donaldseadog

When I think about this I assume that there is a typical periodic test (1 per second, 1 per minute, what ever) with a probability of detection. On that basis I'd think that a 1 nm range (and possibly need to fiddle of the probability) so that a fast incoming fixed wing has little chance of detection (as should be the case) but a slower chopper or sluggish fixed wing is likely to get picked up overhead. It's in view of no sound model that I think some adjustment would be good so that slower air craft will be likely to be seen at soome stage. With vlow attacking aircraft I'd expect you hear first then that tells you where to look, so to 'cheat' on this I think a slightly more lenient visual detection would be an improvement. Which needs least work, revising code or going through all the databases? Probably wouldn't need both. Don

I read the air to air detection for vsmall aircraft being 0 nm as meaning that at 0 nm range detection is possible, but when I try this it seems that no visual detection occurs, ie vsmall sized aircraft are invisible. I've attached a zipped save where 6 Tiger ARH helicopters are hovering over Amberley air base which in turn has a long range patroling MRH-90 helo also hovering directly above. All show up as at 0nm distance apart. no matter how long this is allowed neither the bse nor the HRH-90 make a visual on the 6 Tigers. There is also a Red MRH-90 hovering at 0nm distance from a loitering starlifter, AMberley has ESM on the MRN-90 but no visual is ever made. It seems to me that there is some problem with the 0 nm range. Even if the helos are hard to spot in this situation they would be heard, and then spotted, surely? Also if we do something simiilar with a stealth jet flying overhead vlow, Iaccept it probably won't be seen approaching but it will be heard as it overpasses, and a visual for a short time on its departure, surely? Amberley radar is off, 'see all' mode has been utilised, I used GE 2009.53, HCDB-110225, westpac BS. Don a2a_vis.zip

I don't believe tankers don't split after completing normal IFR, I've tested a lot of IFR flights and have not seen it. Ofcourse normal IFR might not complete in particular cases, each case has its own reason. If other occasions occur then get back to us with the specifics, it is useless just talking in generalities when there is no known problem. Don

Very good point.

I've always put mine in the HCE folder and I've never had a problem. Buddha If you want a bit of an idea about the scenario file extensions, and what they mean, see FAQ, file names Don

Anyone know where the rules came from originally? From my house (on a small ridge at the edge of a shallow valley full of farm land) I can see a gyrocopter that often flies overhead from between about 1 and 2 mile away. I usually hear it a bit before I can see it and it comes form a near neighbour about 2 mile away but I see it near the edge of our property about 1 mile away. Also I can see small fixed wing planes (and before when they used helicopters) that inspect a power grid line that runs along the valley opposite me about 2 mile away but sometimes loose sight when it nears the ridge at the other end about 4 mile away. These are all very low flying silhouetted against hills. I think this doesn't tie in very well with the 0 nm visibility of vsmall aircraft. The trouble I keep thinking of though is how to compare say a single seat fighter flying very low minutes away from weapon release and a reconnaissance plane cruising, their respective abilities to ID visually must be incredibly different. Don Thomas

A technique I've only recently picked up for the situation when a lot is happening quickly is this: You get an assistants message with various information and execution options, remember while it is showing the game is paused. You make your decision on what to do (and think about what is likely to happen next). If your decision is to give orders to a group that is currently selected, or you can select that group from the message window then press and hold the appropriate keyboard 'F' key (eg F1 attack, F3 course edit) while you mouse click the 'select', 'continue' or '1:1' option in the staff message window. Keep the key board button down until you see that you are in the appropriate box for your desired orders. otherwise press and hold the ctrl alt P key combination (for 0 time compress) while mouse clicking the 'continue' etc. In 0 compression you can select your groups one by one and issue their orders, then go back to normal time (or what ever). Now if in that very second many things are happening you will have to go through all the staff messages before you get to your appropriate box to do what ever, but that is reality, you can't split a second and make time stand still while you issue orders, but this technique does let you split two seconds and issue as many orders as you like, one for the supreme commander and one for the pilot officer in his Hornet etc, or what ever.

If you don't mind cheating then, for a group with only one receiving unit (of any number of planes) you can split off the tanker(s) manually (F8) as soon as you see the bingo number jump or the range ring expand. This is cheating as Harpoon, unlike most games, is a realistic simulation and in reality refuelling takes time. The way to tell (properly simulated finish to IFR) is that the 'split' request occurs. To my knowledge the only game glitch here is that the landing options sometimes omit the correct base/carrier in which case 'cancel' the request and your tankers should head back to their correct home plate. I think if you sit back and look at all the facts that the various people have presented to you in this string you must agree that what happened was correct game function, the error was from your inexperience. From my own memory inexperience is almost always the cause of my grief, but it happens less now than it used to (still happens though, because there is much to learn, and that is where I get my Harpoon fun) Don

