donaldseadog

Not an important matter, but can the pfbuild2005.mdb be used in a sub folder and import/export the commondb.res file to that sub folder instead of the HUCE root folder. I've tried but can't get it to work, I just would prefer to leave the commondb files alone in the root folder. Don Thomas

I'd like to see boarding parties (like that of the the pirate dhow) on patrol boats like Australian Armidale class. Would be particularly nice if one day there is a 'take command' function as an option to damage. I have been trying a pirate dhow against the new suicide boat, the dhow has lost each time so far. Don

But maybe the sound of a whale is enough different from a sub that SOSUS and the like can tell the difference, anyone know for sure? I suppose yes, but only after the game engine (or the sonar or other sensor) give us the classification MISC: Whale we must take it as a biological contact. If in first instance the yet no-classified contact is descripted only as MISC (and not as SS, or other confuse name), is clearly a whale previous to the real classification, and the player has not cause for research that contact. You've obviously looked at this closer that have I. Maybe for perfection the initial report from Staff Assistant should only say "unknown contact: detected by SOSUS" (or what ever) and not give more information till better detection obtained. Your suggestion maybe is much simpler to impliment. I suppose there are a few things that fall into this catagory, my personal number one is the showing of weapon range rings for bases which include units within base formation that aren't yet detected but their range rings show up (I like to leave them off for AI for better reality)

But maybe the sound of a whale is enough different from a sub that SOSUS and the like can tell the difference, anyone know for sure?

What an awful idea, but then they are the best for this kind of thing. Maybe countries wouldn't want to pull out but dump the crippled Italy. Would it be the strong wealthy ones (that don't want their hard earned money 'wasted' on rebuilding) or would it be the poorer countries that can't afford it? Maybe poorer countries would side with Italy as they now see her as 'in their league'? Could these sort of things lead to trade embargoes, then lead to localised 'war'? Certainly a situation that might leave open a door for a radical government promising "rebuild the nation at any cost". How's this, some of the big nations call for some form of enforcing Italy to pay its own way (which we assume it can't) but the majority (mostly smaller economies) side with Italy (thinking well if it happens to us we want support) and in fact oust the big players and enforce trade restriction and naval movement in the Mediterranean ?

No better, it was a LIFT trainer

This is a little pedantic and more out of interest than anything: say you have a target comprising a single unit of three closely formed planes and you fire three missiles (eg heat seekers). Say you get three hits, now there is a likely hood (in reality) that two hits are on the same plane and so there is one survivor. This doesn't seem to be the case in Harpoon where the hits appear to be divided up evenly. Doesn't really cause a problem (in my mind) as both sides have the same situation and it isn't too far off, but an interesting case of minor deviation from reality. Don

Confirm that AAM resolution now logging in "missiles", but not quite as Tony wrote with the log entry indicating number of missile hits not number of kills. I'll refer to this in a separate "general" post. (tested in 2009.54 'playable' GE) readout is: "100798 combat3.c:1518 - AirToAirResolution Ph: 85, Roll: 14 100798 combat3.c:1518 - AirToAirResolution Ph: 85, Roll: 65 100798 combat3.c:1518 - AirToAirResolution Ph: 85, Roll: 22 100798 combat3.c:1518 - AirToAirResolution Ph: 85, Roll: 64 100798 effect4.c:5189 - CheckAirMissileHits 4 x AIM-9M Sidewinder against RED 2 x A-10C Warthog, 4 hits" (double checked in 'sides' GE2011.03) Don (edit to insert readout)

I think I'll give up playing my own and just read this,

I can verify that the launcher will detect a "sides" GE and allow passing of side selection as stated and the GE notes sides as "player 1" accordingly but I seem to be only able to play as blue no matter what sides I've selected, is that supposed to be the case at this instant. PS I might be going daft but I can't find the release notes string for the non experimental updates eg GE 2009.052 - introducing AAM hit resolution to logging. Don

Donald, many of the HC scenarios have been rewritten in ANW for PlayerDB. Freek Thanks for that, I have also found some in one of the standard HUD3 folders so I'm working through them. Maybe I'm just not upto ANW game play but things like a lack of push button "intercept" is wearing out my key board,... enough of that I'm getting a bit of topic, sorry. Don

Sounds like we're all getting much better hit ratios, are they looking OK from reality perspective, I've no idea what we should expect (though someone put up some info about low success for air dropped LWTs). It is much better from the game point of view, it doesn't seem like an utter waste of time and frustration builder.

