Joe K

OK, I've recently spent quite a bit of time re-playing... and re-playiing... and re-playing the Middleweights scenario (because that is the one where the apparent abnormally low player's missile hit rates and other weirdness seems to be most apparent), and I've tried several different tactics when attempting to attack the AI air groups. Still, the results were fairly consistent across the board (here, at least), and were pretty much in line with what I initially reported, specifically: * My AIM-120A/B AA missiles could rarely achieve kills (<15% hit rate) against the AI's F-15 SLAM Eagles, and almost never downed (<2% hit rate) the AI's F-16s (although they were reasonably effective against all other AI aircraft types, including the AI's Rafales). This was true regardless of how many missiles I fired in a given volley, even when exceeding 2x missles per unit of the target group. (Note: I noticed that my results were pretty much "all or nothing"; that is, my volleys would either miss entirely or else would kill all of the AI's group in the rare cases where kills occurred. This in itself seems abnormal, because usually there are times when some kills occur without wiping out the entire group - especially in these case where there are usuallt 3 or 4 planes in the AI group). * Unless I used "turn and burn" tactics soon enough (that is, if I approached the target group too closely before loosing my missiles, or if I did not bug out after firing), then the AI's AIM-120's achieved greater than 95% kill rate against my F-15 PLUSes. (I generally did not even attempt to attack the AI's F-15 SLAMs or F-16s using my standard F-15s, or the F-2Xs, or the F-4EJs, because those types would typically get shot down before getting close enough to even fire thier own shorter-ranged missiles). * The AI was able to detect, intercept, and engage any of my air groups regardless of my air groups' distance from AI detection platforms, and even if my groups were loitering or cruising at Low altitudes with all radars OFF. In addition, the intercepting AI air groups would immediately react to all course changes of my air groups, even though my groups were well beyond any AI radar range and were flying at thier minimum capable altitude with their own radars OFF. * Meanwhile, the only way that I could detect the AI's air groups was if those AI groups were running active radar. As soon as they turned their radars off, contact would be lost (and could not be re-established) until the AI group turned its radars back on... even when the AI groups were right under the noses of my actively-radiating AEW groups, surface groups and several F-15 air groups! * AI air groups who did not turn on their radars would regularly be able to sneak up undetected on my air groups and dispatch them with equally undetected missiles, regardless of my AEW/EW/radar coverage of the area. * It was impossible for my air groups to sneak up on any AI air groups, regardless of approach tactics, including Low (or even VLow) altitude and/or high or low speed and radar silence - just as it was impossible to evade the AI interceptors, as mentioned above. * The AI's AA missiles often (perhaps 50% of the time) would not be detected until they had flown perhaps 75% of their range, and about 30% of the time, they'd not be detected at all (other than by virtue of my planes blowing up). * Pretty much 100% of the time that my Air Groups launched AA missiles (regardless of the number of missiles in the volley), the targeted AI air groups would immediately react to the launch by changing course away from my missiles, and usually launching their own missiles. (This leads me to assume they AI always detects my missiles immediately upon launch). * In cases where the AI air group and my own air group launched their AIM-120A/Bs simultaneously, my missiles would regularly "expire" several seconds before the AI's missiles did. This is even more perplexing in conjunction with the fact that although the AI group would turn away, their reported speed remained at cruise, while I'd usually turn away my group and go to maximum after-burner - yet my group would sometimes get "caught" by the AI's missiles, while my missiles would always expire before reaching the AI's air group! All this stuff seems to be not only "inequitable" between the behavior/capabilities of AI groups and the players groups, but also inexplicable in the context of realism and probabilities. And since these effects reportedly occur only in my case, it leaves me to conclude that either something isn't working properly with the probability calculations in this particular installation of the game, or in some of the cases, I'm somehow totally deficient in tactics (although tactical deficiency can't explain some of these behaviors). The bottom line is that I'd really like to find out what's wrong here - or at least get it corrected - because it's not only impeding my ability to play, but it doesn't seem to permit any realistic employment or assessment of tactics or platform capabilities. Any ideas? Thanks.

Thanks! That's what I surmised, but I wasn't so sure because the tone and context of the pop-ups that reported this situation appeared to mean that my (i.e. - the player's) air group had "committed suicide" (be entering this zone), yet I don't recall any of my groups ever getting killed in that situation... so I thought maybe it implied something else entirely. Seems like I saw it applied to my surface groups, too, on a couple of occasions; if so, then I assume it was referring to formation aircraft in those groups? Anyway, it was a new report that I hadn't encountered in the past, so I wanted to find out what it was all about.

You may be getting the report as a result of being in SAM range or some other platform you are missing. I only meant it in regards to comparing relative speed of missile and target to make sure the target won't exhaust the missile's range. Apparently, I'm missing some AI detection platform(s) in a lot of cases... but that's another topic. Getting back to my original question, what is this "no escape zone", and what is its significance? I'm not with you on this business... what is that in reference to? You've been going on about the AI supposedly being neutered in capabilities and suggested the AI wasn't doing its avoidance trick, I'm saying it (the little jink) is still there when the situation merits but that the improvement in the radar model has reduced the number of situations where it is merited. Still not with you... unless, by AI, you are referring to stuff that the player's groups do. I don't recall claiming that the AI (that is, the computer opponent) has been neutered in any way whatsoever... just the opposite. Um, trying different tactics is one of the reasons for playing the game, try it yourself. Not with you here, either: I was saying that I had tried firing at VBA from several ranges - from about 30-35 nm out, down to the range of the F-15J's IR missiles - whatever that is - all with equal non-effect. That's why I refer to this type of group as "invincible" - because they slough off whatever I throw at them, regardless of the type of weapon or the launch range. As I've said before, use logging (radar logging in this case) and you can go back and prove to yourself when the AI gets a detect. For the millionth time, it isn't magic and the AI isn't cheating on detects. My concern isn't so much about when the AI gets a detect on my groups, as how it's doing it - when there isn't any AI platform(s) around that should be capable of making a detection. Would this logging stuff that you keep mentioning reveal this aspect as well? Then, if the problem here has to do with randomizing, I should be able to re-load a save into a given session and get varying results, correct? I ask because this doesn't seem to be the case here; instead, VBA plays out pretty consistently as long as I stay in the same session... but I do see some variability of play-out if I exit the session and then start a new one and load the save into the new session - as I've mentioned before. That's what seems so weird about all this. (It's also why I have been doubtful about the value of game saves for capturing these particular glitches).

