Joe K

So, Joe, I am not sure what to say other than yes, it clearly works as it is supposed to. Well... I think what to say is that it was a case of "PIO" - as in Pilot-Induced Oscillation... a.k.a. User Error in this case. <Ahem!> And just leave it at that... Hmmm... Maybe I could blame it on a cold... and/or lack of sleep... or maybe on target fixation from staring at Harpoon too long??

Would this be non-IR AAMs and SSMs? Are there any radar-guided ASMs?

Absolutely. There are many SAM types that don't require a radar at all. When SHUK references IADS, or integrated air defense systems, I expect he's referring to the fact that some air defense systems that don't themselves have a radar can rely on detection/tracking made possible by other units. That's correct. Specifically, a lot of Soviet-aligned states had centrally-controlled air defence systems that could share data across the "network" and coordinate a response against an attack. This included steering interceptors onto attacking aircraft. The attackers wouldn't know the interceptors were there until it was too late. That was always my assumption - at least in terms of game play - that the AI utilized any existing radar to guide attacks via other units. But the part that always baffled me was when I'd knocked out all known radar, and yet the AI was still able to successfully find and attack my planes. Just couldn't figure it. And I'm always doubly puzzled when the AI will vector an intercept against my groups that are hundreds of miles from the nearest AI platform, and well out of all reported radar range. Sometimes, it's as though they have HUMINT riding backseat on my planes... Danged spies, anyway!!

I like your tactics... in fact, I do pretty much the same things - especially in regards to air superiority and "baiting" the AI interceptors with AEW/EW/Recon planes. (The only problem I've had with that is that in a fair number of cases, the AI interceptors can sneak up unseen on the bait planes - despite extensive air radar coverages of mixed types. But, it works a lot of the time - so long as I have enough of my own interceptors around to cover all the stuff the AI throws out). The situations I've been disussing here may not involve 100% air superiority, but certainly air dominance. Anyway, the destruction of my planes in these cases is almost exclusively at the hands of the hard-to-detect AD units - well, at least, I rarely detect any signs of aircraft or their AAMs getting after the attackers. As far as I can tell, it's almost always surface stuff that gets 'em. "Peeling the onion" is the only way I have any sort of success, yet there always seems to come a point where I can't get any closer to the core without extreme losses... mainly because they can shoot my planes but my planes have nothing to target. By the way, as an aside, I've wondered for a long time whether it is even possible for the player's side to get hits with bearing-only attacks using SSMs or ASMs. In all the years I've been playing, I don't recall ever getting a hit while using a bearing-only attack (other than with torpedoes, that is). Back in the early days, I tried messing around a bit with that, using different activation distances, and different types of ordnance, but eventually came to the conclusion that without a solid fix, there was zero chance of even coming close to the target. I always wondered if there was just something I wasn't doing properly - or if it's just a fact of life that the player needs a solid fix before shooting.

Absolutely. There are many SAM types that don't require a radar at all. When SHUK references IADS, or integrated air defense systems, I expect he's referring to the fact that some air defense systems that don't themselves have a radar can rely on detection/tracking made possible by other units. Ouch! Well, that would tend to explain the aggravating aspect of planes getting plinked from unknown/never seen sources... I had been operating under the impression that I could expose the ADs by enticing them to shoot at some of my planes... but apparently, that's a waste of resources. IME, generally, the much shorter-ranged radars of the attack planes are more effective at detecting (although they have difficulty fixing) AD units - in comparison to the AWACS, etc. The RA-5C was the only exception to this, that I recall. Seems like they could get detections from well beyond their radar range, and fixes from quite a ways out - maybe 50 miles or so - where other types could barely get detections at that distance. But, the Vigilantes seemed to be quite inept in regards to air targets, as they were forever tripping over unseen interceptors - even with AWACS and fighters nearby... I was never sure whether the player's side actually could do jamming/decoys - at least, I never figured out how to make it do anything worthwhile as far as protecting my air groups from those dastardly sneaky AD units... If that can be controlled, is there some operational procedure that I should be aware of for doing that? Thanks.

ESM will only detect actively radiating units. SAM and AAA that don't use radars will, of course, not be detected. Understood... but are the SAMs capable of tracking the a/c without using detectable radar themselves? What would be suitable? (I've tried most available AEW and EW types, as well as things like A-6E and F/A-18C - and I even seem to recall there was some fighter type (F-15 or F-14 variant) that surprizingly -to me- had surface radar. The A-6Es seemed to be the most effective - as well as being the most vulnerable). Yes, Ctrl Alt S will reveal all units. OK - I wasn't even aware of the cheat until a few days ago, so please bear with me... It looks like the cheat exposes all enemy groups but the report for the base in question still says that there are no attached land units - and I don't see any AD stuff showing up graphically (??) The Prowlers will work much better at higher altitudes. Ironically, I tried high altitude with my first two EA-6Bs (inadvertently - because I failed to notice that their default patrol altitude is High )... but that simply caused them to get destroyed about three times as far out as the other pair did at Low altitude... and they hadn't detected anything by that point. Is there some trick to getting detections that I'm just missing in all this? Like I said originally, about the only way I can seem to get fixes on the AD units is to send planes in to literally "trip over" them (i.e. - spot them visually). Of course, that results in the loss of a lot of pathfinders, but if I play the cards right, and have another group or two with Precis loadouts following a few miles behind the sacrificial recons, then they can (usually) plink the offenders before the fix is lost (that is, due to the loss of the pathfinder a/c that spotted the AD unit visually). Anyway, this "down and dirty" technique is way too costly for anything other than the most critical missions.