I do agree, many like the micro management so the computing of more planned attacks would need to be optional or separate from the GE, I kind of do mine in my head but sometimes (eg at 1 am in the morning) the old head isn't upto it so I'm going to try the strike planner. Don

Arr yes, I think that falls into an "aggression setting". maybe three levels 'no fear' (ignore all treats) 'normal fear'(evade weapons) 'all fear' (run home first sign of threat). I'm sure I've wished for it some time ago. It would be good either in Staff Assistant prompts or as a game setting, I hadn't thought of the former. Don

Yep, a lot of Harpooners still want this, especially HC players, let me command without sinking me in the micromanagement. As a person who stepped from a Harpoon version 1.* demo to HCE I actually think that things change very substantially. I took this opportunity to revisit the condensed wish list (here at Harpgamer) and sure there are quite a few items there (and pretty desirable too), but I think the current package is doing pretty well if these are the only 'deficiencies'. For items like the calculations for getting weapons to target in a co-ordinated manner, maybe out of game utilities (eg windows 'calculator') can do the job? (PS, in the consolidated wish list, I think that the Launcher is now well past "barely alpha"). Don

Harpoon 3 as in ANW? Having just loaded "ultimate" and having played some ANW scenarios, I'm interested in playing scenarios that are (closely) duplicated in ANW and HCE, because to be honest I'm having trouble finding something in ANW to "latch on to", Im finding the GE very tedious and unfriendly but I'm sure I've just not picked up the groove and I think playing cross game scenarios will help me. So my question (if your new scenario has an "ANW conterpart") what is the Harpoon 3 scenario that has been the inspiration? Don

Let me correct my original message. The focus of the unit window jumps when changing the zoom level on the *UNIT* window. I was back in a scenario last night to verify that I'm only working from memory here but I think when you change the zoom the window will focus on the currently selected unit, if there is one selected. If no unit is selected I think the focus should stay put, ditto if it is already focused on the selected unit. Maybe look at that at your next go and see if that is what is happening. If so I think that is the designed operation mode. If it is something else some one else might know what is ahppening or maybe you can be more specific and provide a game save?

We've (myself and Tony) have already talked about that to some extent and if changes are made, it will likely be in the way that AI handles a torpedo attack rather than any fundamental, underlying changes to the way in which distances are displayed on the map. That sounds good to me as I assume it will improve the realism of the AI's side in this matter, as is the player can easily side step a futile allocation of precious torps but old 'dummy' I assume is just throwing them away. It would also take the load of those who like to concentrate more on the big picture. I can't wait (hehe I guess it won't be tomorrow though)

Do I correctly understand you, the focus point of the unit window moves sometimes when you change the zoom on the group window? I don't think I've seen that? Certainly the "U" and "C" keyboard buttons can refocus the unit window when the Group window is active and a group is selected, and teh group window focus seems to centre on a selected group if the group window zoom is altered but I don't remember other similar things occuring to me. Any hints on the sort of conditions when it happens? Any one else seen this? Curious.

Hehe, yes, the platforms are all spheres to the game sensors. Ideal if planes are finally replaced by flying saucers, eh I suppose it comes down to how often is visual detection important in the game? Certainly there are cases, especially with more and more stealthy fighters and the ability to rely on remote platforms for doing the detection for the shooter. If we were to go to including faceting of the visual target then I think we'd need to also be looking at the viewing direction from the observer (in the case of an aircraft observer) as that may be more critical. If we could take into account the visual angles then maybe we only two facet values for the target and they are balanced taking into account its direction of flight relative to the observer... ( I think it is my turn to claim a somewhat less than clear explanation )

