TonyE

The HUD3 server has been updated to 3.9.2 and the HUD3 database version in 3.9.2.

Okay, was lucky enough to take this one for a spin tonight. Taking the 'in all due haste' idea a little far, I pressed on my advance when my armor came under artillery barrage. It wasn't 20 minutes into the scenario when Red was given minimum victory. My armor was slaughtered by artillery and T-72/BMP action. All I had left on the ground was my USMC Landing Team. Since there weren't any grunts left it was up to the cooks and higher ups to save the battle. And boy did they! Red artillery eventually stopped firing so Blue artillery took over, halting the Red advance and with the help of air power from attached USMC Harrier, to UAVs, to F-111, Red withered due to lack of air superiority (some Flankers threatened but none penetrated to the ground battle. At sea an AGI was found, hit with Maverick, sunk with Harpoon. Shortly afterward two missile boats showed up and were both dispatched by 3 Harpoon a piece (which ended up not being severe overkill). With 31 hours, 41 minutes to go I was awarded total victory, and my artillery was still pounding away at the renewed Red armored thrust (very well crafted btw!, if not for airpower the headquarters guys would have been overrun and destroyed). I kept playing a while longer, air wiped out that two pronged Red attack and it was all down to fencing off Flankers and pounding the Red airfield to dust (aka taking it over). My thoughts: This was a fun scenario, it was my first really valuable use of UAVs as scouts and hellfire platforms. I faced a variety of threats but the focus was plainly on the land battle for me. The real shortcomings imho are with the UI and game engine, fine navigation on the WestPac map is difficult, targeting of ARMs againts some of the Red groups may have been strange (I'm hoping Brad nails it down), but otherwise I can't say I'd change anything. The sea-threats could have been more pronounced, maybe initial position saved me but I didn't feel overly pressured at sea. I thought that was perfect, a reminder that other threats were present but they didn't take away from the land battle.

Being a beta tester and that the builds are pretty stable these days (more stable than the 2008.024 release version anyway), I'd say use the latest beta and the latest HCDB-080406. It would probably be good for StalinTC to run it through 2008.024 once just to make sure it doesn't crash every time or something though

Others have made that same comment. I see no justification for it given the purpose of the unit window. But... there are some problems with the Unit window that may be most easily fixed by copying the group window drawing procedures so it may happen as a side effect of fixing the Unit window. Again, this is a wishlist item.

I think that would be a wishlist item since the game gives you the information, just not in the particular format you want it. http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showforum=35

Tony, Thanks for reminding me about copyright. What size and format do you need? ACE003 Well, that was Brad but I'll accept the thanks anyway . Like Brad said, get yourself signed up as a beta tester and we'll go from there. The size and format requirements are not too difficult to meet so I'm sure your sources will meet the needs.

nope, they are no different from the group window land/water mask, just zoomed in further.

I took USNI 1.0 Blue for a spin this evening and got whipped. I was given the 2nd submarine but was not given the F/A-18. Red really took it to me, air attack, ASM attack with helo cueing and ASM attack from subs with helo cueing. The Su-24 however didn't attack my surface forces, they seemed to be lured away by my planes. Minimum victory was given to Red with just over 17 hours left. Thanks to Brad for suggestions based on his play of the scenario. To Do: 1. Add some minor air defenses to the installations 2. Add four more Hornets but with a higher probability of inclusion to supplement the four very low probability of inclusion birds. Lurking thoughts: 1. Is it possible for the blue surface group to get in SSM range of the Red group or does Red get the jump every time and saturate the Blue defenses?

HCE - 2008.038 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Fix bug in fix for 2021 that allowed it to be applied to non-air groups. (thanks Rene)

HCE - 2008.038 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Fix bug in fix for 2021 that allowed it to be applied to non-air groups. (thanks Rene) Rene found a problem in my original 2021 fix. It occured when the player is prompted to fire missiles at an enemy now in range (so your plane was intercepting an enemy, when it gets in range, prompt the player to fire missiles). Instead of being prompted to fire missiles, the intercept window was coming up asking to select planes to perform the intercept. Should be fixed now, need verification, as always.