Although I'm sure this info is lurking around somewhere right under my nose, it has defied my attempts to find it, soooo... Could someone kindly direct me to any "operating manuals" that exist and specifically address the "control options" that are available for the HCE, in particular, info about the available Hot Keys, Function Keys, and/or keyboard shortcuts, and their respective functions... as well as info about where to find any game controls or info displays that aren't obviously available via the basic menu options, etc. Also, although not as important, I am curious about what command line switches are available, and when they are needed. TIA!

OK... but I think I'll have to plan my approach very carefully! I've known the guy since we were in junior high, and he's generally pretty easy-going... but whatever happened must've punched a "hot button", because he was not a happy camper! (It was one of the few times I've heard him turn the air blue - and that was days after the event occurred!) Noted. Sorry for the misuse; I wasn't aware of the distinction. OK. Besides, it'll give me an excuse to reconnect with 'em. That's what I'm saying, the precedent has been set for multiple levels of control, it can't be removed now... I wasn't suggesting any suppression of multiple levels... just to eliminate the new impediments to operating at theatre level... Just to clarify what I mean, I'm thinking of things that now preclude the ability to order an action and then safely leave "hands off". For example, attacking plane groups used to return to base on their own after completing an attack; now they just loiter within the AAW range of the target - and usually get wiped out. And if plane groups used to fire only some of their missiles at a target, they'd then withdraw to a safe range until time for another volley... now they fire and just keep flying at the target (where they get shot down, often before their own missiles arrive!) And in the old days, it appeared that the player's air groups would take some basic measures to evade the AI's AAMs, but now they don't seem to do anything in response to being attacked. And ship or sub groups in the past, when ordered to close and attack a target, would issue a weapons allocation popup when they got in range of the target... but now they just report "no course set" when they reach the attack point (at which time, it's sometimes too late). And, in the old games, air groups that reached the end of their course with no terminating order, would shortly report that they had no orders... nowdays, such groups fly on until they reach bingo fuel, then they report no orders - which is pointless by then. These aspects, and perhaps other similar ones, now force the player to constantly tend the friendly groups - a situation that didn't exist in older versions to my knowledge. This isn't really a regression, because I don't recall any of this stuff existing in the past; instead it's a new development - that unfortunately isn't an improvement, from the standpoint of facilitating the theatre commander role. If you feel these observations aren't accurate, I'm curious how your view differs and/or what the actual situation is. Thanks!

Actually, most all of the F-16 groups in this scenario seem to be operating with their radars active at most times - I guess this is due to the proximity of my AWACs, plus a lot of my fighter groups have been advised to turn on their radars. (Interestingly, in this scenario, just about the only AI air groups that run without radar active (sometimes) are the Rafales). Also, the F-16 groups that are involved in the specific demo cases were detected - hence the reason that I was intercepting them... Keep in mind, though, that the F-15s were facing the detected F-16s up to the time the F-15's missiles were launched, so theoretically at least, the AMRAAMs ought to be detected at launch time - like they are in most cases. Due to the comparable missiles on each side in this scenario, I used the same "launch, turn and burn" tactics in all engagements, so I'd kind of expect somewhat the same results in each case... which is why these cases were puzzling. Again, I'm pretty sure all of the involved F-16 groups were "globally visible and "fixed"" well before the engagements began, so I'm not so sure that detection of the air groups is the issue. You've reminded me of a question that I've been meaning to ask: What is this "no escape zone" business, anyway? I'm getting that reported even for groups that are nowhere near enemy groups. (???) I'm not with you on this business... what is that in reference to? Apparently, the F-15s are unable to "out-maneuver" the AIM-120's in this same way, then? The AI missiles regularly achieve 100% hit rates on my F-15's... although my AIM-120s have nowhere near that hit rate against the AI's F-15K Slam Eagles. Are those F-15s also more "capable" than the F-15J Pluses? Any idea what causes the difference with the F-16's that I do manage to get hits on? As far as I know, all engagements occurred more or less identically, but only some of my missiles "go nuts"... and none of the AI's missiles do. I'm also curious how CV32 accompishes the 1:1 missile-to-kill rate - because, even if I close the range to ensure a "good" shot before firing (which, of course, leads to the guaranteed loss of my attacking group), all of my missiles will, more likely than not, miss. So, there must be some additional "tricks". (Just curious: If I fire a salvo of missiles, does it become an "all or none" situation as far as hits resolution? Or, in other words, would each missile's hit be resolved independently, giving a higher hit probability, if they were fired individually instead of in a salvo?) Hmmm.... I haven't re-run these saved games to see if the results vary from time to time! I didn't realize that I could run multiple copies of the game simultaneously - without interference - so I never tried. Double Hmmm... Does this imply that in any given game session, things tend to randomize similarly, and that I need to run a new session of the game in order to affect this?? (This would have some consistency with the variability of results that I see, game to game). Hmmm.... Here, VBA never did flee - well, except momentarily in one case - and always seemed to be in pursuit of my nearest air group. Anyway, I did close and fire the last two AIM-120s from just outside the range of the F-16's AIM-9P missiles - but with no effect. Was this too close? All of the other salvos were fired from about 75%-80% of the 40 nm range of the AIM-120A/Bs - or about 30-35 miles out. This is as close as I can get and still have a chance to bug out and escape the F-16s' AIM-120s. That's good to know - about the 2x missiles, and the non-detection of the firing platform. By the way: that's a pet peeve: The AI always seems to know the whereabouts of my air groups - even when I can't find any means they have to detect my groups - like due to distance from nearest AI unit, or lack of AI AWACS, etc. Howcum? Also, is there some way to tell whether or not the AI really is detecting any particular group of mine? Thanks! That's helpful... but I still am concerned about whether the behaviors are the same, game to game, or system to system, as it sounds like you're mostly not observing exactly the same effects that I find here.