OK, then I'm even more puzzled... because I've tried the triangulation approach in several situations, but I must be doing something wrong because the only time that worked was in the scenario involving the RA-5Cs and the North Viet Nam bridge. The RA-5Cs were able to triangulate easily, where even the Hawkeyes found nothing. In the other scenarios that have only AWACS, EP-3s, etc. even triangulation doesn't locate the ADs, in fact it, most times, I get no detection, and other times, it still shows only one uncertainty zone for each unit - instead of showing one on a different bearing for each AWACS - like I'd expect and like happened with the RA-5Cs. Going in any closer only results in lost AWACS, with no better detection. I made the mistake of moving some A-6Es from low to medium altitude in hopes they'd detect something... well, they did: Missiles up their tailpipes! It baffles me how the ADs can knock down aircraft without revealing themselves in some way. Anyhow, back at the ranch... In the game-save, I'm curious why I can't see the attached AD units even using the cheat. Doesn't that show up attached units? Man... I must be absolutely an idiot about this, then. For example, in Backyard, I tried going in with a couple of EA-6Bs at low altitude - but they didn't even survive long enough to launch against the base's radar, let alone any attached units. And for attacking the SAM sites and mobiles, my first thought was also to use the longest-ranged ordnance that I could (for stand-off), but since I couldn't get any fixes, those were pretty much useless. I ended up - as usual - just going in with GP and taking the lumps. Pretty costly on the first few runs, but strangely enough, later attacks go in almost unscathed. Never could make any sense of this...

Wasn't sure whether you were referring to the base distance weirdness, or to the cruise speed weirdness, but I concur that the base distance situation does often involve groups coming from one base and tankers coming from another... although I do think it also occurs when the groups came from the same base, but as independent groups. Hmmm... I wonder whether the original base - that is, the base where the a/c started the game - is retained even after the a/c has ferried to - or diverted to - some other base during the game? That might make the pattern even more significant. This is in the demo 050 version. Relating to this particular situation, there were 12 F/A-18Cs and two F-14A tankers involved. Me, too... I have a save that was done not too long before the tanker non-split situation, but so far I haven't been able to get it to do the same tanker split scenario as described; not sure why - because I don't recall anything special going on when it happened the first time. Oh well, time will tell...

Obviously. The thing that baffles me is how to deal with those situations. I mean, IME, the only way to detect the attached sites is to spend a dozen or so a/c to go in close and get visuals - but they usually become "write-offs" well before they can even visually detect anything. Can't use "Wild Weasel" tactics, either, because they shoot down the planes apparently without ever lighting up their radars - at least I've seen no way of detecting any radar activity - even with AWACS etc. fairly close in. Yet those annoying SAMs show up only just before they nail the planes... or just as often, the planes simply blow up without warning - never seeing what targeted them nor what hit them. Not very effective. :-{ And the pilots have this weird tendency to mutiny when ordered on such useless suicide missions... But the thing that puzzles me most is how those mobiles are able to detect, track, target and kill the aircraft - usually without ever revealing their radars or their in-flight missiles. Very tricky business...

To the best of my recollection, there never was a save specifically for that issue... however, instances of that stuff do occur in the game-saves that I submitted previously, relating to the impervious air group. I could try to document that particular activity in that game-save - if that's what you're after? I grabbed v2010.060... Is that going to work with the 050 demo that I have? Also curious how the Autosave in that differs from the one normally used in the game. Does the normal one interact, and does it have to be disabled? I responded to that offer, but never heard anything further (?). I'll see what I can do about buying online now... although long-term unemployment doesn't leave a lot of room for discretionary spending... and surprisingly perhaps, not alot of time even for playing Harpoon. Which release should I be looking for? Only thing is, I thought the 050 demo was supposed to be the preferred debugging platform (?) ... and I already have that up and running. Whatever works to do the job most efficiently. I, unfortunately, do not have tremendous amounts of time to spend on this right now - which is why I was so concerned about continuing to horse around with stuff that ends up behaving differently between here and there.