I don't think I understand what you are saying. If you mean plane groups not part of the 'target' group are listed in the intercept screen, I don't understand how that is wrong or bad. Can you elaborate? Blue airgroup HSA gets red airgroup zba in range. But the dialog pops up for airgroup AA25 wich is xxx miles away... I only by chance and circumstance understand what you meant after aimlessly wasting time in the provided save, look for a fix in the next build. I am not impressed by the effort required to try and pry meaning from this report, way too difficult.

Uh oh, sorry Brad. I'll have to hope for a massive backlash of HC scenario writing rather than something destructive.

Now that you've donated to the Matrix coffers by buying HCE we invite you to help the game move forward by giving of your time and talents. The HC3 development group has many hopes for HCE, far more than we can accomplish alone in our volunteered time so we need help! We are in need of (pretty much in order of need): Instruction manual writers/editors as well as help file editors. The documentation has not kept pace with added features or knowledge gained by players asking questions. Scenario designers/editors willing to work with the existing battleset scenarios fixing victory conditions, orders, and possibly improving the scenarios themselves. Photo searchers, look at the platform display, many platforms do not have photos despite many hours of effort prior to HCE release and also before the 2008.024 release. Obviously many more platforms could have photos. A support person or three to provide player support. I expect a support person to explore the problem in depth, only then giving a useful answer. This means looking at the particular problem, testing it yourself, and then post up your suggestion. Support is about enabling a player, not dressing them down or speaking vagaries about whatever issue the player is having. Beta testers willing to undertake assigned tasks (looking into bug X, testing fix Y). Managers - if we get a fair number of people executing the above tasks, a good manager (or two) will be needed, too much of my time is spent managing, prodding testers, offering support, and too little coding the game. Stick figure artists - see the missile hit animations, I'd like to see volunteers to draw new stick figures for the animations. What do you get? Access to the latest builds. 2008.024 was the first patch, beta testers are playing with 2008.037 containing bug fixes and new features. It is rare for the testers to keep up with the builds I spit out (fixes/improvements from March still haven't been checked), of course I'd like enough testers to make that a thing of the past! Your name in the credits if you contribute materially to the game, which all volunteers around more than 6 months will have done. Potentially a free copy of the game, this requires effort a step above but is by no means rare. The satisfaction and joy of having helped A larger than normal say in the future direction of the game. If you are the best of the best, maybe a Harpoon shirt, ballcap, or letter from UncleHarpoon himself. No doubt on the whole it is thankless work, us wargamers are never happy, though I've been genuinely surprised at the multiple positive comments about HCE so maybe there is hope . Feel free to ask questions on this thread, if you want to go ahead and join the team, head over to http://forum.computerharpoon.com/viewtopic.php?t=49 where you'll find the text to e-mail on to join us. Please cc hc3@harpgamer.com with that application so that we know you have applied and can keep track of you in the approval process. Since all HCE beta testing is done at HarpGamer.com you'll also need an account at the HarpGamer forums.

I normally play with light water color and (dark) gray land. I don't get miscoloring at all. When I switch to the textured WestPac display (both land and water textured), I get the white boxes. If I then switch back to light water and gray land I have the very dark boxes and it doesn't look correct until I close the game and re-open. Does this describe the situation properly (i.e. that light water and gray land is okay if you start that way)?

Gopher, I believe your original ID 26633 (a ASW missile) problem was fixed in 2008.034 and 2008.035. The nuclear release seems to be caused by even your loadable save being corrupt, the launching platform, the Kirov, doesn't even have that nuclear weapon on board in HCDB-070524 (nor HCDB-080406). So I think outside of the waypoint thing (reported better elsewhere), we're done with this thread.

I like the idea but not the timing. The multi-selecting thing you hinted to me way when the game first arrived on my doorstep and was totally forgotten during the two CPXes of late. Probably a month or so out on my availability, maybe when the doctors are prodding me again around the 20th of May.

