TonyE

See http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=632 for the technical side of how to do it.

Silent Hunter UK is exploring various FSC configurations for a role playing game, you two might bounce ideas off of each other. Tony

Looks like Brad covered most of it. You can use a forum feature called "Track This Topic" to be e-mailed when topics such as the Demo topic or Beta\Current Files thread is updated. That makes it more of a push notification instead of coming to check them manually periodically. Thusfar all patches to HCE have been free. It is up to Matrix and AGSI to decide when to next have the players pay-up. To my knowledge that is not a date soon approaching. There should however be a special package (20th Anniversary Edition) that players will have to buy if they want the special goods. It has happened that the demo may be of a more recent build than the official Matrix version of the game. Right now is a unique situation in that both are at version 2009.042 except Matrix hasn't released 2009.042 officially for marketing/business reasons (it can be downloaded here at HG by those who own the game). We don't have to go thru the Matrix release process when updating the demo so it can see more frequent official updates than the game itself. Given that the game has been becoming more stable since release, it doesn't make any sense to put effort into digging out 'old' code from the last patch to make a demo. That being especially true when any owner of the game can grab the beta versions (which also so far have tended to be quite stable). The demo and 'real' game share a common code base, so fixes in the demo appear in the 'real' game and vice versa. To get a demo build I literally uncomment one #define statement in the code then compile it all. As to what serves each player best, that is up to the player. Some people will not use anything but a Matrix released patch. With HCE so far that isn't in my opinion the route to the best experience, running betas would have been more optimal. There is no promise the betas will stay that way, sooner or later larger changes will be made and at least for a time that will mean less stable beta versions.

Neat, a nice companion to The Radar Game.

Don't know but sure wouldn't mind seeing a rundown

What version of the game, what database, what scenario, ...? Thanks

yay

Allrighty, Access 2007. Get to your Type 45 entry in the Ships annex. Then in the Access menu go to Add-Ins (aka the Add-Ins ribbon). There you will find a Harpoon menu with Copy Item as its first sub-menu item. That's your ticket to cloning a platform. Once you click it, you'll see a few flashes and then you'll note you've been navigated to the clone (the ID will be different).

Brad, care to put your stamp of verification on the debug messages since it is obvious from the IRC export DLL that we're not inundated anymore. Thanks.

Thank you sir!

Updated a few times lately, now on version 5. The unit icons are hosted at HarpGamer, so if you forward port 8183 on your router to your HC machines, you can let other watch your game. Version 5 also looks better with transparent unit icons and better information formatting! Also it will serve kmz files which have been running 8 to 64 times smaller (less network traffic) than the uncompressed kml. You can still of course use it locally without any port forwarding.

What version of MS Access are you using? That'll help answer this. You are also asking a second question with adding ship names, that isn't too tough, navigate to the ship in question, hit the Names button and start adding names to the bottom of the list .

I'm hoping Brad piles on here since he switches back and forth between editing multiple databases but I'll give my 2 cents. The first general rule is that platforms are not shared between databases. If you add a F-14T Wacko Tomcat to the HCDB, it won't appear in HCWW unless you recreate it there by hand. You don't, however have to lose custom platforms when switching between databases. I keep a different pfData file for each database I might tinker with. So I have pfDataHCDB.mdb, pfDataHCWW.mdb, pfDataStrikerFict.mdb,... They don't have to start with pfData, that just helps me keep them straight. As long as I remember to re-link to the proper DB before importing, I'm in good shape. Your custom changes will stay in each .mdb file until you import over the top of them. The implication of that last is that there is no easy way to maintain your custom changes to HCDB over multiple versions of the HCDB. You may import HCDB-090726, add a few platforms, export and use them. Now Brad releases HCDB-090921 and you like some change he made. There is no easy way to get your few customized platforms into HCDB-090921, manually entry is the straightforward way to go. It is simple to create a clone of a platform. There is a Harpoon menu in the PE (Platform Editor) that allows you to copy platforms. Things can be automated, I haven't taken the time and neither has anybody else so the manual approach is not set in stone, it is just what the situation bears today. Welcome!

Demo version 2009.042 has been uploaded. See the ReleaseNotes.txt file or Release Notes Thread for details on the changes. Expiration extended to September 2, 2010.

imho in this particular scenario Streetfighter wouldn't apply. My understanding of the Streetfighter concept is a swarm of small ships (sure 600 tons is a well used number) in combination with mother-ship or similar close logistical support. The article Brad posted seems to be aimed against an even "smaller" threat than Streetfighter was envisaged to counter. Just my 2 cents, change 15 or 20 words in the article and they'd be talking exactly about Streetfighter. I think all of the LCS hating has really helped clarify the "Big ships are sitting ducks in the face of inexpensive capable weaponry" vs "Look, the big ships are doing it all in low intensity conflict, they are priceless and we can't do without them" camps. I lean more towards the big ships are sitting ducks camp but it is tough to influence friends and intimidate enemies with a bunch of glorified speed boats, nothing beats a carrier for that at present.