Specifically in the WestPac "Backyard" scenario, I quite frequently observe a minor oddity (that apparently has no adverse effect on game play) but may be some sort of indication of something getting hosed up. What happens every so often is that after a tanker a/c completes its refuelling and after the Split-off dialog has been approved, it displays the dialog for selecting the base for the tanker to return to - but the mileage to the first base (or bases, in some cases) is grossly incorrect. Yet in other instances, it seems to be correct. I'm attaching a game-save here, captured at the point that refueling was just started on Blue air group AWA. As this progresses, and the tanker eventually splits off, the distances to the two optional tanker bases AAa and ACa are shown in the Select Base dialog as 4495 nm and 48xx nm, respectively - while the actual distances are about 1200 and 1600 nm - which is shown if I then select the split-off tanker group BAA and do a Land Air command. In other instances, it has looked like only the distance to the AAa base was wrong, while the ACa's distance was plausible. Another question I have is about a situation that occurs often, and which shows up during this game-save example, is that although the tanked group is already at Cruise, when the refueling process starts, it gives the dialog about having to set the group to Cruise speed in order to start refueling - and apparently it does not start refueling if I don't (re-)set to Cruise speed. This is no big deal, just a curiosity - that might be indicative of some other anomaly. Oh, by the way, I also attempted to capture a situation where a tanker did not split off of a group after finishing the re-fueling ops... unfortunately, I seem to have accidentally deleted that save. Anyway, what happened was that I was using F-14As as tankers for an F/A-18C group, and apparently, refueling was not completed until the F-14s were actually beyond BINGO. When the tanker split-off dialog occurred, and I had approved the split, instead of giving the usual "Select base..." dialog for landing the tankers, it instead gave a dialog saying that the tankers had reached BINGO and should return to base. After approving that, I found that the tankers had not split off of the group, but the entire group was now returning to base (even though the F/A-18Cs were nowhere near dry). I regret that I lost the save for this, but I'll see if I can recreate the situation. Meanwhile, just wondering whether it's an anomaly, or maybe just the way things are supposed to work? Autosave___Base_Distance.zip

I run into this situation quite a bit, but fail to see why it is the way it is... so would someone please enlighten me? The situation is where an AI base that I wish to attack has had its radar knocked out, has no attached land AA/radar Units, and has no formation air patrols with active radar (as evidenced by the following: - The Report display for the Base says, "Other damage - Sensor" and Land Units: 0 - Friendly air groups having SEAD and AAM loadouts give the "No released weapons ... for Land attack" message when commanded to attack the base (thus implying that there are no active land-based radars and no formation air groups on the base). Yet, the Range Circles for that base show both active air and active surface radars. Also, something guides the SAMS from nearby (but currently undetected) SAM sites to down attacking air groups with unreported SAMs. I will attach a game-save from the WestPac "Backyard" scenario that shows an example of this sort of situation - in this case involving Red airfield ZYa, Red AD Mobile 00m, and Blue air group AUA (along with other groups that are irrelevent to this example). Please tell me what causes this, and how to finish knocking out whatever radar is guiding the AD Mobile SAMs agaist the attacking air group, and thus making it impossible to attack the airfield. AutoSave__Base_radar.zip

This is what it comes down to for me, provide the goods. Take your situations one-by-one and produce the issue reports. You did it with other issues (aircraft being shot down/invincible during landing), make it happen for these situations. The rest is an almost pure waste of my time and leaves me in agreement with Brad that there are a lot of generalities in your posts that aren't doing anything productive. I understand where you're coming from - really, I do. (Been there, done that...) The point I'm trying to make is that if we can't get game-saves to behave essentially the same way here and there, then what's the value in them? I'll just waste my time generating them... and you guys will just continue to say that I'm blowing smoke. My hope is that we can find something that will behave the same way in both places - so that we know we have a baseline to work from. That's why I asked whether those existing game-saves exhibit anything close to the described behavior on your end. (If they don't, then we're still shooting in the dark - and so we need some other tack, IMO). Please don't take that story to heart. I was simply recounting a report that was told to me by someone who I have no reason to doubt, because it exemplified the point in question. I admit that I have no idea of the source of the report, nor the credentials involved. Nevertheless, it left an impression about the game "mechanics" on at least two people... so take it for what it's worth. I didn't proffer it with the intent to bash you or anyone else. It's simply an example of why some of us have the impression that the AI may enjoy certain "advantages". Well, then he and I may have more in common that it might appear. The whole basic issue for me is simply the desire to have things portray realism - so we can then fashion scenarios that "adjust" the difficulty levels and challenges, and can be used to realistically test new tactics, etc. The problem is, in my instance at least, the various anomalies are seriously interfering with all that a fair amount of the time. Anyway, I await your thoughts on what makes any sense to do now -if anything- given the current circumstances.

I don't know why I'm not receiving eMail notifications for replies to this topic anymore... Check the lead post in this topic, for starters. From where I sit, that surely sounded like some of the same stuff. That's why I piped up again - because it seemed like someone else finally was seeing many of the same effects. Just as I have time and again spent a lot of time and effort trying to provide as detailed reports as I have been able. Seriously, now: Just how many folks are likely to chime in after seeing the response I've received over all this? I know my "mysterious friend" once mentioned that sort of thing as a reason why he wouldn't post. To the best of my third-party knowledge of the situation, he has never posted here - which he said he refused to do because of the described circumstances. FWIW, my impression was that he had been in eMail correspondence with some of the principals when they essentially blew him off. All that is outside the scope of the matter here, anyway. Yes. The only other tactic that I've had some very limited success with is to attack from the axis where there is a picket that's well away from the main group, then swamp only that unit with a barrage. That occasionally results in a hit. But the theory of working my way further into the formation that way (by reducing the available counter-fire) usually does not pan out for anything that's closer to the formation center. I apologize if I mis-interpreted the situation, but perhaps you can understand why I thought that, given the circumstances. Ranting?? I regret that I may have overreacted to the permissions situation, but my hope was to keep this whole business productive. Please keep in mind that, although it may not be obvious, I have already put quite a bit of time and effort into getting to the bottom of this. My concern is that if we cannot even establish some common baseline to work from, then it's just going to be more of the same deal where I put a lot of effort into providing requested info, only to have it rejected out of hand. That won't fly, either.