Since this is the "official" subject matter of this topic, let me comment briefly: Ideally, it would be good to have some means to verify the validity of a course while it's being set. Off-hand, I can think of several possible ways to accomplish this - without, of course, considering the programming requirements/issues - because I have no way of knowing what those may be. Usefulness of each varies, so there may be a trade-off between that versus the programming considerations. One way would be to have a "mouse hover" type of thing that would report the water depth at the point that you place a waypoint in course-setting mode. (Of course, this wouldn't help with the course segments between waypoints, but at least the player could compensate by placing more waypoints in questionable spots). A similar theme might be to to have a continuously-updating "mouse hover" display that follows the mouse cursor as it moves around (during course-setting mode). This might be more helpful than the method above for "exploring" possible courses, before actually setting waypoints. An alternative, perhaps less useful, might be to have the course-plotter test each waypoint as it is placed, and report any "errors" - such as aground if either ships or subs are in the group, or "snorkel" or higher if subs are involved. Probably - although not necessarily - the attempt to set an invald waypoint could be rejected in case of a depth error. Of course, the "course validation" check (a la the Scenario Editor) could be implemented, either after an entire course has been entered, or "on-the fly" after each waypoint is entered. This would be a more thorough validation than the other methods, but probably also would involve more coding than the other methods. And regardless of any checks or displays that might be provided during course-setting, it would be nice if the sub's or ship's "artificial navigator" would automatically avoid obstacles during normal movement - or at least issue a warning of any impending grounding or breaching, as applicable... so that the group could be micro-managed as needed to compensate for the threat. Anyway, just some thoughts about possible "player aids"... I personally know three programmer types, two of which are currently unemployed (this area sucks for tech employment), but only one who is into Harpoon - as far as I'm aware, anyway. Unfortunately, the 'Pooner is the one who I mentioned before as already having attempted to get involved... I don't know the details of what happened with him, but I think it's safe to say that his offer to help is no longer on the table after apparently having been given the "bum's rush" in response to his interest in getting involved. Of the other guys, I can't say whether they have any interest in the game, but they might be interested in doing some code development... I can ask when I see them again. I don't know what language(s) are used for the game, but I believe the one guy does some version(s) of C, and the guy I used to work with I know did VB.net, and perhaps others. I know his resume said that he once worked as a developer/tester with Microsoft. If any of these folks might be of help, let me know and I'll broach the possibility. Thanks for explaining that... I was totally baffled about the structure of the development/marketing "teams" for HCE. I'm sure glad that HCE didn't bite the dust! And I'm glad that you get something out of it all! BTW, What was that bit about "stick figure animations"? I wasn't even aware of that. I suspect that my "windows of availability" are so hap-hazard that it'd be really difficult to make and keep any chat appointments... but I'll take a look and see if it makes any sense for me. OK, this one puzzles me a bit: First, my impression is that HCE (and its predecessors) are basically "theatre level" games - as evidenced by the player controlling multiple force groups within an area with a common strategic objective. Thus, my assumption that the player is first and foremost supposed to be acting as the theatre commander. As mentioned earlier, it's also really nice to be able to operate at those other command levels when desired - and that aspect adds a lot to the enjoyment potential of the game. The only "problem" that I see with the current state of affairs is that there are times during any game when the player needs to be operating as the theatre commander, but is distracted from this by being forced to deal with lower-level command issues. The puzzling part - from my perspective - is that the need for micro-managing is a relatively recent development... I mean, in the past (as recently as HCG, I think), the player's groups have enough "smarts" that they could be relied upon to carry out basic orders, while reasonably well fending for themselves as far as conducting attacks or defending themselves. For some reason - that escapes me - the player's groups have lost this ability in HCE... so it seems (from my viewpoint) that if the ability was restored, then the former inherent ability to operate reasonably successfully as a theater commander - without ever having to micro-manage individual groups and units - would exist again - and life would be good all 'round. So that's the aspect that perplexes (and bugs) me. Back to the question of game saves to demonstrate any of these issues, do you see any that need to be demonstrated? As I mentioned in the past, I was under the assumption that most of this stuff was "known behavior"... but if not, let me know and I'll see what I can "catch".

Thanks for posting the savegames and descriptions. I took a very quick look at your first 'impervious F-16s' savegame, and managed to shoot down 6x F-16s with 6x AIM-120A/B AMRAAMs in a couple of minutes play. Well, I had a sneaking suspicion that would happen. All I can say is, when I played it here, it played out as described in the accompanying text. Also, as noted above, this particular session was not behaving at all the same as the session where I couldn't kill an AI's F-16 if my life depended on it. This time out, I was able to reasonably kill all - or most - of several other 3-4 plane F-16 groups during this game session... so far, at least. But the session is still "young": it's only been running for five days so far. I will say one thing, though: I've never achieved that 1:1 missile-to-kill ratio in this game, and actually, I don't recall ever having that happen in any game... so, obviously, there is some difference between here and there... but, I've been admonished not to "speculate" on possible cause(s), so I'll refrain. BTW, just in case it's not clear, all of those game saves came from the same game session, at various points along the way. I found some other game saves in the directory while doing this, so I'll play them at some point and see if they are perhaps the earlier saves that I thought that I had "lost" when I re-installed the 2009.042 version. Probably not, although I don't recall saving any games for any other reason, so... who knows?

