radar for mid and late course correction, but I never read any suggestion the firing plane doesn't need its own radar for target selection and initial guidance. Yet here, the various fighters using them can leave off their radar, still fire, and have the enormous advantage of never giving their position away by emitting signals. Still more oddly, I am prompted to turn on my radar when a plane comes within range, but I can choose not to, and the missile performance doesn't seem any the worse for not having the plane's radar on.

Perhaps it's the passive sonars on ships and subs that are too good. Because it surely isn't the torpedoes.

I developed these tactics out of years of frustration with the AI system running the attacks and sometimes firing dozens of torpedoes to no effect. If I recall correctly, the wearhead seeker specs were not available to the common user, so there was no way of knowing just how close you had to get to have the highest probability of a hit. And of all the vast and many improvements to the game, the AI still has not been developed enough to deliver the torpedo so the target is within the search cone of the seeker. Even the 'close to 0 miles and fire' is 'gaming' the game in many cases. If the uncertainty box around the sub contact is a hundred square miles, click on it and your ASW plane in the unit box and you will get a range and bearing down to the mile and degree. Same on the Group map with "Calculate Range and Bearing". The game give you more information than you should be entitled to have. Even without that option, if your plane happens to be flying within torpedo range of a sub and you try to shoot, you will get a firing box and an option to shoot. And then you will know you're within 5 or 6 miles of your target, instead of possibly 20 or 30 as the map would indicate. As far as group mass firings of torpedoes, I started doing this when I saw Oscars and Sierras absorb hit after hit after hit and keep going. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in earlier years I seem to recall most airborne torpedoes with damage ratings in the low to mid 20s, and the strongest Russian subs to be able to take nearly 200 damage points. So it would take 8 or 10 hits to sink one, and with a hit percentage of maybe 60% in the first place, up to 20 or more shots, all delivered perfectly, in order to make a kill reasonably certain. So I started to fire enough torps to make sure the job got done if there was a hit at all. Looking at the weapons in the latest incarnation of the database, I see most of the warheads have been updated to 50-60 damage points, which I hadn't noticed before. So maybe I really am doing overkill on the numbers of torps I fire. But still, a sub with 200+ damage points needs 4 hits to sink it? I dunno, I'm by no means a weapons expert, but that seems implausible to me. So let me ask -- are there circumstances when a torp will do more damage than its damage rating would suggest? Or can a sub be sunk after absorbing fewer points than its damage rating would suggest? For instance, it would seem to me that a hit while the sub is Very Deep should do more damage, perhaps instantly fatal after a hit by even a very small warhead, than a hit at a lesser depth. Any hull damage while VD should result in a catastrophic failure of the hull. Also, I think it's interesting that the seekers of torps are modeled so differently than the seekers of AAMs. I can fire AAMs at planes chasing me without even bothering to turn around and face them, and I haven't noticed a fall off in their performance when I do so.

