TEPonta

For ASW patrols by AC, would like to be able to enter search areas/patterns, as opposed to the current method of merely selecting a single point. Buoy fields could possibly be specified using a method similar to the one presently used to enter On-Station Areas in ViConds in the SE. Buddha

Out of curiosity, what countermeasures/evasion tactics does the AI use for its subs? Does it detect a launch by the player and respond? Buddha

In line with #21, My list includes the ability to place reference points for patrol stations rendesvous,' etc. Although I was thinking SE at the time, maybe something along those lines could be included in the GE as well, and answer us both. Buddha

My mistake on the Mod 7. Apparently when I unzipped the latest DB, I forgot to do an import into the PE. When the question came up, I opened the PE to take a look and got outdated data as a result. Sorry about that. Buddha

Thank you for the list diego, lots of good stuff and you aren't the only one to ask for most of those items (always a sign of hope that they'll get implemented when many people ask). You are seeing the mini report window that shows information about the currently selected Group or Unit right? Yes, I see the mini report window. But what I thought would be helpful would be to be able to open a window when right clicking while a unit is selected. The window could then open which would link to the different commands such as speed, attack, formation, etc... The right-click option certainly has my vote. Right-clicking is second nature to most Windows users anyway, although I have no idea how hard it would be to implement. Buddha

I believe the latest Mk 48 available in Harpoon is Mod 6. I have the latest DB as far as I know, and that's the latest one I show. If you have all the needed specs, creating a Mod 7 shouldn't be a problem in the PE. Buddha

Unzip the files into your Harpoon folder (Mine is c:\Matrix Games\HCE). Open the game and select the EC2003 Battle for the Atlantic Ocean Battleset and click User Scenario. In the file listing, select redoct.scn, and start playing. Buddha

Heh ... you've just performed a minor miracle, Buddha --- for the first time in decades, I actually wish I watched more movies, because I'm sure there's got to be *one* out there somewhere that is worthy of its novel, even though I can't think of it ... Not only is what you say true, but it's getting worse all the time. Their latest antic that bugs me is taking old sitcoms from the late '50s and early '60s and turning them into movies. I guess they figure that those of us old enough to remember are too old to care. That and comic book heroes. Whatever happened to original ideas? I must admit, however, the the Lord of the Rings movies did a fairly decent job as regards the books. To reproduce the books in detail would have taken movies that lasted a week or so, but they came as close as anything I've seen. Buddha

I'm too old for it now, but if I'd seen this after 'Nam at the end of my first enlistment in the USN, I might have gone for it. No doubt alot of the Legion's image is more legend than fact, but at that age, I probably wouldn't have cared. Buddha

That only happened in the movie, though. In the book, Red October quietly cruised the length of Red Route One, uneventfully. Which gave poor Jonesey a couple of VERY bad days ... I've never been very fond of the movie. Even Hollywood can't actually *ruin* something with that much cool hardware in it, but they sure did warp and butcher a fine novel ... It's been about 20 tears since I read the book, so I probably let the book and movie blend in my head. As to your other point, I don't think a movie's ever been made that wasn't put to shame by the book it was based on. I try to make a point of reading the book first, since once the Hollywood types get done cutting, pasting, and screwing with things, it's easy to lose track of what's going on if you haven't read the story first. Buddha

If by that you mean the "caterpillar" silent drive, maybe there's a way to modify the unit in the PE to simulate this. The problem I see with that approach is that the drive went down for a period of time in the story, resulting in detection and attack by a Bear F, and was then restored. If there's a way to include something like this in a scenario, I don't know what it is. Buddha I mean that- and adding on six more SLBMs, as stated in the story. I'd forgotten about the drive failure. You could probably do a reasonable emulation of the "caterpillar" drive just by reducing the Base Source Level of the sub in the PE, thereby making it more silent. Adding six more SLBMs would be similarly trivial. IIRC, in the book, the caterpillar only failed near the very end after battle damage, which the game now simulates by making units noisier when damaged, so possibly that concern is less relevant. Actually, the caterpillar failed due to sabotage when the Red October was making the high speed run through the undersea canyons. This was when the Bear F dropped a torpedo, which was narrowly avoided. It may have failed in the battle near the end as well, but since they'd been located, the failure of the caterpillar at that point, if it happened, had little impact. Buddha

