TonyE

The GE doesn't talk with the pfData file at all but rather with the commondb.res file that is created when you Export the database from the PE. Rene has a great approach putting the different pfData files in separate directories and using the Browse button from the PE main menu to select the DB he would like to work on. I use a different approach, my pfData files are all in my main HC directory, just named uniquely. I also use the Browse button at the PE main menu to switch between them. For instance I have... pfData2002.mdb - the stock DB HCDB-060226.mdb - HCDB... HDCB-060103.mdb - HCDB... HCBlankDB.mdb - Template/Blank database HCStrikerFictionalDB.mdb - My own project, some day soon public, realistic and totally off the wall platforms pfDataWWII.mdb - Rene's WWII database Anyway, you have many ways of organizing the files.

I have posted a 'blank' database to HarpGamer DB Share area. The database has a bare minimum of sample platforms, weapons, and such to make the platform editor, scenario editor, and game engine happy to use the file. As it is a blank database, the battleset scenarios that come with HC will not operate when using this database, only scenarios crafted with whatever database you create from this blank slate will operate correctly. Have fun, design away http://www.harpgamer.com/HARP_dbpage.htm

Please see: http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=632 Let us know how it works out, what other caveats you find, etc.

In HC Gold and newer the images shown in the platform editor (for the commondb battlesets, aka EC2003 and WestPac) can be changed by the user and new images can be added. Game Requirement (affects HC Gold only, HCE 2007.000+ can use animations): In the game (GE, Winharp32.exe) you must turn off animations. If you do not do this, the game may crash with GetAnnex errors when the animations should show. In the Settings menu, Game Options, uncheck: Enable Launch Animations Enable Area Defense Animations Enable Hit Animations The Images: RGB encoded Windows bitmaps (aka BMP) Maximum dimensions 320x200 pixels 16 or 256 colors, limited support for more colors (images tend to cut off at > 256 colors) What to name and where to put the images: Make sure you have your database loaded into the Platform Editor. Find the file in the commondb\rsr with the largest number (in my case, res384.bmp). Save your first custom/new image in that directory and name it with the next number in the series, in my case res385.bmp. Continue numbering your next images in the same manner, with no gaps in numbers. Once your custom images are saved into commondb\rsr directory, go back to the platform editor. Find the platform that should have your first custom image you saved, change it's PicID to the image 'number' minus 154. In my case, res385.bmp - 154 = Pic ID 231. Save the record in the PE, change any other Pic IDs you need to change and Export your database from the PE. Give the Game a whirl and your new graphics should be associated with the correct platforms in the platform display. You may also replace the existing images, so you could swap out the image for the Ticonderoga (Pic ID 4 = res158.bmp) with a different image by over-writing res158.bmp with your custom image and re-exporting your DB. Special Pic IDs 0 - Shows the no image graphic -1 - The unit will not show up in the platform display Note: If you distribute your DB to others, to see the changed images you will have to distribute not only commondb.res from your game directory but also commondb.rsr. Paint Shop Pro palette of original 16-color HC palette: R G B 0 0 0 0 87 0 0 171 0 0 171 171 171 0 0 171 87 0 171 171 255 171 171 171 87 87 87 0 87 171 255 171 171 87 255 255 255 87 87 87 87 0 255 255 87 255 255 255 Some day I'm sure someone will write a utility that verifies the image formats, names appropriately, etc. Until then the above is a working method.

That one is easy, you have one set of numbers for early war, another set for mid-war when talents are closer to parity, and a third set for the latter war when the children take over. Of course such an approach isn't the desired approach but I think it would suffice as a method of simulating the quality of the man in the loop. So, more to the point, do we have interested parties in digging out the platform editor, scenario editor, and game to test out how HC really handles WWII and what parts can be fun to play and which parts are just plain a different beast that HC can't handle?

True about the aircraft guns though here again I think you would model them as AAMs instead of guns, large engagements could be a pain but then again it might just work decently.

Yes, this is possible if you are willing to give up the hit/launch/area defense animations. As for how, if someone doesn't beat me to it, I'll post up a set of directions this weekend.

