donaldseadog

Chg:B179 - confirm radars for AEW EW and Recon aircraft subtypes all turn on radar (air and/or surface as available) at or shortly after reaching patrol point when launched on patrol mission. Don

attached shot shows blue unit has positively IDed Red but Red still hasn't detected blue. Great tool for analysing games. Next blue attacks red, when blue gets a hit on red the little 'explosion' on the screen seems to be over blue not red. Occurs for missile hit and gunnery hit. Also during attack blue group disappears momentarily from time to time. Don

Seems to crash if game saved, need to run without auto save activated. In game optioins now have settings for which group window shows which side, window one is set to player but always shows blue but I guess not yet finished as the pull down lists only have one option each. Group windows sizes and positions probably need to be saved to next game (picky picky ) Tab key will take you from a group window and bring the unit window to the 'front' but won't take you back to a group window. Don

confirm X button showing and working to close group windows. confirm left mouse click in strategic window re centres last group window. Also all visible group show up on strategic map,very nice confirm command bar buttons properly sized (see jpeg attach) So far more stable too. Don

I'm assuming not meant to be playable from red side yet, 'cause when opened to play red you can't you can't select red groups that haven't been detected by blue. Don

2010.009 Unit map is more sane . Should be posted Tuesday night or sooner. Only just seen '.008 beta but noticed in '.007 that it doesn't seem to play properly if loaded as red. I'll expand if '.008 is the same.(maybe I'm expecting too much at this stage? Don

A few things, I opened as blue side (westpac walk through-nice and simple scenario), the screen shot shows both a red and blue window. the red is "active". The unit window shows blue units which as yet have not been detected by red (I'm pretty sure). With red active the unit window doesn't show any red units not yet detected by blue (it will show the red base). When red is active the unit window doesn't seem to show what the red side really sees (here they should see red units and blue airbase but no other blue units) but instead what they can see in respect of what blue can see. Also you can't select units by mouse clicking the unit screen or by combination of keyboard 'U' and 'tab' or other keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard 'C' command now seems to be identical to keyboard 'U' and the black blob at top right of a group screen (should centre on selected group) is rather liable to crash the program but nothing else. Regarding window location from the strategy map, I use it sometimes and like the left click for group (active group?) window and right click for unit window. Early days, eh, but good work Tony Don

Oh dear, I can see I'm going to have to cut down on my biscuits and save for a new BIG screen Don

Makes me think where does one look if they want to know a countries current major military assets for the purpose of writing a current scenario? PS - A silly question, but have the government sliced their own salaries and allowances with the same 'diligence'? Don

Often the cause of such behavior is an empty group (a group with no units). You can open your scenario in the scenario editor and press the spacebar repeatedly to hop between groups. If one highlights that is off map or has no units try deleting the group. Rinse and repeat until the scenario loads in the game. Alternatively; send your scenario to hc3@harpgamer.com and we'll take a look to further diagnose. In the scenario editer can also use the "Misc" "analyze scenario" (ctrl Z?) function to isolate any number of trouble some items (I always find something I've botched ) Don

Can't help with specific data but in regards super heated steam turbine systems (common from I think WW2 till early 80's) they are very slow if caught off guard but relatively quick if the boiler room is given notice- The steam system must be kept superheated or the turbines will be pretty much be written off. That means the total energy in the steam system (inticated by pressure and temperature, critically at the exhaust of the last section of turbines) must be kept above a critical level. The energy in the steam system is a bit like momentum in a truck, slow to put in but if built up it can do a lot of work. .. So eg if steaming slowly up harbour towards coming alongside a warf (especially if no tugs) the engines are pretty well just ticking over and taking little energy out of the steam system BUT nearing the warf the boiler will be stocked up so as to put extra energy into the steam system and when the manourvering starts to come along side (an inexperienced officer at the con can use a lot of steam in this manourver) the energy is there for instant use. Same thing if eg you're about to do an alonside unrep where you've been ticking alone then go into full acceleration then come back to a cruise. If caught with pants down, the energy has to get put into the system before you can even tweek the trottle, let alone go flank. I can't remember times but certainly minutes before you really get anything happenning. Ofcourse if there is a known risk you're not going to cruise along without some buffer, ie you'll be running the steam system with a higher energy level than needed (without going over the max limits) and then if needed you can open the taps on the turbines pretty full at the same time as the boiler room punching in all your big oil nozzles to pump as much heat into the system as you can.. and the accelleration is pretty good. Don

For the reasons you mention (and others), I rarely use the direct 'Attack' method and almost always the 'Patrol' method instead. My aircraft rarely take a direct path to the target. Also if the group heads of on a "patrol" rather than an "attack" mission then they will pop up in the "intercept window" (assuming they have some A2A weapons), handy if some stealthy fighters pop up within A2A weapon range. Don

And don't forget that for both AI and player a lot of what happens such as detection and missile hits etc depends on probabilities. Some times you might sneak by undetected, sometimes not...sometimes a misisle gets by defenses and sinks your carrier, sometimes you live to drink beer in the next port... Don

Have had a bit of a non-harpoon fortnight, but this looks like what the doctor ordered, "let go, full steam ahead, adventure on the horizon - hippee!" Don. HooWee, I haven't yet found out what the Red side is up to but my little 500Meg ram laptop starts going v e r y s l o w. When I get to see what they've planned for me I think I might run Don

Have had a bit of a non-harpoon fortnight, but this looks like what the doctor ordered, "let go, full steam ahead, adventure on the horizon - hippee!" Don.