I don't know who the 'cadre of believers' are, other than you and your still mysterious friend, but they are welcome to speak up. Maybe if we can't get anywhere with your particular problem, we might be able to help them with theirs? As for the 'developers', two of them are right here in this thread. The game has seen plenty of 'tweaks' over the years, and is still being 'tweaked'. None of them ever created an invincible AI, however, or some method of the AI having a set of loaded dice. OK, fine... but this is all ground that's been churned before: Cadre of believers: Have you ever actually read any of the posts around here?? If so, then your question seems to be moot. "Mysterious" friend: As I've mentioned several times in the past, it is highly unlikely that he will ever post here again - as he is still fuming five years or more after the ass-chewing that he received from certain "involved parties". (And frankly, I can't say that I blame him). I think it's a bit late to help with that problem! Developers: Because I've never actually seen the described story, I can only relay the impression that I get about it referring to the early days of the game. I mean, he's been playing since the Three-Sixty version at least, and has been mentioning the story for ten or fifteen years now. Some folks think the AI is too easy as it is, right now. Yeah - that was the gist of the story, wasn't it??? (Shoot - see your own quote above!) Well, since neither multi-axis attack or wave attack seems to work for you, except via brute force, I am curious about what does work. Can you be more specific? What methodologies do you employ? Again, the answer to that is already detailed in the referenced post... (What am I missing here?) I apologize for not replying "promptly enough", but be aware that I did not receive the usual eMail notification of replies until just now - possibly because of the merged thread? The situation you ask about was this: - I read and started a reply to the posted reply in question. Nothing seemed to be unusual until I had completed my reply and tried to preview it. - At that point, instead of a preview, it presented a pink box that said something to the effect that an "error had occurred... You do not have permission to post replies to this thread". (Not an exact quote, I'm sure, but my best recollection of it). It also presented a set of login boxes. - Thinking there was just some hiccup, I used the Back button and then tried again... same result. - Now really puzzled, I checked that I was, in fact, still logged in... It showed that I was. - So, I tried posting the reply (rather than previewing it)... same result as before. - Next, I tried to create a new topic; This gave a similar error, although the wording said something to the effect that I did not have permission to post topics in this forum. - Figuring I'd been blacklisted, I logged out (and got the usual logout result). - Wondering whether I was even allowed into the forum anymore, I tried to log back in. That worked (but only after three tries). - So, I tried posting a topic. As originally, it allowed me to start editing, so I pasted my reply, and posted the topic... that worked. - I then decided to try replying to the original topic. That also worked normally at that time. In light of the information posted in my transplanted reply, I was awaiting suggestions on what tack was going to be worthwhile under the circumstances. It's obviously not going to be worth my time or yours to create more game-saves if they really don't behave the same anywhere else... correct?

IMO, the whole issue of "unfair advantage" for the AI has waxed and waned over the years, and - like Big Foot - it has been debunked and yet still holds a cadre of believers. For example, a friend of mine steadfastly insists that he once read somewhere that a vocal group of users insisted that the game was "too easy" and so the developers (whoever they were at that time) supposedly made some tweeks to the game in order to overcome some things that made it "too easy" for the player to win. Now, I've heard rumors to that effect myself, although never actually seen them in print anywhere as far as I recall... but, I can attest to my own observations of aspects which could easily be interpreted as "unfair advantage" in some light. Some of these observations apparently remain unconfirmed by others, but do exist - for whatever reason - in my own games. Now, it may be that I'm somehow mis-interpreting my observations, and they are in fact manifestations of some legitimate situation, but so far, I remain puzzled by them. These things include (but not limited to): - The stuff we've been re-hashing in this thread, to wit, distinct and seemingly unreasonable mis-matches in the effectiveness of missiles when fired by the player's side versus the computer's side - regardless of the type of missile or launch platform. (This also includes torpedoes, although not being discussed in this thread). - The possibly-related substantial discrepancy between the effectiveness of SAMs and AAA on the respective sides. - The ability of the AI to detect, intercept, and target player's groups when there is no apparent means for the AI to have even detected those player's assets... as contrasted to the extreme difficulty the player has in detecting, tracking, and engaging certain AI units, even when the player has employed substantial detection assets, and contrasted to the virtual impossibility for the player to successfully engage enemy assets without having a complete "fix" on them. - The ability of the AI to successfully track and target player's groups without ever activating any radar - especially puzzling in the cases where the AI is firing radar-guided missiles. - The relative difficulty in killing targets of the respective sides. Now, all this stuff can be viewed as part of the "haze of battle", or whatever, but the aspect that bugs the you-know-what out of me is that, for whatever reason, all this stuff does not appear to apply equally to both sides. Not in the sense that everything has to be a fair fight, but rather that the laws of physics, or whatever, ought to apply without bias - unless there is some artificial skewing (like radar jamming, etc.). For me, the annoyance of it all is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the discrepancies in most cases. I'm not looking for the AI to roll over and play dead, because figuring out legitimate ways to overcome legitimate advantages would be part of the fun and the challenge. It's just that from where I sit, these "advantages" don't seem to be legitimate, and that makes it difficult to assess the value of the chosen tactics. I have to chuckle about the multi-axis attack tactic, because I've tried almost everything from surrounding the AI group with planes, ships, and subs, and loosing all the weapons timed as best I can to converge on the targets simultaneously, and in volumes hoped to swamp the defenses - yet the AI group dispatches them all as deftly as if I had sent in a massive single-axis group. I've also tried "waves" of missiles - where one volley follows fairly closely to a preceeding one... but with pretty much the same non-results. In fact, the only way that I've found to "crack" the nut, is just to keep pounding away with my unlimited supply of ASuW missiles until I deplete the magazines of the AI target... at which point, I gain success. But, that means expending hundreds of missiles - probably well beyond what would be available in reality. Maybe this is just another instance of mis-interpreted observations, but until the "reasons" become clarified, it still adds to my frustartion. Bottom line is that although I have found ways to be (quite) successful in the game, I end up feeling like the tactics I've developed are largely "cheats", and so it leaves me wondering how well I might do in a "real" situation... but, then, I keep coming back for more...