Hi Keith, I don't believe there is a WWII database for HC unless someone is keeping it all to themselves. Every now and again (say once a year) the idea gets tossed around and people like me shoot it down as not very feasible. But here we are for the first time having this discussion on the HarpGamer forum. First let me say that I would love to see a WWII database for HC. My favorite ships are battleships, and hurling large caliber shells rather than cruise missiles that any old AEGIS ship can hurl better. I've played a little bit of War in the Pacific and think it an amazing game but I would still like to crack open HC for a large scenario that can be played in days rather than months . Now I'll jump in to some of the limitations HC has in executing a WWII battle: HC decides when to fire based on the distance between group centers, not the distance between two groups. What this means is that you may have two formations with ships dead on top of each other but yet not be able to fire 5" guns at each other because the group/formation centers are outside of 5" range. A potential work-around is keeping groups very small, allowing formations to be similarly tiny. HC guns are pretty much automatic. Once you get within range the AI will open up at you something fierce and something fast, often ships sink before you know what is going on. This one has a pretty easy work-around, all guns need to be implemented as missiles in the DB. That allows for time of flight as the biggest benefit as well as finer grained control of rate of fire. HC has a rather basic visual sensor model, works well for modern warfare but the granularity of the model is low so the game can't effectively model WWII visual conditions, at least the importance and impact of those conditions. I do not know of a good work-around here. HC does not model communications. Brad Leyte and I have had some fairly lengthy discussions about using radar to simulate communications. What that does is allow the enemy to 'snoop' communications and use triangulation to locate the emitting targets much as happened in WWII. In a similar vein, often communications led to detections (be it Pearl forwarding on decrypted location reports via radio) or signals back from picket ships and planes. So radar could possibly be a stand-in for modelling of communications in a way to suit WWII warfare. Similarly those signals can to an extent be jammed, a much improved feature of HCCE. HC has a weather model that does not suit WWII operations. Again HC was designed for a larger battlespace and modern weapons where weather should not play as decisive a role as it did in WWII. That said, weather will impact visual detections as well as radar quite dramatically in WWII situations. We don't see it much playing more HC scenarios since those scenarios often involve heavy duty radar, but the effects will probably show more in a WWII environment. Okay, so knowing all of that (at least my take), who is interested in digging into this beast and taking a shot at it? CV32 here is the maintainer of the HCDB and I know a few things about the code. We're here to help but I don't think either of us is about to lead a WWII database project. In fact, divefreek here is the other main HC database editor with the EuroDB. Let's see some volunteers and start turning theory into wrecked and proven theory All that rah rah said, there are WWII databases for Harpoon 3.

We found out with the last couple of HCDB potential releases that the country names were not being imported correctly by the PE (Platform Editor). There is no problem exporting from the PE, just importing. The import does not error out but rather imports incorrect information for the higher numbered country names (has to do with a 1024 character limit so saying exactly where the problem shows up is difficult as it varies with each DB). For those of you MS Access fans, the import specification called bsStringsImport has a column set to a fixed length of 1024 characters. By modifying the import specification to 4096 characters it becomes more than wide enough to hold the underlying data structure. Anyway, if you religiously import each version of the HCDB or make custom changes, we'll be happy to make the fix to your PE. Zip up your pfBuild2002.mdb file and e-mail it to PEFix@harpgamer.comand we'll try to get it back to you within 3 days. Making this repair does not break the PE's usage with any other databases. This 'service' will be ended when AGSI releases a patched PE.

Can anyone identify the particular ship or at least class of the carrier at the following two pictures? Thanks! Sorry about the off topic post, kind of... Tony Image 1 Image 2

You would think the anniversary 'bills' would have triggered a light-bulb about us being here for one year, oops. Sadly none of us won the lottery but I imagine we'll continue to see slow and steady improvement at HarpGamer. Thank you everyone for participating and making use of the resources here.

Congrats Christopher, hope we see many more scenarios!

Thanks for reporting this Mark. The annex limit for installations was reached some time ago, Brad just re-tasks some few slots that had been marked DoNotUse. Anyway, we ran across a problem with the db_utils about a month ago that affects the import/export process if things are laid out just so in the DB at that moment. I'll be sending AGSI a proper write-up of the problem later this week. For now you'll just have to go back to the prior HCDB version for making scenarios. Hopefully we'll figure something out in the interim. Prior version HCDB-060103.zip http://www.harpgamer.com/databases/HCDB-060103.zip

Congratulations to the Pooner winners of 2005! Brad Leyte wins the 2005 Pooner Ed Ladner is added to the ranks of Lifetime Pooner 52 votes were cast Brad took 31% of the vote in what was a close 4-way race for much of the month. Runner up had 19% of the vote, third and fourth place tied with 15% of the vote each. Ed took 54% of the vote, nobody else having more than 11% of the vote Congratulations gentlemen and thank you for your immeasurable contributions to Harpoon! 2005 Pooner, Brad Leyte Lifetime Pooner, Ed Ladner