I don't think I understand what you are saying. If you mean plane groups not part of the 'target' group are listed in the intercept screen, I don't understand how that is wrong or bad. Can you elaborate?

HCE - 2008.037 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Fix bug in 2008.036 mouse click depth that wasn't taking into account when a group was being clicked (doh!)(thanks Brad) - Chg:0000 SE When mouse is clicked and shows distance on status bar, show water depth. Only for Group window at present. HCE - 2008.036 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Move the unit/group icon graphic out of Harpoon32.dll and into the Graphics subdirectory of the game. - Chg:2021 GE Tentative fix to non-air groups being asked to fire AAMs at air groups. The situation is a surface group with fighters in formation. If the incoming attacker comes into range of the fighters in formation, the ships of that group would want to fire SAMs. That isn't allowed, so the fix is to prompt the player to form an intercept group from the formation patrols. - Chg:0000 GE When mouse is clicked and shows distance on status bar, show water depth at the most recently clicked point on the map. Only for Group window at present.

HCE - 2008.037 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Fix bug in 2008.036 mouse click depth that wasn't taking into account when a group was being clicked (doh!)(thanks Brad) - Chg:0000 SE When mouse is clicked and shows distance on status bar, show water depth. Only for Group window at present. HCE - 2008.036 ============== - Chg:0000 GE Move the unit/group icon graphic out of Harpoon32.dll and into the Graphics subdirectory of the game. - Chg:2021 GE Tentative fix to non-air groups being asked to fire AAMs at air groups. The situation is a surface group with fighters in formation. If the incoming attacker comes into range of the fighters in formation, the ships of that group would want to fire SAMs. That isn't allowed, so the fix is to prompt the player to form an intercept group from the formation patrols. - Chg:0000 GE When mouse is clicked and shows distance on status bar, show water depth at the most recently clicked point on the map. Only for Group window at present. Brad has already verified the mouse click items, that leaves Mantis 2021 (Rene has a saved game here in the beta area), and the unit/group icon being in a separate bitmap (i.e. modify the bitmap and make sure you get what you expect...). Graphics directory, GR_ICONS.BMP

Thanks Brad, it isn't a DB problem, it was a problem with the mouse clicking for depth. I've fixed the problem, limited depth on click to the Group window and made it available in the SE as well. See 2008.037GESE in the second post of the thread.

You have the right procedure, wrong version of the game. Grab 2008.024 http://www.matrixgames.com/games/downloads.asp?gid=325 and let us know what happens. Perhaps Rene will update his descriptions to indicate the target game version.

Can you be more specific about what you are doing/conditions of the error? What I did was download the Carribean battleset that Rene made, unzipped it into my 2008.024 install. Then I opened the SE, changed to that battleset and had no error. Then I opened the GE, changed to that battleset, and loaded a scenario, no error. This was all with HCDB-080122 as the database.

Thanks Brad for the updated DB. USNI 1.0 is ready for testing from the blue side, see the updated download (2008.036) attached to the second message. There is a fair bit of variability, for instance there is only a 35% chance that you'll get any F/A-18C at all from the USMC. Please provide feedback.

#6 implementation at least begun for 2008.036

Any opinions on the PBS Carrier series airing in the US at present? http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/ I watched the first 2 hours and found it mostly boring but worth the time anyway for some nice shots. Tonight was hours 6 and 7 here, of which I watched about 20 minutes of hour 6 and found it much more engaging than the first two hours (Nimitz made it to the Iraqi area of operations). While I don't think the series is a treasure trove of hard platform data, I think it sheds a lot of light on the people factor. One thing that struck me was, "gee, I wonder how much of the crew would be left if this were a Soviet Union crew from back when questioning the purpose of the mission would be frowned upon." That's not to say I think questioning is bad but it must make a terribly difficult situation to decide who is going to sabotage the fresh water plant and who is just letting of some steam or disagreement.