What's your ideal weapons system to perform which task? How do you do it best while keeping your own weapons out of harm's way? I'll start with ASW. After running through I don't know how many plane and copter loads of torpedoes in vain attempts to sink modern subs (particularly Oscars and Sierras, which seem to be the armored tanks of subs), I gave up on letting the AI run the attacks and started micro-managing them. And I also started looking more closely for the best weapons and platforms to deliver them. Here's what I've found about ASW Ops from the Blue perspective. The AI ASWcwill attack from 2 miles away, which is using up about a third of the total range of the torpedo before having even a chance to engage. You are pretty much throwing your torpedoes away if you do this against 30 knot subs. The best ASW torpedo carriers: 1. The Australian AP-3C Orion, which carries 8 Impact torpedoes. The Impact has the trifecta of ASW bonuses -- it has a higher hit percentage than almost every other torp, it has a greater range than most others, and it does more damage than almost any of the others 2. The Italian Naval EH101 Srs100 helicopter also carries the Impact, 4 of them, which I think is unmatched by any other heli. It also has a range of more than 800 miles, which I think is also unmatched by any other heli. But unless you're writing your own scenarios, you don't get to play with those toys. So this is the attack method I've found found that works very well with almost any platform and torp. I found the following tactic nearly 100% effective in delivering ASW torpedo attacks. 1. Close your plane or heli to a distance of "0" miles to your target as measured on the unit map. 2. You must then point the nose of your platform within five degrees of the bearing of the target. This is pretty trick with planes like Nimrods and Orions as their maneuvering penalty makes for quite a delay in time from the order to the execution of the turn. Also, at that distance, and against a sub moving very fast, the bearing is changing very rapidly. It may take several turns to get the bearing right, and sometimes by then the distance increases to a mile or more, meaning a repeat of the whole process. Even the distance between 0 and 1 miles results in a significant decrease in hits. 4. Drop 4 topedoes at a time. That will sink virtually any sub. With Sierras and Oscars, I drop 8. 5. You know your torpedoes are tracking when their little vector arrow in the unit box starts changing direction really rapidly. This works so well that when I attack a group of subs (usually with a group of 2 or 4 ASW planes), I drop my four torps on one target, get a bearing on the next, and start heading for it without waiting to see if my first torps will hit. They almost always do -- I rarely have to return to a target after the first shot using this method. In general, the slower the ASW attacker, the better under this system. If you are heading at your target at over 400 knots like in a Nimrod, as the distance closes from 1 to 0 miles, your are very likely to overrun your target and have to loiter and wait 30 seconds or so to make a 180 turn before you can fire. I find the Orion a little easier to manage because of the slower speed. But there's MORE! I don't know if the game writers imagined this (perhaps it's a flaw that needs "fixing"?) Tired of ineffective and time consuming torpedo attacks? Tired of small weapon loads that seem to make you use up half your ASW forces to hunt one sub? Then -- use the minesweeping helis. There are at least 3 of them. Both Japan and the US have the Naval MH53E Sea Dragon, and Japan also has the Naval MCH 101. The biggest advantage of the MCH 101 is that it has double the range of Sea Dragons. Each heli caries 100 or more small detonating charges, that can work just as well on subs as on mines. One won't sink a sub, so drop 20 or 30 at a time. And they hit (or miss) immediately. You know a second or two after dropping them how many hits you made and whether your target is still alive. If so, drop 10 or 20 more. You can sink your sub in 5 seconds and be on to the next target. And given that one of these helis carries 100 charges, it is worth 5 or 10 torpedo armed helis. Lastly, since it takes so much time to localize a sub target, the best sensor platform is the US Naval SV-22 Osprey. It doesn't carry enough torps to be very useful as an attack plane, but it can hover and has a very powerful dipping sonar. Use one of these to search, and one or two of the minesweepers to shoot, and you can sink a sub group in a few minutes that might otherwise take hours.

I'll leave this for Tony. Because the bug also appears in 2009.076. More good news, for people who get their updates here rather than the Matrix site. I downloaded version 2009.076, and the guns are back. They appear among the loadout items listed when readying aircraft, and they are among the choices to select in the weapons box when you are about to engage a target. And I have fired them successfully against other aircraft. This was in WestPac. I have not checked the other newer battlesets at this point I am curious, CV32, have you witnessed this bug in the .076 version? Or were you assuming I was running it when I reported the problem? When I reported it, I was still running the .050 version, which is how Matrix continues to distribute it.

I used what was distributed with the game -- "Harpoon Classic Access 97 Runtime". While I have 2010 Word and Excel, I don't have Access.

I thought I would try the WWII battleset built by Mavgaz, and I downloaded it. When I tried to copy it into the HUCE directory, I was told I would be overwriting other files. The two file names are hdsu.res and hdsu.rsr. AFAIK, I do not already have a WWII battleset installed, and certainly one doesn't show up among the listed battlesets I can select from when I start the game. What would I be overwriting if I put in these new download files? And in what seems to be a related question -- the Battleset builder. It prompts for, among other things, two files with .res and .rsr extensions. And I decided to throw in the hdsu. files (the ones I already had, not the ones I just downloaded). I checked the box to embed them And I added some battleset text and and moved the little triangle and circle to select a portion of the map. I was also able to successfully save and load these settings. Which suggests that what Mavgaz wrote maybe wasn't a battleset, but a WWII platform database. Is this correct? Also, it appears from the maps next to the listed battlesets that the battleset I just created is called "My Battleset", but I can only tell because the map looks pretty close to what I selected. The description text I wrote for it is nowhere to be seen, though I thought that would be what appears in the text box beneath the battleset list. I wasn't given an option to name my battleset. The default name seems to be set to "My Battleset" and I couldn't see any way option to choose a name. Does this mean I am limited to one battleset on the list at any given time? Lastly, I see that choosing to embed the hdsu files changed their "modified" date to today. I didn't expect that, so I'm a little concerned there might be some impact on whatever else the two files are used for.