Since I no longer have permission to post replies to the "I suck..." thread, I'm posting my reply here instead. 1. OK, maybe that's what was confusing me... because I haven't ever submitted any bug report about AI missiles hitting 100%. But, they did include description and two game-saves relating to "Invicible Air Groups" - which is essentially a case of player's AAM's missing 100% of the time on one particular AI air group. Those were submitted at the spot referenced in CV32's post earlier in the "I suck..." thread. I don't have - and AFAIK, never have had - any saves demonstrating the other side of the coin - that is, where AI missiles hit 100%. But I see that latter situation so consistently that I assume no save is needed to "expose" that situation... but if nobody else is seeing it just as a matter of course like I do, then I can only assume it really does exist only in my particular installation. (If you wish to pursue this, and cannot see it in your own runs, then I'll have to capture some saves - although I think that effect can be seen in my previously-submitted saves, even though it was not documented). 2, 3, & 4. I recently re-played Middleweights (which was the scenario where these issues mostly showed up in 042 (or whatever it was then)), under 050, but I did not encounter the issues much at all that time. I also just located my original game-saves, and loaded those in 050 for some test runs. The results of that were a bit puzzling: - The first three times that I ran the first of the two game-saves, I did not see any indication of the issue - that is, everything seemed very well-behaved. - Figuring that game-save was a bust under 050, I tried the second game-save, and that one also ran normally (i.e. - no evidence of the anomaly). - Getting a bit flustered over that, I re-opened the second game-save again (but without re-starting the app in this case). This time, I started seeing some evidence of the documented mis-behaviors - although not all of them. So, after eventually destroying the "invincible" group after several missile volleys, I re-opened that game-save and ran it again. That time, the behavior showed up pretty much exactly as documented. So, I repeated the process several more times. The overall results were less consistent than when I ran them at the time of submission, and gave these results for the runs: 1- invincible AI group: destroyed by first volley; player's group: unscathed 2- invincible AI group: destroyed by third volley; player's group: unscathed 3- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and two volleys of IRMs, and three volleys of assorted AAMs from a second player's group; player's group: both units destroyed by first volley of IR missiles 4- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and first volley of IRMs; destroyed by second volley of IRMs; player's group: unscathed 5 & 6- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and both volleys of IRMs; player's group: both units destroyed by first volley of IRMs 7- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and both volleys of IRMs; player's group: both units saved by manual intervention (i.e. - breaking off the attack) 8- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and first volley of IRMs, destroyed by second volley of IRMs; player's group: both units saved by breaking off and then re-initiating the attack 9- invincible AI group: survived all three volleys of AIMs and two volleys of IRMs, destroyed by two IRMs of third volley; player's group: both units destroyed by second volley of IRMs (allowed to continue the attack after firing their last volley of IRMs) Note: AIMs = long-range missiles; IRMs = short-range, infrared missiles After that, I tried the first save-file again a couple of times (without re-starting the app), and found that it generally followed the documented bahavior, but occasionally some of the player's missile did get kills. So, overall, the game-saves were not nearly as consistent in result as I had seen at the time of their submission - especially not when I re-started the app each time - but overall, they demonstrated behavior that was closer to the documented anomalous behavior than to the expected normal behavior. This is unfortunate, because at the time I submitted them, I was seeing 100% conformance to the documented behaviors with each run (although, I believe I ran each only about five times because I was getting such repeatable results that I thought further testing was unnecessary). As it stands now, there isn't 100% repeatability in 050 - yet they still show the behavior more often than not... but I don't know how helpful that will be. It would be interesting to see how the behavior of those game-saves now compares on your installations. Beyond that, what makes sense next? I was thinking I might run a large scenario, hopefully to the point that some issues start showing up, and then try opening the save-games and see what happens from that point... but that would pretty much throw any hope of repeatability out the window.