This thread, which began as a simple inquiry about how to more effectively manage the process of setting courses so as to avoid land, has now mushroomed into a life of its own, involving everything from opinions about what has, or has not, been designed into the game (or been removed from it), what is the nature (scope) of the player's role(s) in the game, what is the preferred (acceptable) way to play the game, wish list items, questions about behaviors of the game, etc. So, it's all gotten to be a muddle, and I'm more than a bit confused - especially now that people are demanding saved games in order to "prove" my positions on all this stuff. I'm willing to take some time to produce more saved games (where possible and practical) for anything that is truly abnormal and thus needs to be invesitgated... but at this point, I'm not sure which of the matters that have been discussed here actually fall into this category - as opposed to things that are "normal" and I'm just not understanding them properly, or that are simply differences of opinion. So, please identify which issue(s) - if any - you believe are abnormal and actually need to be investigated via game saves, and I'll take a shot at capturing those. Hmmm... Just curious: What do you see as the major issues that have arisen in this thread? Obviously, I'm not "in the know" about the development efforts on the HCE game, but it sure puzzles me that Matrix is selling the game (well, to some of us, anyway), yet they don't support a development staff? Weird! I know that s/w developers typically have to put in a whole lot more hours than they get paid for... but at least companies keep a few on the staff. What sort of help do you need, anyway? (I happen to know of one programmer who offered to help awhile back, but was summarily "blown off"... so I assume that you're not in need of that form of help?) What is IRC?

I started a re-play of MiddleWeights (from WestPac) last Monday because that is the scenario where the "impervious F-16s" occurred. From the git-go, it was apparent that this session was not going to "cooperate" - at least not to the extent that I had seen in that one horrendous session. However, early on, I did get a save of one measley instance that resembles the situation. I then continued to play the scenario over the past few days, in hopes that the behavior would change over time (as it sometimes does), and give additional/better examples. Well, tonight, things were a bit more cooperative, and I have two more saves of other instances of the situation... and also a save of one which appears to be a case of the "invincible AI air group" situation! Unexpected jackpot! And, as an added bonus, there are even a couple saves of instances of the "invisible AI missiles". I've written up the "play by play" in a text file, to help you see what to look for, and how I actually conducted the play from the savepoints. Hopefully, all this will provide what you want to know... but I'm continuing to play the samre session in hopes of capturing more instances, as well as getting some saves of another behavior that doesn't seem just right to me. Ugh! I was able to attach the text descriptions file, but it is rejecting all my game save files... so I'll have to go figure out how to submit them... stand by... Hopefully, that worked.... Middleweights_scenario_anomaly_descriptions.zip

That's kind of what I'm thinking. We've over the last 8 years eviscerated the vast majority of the unfair advantages given to the AI (some were accidental, some were required for the game to operate on the systems of the time). My opinion (just that as I'm not seeing the example save games either...) is that most such complaints of phantom planes and such are as a result of the increased width of inputs to the radar and sonar models. Going from 3 or 5 RCS ratings (depending upon how you count them) to over 100 is certainly going to impact the game and make some planes less detectable than others. Similar deal with sonar. The WestPac intro scenario demonstrates both of these quite specifically and obviously. I'm with Brad, if you want a better product take ownership of your gripes and turn them into saved games and something we can use please instead of general complaints with no backing except your word and the anti-evidence of ourselves and others not having similar issues. The game isn't perfect and I think you'll find us incredibly open to constructive complaint but your posts are reading as gripes and nothing more. This is a hobby for us and we'd like you to be a force to move the game forward, not a force driving us to leave the game. I hope your back-woods 'friend' isn't the Herminator Not sure what your reference to 'Phantom planes' is... Regarding saved games, please refer to comments and questions that I just posted in reply to CV32. Now, if the game were already "perfect", then we couldn't have any of the fun of trying to figure out how to make it even better, right? I sincerely hope that the game will move forward! But - without wanting to be inflammatory - there are a few recent changes which do seem to be a bit of a step backwards, IMO. Mainly referring to the dumb moves (or non-moves) that are now made by the player's air groups, that force me to micro-manage each and every group in order for them to have any hope of accomplishing their missions - or even just surviving. But all this was discussed earlier. I'll be quick to add my opinion that in other respects, HCE is certainly a significant improvement over previous versions! I apologise if my expressions of occasional frustration are taken only as gripes. I was kind of hoping that my attempts to explain things that bug me and don't make sense to me - and why - would elicit some sort of discussion of the "other side" of the reasoning behind things being the way they are. (Sorry, I guess I'm naturally inquisitive about things that I can't quite make sense of). What's a Herminator? Something played by the Gov. of California? My friend/fellow 'Pooner isn't a "mystery man", but apparently he did once have a bit of a "run-in" with someone on the development team for HC Gold (I don't know any of the specifics of that situation, and really have no desire to, either... ); consequently he has seemed to have no interest in participating in the forums since then.

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that doing so would cause odd behaviors in the AI like invincible air groups, utterly dysfunctional player weaponry, or ultra sophisticated enemy reconnaissance. And I expect any corruption of the scenario would result in a crash rather than changes in AI behavior. The 'how so' is due to the fact that we don't hear anyone else making complaints about it. I say 'dubious' because I am hearing anecdotal accounts of bizarre game play behaviors (like those mentioned above) from you only, and talk of 'mystery friends' and a lack of savegame files doesn't help us get to the bottom of it. Hence the complaints are dubious at best. Actually, until I see some concrete proof of these things actually happening, I feel like I am just wasting my time trying to chase down these complaints. I'm sorry about that, because I think we have a very good track record here of responding to bug reports and dealing with them best we can. If a reported bug is real, and can be verified, we can at least try to attack it. But until then, there is nothing being done here that is helpful at all. First off, I don't know which of these things that we've kicked around are "bugs", versus just intentional design choices. Secondly, These things that we observe in the two installations that I have personal exposure to are so prevalent (in our installations) that I have a real hard time imagining that they don't exist in other installations - possible, yes... but it seems so highly improbable that this stuff doesn't exist everywhere that my reaction is, "How in the heck can you guys say this stuff doesn't happen???" It's just really hard for me to accept that none of this stuff shows up anywhere else! Third, if our two installations really are the only places where these characteristics are ever present/observed, then I see no reason other than there is something seriously wrong with these particular installations - yet that would be a major coincidence that we happened to have the only two fouled installations, because about the only thing the two installations have in common is that they're both running on Toshiba laptops. (Mine is currently the 2009.042 demo; while his is the full release, purchased from Matrix a year or so ago... we each did our own installations, totally independently... his current computer is a fairly recent model (less than a year old), while mine is circa 2004... his runs Vista; mine runs XP Pro/SP3... mine is a 1.2 GHz P4 with 380 Mb RAM; IIRC, his is a Celeron, is faster, and has considerably more memory, although I don't recall the specifics... and we live far enough apart that it seems unlikely that there is any common "environmental" condition - like power line problems or RF interference, etc. - affecting this). Yet, both installations display pretty much the same behaviors. Given the above, I'm seriously wondering whether even games saved from either of these installations of the app will demonstrate the same behaviors when run on other installations which don't already exhibit those behaviors on their own. In other words, what will it "prove" if our saved games don't screw up elsewhere... and for that matter, what would it "prove" if the saves do screw up on other installations? It would still be a matter of whatever is going on is specific to these installations, right? So, what does it buy us? I am currently working on a game session of the Middleweights scenario in hopes of capturing a save of those "impervious F-16s" that I have observed in that particular scenario; I will certainly forward a game save if it does show up. Be aware however, that this will be a save from playing the full scenario, not from a contrived scenario that has all extraneous stuff stripped out. (This is because I have no Scenario Editor for HCE, where I could create such a "stripped-down" demo scenario). As far as the "invincible air group" situation goes, I will try to capture that if/when it shows up again (unlike other issues discussed, this one does not show up with any regularity) but I suspect that the best I'll be able to do for it is to make a "snapshot" save once I realize that it is happening (consequently, I probably won't be able to capture events that occur much before it becomes obvious that an air group is "invincible"); will that be adequate? Meanwhile, I really don't see any point in my trying do game saves to "prove" any behaviors that are simply due to design choices... so I have to ask what other issues here do you feel need to be demonstrated/proven?