Yes, that's my principal concern in making the 'fudge' just big enough to be workable in most circumstances. I don't mind making the player work a bit harder to make sure he has a solid contact and drops in close. Two other points: 1. I am not concerned about the ASW standoff weapons; they already have an uncanny ability to drop their payload very close to the target. 2. Keep in mind that since HCE does not model acoustic decoys or countermeasures, I also don't mind making submarines a difficult target. The 'extra fudge' in hcdb-110401 certainly seems to have greatly increased the frequency of getting and maintaining acquisition in all of the torpedos I previouls testedeg stingrays now getting about 1 in four hit and 3 in four maintaining acquistition (Thanks to peoples input I'm gauging a maintained acquistion as the time to target going down to 0:00 and the torpedo diving for the target). I have also looked at the granuality, I'll call a visual unit the smallest movement you can get on the screen, (I was using full magnification in the unit window with the unit window about 40% of the total Window's window). Using the torpedoe's speed and time to target, as well as the units' co-ordinates (given down the bottom of the unit window when you select units) it appears that a torpedo approaching its target jumps in one visual unit from being separate to being visually right over the target somewhere between 0.75 and 1.25 NM. That is even if you micro manage your helo to visually be right over the sub it might be as much as 1.25 mile off target. With previous settings this is around the range that people have been reporting as critical. While so far I think Brads latest fudge is looking good it seems to me that we couldn't have previously relied upon micro management because we just didn't have a fine enough visual scale. Also if you leave the helo under AI control it often wants to drop on an uncertain fix and will drop (it appears) any where out to about the max range of the torpedo in question, so leaving it to the AI is near hopeless. Therefore it seems to me that if a long term solution was wanted without the fudge it would require either a much more rigorous AI routine and/or an ability to get visual granuality down to about .25 nm. Intereted to see how others are finding the last fudge and from the quoted observations I guess we need to look at other torpedo activities to make sure it isn't too fudged.

My understanding is that the GE sees a much better resolution than the screen gives. I have usually dropped torpedoes from A/c manually as I thought I could do a better job but is this my problem because although (as others have said) you can have the image of your helo right over the sub, drop a torp and it is 2 mile from the target.... does this happen if the AI is allowed to manage the drop?? and so does it get better results? When torps are dropped from fixed wings they have a 'shute don't they so as to hit the water at a reduced speed. How about from helos, do they normally drop from a hover or with say a 40 kt forward speed facing the target. Do the these torps have an initial programed course/ depth or do they need to get acquisition, ie what is their 'search' pattern between drop and acquisition? How well is the GE simulating this bit between drop and acquisition? This is what I'm starting to wonder,

In some scenarios there are a lot of groups in action. I guess its horses for courses but the best compromise for me is to have both unit and group windows fully visible and about the same size (maybe the group is a bit bigger usually). Both are zoomed in sufficiently to see the detail and then to move the window quickly about the total area of interest I use the little strategic map, left click positions the group window, right click positiones the unit window. You just to need to have in the back of your mind where the various action is taking place.

I think I follow, but I'm not convinced it is always correct. Consider: two planes about the same size are at a bit less than visual limit, the plane's respective heading are about 90 deg apart with one plane approachinging the other and facing directly at it and the second plane heading 'across' the front of the first, ie an ideal situation for the first plane to cruise in behind the second on its tail and shoot. The approaching plane is seeing the second plane side on and its right in front, but for the second plane they are looking at the first front on and having to look right abeam (with maybe a wing in the line of site). The approaching plane is (in reality) in a very advantageous position.

I also did some more tests, predominantly from helo air drops and with rather poor results. Question: I am now not sure I'm correctly judging getting acquisition, is it indicated by the unit report box showing "x miles to target, xx;xxmins to targe"t? I dropped NST-58, Stingray Mod 0, A244s, Mk46 mod2 and mod5 and L5 mod4 (Not sure I have the last written correctly), I also did sub launched Mk48mod5 ADCAP. My targets were Collins class subs generally doing 21kts deep (evading torps). The ADCAPs had a near perfect hit rate, except in one case when they fired to early and the ships out ran them. Of the others, generally helo launched in pairs as close to the target as I could manage, generally showing helo and sub coinciding but the torpedoes apparently hitting the water within 2 nm (from the unit report box) I only got kills from stingray, Mk46 mod 2 & mod5 and about 15% - 20% hit rate, a couple of nights back I got good results doing much the same (helo drops) with single MU-90 impact. One thing I noticed was that some of the torps doing a long back and forth (hunting) at 0 nm, 0 mins to target, it seemed to be mostly the Mk 46 doing this, and it generally resulted in a 'near miss' bringing up the little video showing the torpedo cruise past. Once some one clarifies for me the method of determining when acquisition occurs I'll go over it all again. Oh yes, regarding warhorse's comment on getting the helos in close, while I tried to do this the torpedo often hit the water still 2 mile out as reported in the unit report window even though at full resolution (and a fairly large unit window) the helo was hovering on top of the target with a solid fix. Don