For any of you guys who're bored and looking for a second career, check this out: http://www.legion-recrute.com/en/ Buddha

If by that you mean the "caterpillar" silent drive, maybe there's a way to modify the unit in the PE to simulate this. The problem I see with that approach is that the drive went down for a period of time in the story, resulting in detection and attack by a Bear F, and was then restored. If there's a way to include something like this in a scenario, I don't know what it is. Buddha I mean that- and adding on six more SLBMs, as stated in the story. I'd forgotten about the drive failure. Six more SLBMs should be easy enough to add in the PE, as well as altering the craft's dimensions to accomodate the change. I don't have a copy of the book handy, but I believe the size increase over the standard Typhoon was mentioned in there someplace. There's probably a way to alter the acoustic characteristics to simulate the caterpillar as well, but I'm not familiar enough with the Sub annex to speculate on how to do it. There's bound to be someone in this group who has the answer to that one. Buddha

If by that you mean the "caterpillar" silent drive, maybe there's a way to modify the unit in the PE to simulate this. The problem I see with that approach is that the drive went down for a period of time in the story, resulting in detection and attack by a Bear F, and was then restored. If there's a way to include something like this in a scenario, I don't know what it is. Buddha

As someone who's read the book twice and seen the movie more times than I care to admit, I'm enjoying this one immensely. Nice touch with the Red Orders file. Buddha

That's what I was afraid of. What puzzles me is that with my old, slower, single core system I never had these problems. Now I have a dual core, substantially faster system and things are constantly Not Responding. Harpoon just happens to be the one I can addresss here. Since I tend to believe Vista is the culprit in most of my problems, I was hoping maybe some other unfortunate Vista user had figured out a way to avoid this latest hassle. Buddha

With the latest beta release, I'm getting the old Vista "Not Responding" alerts whenever I try to use my mouse at any time compression 5 min or greater. This includes group selection, menu pull down, etc. Keyboard commands do not appear to be affected. I can cycle through units using space bar and back space for instance, but any attempt to select a group with the mouse results in "Not Responding". At time compression 1 min and below the mouse acts as it always has. Buddha

For the ASW weapons, if we go with the pure point system, each item on the loadout will be assigned a point value. So those SBs will be limited by the total points available on each ship in the form of ordnance points. For example if the SB = 3 pts, and the Torpedo = 25 points and your helo carries 12 SB, and 2 Trops, then you have a total loadout cost of 86 points. If we give a DD 860 ordnance points, then it could launch 10 missions before running out of ordnance for example. Once those points are depleted the ships would have to stop off at a port or an AO to replinish the ordnance points or no longer be able to launch missions. Perhaps not a perfect system, but it does put a soft cap on the number of missions you can fly from each base/ship in the game. Also keep in mind that we are tracking AV-Gas as well...so if you try to cheat th ordnance limits by using the lowest point loadouts, you are still going to be limited by the amount of fuel the ship/base has available. And fuel loads are something you really don't have control over...sure you can use the LR loadouts to limit the strain on the ordnance pool, but then you are using more fuel and pulling more out of the AV-Gas pool. I hadn't thought about AVGAS and JP-5. Even a Nuke CV still needs fuel for the A/C it carries, which means time alongside an oiler. Although I've definitely seen my share of wrangling over tanker assets, I don't recall the question of how much fuel was aboard either on a CV or on Helo equipped small boys. Someone was keeping track of that somewhere for sure, but I never heard the issue raised personally, so I can't offer much input in that area. Buddha