Certainly true... however, I typically run at 1 sec or 5 sec timing, except in the somewhat rare cases where relatively nothing much is happening; I may then go to 10 sec or even 30 sec for brief periods. Since I don't agree that many of these behaviors are actually happening, then yeah, smells like a conspiracy theory to me. Or, at least, a theory without much proof of existence. If that is true (and I personally know of one other player who also would disagree), then it would tend to support the notion that there is some general problem that is inherent to our particular situations (i.e. - computer, game installation, etc.) Are you aware of any issues with particular types or configurations of computers, or with installation quirks, etc.? As I've mentioned before, the "quirky" behaviors (that is, those that don't appear to be intentional design elements), often don't turn up until days (in real time) into the game... I typically leave active games paused in the background throughout the entire game session - which typically lasts me two-four weeks per game - rather than saving the game and closing the app when it's not in use. Is there any reason to believe that the app can become subtly corrupted in such a scenario? Like, maybe something gets screwed up in the basic system services, such as timing, randomizing, etc., for the app when it sits idle like this? (If so, then it's a bit ironic, because I "learned" to operate this way due to some cases back in HC Gold where the save files apparently didn't reload properly, and so I'd lose games-in-progress due to the situation... so, I started leaving the app up all the time, just to avoid that problem! ) I wouldn't agree with that being true at all. And I don't hear any other people complaining about it either. How so? Seems pretty obvious to me. I can't speak to any issue of not hearing other complaints. Dubious?? Hmmm... Maybe you should recruit my friend onto the development team. I did enjoy HC Gold... of course there were minor wrinkles that needed further development in that flavor, as well... things which HCE has addressed in some cases. Unfortunately, there are also some design choices specific to HCE that I disagree with - as you know ... and, of course, these annoying operational issues which reportedly affect only us two country hicks. Seriously, though, if I could get past these few quirks, (and also have the viable opportunity to play the game at a more "global" level when I want/need to), then I'd prefer HCE overall. If this wasn't the case, then I wouldn't waste the time trying to sort things out.

You can reduce time compression to '0', check your formations and things, and then bring TC back to '1:1' or higher. Oh, I thought you meant that there was some sort of immediate pause - like a hotkey or something. Setting to zero time compression does give a "time-out" to collect yourself, but my problem with that has always been the difficulty in getting the thing set to Time Compression zero - because of the flurry of pop-ups that often occur at the very times when you need a time-out. Some of those pop-ups offer the ability to go to 1:1; others do not... but as far as I've seen, none allow you to go immediately to a paused state. At critical junctures, I typically have to "dismiss" (and/or respond to) anywhere from six to 25 or 30 rapid-fire pop-ups before I can even get the mouse cursor over to the time compression button! Which means that it's entirely possible to lose 5-10 air groups and/or ships/subs before I can even get a word in edgewise - that is, before I can even issue any command. If we're getting into "Wish List" items, then I'd wish for the ability for user input to take priority over the occurrence of the pop-ups, or maybe better yet, for each pop-up to have a button that allows an immediate pause of the game, in order to permit the "interjecting" of urgent commands. I can dispel that rumour (though I am not sure its a 'rumour', since this is the first I've heard of it) here and now. I have been involved in Harpoon Classic development since HC97 was first cracked open, so I can tell you that efforts at enhancing AI (and I use that term loosely) have never moved backwards. As far as the rumor goes, several years ago (back in the days when HC Gold was fairly new, IIRC) there was some on-line discussion, probably on the HULL, where somebody was "complaining" that the game was "too easy" for the player to win. IIRC, offense seemed to be taken over this, and subsequently there were some allusions to "steps having been taken to 'toughen things up'" or some such. Perhaps there was no actual action taken, but that exchange left an impression that is often repeated to me by one fellow 'Pooner, who steadfastly feels that the AI was given certain "unrealistic advantages" in subsequent versions of the game, and that new scenarios were written such as to give the AI side near-overwhelming strength, all as result of that claim that the game was "too easy to win". And this impression does seem to have certain justifications, vis-a-vis the "dumbing down" of the automatic behaviors of the player's air groups, and the AI's "immaculate intelligence" about the player's forces and deployments, and the differences in the effectiveness of weapons depending on which side is using them, etc. Of course, in reality, all this may be only coincidental - yet it does build an impression... or, would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory?? In any case, rumors are what rumors are... but fact or fiction notwithstanding, in recent HCE, the player's air groups do have less "tactical smarts" than they did as recently as HC Gold, which tends to force the player to operate primarily in the "micro-managing" mode. If this is "Wish List" territory, then I'd wish for at least the option for the player's groups to operate in some semblence of a self-reliant mode - more like they did in older versions. (Note: I'm not suggesting the removal of the ability to manage low-level details - because that too can be enjoyable under the right circumstances (and, in fact, there are some additional details that I'd like the player to be able to control - if desired, but that's beyond this scope); but I would like see the player have the ability to operate in the "theatre commander" role as well - by which, I mean that he could issue general orders, and the groups would dutifully execute the orders in a reasonably autonomous manner - as opposed to the situation where groups are essentially going on "suicide missions" if left to their own devices. )