Ok, let me try to clarify the individual points here: 1. Are you refering here to my previously-submitted game saves, or to situations in general? If to my submitted game-saves, then: a. As I recall, the saved games that I provided were addressing the issue where the human side's groups were unable to kill any of the AI group despite repeated volleys, while the AI group was able to acheive a near 100% hit/kill. This is probably due to the same issue that we're discussing, but is a slightly more extreme manifestation. (In any case, please refer to the info submitted along with those saved games for specifics). b. Reproducability: When I ran those saved games at the time, they produced the effect each time. Offhand, I don't recall how many times I tried them, but I'd guess it was at least three-five times each. As far as the shutdown/restart not clearing up the problem, that was unrelated to the submitted game-saves. Instead, that was merely observations that I've made along the line - usually when things got so bad that there was no point in continuing the game, and I was trying to "salvage" the game via desperate measures. If you were instead referring to the general situation, then: a. & b. On the occasions when I have tried re-loading to clear up problems, yes, in each such case, the re-load did not help the situation. I don't know that that constitutes "reproducability", though... because it could have been just my bad luck (as far as not trying it in more instances, I mean... after a few failures, I just didn't bother trying it anymore). 2. Are you referring here to the game-saves that I submitted back when? If so, those saved games were from a demo version - 042, IIRC. I have not submitted any from newer demos because they weren't requested, to the best of my knowledge. 3. If I can find my original game-saves, I'll re-test them within demo 050 (assuming that's what you meant?) If you want a new game that executed entirely under 050, then I'll have to see whether I can get one that will be comparably consistent. (Note: I said "if", because the hard disk suffered an impact crash sometime after all that game-saving occurred, and I don't know whether those original save-files are backed up anywhere). 4. Using the old save-files, or new ones? Again, my recollection of the issue involved in the game-saves was more that it related to the inability of any of the player's missiles to achieve hits, although, as I said, I think the AI's near-100% hit rate existed in that situation as well. Are you wanting to tackle both of those aspects, or just one or the other for now? 5. That would be great!

I'm no computer expert but I would tend to think that if some sort of memory leak was affecting the die rolls, it would be happening randomly, i.e. just as often against the AI as it would in favor of the AI. Is your PC a Cyberdyne Systems model by any chance? <g> Seriously, though, wouldn't you expect it to screw with the numbers generally and not in favor of one side or another? Nope, no Cyberdynes... Just assorted Toshibas and Acers/eMachines... (but all instances of this PH issue has pretty much been seen on my ancient Toshiba Satellite). Frankly, I don't really know what affects memory leaks could have within this app... but it seems plausible that they could bung up data that's in memory, and only in certain spots that would have limited scope of effect. Also, without knowing what the data structures look like, and are they static or dynamic, etc. etc., all I can say is that it's in the realm of possibility, albeit perhaps not particularly probable. Anyway, I'd lean more towards the issue stemming from a selective corruption of some data that is a common factor in the PH calculation, yet still specific to one side's calculation... or else a corruption that gets replicated into each new group when new groups on one side or the other are subsequently created. Because I've also seen occasional indications that things get screwed up under certain rare conditions that involve the destruction of a unit or group - for example, when part of an air group gets shot down while the group is in landing mode, or when the readying status of landed aircraft gets changed while a group of the same a/c type is in the process of landing, or when the last ship of a group gets sunk while there are still attached air units, or when sometimes an enemy base can no longer be attacked after one of its attached AD units gets destroyed, etc. - this leads me to suspect there may be some bug somewhere in the "unit-destruct" code segments that doesn't properly "clean-up" all of the related data structures, and thus leaves latent problems laying around. This tends to fit with the observation that the trouble usually showns up only under conditions where there are either a whole lot of groups in the game, and/or there has been a lot of preceeding "action" - where lots of units and groups have bitten the dust. Either condition might "stress" the memory situation enough that stray memory accesses would actually start hitting something of importance. Obviously, though, it couldn't be "random" memory hits or it would likely show up in assorted ways, not just in terms of PH. Yet, it certainly appears that the more memory that has been used in these ways, then the more likely it is for this PH issue to crop up. Now, there is an aspect to this whole situation that could be relatively unique to the way I typically play, and which might tend to tax any memory issues even more than perhaps is the case when others play. That is, I typically use small groups - especially with air groups, where I generally send out one- or two-unit groups, but at the same time, typically have almost all of my air assets in flight at once, at least at some times during the game. When adding the AI air groups that may launch to counter all of my groups, I'd estimate it would not to be unusual to exceed 100 individual air groups going all at once, plus whatever other types of groups may exist in the scenario... which themselves may be numerous in the WestPac demo scenarios that I've been playing, due to all the land and Mobile AD groups that exist in those scenarios. And I typically play with the "wipe out" mentality (where my "mission" is to eliminate the enemy, to the fullest extent possible that does not violate the orders... ) This tends to pile numerous missile groups on the heap, too. So, with all that stuff involved, and with so much unit/group destruction going on, if there is any "residual" stuff that doesn't get fully cleaned up when a group is destroyed (or it is simply removed due to returning to base, etc.), then this playing mode may lend itself to developing the issue - more so than a "less aggressive" style of play might. The bottom line is that there very likely is a correlation between large numbers of groups and heavy action and the probability that the issue will show up in any particular instance. This, in turn, suggests that there may be some "houskeeping" issue involving the construction and/or destruction of the data structures for the groups or units, that in some way eventually "feeds" bogus data into the subsequent PH calculations. But, as you say, it's all just anecdotal "evidence", so who knows?