Congratulations to the Pooner winners of 2005! Brad Leyte wins the 2005 Pooner Ed Ladner is added to the ranks of Lifetime Pooner 52 votes were cast Brad took 31% of the vote in what was a close 4-way race for much of the month. Runner up had 19% of the vote, third and fourth place tied with 15% of the vote each. Ed took 54% of the vote, nobody else having more than 11% of the vote Congratulations gentlemen and thank you for your immeasurable contributions to Harpoon! 2005 Pooner, Brad Leyte Lifetime Pooner, Ed Ladner

hmm, that shouldn't actually be a problem. I've used the editor in Access 97, 2000, XP, and 2003 and haven't had to convert the format in any of them (I always open and accept the read-only status, meaning only that you can't modify the editor but you can modify platforms). I'm glad it works now for you though . Thank you for posting that it is working, was scratching my head here wondering what to ask next.

Come vote! Today, December 31st is the last day for voting for the 2005 Pooner awards! Show your appreciation for the hard work put into the Harpoon computer games this year (and over the years) by helping to recognize two outstanding contributors. http://www.harpoonpages.com/poonervote/pooner-Intro.php

Come vote! Today, December 31st is the last day for voting for the 2005 Pooner awards! Show your appreciation for the hard work put into the Harpoon computer games this year (and over the years) by helping to recognize two outstanding contributors. http://www.harpoonpages.com/poonervote/pooner-Intro.php

Following the various comments about stealth shoot-downs of AEW birds and other planes, I made up a test scenario and modified some platforms. First I found thru the radar logging that the AEW radars actually do need the LDSD flag, without that flag, radar range is reduced by 50% when detecting any aircraft at an altitude lower than the plane. Brad kindly added the flag to the latest HCDB. Last night I restarted Fred Galano's MedWar scenario and the difference in AEW performance was fantastic. Planes could get close to me but now I could reliably detect even Su-24 aircraft before they could fire on me. Thanks Brad!

A paper game? Whadya sayin Gramps? PaperBoy on NES? All kidding aside, haven't done much paper gaming. My favorite is War At Sea as it is the only paper wargame I've spent any time with (and is simple enough for me to play with the people I see on a regular basis ). Harpoon paper makes a great reference for me but I've yet to play through an entire scenario, the scenarios on the computer take long enough, on paper I don't stand a chance given my current lifestyle.

We're having some troubles with installations in this version 20051220 so I am removing the download until we have this straightened out, sorry for the false alarm.

That'll require a programmer to remedy, you'll find those folks at AGSI. http://www.advancedgaming.biz

Brad and I (and Brains) did some chatting on the IRC channel and tried a few things out. Seems we can make a blimp such as your story suggest stay in the air a very long time, almost 1500 days if it just sits there, plenty long enough for your average scenario. Well, Brad can make it, I just did the quick platform hacks to see if the game would be happy with a platform outside of the normal parameters (and it seemed happy enough). Now we'll see what magic Brad works and if we get to play with the beast for real. Thanks Pete

Wow, I just hope it isn't manned, talk about boring in the age of Jet travel!

My pleasure Before your first export in the PE for each version of the game you should run DB-Start_Edit (aka start_edit.bat in your HCCE directory). The batch file takes the encoded DB files commondb.res and commondb.rsr and breaks out the individual pieces into a format that we can easily edit with, say, the PE. It stores the files in HCCEDir\commondb\ (running start_edit before every version is to be safe, in reality, you only need do this when a new database format is introduced and I doubt that will be happening before the release version) Running start_edit does not overwrite any custom changes you have in the PE itself. DB-End_Edit (aka end_edit.bat) should not need to be explicitly run. It takes any entries exported by the DB, any pictures you edited/added, and globs them all up into the commondb.res and commondb.rsr, the database files that the game actually uses in the GE and SE for EC2003 and WestPac. Now here's the neat part, when you do an Import in the PE, start_edit.bat is automatically run (hence you only need do a DB-Start_Edit before your first export, the rest are handled by the PE). So if you pick apart my logic, that original DB-Start_Edit isn't even needed but in this case I'd rather run it one too many times. Likewise, when you run an Export from the PE, the final step is that the PE triggers DB-End_Edit to make the game useable commondb files and places them into the game directory. So in your current situation you need only use the PE to Export and it will take care of the DB-End_Edit (naturally this assumes things are working right...). Check that it is working right by looking for your changes in game and/or looking at the date/time stamp on commondb.res in your game directory after you export. Good job on the shortcut, I'll leave it to you to suggest getting that into the installer. I also do not have a PE shortcut.