Out of interest I did three quick refuelling tests: 1/ 24 hornets and one KA-6 Intruder, 2/ 12 hornets and one intruder 3/ 12 hornets and two intruder. the refuel cycle times (from 'xx00 starting to refuel xx01' to 'refuel complete, split group') were respectively: 72 mins, 37 mins, 18 mins. so nearly an hour and a quarter for the situation of refuelling 24 hornets from one intruder. In Joes cited situation the hornets were probably down to about 25% fuel at the start of the refuel (I seem to remember that is the trigger for auto refuel), so I guess with a surface attack loadout about 250 nm and I think each hornet would only get about 150 nm range extension from the refuel, so about 400 nm, with the low cruise speed of the intruder (350 kts?) you run dry before the cycle finishes. In my test my hornets had intercept load outs so just got to the end of the 72 min IFR with some fuel remaining. So I think that is what happened. Don Thomas

Have I missed something, do we have the game rules for visual detection of ships (Brad's post #4 is only air to air isn't it?)? RE visual of ships from the air, it seems that in the game tests I did (flying low and medium with all sized ships) I was getting consistent visuals at a factor of 5 to 10 times less than indicated in the manual. These were in daylight fine weather. I guess we also need to know how the probabilities are worked out? I'll try some air to air runs to. Don

Not so far as I know, Tankers should break off after refuel. However the refuelling process can take many minutes, it certainly isn't over as soon as the recipients have their fuel. If there are more than one unit being refilled or a large number of planes IFR can take more than ten minutes from memory. Refuelling 24 hornets from one KA-6 is unknown territory to me so maybe it does cause some problem. I'm not sure what your flight plan was, were you conducting a strike (you mention completing an attack) or were you ferrying (you mention separation distance from two carrier groups). Normally you can't 'launch' unless you have enough fuel for the intended flight plan so I don't see how it could have been an attack. I'd agree with others comments about mixed groups, you need to know what you're doing to be certain of it working. One option is to launch with the tanker and soon after they are formed up and cruising, do a forced refuel (alt R). Maybe you are only 100mile out but you've topped up the fuel used for launching (and the first launched loitering while waiting for the last). The tanker probably has time to get home and refuel to meet the survivors on the way home for a further top up if needed. Especially if you have a small amount of tanker fuel per 'plane this is more helpful than letting the normal flight take place. Another thing to watch here is if you are landing a very big group very low on fuel some of them might run dry while circling for their turn in landing. In the past I think this caused problems with ghost groups. In fairness to the GE, a flight comprising 24 hornets and one KA-6 is a bit out of the norm I'd suggest. Don Thomas

From your calculations and comments I'm thinking hard about my (30 year old) memories. I'm thinking in good conditions line of sight is the limiting factor while in poor weather actual visibility is the limiting factor. At night there is a reduction but the good/poor weather is more important. In good conditions visual range of a ship (from ship or aircraft) depends on mast height of observed ship and 'eye' of observer (altitude of pilot, deck height (ship size) of sailor. I think this is close to what is happening in Harpoon but the distances seem very short of your calculations which seem spot on, what are others finding? In poor weather I think the size of the target becomes more important than line of sight distance. For testing I'm having trouble getting any bad weather, I have realistic weather box selected but the clouds don't come. Is weather location dependant at all or something else? Don

I can see what you mean, nearly 300 mile off station. Its running full speed (17 kts) so would have taken quite some time to et there if it started off correctly in formation. In the formation editor things look OK except that the sub isn't there and in the unit window it isn't even heading toward its patrol point. If you reassign patrol sector (in formation editor) it turns and heads correctly. I've never seen this before and can't fathom it, interested to see what gets turned up. Don

I have looked at this very crudely. It's a matter of the 2-D geometry of a tangent to a very large circle. It seems to be the case that the range is not very sensitive to the size of the smaller object. Probably I should work it out carefully and post the results. I suppose one thing is how realistic we need to be with visual, take this example; In real life observing from the bridge of a 20,000 ton oiler such as the old HMAS supply, a super tanker side on is visible in good conditions from very much further than from right front on (or stern on). From the side view such a very large ship is quite more visible than say a FFL, but viewed right front on, or stern on, the difference is no where near as much. As you say it is the tangent or angular size of the target. There are many areas where visual detection is crucial, so I'd think that we need to have it working well. Don