I have tried re-loading the game in a number of cases, but it does not seem to remedy the situation. It appears that whatever is going on somehow gets saved with the game-save, and the issue comes right back with the re-load. (I've tried both re-loading within the session, and re-loading after closing out entirely and re-starting the app... doesn't seem to make much difference). My guess would be that something gets corrupted within the data that the save file stores, so it just gets loaded back again, and goes on its merry way. Yes, the effect seems to be highly biased "in favor of" the AI side, where I see hit percentages approaching 100% for the AI while approaching 0% for the player's side. I agree that it is not likely due to a failure of the randomizer alone, since there would have to be something that caused the bias - unless it is simply an artifact of the order that the randomizer gets applied. If the random values are applied exactly the same way for both sides, then it's certanly a puzzle - and one that tends to point elsewhere for a cause. I guess I've experienced so much ill at the hands of the randomizer functions that I tend to suspect them of being behind most all problems... Generally speaking, I do not see the effect until the game has been running for awhile. Yet, I recall a handful of cases where it showed up almost right out of the gate. I can't say whether there is any correlation between the number of pauses and the onset of the effect, and consequently I can't tell if there is any relationship to raw run time. I would tend to suspect that size of the scenario and/or the amount of "action" that has transpired in a game are in direct proportion to the probability of seeing the problem. A possible issue specific to my machine is memory shortage. I typically have a number of apps running concurrently with HCE, and there tends to be a lot of swapping at times when HCE is in the background. Supposedly, this shouldn't screw anything up, but...???

Short of sending in my computer (not an option, by the way ), I'm at a loss as far as what I else I can do beyond what we've already attempted. Because the issue has been reported independently, I no longer have that annoying doubt that it might just be something specific to my own installation. Contrary to apparent mis-perceptions, it is not my desire to either bash the game nor disparage the developers. I would very much like to help eliminate this issue - as well as a few others that I've run across. And, for that matter, any others that may exist. That said, it is known that there are some rough spots in the game, and this one happens to be the one that by far causes me the most grief when I'm trying to play. I mean, a simulation that sometimes doesn't provide a resonably realistic portrayal is, well, darned frustrating! Especially if it may be some simple little bug that could be eradicated easily - if we could just isolate it. No, I didn't say that at all. In fact, since the obsolecence of HC Gold, all I've been running is the HCE demo. I can't even create or modify scenarios, or change databases. So, all current reports of the issue are necessarily limited to that demo battleset/database. I have seen the issue manifest at times in many of the scenarios provided with the demo, though... but I can't say that it has turned up in literally all of them. FWIW, I do believe I also saw the same or similar issue occasionally in HC Gold, but very rarely. In the demo, I eventually see it in just about every game. What I was saying there is that I've seen the same issue involving many different platforms - tending to indicate that it isn't something about the particular relative capabilities or characteristics of the platforms that are involved in the encounters. I should add that there are many times when encounters between the same platform types don't produce the problem, but it seems that once it shows up in a game, it tends to be persistent thereafter. I fully realize this isn't "hard evidence"... but, unfortunately, it's all I am able to offer. Those game-saves that I provided awhile back seemed to be pretty solid evidence when I played them, but apparently, they did not produce the issue when you used them. Perhaps that, in itself, is some clue about what's going on?

As I recall, your answer to my observations was that "nobody else saw them" (so they don't exist). I also sent game saves that consistently showed the same results when I ran them... but you said they worked fine when you tried them. And that was pretty much the extent of it. After that, I pretty much threw up my hands. If I couldn't ever win my HCE battles, I probably would not bother playing - because I'd give up on it out of sheer frustration. The unfortunate truth is that although I can be successful, it is largely because I have to resort to "cheating" in a purist sense, in order to counter the times when the nonsense crops up. I would much prefer to be able to test my tactics under realistic conditions... but, unfortunately, when things start acting weird, it's just not possible to assess the tactics because I can't tell what's real versus what's bogus. As I've said before, my best guess about what's going on is pure speculation because I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes, but my observations tend to suggest the problem has something to do with something getting squirrelly in the system services used by the app - such as the clock or the randomizer - which may only show up in large scenarios or in games that have been run for a long time with many pauses. I get the distinct impression that something tends to become corrupted in these situations. I'll be quick to add that my judgment may be a bit biased due to being colored by past experiences with other apps suffering badly from screw-ups in these system services, and the apparent similarities to the issues here... yet maybe it's still a possibility. The thing that gives me pause is that, if the app does in fact apply the probabilities in the same way to each side, then the theory would not explain why the results seem to be so consistently biased towards the computer's side. In that case, it may still involve a problem with the randomizer, but there would have to be some other factor(s) coming into play as well. Such is the extent of what I can offer to "analyze" the issue from where I sit - yet the observations stand. That's what I was saying earlier about explaining away the discrepancies as being due to technological differences in the platforms: It doesn't seem to hold true because the effect seems to be consistent across cases involving several different platforms, which presumably have different relative capabilities. For example, F-14, F-15C, F-18, F-2X, F-4, etc. using Phoenix, various AMRAAMs, Sparrows, and AAMs versus various flavors of MiG-29, Su-27, MiG-23, MiG-25, F-15K, etc. using the various long-range missiles that they typically carry. The most telling of these are the cases where F-15C's go against F-15K's where there is near-parity between the platforms and their missiles - at least as compared to the other platforms. The nonsense results - once they start occuring - are fairly consistent in showing a clear bias in favor of the computer side.