Great picture, nice looking day to be on the water. Yeh, hard to believe it is the middle of the ogen. I had more waves on my horses drinking trough today (and less sun). So is that some sort of mini rocket propelling the light line? I seem to remember from the 60's-70's a sort of 'dildo' slipped over the end of a standard rifle (SLR- 6.25 mm) for getting the light line across. I can't remember but guess a blank was loaded to lauch the 'dildo'. Don

Hi, you say "with the picture file, I'm adding it to the folder". I assume you mean the new commondb.rsr file, there should be a file of this name already so as with the commondb.res file you should be needing to overwrite,m is this occuring? I've used most of Rene's databases including the 'HC 80 to 95' but not had this problem (once I remember to overwrite the rsr file. (I'll run away and have a quick sqizz at the examples you quote as a problem) Also if you find the 'launcher' file (thanks to Tony) in the tools you can specify the database files (both the rsr and res) to be used with out having to do overwrites and keeping track of which files are in the main folder. {edit}I opened the scenario editor (then under the platform display function} opened the display for all of the Hermes and the russian Kirov, all OK. I used the recent '100530 version zip file. I think it should work OK and think try Tony's Launcher and/or double check you've overwritten the commondb.rsr file in the main CE folder. (re the launcher, you can use it to start the editor by overwriting the "GE Name" to wscenedt.exe, just don't select the stuff below the CDB.res and CDB.rsr file names as they don't apply) Don Thomas

Of the two options I agree option 2, but I wonder whether it is good to have something like a recon aircraft available that will go on patrol and NOT automatically fire up radar (& get detected), which is the current situation? The poor old AI has a pretty hard time being steathy and that is more and more becoming high priority. I'd like to see all patrols set with optional radar (and optional patrol altitude) at the time of setting up the patrol. AI recon patrols (and similar) are usually pretty poor life insurance risks. Don.

... So that sort of use would negate the usual warrantee I suppose? Don

Yep, can't help but think that if the 'Grizzly' name has come from the test pilots there's something they aren't telling. To me 'grizzly' is more like a very chewy piece of steak that you end up spitting out (if the eating companions allow). I have an Italian motorbike, the model name is 'Elefant' which I think is cute (as we spell it 'elephant') and I think that would be better than Grizzly. Don

File Name: Coral Sea Battle (redplay) File Submitter: donaldseadog File Submitted: 18 Jul 2010 File Category: WestPac DB Used: HCWW-100326 Authors: don thomas Battleset-WPac: .scq - WPac - WestPac A revised version of my blue play Coral Sea Battle but designed for playing for the Japanese. The situation is not exactly as occurred but is close allowing for game operation and available ships etc in the Database. Use westpac battleset and database HCWW-100326 Hope you have fun. Don Thomas, Click here to download this file

File Name: Coral Sea Battle (blueplay) File Submitter: donaldseadog File Submitted: 8 Jul 2010 File Updated: 18 Jul 2010 File Category: WestPac DB Used: HCWW-100326 Authors: Don Thomas Battleset-WPac: .scq - WPac - WestPac Not quite a re enactment of one of the most important battles (if only two days long) of the WWII Pacific war, but based on the situation at the time. Finding the enemy is a big part of the game, actually defeating the enemy is also a big part of the game, actually just surviving is perhaps the biggest part of the game. I expect to be able to make a number of upgrades to this as time goes on, and in particular to provide a version for IJN play (This is only designed for Allied Play). If you have multiple versions of the harpoon program you might like to try a few of them as some of the more recent changes to aspects such as gunnery firing arcs and aircraft strafing capabilities make big differences to how the scenario plays. In any case, as usual I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed creating it. As this is based on an historical situation I'd really welcome any feedback on how it's accuracy can be improved. Some of the ships aren't correct (not yet available in the DB, so I've selected what I think will do the job, EG light carriers instead of float plane tenders, let me know if you find something better. Also I haven't used exactly historically correct starting points so as to: 1. give variety to the game and 2. allow better game performance (eg less likely to run aground). There are also a few added bits not correctly timed but to add interest. Don Thomas Click here to download this file