TonyE

Excellent, trying to decide how many to pick up myself.

This does not change my interest in making formations even better than they were before but I have a semi-realistic perspective that it'll be a long time before that vision can be implemented.

What was the last version where formation keeping, intercepts, and such worked generally correctly? I'm pondering going back to that codebase and porting in as many later fixes as possible. Enrique's test scenario in http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/tracker/issue-204-red-subs-and-ships-not-change-speed-or-course-after-foe-detection/is a good first place to start to see if the AI will intercept the player.

I am fine with this approach. That said, one alternative would be to have the outermost portions of multiple rings conform to the role/purpose of the innermost rings. For example: A unit assigned both a sector in the ASW ring and a sector in Picket #1 would perform as though it were in an ASW ring. A unit assigned both a sector in the AAW ring and the ASW wing would perform as though it were in an AAW ring. And so on. Thank you for the suggestion, I'm happy to switch to that approach as it brings more flexibility to the situation and extends the unique behaviors of the inner rings.

Come January 1, 2018 it may no longer be possible to buy the game. If you've been waiting to buy a copy, I strongly suggest doing so by year end. For more than a year I've been attempting to arrange a situation where Harpoon Classic (HC) could be sold unbundled. That effort hasn't been successful and time is running out. Negotiations are ongoing but out of my hands at this point while the rights holders make their decision. That decision may not be made by year end which would mean no active publisher of the game and hence no way to buy the game. The holiday sale is on and the price is cheap! http://www.matrixgames.com/products/product.asp?gid=392

Surface & Submarine navigation Things that Groups do... Follow a plotted course Ignore a plotted course to... Evade a threat Intercept a target Localize a target Slow down to allow formation-keeping Speed up to plotted speed

Formation Zones for surface and submarine units (air are treated by loadout/patrol type) 0 - Main BodyMaintain position relative to group center 1 - AAW Ring Maintain position in assigned sector(s) There is no value in assigning units to multiple sectors in the AAW ring 2 - ASW RingSprint and drift around the assigned sector(s) 3 - Picket Ring #1Meander around the assigned sector(s) 4 - Picket Ring #2Meander around the assigned sector(s) 5 - Picket Ring #3Meander around the assigned sector(s) What to do when a unit is assigned to multiple rings (i.e. a sector in ASW and a sector in Picket #1)? The behavior of the inner-most ring in the selection will define the behavior. ASW + Picket #1 selected will result in Sprint & Drift.I think any cross-ring assignment should be treated as a picket, meandering around the combination of sectors. Currently formation-keeping will not change the heading of a unit. This needs to change. See also http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/topic/3426-tactics-101-naval-formations-part-1/

2017.012 and newer obviously have serious issues with formation-keeping. I'm finally getting a better picture of what is happening code-wise. In these builds I've tightened up how often various functons check and change paths (path following, station-keeping, close to attack, etc. That exposed the lack of a formal state machine telling units when to turn, when not to turn, etc. Now they just sit and fight each other. Ships trying to close to attack other ships have their intercept course set each second and over-ridden every 60 seconds when they try to follow their plotted path. It goes on and on like that. This is all without even broaching the topic of staying in your formation zone. I'd like to explore what these state machines might look like, comments appreciated.

HCE - 2017.016 - 2017-12-07 =========================== -Chg:I207 GE Seems units can be turned before they are assigned to a group so the logging that printed out the non-existant group id was crashing. In 2017.016 we skip the log messages when there is no group assigned. (thanks Enrique) http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/tracker/issue-205-2017015-crash-at-start/

HCE - 2017.015 - 2017-12-06 =========================== -Chg:0000 GE Gradual turns weren't capable of operating on individual units, only entire groups. That has been remedied. -Chg:0000 GE Centralized all turning of units & groups, gradual or not into a pair of functions then added debug logging that will greatly assist troubleshooting. Ex: 100002 SetCourseUnit AA002 old=328 new=329 MoveUnits display.c 1725 -Chg:0000 GE Effect2.c lines 623-624 are commented out. They were causing formation air patrols on their way to land to periodically flip course to match the course of the group.

Making some progress on the formation mess...

Brad/CV32 hasn't assembled platform images for HCWW. You might try to convince him to spin up an effort to do so? It is a surprisingly painstaking process. If you want to build you own collection of images, holler and we can help you with the mechanics.

Operative words being "any newer builds", as I write this, 2017.014 is the newest, replacing 2017.013.