Yes, if you fire your missiles at maximum range (it's easy if you're playing without range circles), the enemy planes can reverse its course and evade your missiles, flying at cruise speed. Your missiles simply going out of fuel/range. And I suppose the enemy planes are near bingo, if not, they reverse with afterburner to evade your missiles. I've observer this action when the enemy planes are at limit of range. The invincible air groups ? I can observe similar conducts, but only when playing with my personal databases, with very enhanced countermeasures, not in the standard databases. Another posibility is, in relation with the first item: You almost EVER fire your missiles at extreme range, and the enemy planes outrun the missiles with a simple reverse, or without it. They're situations when you fire missiles at extreme range, the missiles simply never can reach the target because mere range issues. And in all the aforementionated issues, we can find some perception issues, as example, sometimes, because the imperfection and excentricities of range circles and formation editors, we can do bad interpretation/perception of maximum ranges. Yes, all of this is understandable - which is why this particular situation is so puzzling: Specifically, we have two aircraft types (F-16s and F-15s) which happen to carry the same missile type (AIM-120A/B) often going in head-on engagements; according to the missile range circles, the two groups fire their missiles at essentially the same time, when they are at about 70%-80% of the maximum range, then both reverse course at roughly the same time... and that's where things start getting strange: Although I immediately set my F-15s to full afterburner (giving their max speed of 1338 knots), in every case where I've checked, the F-16s are still going at only their cruise speed of 533 knots (and even if they went to their max speed, it is only 1174 knots - compared to the F-15's 1338 knots). However, the F-15s' missiles almost always fail to reach the slower F-16s, yet about 15%-20% of the time, the F-16s' missiles kill the F-15s... so, unless my geometry is faulty, my F-15s should be more likely to to be able to outrun the F-16s' missiles, rather than the other way around... and this should be especially true if the F-16s really are going only 533 knots. So it's confounding: First, it doesn't make much sense that the F-16s don't go to full afterburners (as you said, most aircraft do appear to "turn and burn") - so perhaps the speed display just isn't being updated, or whatever. (The F-16's do appear to travel the about same distance away from the engagement point as do the F-15s in the same amount of time - which itself doesn't seem quite right). Second, since the F-15s should be more likely to out-run the missiles, yet they don't, it makes me wonder if there is some countermeasures issue going on - where the F-16s can "spoof" the missiles 98% of the time, while the F-15's don't have that capability - rather than this being a matter of just running the missiles out of fuel. And lastly is the question of whether the missiles on the two types of planes actually differ somehow - even though they are listed as the same thing. I have never checked the speeds of the missile groups themselves, partly due to lack of time, and mostly due to my assumption that they are identical missiles. Yet, if no such 'special factors' apply here, then the end results seem to be quite bogus... leaving me to wonder why - and whether there is any way to overcome them (i.e. - to successfully attack those near-impervious F-16s).

Why don't you just provide a savegame of a scenario in progress where you are being walloped by invincible air groups? OK, I'll re-play the scenario to get a save. Incidentally, last evening, I tried to re-play the scenario - just to see if my theory about different behaviors from game to game could be confirmed. Initially (over the first game-hour or so), it appeared that not only was I unable to kill any F-16s, but also wasn't able to kill any F-15Ks, either! Then, all of a sudden, I was able to get "reasonable" kill rates on both types, and this situation persisted... er, well, until I dumped the game in frustration because I lost a large group of F-2Xs due to running out of fuel on their return-to-base dash (Man! that is annoying! You'd think that the pilots and/or their flight directors would keep tabs on fuel consumption! ) Surely you are playing with range circles on, aren't you? Most certainly! Range circles give lots of clues and in particular help me to quickly discern various group types - just by seeing their missile and/or radar ranges. However, in the case of air groups running themselves out of fuel on the return-to-base dash, you still need to keep constant tabs on the fuel range circle - something which often tends to be out-of-sight/out-of-mind when you're distracted by several other engagements that come up during the particular group's return flight.

That's a good point, Warhorse. The Group Map will show your submarine as being in the centre of its formation, but the Unit Map will show where it actually is, in terms of what sector of its own formation it has been assigned to patrol. If you're anywhere near land, this could prove a critical factor. I can only wish that something as simple as that would solve JoeK's particular problem. Yes, this was the case in at least one instance of a single unit sub group - where the scenario designer had placed the single sub in one of the outer rings of the formation - rather than in the center - for some reason. Since it was a single sub "group", I never had reason to open the formation editor - which would have allowed me to notice to discrepancy. Well, at least not until things started getting "squirrelly"... which ultimately led me to check the formation editor. Actually, though, I don't believe depth was the issue in that particular case; instead I think it was a matter that torpedo positions didn't 'jibe' with the displayed group position. Anyway, I concur this will present problems with course-setting... in fact, unless I misunderstand the behavior of units within the center of a formation, I believe even having the unit in the center zone, but having an excessively large center zone will also cause similar problems.