This is quite interesting. I've attached a scenario I am using to look at detecting ships from planes (westpac, HCDB110225). Also is a txt file that is data stolen from the manual regarding Maximum line of sight. So far things seem to tie in re manual data, vis range from the game weather report (which takes time of day etc into account). What really surprises me is the small difference that the size of the 'target' makes. Ships range from small (lifeboat) to very large (supertanker) but in good conditions at low and medium altitudes all sightings are generally being made in the range 7 - 10 nm. Once conditions deteriorate, (eg night time) then the biggest difference seems to be the frequency of missing the smaller targets. I'll try to put together a number of runs in different conditions (funny, but the weather seems to be always fine) and post up something more informative. I'm interested in what others find and think, but I'm wondering if periscopes and life boats are to easy to see and supertankers a bit too difficult?? I'm assuming others are are looking at air to air first as Brad posted some stuff on that (which is why I thought I'd look at air to ship). Don SHPVIS.zip

I think the time line databases are correct, I think what happened when the instant action button was selected was that all your selections made in launcher were ignored and thus it looked in an incorrect database. Still you now have an upto date version of all those databases and it may well be that some of the scenarios need that so no loss. Hope you got into korea-51 and had fun with it. Harpoon diesn't handle some aspects of gunnery so well as might be hoped for by some people but I still have fun with it and hope you too. Don Thomas

But we must remember the mast height matters in relation to the active/visually searching unit, at more mast height, more visual detection range. with range values similar to that in the paper rules. Please verify for us dummies, for ship to ship visual ID, the mast height of the ship being searched for doesn't matter but the mast height of the ship doing the searching does. Also does the mast height of the searching ship help to see low altitude aircraft, I looked at this in the manual but wasn't clear to me some of the detail. Don

In my untrained mind I see the E-2B as a kind of large mast for mounting my ships' radars, I put them within the groups CAPs and at medium altitude which (if I correctly interpret all the performance data) doesn't greatly , if any, reduce its use as the likely hood of high alt incomers is pretty low and it still has much the same performance against them, but better performance against the more likely low level incomers. Don Thomas

Have you got something else radiating nearby? Might the enemy be investigating that, and just tripping over your Hawkeye? If this is for something other than the Viet Nam Bridge scenario, might the hostile fighters be checking out a sonar detection of your CV, and again just running into the Hawkeye by accident? (And of course, this is probably another one of those cases where you'll be told that a saved game would be useful ... ) Nope, nothing else. Also, apparently not the case anyway, because examination of the targets of those intereceptors showed they were specifically going after the Hawkeyes. It does seem that the question of unexpected detection was caused by data transfer from the neutral drug runner, which was probably overflown by the hawkeye on its way out on patrol. I'd think that unless some one comes up with something to the contrary using latest betas the matter is put to bed. As I've said in another post, I've tested to my satisfaction using three HCE game versions but not the demo, out of curiosity I'd like to hear that the demo is now OK on this point.

The scenarios that come with battlesets aren't in separate files, but reside within the battleset files. A matter of choice where you put your custom scenarios, but if you become addicted (like many of us) you'll soon clutter up your HUCE folder, I use a separate folder "addons" (in which I have my custom scenarios [and custom battlesets] in folders named after their respective database, so I can remember which database I need to play the scenario). Have fun, and I invite you to try out some of my WWII scenarios in the Westpac section of Harpgamer downloads. Don Thomas

Good demo, something similar on the ocean with smallish boats if there is a bit of a swell too, amazing how close they get before you see them unless you know where to look - and that's in the day time with the sun behind you and high in the sky. I'd have to say I haven't noticed problems that I'd put down to visual IDs, but while we are on that tack it sounds like its worth investigating. I'd assume that like a lot of things in Harpoon its governed by the paper rules (that I know nothing about), so what do they say? and then we can test if we are getting that.

Scratch my earlier reply, I didn't notice this was in Harpoon 4 section.

I don't have the demo installed but I used 2009.53, 2009.54 (the bug fix) and the latest 'experimental' 2011.01 In 2009.53 I flew low to about 30 nm from drug runner, loitered for ten minutes, climbed to high and interceptor came out every time (did about 3 trys). Flew to a spot about 100 nm away, but closer to red base, did the same and no reaction. Did same in the other two versions, and no reaction... so I'd guess the bug had been fixed but in the putting together of the 2009.53 (my understanding is that is a fine tune of 'Ultimate', and not with all the beta changes since the previous patch [2009.42?]). ... Anyway I think a good team effort

YUm, YUm, this looks like being another of Brad's classics, and as I'm sitting with my old sick dog at the moment I'll be straight into it - yipee

In addition to what Brad has said; the commondb.rsr file you downloaded is needed to use divefreak's databases (the 'res' type files in the download, or update them at harpgamer). It includes all the standard harpoon stuff so you can put it in the base harpoon folder (to replace the standard after saving it somewhere). That way you don't have to do any swapping or selection (in Launcher) or the 'rsr file. The time line system is well set up for using the launcher, when you open it you'll see that you can select the battleset, the database and the scenario or saved game, as well as other stuff. The time line folder system just makes it all organised. Don Thomas