Right on, an analysis for the ages.

Brad was playing this today and it sounded like fun so I took it for a spin. The good news is that I achieved total victory in 7 hours and 17 minutes of game time. The bad news is that NATO took my poor amphibious group totally by surprise which cost me a few good escorts. Had I not undertaken a series of audacious (thanks Brains) raids there is little doubt I would have lost. Playing this one fair will get your Amphibs sunk, or so it seems. Despite the victory I continued on to Keflavik, not knowing what other surprises Ralf had in store via the NATO forces. The amphibs made it safely but two more escorts and a first-line SSN were lost in the process. It was a costly battle for both sides but I won, yay! Thanks Ralf for an excellent re-make .

HCE - 2009.044 - 2009/09/20 =========================== - Chg:0000 GE Disabled the DEBUG ???? could detect us debug messages, they are still logged to the EMCON_AI log if that is enabled. - Chg:0000 GE Aircraft ready messages now show the Group ID where the planes were readied. "4 x A-6E Intruder (AntiRadar) ready at ACb Oslo" - Chg:B134 GE Force recalculation of group range rings and force Group map update when any planes are shot down. (thanks Joe K) http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?a...amp;showbug=134 - Chg:0000 GE Disabled DEBUG messagelog messages for eff115 and point defense. - Chg:0000 GE Started new credits tab post 2009.042 patch. - Chg:0000 GE Added a DLL call for HC20 DigitalMilitaryArt. - Chg:0000 GE Started DLL work to shift the MoveUnits effect to DLL and from there to multithreaded.

HCE - 2009.044 - 2009/09/20 =========================== - Chg:0000 GE Disabled the DEBUG ???? could detect us debug messages, they are still logged to the EMCON_AI log if that is enabled. - Chg:0000 GE Aircraft ready messages now show the Group ID where the planes were readied. "4 x A-6E Intruder (AntiRadar) ready at ACb Oslo" - Chg:B134 GE Force recalculation of group range rings and force Group map update when any planes are shot down. (thanks Joe K) http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?a...amp;showbug=134 - Chg:0000 GE Disabled DEBUG messagelog messages for eff115 and point defense. - Chg:0000 GE Started new credits tab post 2009.042 patch. - Chg:0000 GE Added a DLL call for HC20 DigitalMilitaryArt. - Chg:0000 GE Started DLL work to shift the MoveUnits effect to DLL and from there to multithreaded. You should be able to test all but the last two items (and the first and the fourth are half overlaps {eff115 = first item}).

Does seem like a logical tying together of events. That certainly doesn't promise that it is right, just sounds right.

I'll try to share a few opinions from the US perspective as I see it. What I don't see is a lot of opposition to universal health care in the philosophical sense. The first huge block imho is the aging population and the population distribution as it stands today. The Baby Boomers are retiring. What happens when you hit 65 years old here is that you can sign up for medicare (essentially federal government run healthcare). Medicare is a pretty sweet ride as it now stands so that huge block of voters won't stand for a reduction in the unsustainable benefits currently being paid. My generation cannot afford the taxes/premiums to fund medicare for our parents and grandparents (lots of them, few of us). In sum, it is currently nice to be on medicare while the program is still solvent but nobody on medicare wants to see the benefits reduced. Obviously the status quo cannot be maintained, it is not fiscally possible but if you are 75 and medicare as it stands will hold out for another 15-20 years, do you care? Of course not, you want the care at the current price (essentially free since they already paid in during their working lives). So dealing with medicare means changing benefits AND pitting current workers like me against my elders. Ugly! That's enough for my first installment and I think it shows that one of the prime concerns isn't at all a bias against universal health care. My next mini expose will probably be the implications of universal coverage on barely insurables like me.

Definitely, thank you Larry, thank you for going to the trouble of posting up the scens after saving them from everywhere else!

If you didn't see it, Pete has taken the new air rules for a few spins, one thread is at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=1227 Please post your findings on how the rules work out.

Sounds good but I'll hold off my purchase until the promised further development of the missile promising more range. Granted 8km is better than a Hellfire but not so good when up against even ManPADS. Just one link for the more English inclined: http://defense-update.com/products/f/fasgw.html#more

Bump - updated 2009/09/09 (note that you can sort and such with the Excel and you can't with the PDF)