I have to question why you seem to insist on putting your submarines into such shallow waters. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, HCE manages water depth as a function of distance from land. Its really quite simple. With all due respect, I don't hear anyone else clamoring about they are constantly beaching submarines. Well, let me try to address these several things: First, I only put subs in shallow waters when the scenario seems to call for it; for example, the scenarios in WestPac (which I don't recall the names of off-hand), one of which required that a sub or two must transit the island chain that extends from Kamchatka to Japan and separates the Sea of Okhotska from the North Pacific. The first challenge was finding a passage through those islands, but the even more surprising situation was that somewhere out in the Sea of Okhotka, my sub ran into unseen shallows which forced it to the surface, where the AI "just happened" to have aircraft on scene, and promptly hammered my sub. Other scenarios required that a sub or subs enter the Sea of Japan, where I managed to find all sorts of shallows out in what appeared to be open waters... and IIRC, there was a scenario around the Phillipines that required a sub to operate in the 'restricted' waters amongst the islands. In the other matter, I find that either water depth is not necessarily a function of distance from land - or else there is land that is somehow not showing up in those apparently open waters - like perhaps somethng that is not seen except at extreme magnification - which I did not use to pan across the entire course, considering that it did appear to be open waters. Unless I am ignoring my ships and submarines and leaving them to their own devices, I just don't have this problem. And since we added the ability to 'pause' the action, and sort out such things, its easier now than it has ever been. Yes, I do tend to "ignore" my ships and subs - as I generally assume that they will at least follow the courses that I've layed out for them... and if I have no reason to believe there are any obstacles along those courses, it seems that it should be a reasonable assumption... but clearly, that isn't the case. What do you mean by 'pausing' the action? Maybe you should be sticking to the simple, linear scenarios, then? If I was finding myself frustrated and overwhelmed by too many things going on, I'd probably want to pick another scenario to play. To each his own, and all that. Well, my point is that when you're operating in the role of theatre commander, setting strategies, coordinating forces, and such, it seems to me that the realistic situation would be that your subordinates (in this case, groups and individual units) would carry out your general orders without requiring your personal intervention in low-level details. For instance, if you wish a tanker to rendezvous with a strike group, it seems like the chain of command would make that happen... or pilots would manage their fuel state without your "help"... or ships and subs would navigate around local obstacles, and so forth - without needing to have you hold their hands. Sure, it's possible to manage all the nitty-gritty details of every group out there, but it's not very realistic to be doing so - neither as a theatre commander nor as a group or unit commander. I mean, if you wanted to play the commander of a single task group, or as the captain or pilot of an individual unit, that'd be fine - so long as you didn't also need to concern yourself with all the operational details of every other friendly group, too. That wouldn't be very realistic, either. So, what would be needed would be for units and groups to have the normal capability to realisitically execute your "global" orders, while allowing you to "take control" of an individual group or uint - when you desired to function as that group's or unit's commanders - and then have it revert to "automatic control" when you move to another group, or back into the role of theatre commander. The current situation is managable for "traditional" scenarios that involve relatively few simultaneous groups, but the recent scenarios seem to be written such that they involve an exponential increase in the number of groups that must be active at any time - particularly the scenarios that provide the AI with huge numbers of aircraft - all of which must be fended off, requiring numerous friendly groups active at any given time. Trying to micro-manage 6-12 (or more) simultaneous dogfights, along with several other concurrent intercepts, not to mention trying to keep six or seven surface and sub groups out of trouble at the same time, gets to be just a bit much - and yet it wouldn't have to be so - if the individual groups and units could at least demonstrate basic tactics on their own, such that you didn't need to micro-manage every group all of the time. Actually, a lot of this "group intelligence" existed in HC Gold and even some of the earlier versions - but is no longer present for some reason... (I've heard rumors that it was discarded in HCE in order to increase the challenge of the game - which certain folks apparently felt was "inadequate". Whether such rumors are correct, I cannot say). In any case, the "old way" was at least more realistic from the standpoint of the "chain of command" behavior that I've discussed - where the groups behaved at least as something a bit more than missile fodder when "left to their own devices".

Hmmm... I have to disagree: The times that I've been "bitten" with subs usually were times when I was moving through what appeared to be open ocean, but apparently had unseen "sea mounts" -or something- that, with my luck, I managed to "find". For whatever reason, I've actually had more trouble with running ships into the ground in 'restricted' waters... while my sub problems mostly show up in spots that ought to be fairly open - but apparently are not. Granted, I was using the textured maps to give me my clues about water depths, so that didn't help matters. I guess the thing that bothers me about trying to use manual soundings to figure out where to put the course in 'restricted' areas is the question of how close together to do the soundings - because it's obvious (from experience) that the depths can change quite abruptly -and unexpectedly- in such areas... and I'm unsure how much "granularity" needs to be accounted for when trying to detemine the depths along a prospective course. As I mentioned earlier, this would be managable if we're dealing only with one or two groups - but I have serious trouble just keeping all the air groups out of trouble, and so I have to rely on the ship and sub groups to sort of take care of themselves - especially during the peaks of air activity. Well, it's a double-edged sword: One of the aspects that I like about HCE is that it can be managed from several levels - that is, you can be a theatre commander if you want, and stand back and manage things "globally", or you can be a task force commander where you sort of micro-manage atthe group level, yet you also can (sort of) be a pilot or a ship commander and really "micro-manage" the actions of individual units. That's cool! But, the downside is that in order to be successful in the game, you can't be only an upper-level commander, and you are forced to micro-manage each group or even each unit - because if left to their own control, then they have a strong tendency towards self-destructive actions. Some of the more prominent examples: - Of course, all of the stuff we've been discussing here about micro-managing sub and surface groups and units - lest they run aground or "expose" themselves. - Aircraft will run themselves out of fuel if you don't keep constant tabs on each one - especially difficult with mixed groups. - You have to micro-manage almost all aspects of aircraft re-fueling operations, or it simply doesn't happen. - Aircraft won't attack SAM or AAA sites unless you manually fly them right up to the site, and only then issue the attack order. - Aircraft won't take evasive action on their own during an engagement, so if you don't micro-manage them, then most likely they'll get shot down in the process of conducting an attack; for example: -- If left to its own control, an aircraft group that is attacking a surface target may launch some of its missiles, but then just keep flying right at the target (where it's likely to get shot down) -- After expending all of its anti-surface weapons, an air group will just "park" over the target - but if the target hasn't been destroyed, it'll likely continue shooting down the planes. -- After a group launches its missiles at an air target, it'll continue moving directly at the target - and right into any return fire, without evading. -- Recon groups make no effort to avoid detected interceptors - Land units require constant attention, as they can't be ordered to close and engage, but must be moved in manually and then ordered to engage at the "right moment". Now, all this sort of stuff may be "fun" to manage manually in a single engagement... but the problem is in a typical situation, there are multiple engagements going on simultaneously, so it becomes work overload when the player is required to micro-manage all aspects of multiple engagements or group actions all at once. That's my concern. It would be better if the individual groups had some minimal "intelligence" or "canned tactics" which would allow them to engage and/or evade in a more realistic fashion on their own, without needing manual intervention. Perhaps we need a "switch" to set each group to "manual" or "automatic" control, in order to accommodate the need for automatic control in furball conditions, while allowing manual control for "fun" situations. (?)