You are mixing two different games, hence the problem. Harpoon3UltimateANW-Update-v311-Beta.exe is from the Harpoon 2 and Harpoon 3 lineage. Harpoon Classic/Commander's Edition is from the Harpoon 1 lineage. The HC2017.011GESEDBDUBSBB and HC2017.014GESEDU updates should be applied to this game (Harpoon Classic/Commander's Edition). Does that clear things up? If not, let us know.

Bump for InstaTurn 20171123 HC 2017.007+ Adds MessageLog entries for friendly turns where InstaTurn overrides the default game heading change behavior.

A little start today on formation troubles 2017.015 ToDo List: For formation patrol troubles, look at a single carrier. Create a single formation patrol and note how upon creation of the air unit and note how we get turning messages about the whole carrier group instead of just the patrol. For formation patrol troubles, note how formation patrols don't trigger altitude change events. I noticed this using the InstaClimb ExportDLL, specifically the absence of log messages from the DLL for formation patrols. 2017-12-05 update (using InstaTurn and InstaClimb) single carrier in the formation main body is fine. There were no InstaTurns triggered. single carrier with a single main body formation air patrol is fine. There were no InstaTurns triggered. single carrier with a single 2nd ring, single sector formation air patrol is fine. There were no InstaTurns triggered. single carrier launching a LR air patrol with three separate plane types is fine. single carrier with single outer ring formation air patrol does trigger InstaClimb when heading back to the carrier. It is properly doing this for the affected unit rather than the entire group.

Bump for v002 which writes out log messages to the MessageLog window. InstaClimb 20171122 HC 2017.007+ Adds MessageLog entries for friendly altitude changes where InstaClimb overrides the default game altitude changing behavior.

what I noticed last night withrespect to this is that the aircraft that run out of fuel don't seem to be in a proper formation, when you look at the formatino editor some 'patroling' air units aren't listed by patrol type (eg 'asw') but by their class description (eg MV-22b Osprey). The "delete patrol' button is also greyed out. This list of errant air units sits above those that are correctly patroling. Yes, very probably that can be a correct approach to the problem. Both in the "A Passage To Lebanon" and in the modern ASW scenario in the Sea of Japan, are present helicopters carriers with a lot of helicopter patrols, but I was incapable to concrete a pattern in the erroneous helicopter auto patrols. This one made it into the Issue Tracker at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/tracker/issue-166-ai-controlled-air-running-out-of-fuel/. Don't know yet why it happens but as least I can see it.

HC2017.014 doesn't intentionally solve any of the formation troubles but getting it 'shipped' allows me to get the internal improvements it brings solidified so I can get back to the bug hunting.

HCE - 2017.014 - 2017-11-21 =========================== -Chg:0000 GE Fixed scenario version conversion from V002 to V003 that wasn't properly zeroing out memory. -Chg:0000 GE Fixed other pointer and overflow errors pointed out by cppcheck static analysis. -Chg:0000 GE Torps with the quiet flag were errantly having their self-noise level set to -4 instead of subtracting 4 from the self-noise. -Chg:0000 SE Fixed other pointer and overflow errors pointed out by cppcheck static analysis. -Chg:0000 DU Fixed other pointer and overflow errors pointed out by cppcheck static analysis.

Due to the ongoing issues with formation-keeping, we won't be sending an official patch to Matrix Games for distribution before year end. Quality is not where we need it to be for an official release. Please keep reporting issues and helping us improve the game; the uptick in participation of late has been great.

Definitely post to nag; and if you are still visiting when we finally deliver some functionality for you, nag even more often with what would most help you next.

Picket 2 and Picket 3

I'm glad to note the smile in your post. Come back one more time in a few months if still interested.

Thanks for the writeup and my apologies for the brevity below, I'm not meaning to sound short/perturbed. VLow affects the radar horizon and as such is a great tactic. There is also the matter of look down radars (not all have the flag) so you could have an extra bonus at VLow depending upon the detecting radar. Turning on your radar turns your B-2 into a beacon even though in real life it is a LPI radar, the game doesn't simulate that well. In short, in the game, keep the B-2 radar off if possible. Since build 2015.008 of the game, tankers can offload fuel multiple times per sortie. They can offload an amount of fuel equal to the range of the tanker mission. So a 4500nm tanker loadout can offload 4500nm of fuel whereas as a 1500nm tanker loadout can offload 1500nm of fuel.