Actually, right now you have infinite loadouts of each type carried by each and every of the a/c based onboard or at a base. And moving them from base to base doesn't change this. The point system would put a ceiling on how much weaponry you can replenish from a supply point (carrier or base). but would not limit a particular weapon over another. I will be writing more on the topic a bit later on, as I think a pure point system is fine for consumables (food/water/minor equipement/toiletries, etc.), diesel, and aviation fuel. (might forget something there) Consensus yesterday on spare parts/major repairs is that there isn't a need to model it in the game engine as for the most part, these kind of repairs are beyond at sea capabilities, while it can be safely assumed that minor repairs and juryrigging of parts is already "modelled" since it's part of daily life onboard ships to repair all the little things that go wrong all the time. So no change there. Ship ammo can be modelled with points pretty safely, as it'll only serve to replenish stores as they were at scenario onset : if you didn't have TLAMs at the scenario onset, you won't be able to buy them... (Hmmm, albeit might be nice in a latter iteration to add scenario level modifications of such constraints. More on this in my writeup) As for ammo for a/c, well ,that's why I want to write more on it : I have trouble with the fact that it'll invalidate scenarios like Fleet Defender (example for the scent, the drift, as it's not quite exact. Thx ) by allowing the player to go around scenario design and get whatever weaponry he wants for his a/c. Without forgetting that from where I stand, it really contradicts anecdotal evidence on the topic of weaponry where one particular type of loadout is in short quantity, not permitting a certain kind of sorties with any sustained rate. That said, I think we can safely assume it'll be a point system, and that the first iteration of it will in all likelyhood conform to Akula's plan, in beta/internal release form for some hardcore testing and breaking of things For ship based ASW A/C, you may want to include Sonabuoys as part of the ordinance loadout, if they are not already. Land based types such as P-3's probably don't need any limitations in this regard, but S-3's and various helo's will. Buddha

My favorite is no longer in commission as well, but I have to go with the USS Chicago (CG-11). I never served aboard, but operated with her numerous times. With Talos and Tartar SAM systems, she was called "The most powerful guided missile cruiser in the world". There was definitely no mistaking that silhouette on the horizon. Buddha

Probably correct, Akula. I find myself getting dangerously close to being a Grognard here. Most ships and subs seem to already have limits on what they start out loaded with, making the availability of unrepping useful. If there is any limit imposed on the A/C ordinance carried, either by the CV's or by the smaller ships for embarked Helo's, I haven't noticed it yet. I've noticed that the Mag entries in the PE impose limits on various types of ammo carried for the ship's own weapons, but no entries for A/C ordinance of any kind. Buddha

Sorry I missed it, Tony. Vista hit me with the usual "Not Responding", so I must have something setup wrong in the IRC. Whatever method is decided upon, it seems the first thing that needs to be established is the quantity of each missile/ammo type the ship will start with. There's also the "Start with full ordinance?" variable in the scenario setup to consider. A count of each weapon type will need to be maintained as the scenario progresses, remembering that just because an A/C launches with ordinance doesn't necessarily mean it is expended. Although on the Midway I was pretty familiar with most of the loadouts for the A/C, I don't have the slightest idea what we carried below decks. If that's not classified, which it probably is, that should give us the starting point we're looking for. However this is handled, it looks like you guys who understand programming and code and stuff like that have your work cut out for you. Buddha

It would be helpful to have a Latitude and Longitude readout for the cursor position. This would be useful when placing units in the SE, as well as when laying out proposed Navigational tracks when playing the game. Buddha

It would be nice to be able to place Ref. Pts in a scenario as can be placed in Harpoon III. Points could be used to aid navigation, delineate patrol areas, etc. Buddha

Cool, especially as it is the subject of my current readings about the F-8 Crusader. Sorry I do not have a technical answer for you, BUT...you could always expand the scope somewhat and have something to do with your RF-8, or Vigilante's? Scope out the targets to then be attacked, given permission from Robert Strange McNamara and his merry band of DOD whiz-kids. Right now I'm using the Midway loaded with A-6s and A-7s. As this thing evolves, I intend to do some more research and fine tune the Airwing. Buddha