Why don't you just provide a savegame of a scenario in progress where you are being walloped by invincible air groups? OK, I'll re-play the scenario to get a save. Incidentally, last evening, I tried to re-play the scenario - just to see if my theory about different behaviors from game to game could be confirmed. Initially (over the first game-hour or so), it appeared that not only was I unable to kill any F-16s, but also wasn't able to kill any F-15Ks, either! Then, all of a sudden, I was able to get "reasonable" kill rates on both types, and this situation persisted... er, well, until I dumped the game in frustration because I lost a large group of F-2Xs due to running out of fuel on their return-to-base dash (Man! that is annoying! You'd think that the pilots and/or their flight directors would keep tabs on fuel consumption! )

Perhaps you have a lot more patience than I... or perhaps my understanding of your techniques is incorrect. As far as I know, there are only two possible ways to navigate a group: 1) Lay-in courses via the "course editor", and allow the GE to execute such courses, or 2) Manually navigate each group by constantly setting its current direction (without using courses). Since it appears that approach #2 would be extremely tedious and time-consuming, I'm assuming that method isn't the "very easy" approach that you're alluding to, correct? That leaves method #1. However, as far as I know, the only way to use courses in conjection with depth determinations would be to take some number of manual depth readings all along the planned course, and then somehow correlate the exact positions of the various depths to the placement of the course during course-editing mode (because, as far as I know, there is no way to take depth measurments once you're in course-editing mode), correct? But, unless I'm missing something here, doing this would not only be quite tedious, but also rather error-prone, because I don't know what you'd use for reference points. So, apparently, neither of the navigation methods that I'm aware of can be the very easy method that you use... so, I'm out of guesses. Uncle!

Personally, or on the job? Personally, I currently use PC's dating back to 1995 (although even they don't date back far enough to be very reliable ). I also have a couple of Atari 800's set up as controllers, one managing a thermal storage unit, and one currently "unemployed". Now, those are old enough to be highly reliable - er, well, at least so long as you don't use MS BASIC on them... Sure, they don't have all the bells and whistles nor the performance of modern PCs, but the important thing is that they do the required job without blowing anything up! We once pondered putting newer PCs in place of them, but the costs of the required add-on hardware that's needed to accomplish even the simplest I/O tasks exceeded the costs of the PC, and far exceeded the cost of the entire Atari set-up, which had all the needed I/O already built-in. In addition, the PC implementation was found to be a substantially non-robust system, and the only real benefit that it offered was the capability to be networked more easily - which was not a basic need for that particular application, anyway. On the job, we were generally forced by dictum over the years to use only the "latest and greatest" PC systems, even when they were proved to be inadequately reliable. As time has gone on, and newer and newer PCs have replaced "old reliable" computers, we've experienced an increasing number of spurrious malfunctions and accidents, which the powers-that-be deemed to be "insignificant" in comparison to the "benefits" afforded by the new PCs - at least from their perspective... a perspective that I seriously doubt is shared by some of my colleagues who were moderately injured when a portion of a large machine exploded due to a flashback which occurred when the controlling PC decided to take a time out in the midst of a shutdown sequence, and thus failed to switch some valves when it was supposed to. This is only one of many similar mishaps, but apparently, it is so important for the powers-that-be to keep up with the latest Internetworking gimmicks that they "overlook" such "minor" risks... and sometimes I seriously believe they might not even consider it a big enough "problem" if the entire facility blew up! IMO, they would have been much better served to leave the "old reliables" in place, and use existing interfaces to pass data and controls to/from some newer, higher-capability PCs, rather than insisting on supplanting the reliable systems entirely... but that would undermine their "progressive" images, I suppose. And one big irony of the situation was the "justification" claim that the older systems would be "wearing out", so new PCs should be installed in order to ensure "continued reliability"!! Yeah, right! What a laugh!

Yeah, painfully easy in my experience. Hmmm... I must be missing something here. I can't imagine that it would be "easy" to micro-manage each group's course - in the midst of everything else that's typically going on. Even if it was only one group involved, it still seems like it would be an excessive amount of effort for the "theatre commander" to put into managing an individual group. Where are the ships' officers when ya need 'em??

Maybe it would be helpful if we could determine why your installation does not experience these behaviors, yet mine does - and fairly regularly. FWIW, I should add that in an earlier game of the Middleweights scenario, I did not notice this sort of behavior - although it may have been because the AI declared its victory conditions after only about three or four game-hours into the game (and that's another puzzle, because I can't figure what victory criteria the AI achieved in that game - as it didn't appear that the AI had accomplished much of anything in that period of time ). Anyway, there does seem to be some variability in the likelihood of these sorts of odd behaviors from game to game - even under the same scenario - so I am wondering whether there is some "randomizing" issue going on, or if some occurances early in a game somehow "set the tone" for the rest of that game... although I have no idea what this might be, except as I've mentioned elsewhere, I have noticed that early air-to-air successes (or failures) by the AI do seem to "carry through" the rest of the game, in the tendency for continued successes (or failures) of the AI groups in AA combat. In other words, in a given game, the AI's air groups may be "tougher" (i.e. - more effectual) than in another game - even if it's the same scenario in each case. Maybe this is intentional?

Nope, you maneuver with your environment. So, you're saying there is no way to "pre-lay" a course, but instead I must "micro-manage" each group's movements on-the-fly - by constantly taking "manual" depth measurements near my subs as they move? (Arrgh!!! What a pain! )