Yup, that's me... I've run into all of that - and more! (They'd even almost convinced me that my computer is screwed up, but now I see that just ain't true). It's pretty consistent when fighters go head to head, if the computer side's fighters launch missiles agin you, your only chance for survival is if you can "turn and burn" with enough time to get out of range before those missiles hit - 'cause if'n they do reach you, it's pretty much quaranteed that all of your air group will die, right then and there. (Meanwhile, the computer's planes lolley-gag along, my missiles reach them, but then... nothing! The missiles just disappear! No hits, no nuthin'!) It just ain't fair... well, at least not very reasonable. It's especially frustrating when there are no technological differences that the discrepancies could be blamed on - for example, when F-15C's go against F-15C's, with presumably the same missile loads... yet the same unbalanced results - consistently. Leaves me scratching my head... I also have the same difficulty with subs as you've described. I've tried everything from sitting motionless at various depths while waiting for the prey to come within range, to headlong flank-speed charges. Same results: My subs get plastered. And even if I get off a shot or three, they almost always miss widely... while the computer's torps appear to hit nearly 100% of the time. The net result is that I've never had a snowball's chance when trying to play any of those sub-only scenarios. But perhaps the most annoying discrepancy is in regards to the relative effectiveness of SAM and AAA on the computer's side versus the player's side - neither of which does the player have any control over. As you mentioned in your Keflavik example, the player's missiles readily get decimated - as do the player's aircraft that venture too close - yet the player's SAMs and AAA are considerably less effective against the computer's missiles and aircraft. Just the other night, I had a situation where I had an AWACS, guarded by two (or was it three) pairs of F-15C's. A flight of four Flanker B's had set its sights on the AWACS, and had shrugged off all the missiles that my three defending groups had let fly against them (while neatly dispatching all but one of the defender groups)... so, I maneuvered the AWACS so that one of my bases was between the Flankers and my AWACS, hoping that the base's SAMs and AAA would knock off the Flankers - and save the AWACS. Well, the maneuver worked... but the ploy didn't: The Flankers did indeed fly right over the base, and it fired repeatedly against the Flankers - but no hits at all out of at least six volleys of SAMs. (I don't know how to tell whether the AAA fired or not, but nothing hit the Flankers). Darned frustrating! I regularly see this sort of thing as far as the relative effectiveness of the respective sides' SAM and AAA. If I launch, say, 60 Harpoon missiles against a red carrier group, from three or four axes, all the missiles get shot down except for perhaps three or four that get close enough to bring up the hit animation display... only to see the missiles fly harmlessly over the target. This contrasts with the cases where the computer launches, say, 20 missiles against my surface group - and typically only 6-8 get shot down, while the rest achieve a nearly 100% hit rate on my "defenseless" ships. And dittos for computer attacks on my bases. But the weirdest thing about this may be that in scenarios where I can play the other side, then that sides' defenses are equally poor when I play them - so apparently it's not a matter of platform capability, or whatever, that explains this. Other than the damage to my ego - due to getting shellaced all the time - the most aggravating aspect of this is that I can't make any sense of why such discrepancies would be legitimate.

I also recently ran into issues with minesweeping in a couple of the WestPac demo scenarios. While the Sea Dragon helos with applicable loadout seem to be quite proficient at eliminating mines, it seems that no other platform that I've tried has much -if any- success in attacking mines. In particular, as the main topic of this thread discusses, I was unable to find any way to employ minesweeper ships successfully against mines. I also found that ordinary ASW loadouts for helos and aircraft (generally torpedoes) allow attacks on the mines, but apparently never can hit them. No particular surprize, I suppose... but it leaves one to wonder just how to deal with mines when you have no Sea Dragons to play with. So, my question is, are there any techniques that allow minesweeper ships (or alternatively ASW aircraft) to successfully engage mines? If so, please elaborate... but if not, what then? Thanks!

Heh. My saucy comment wasn't really intended to be an argument against a 'pause', but you're right, there is a part of me (perhaps a large part) that does believe in trying to simulate the pressures of combat and decision making under stress, which includes time constraints. That incoming sea skimmer now just 30 seconds from impact was never intended to provide a 'pause'. But this is a game too, so I can see where a 'pause' would be a useful feature too. Carry on. Just wanted to clarify a couple of my "positions", too: First, I have no particular beef with the Staff Assistant, per se. The only real problem that I see with the current MO is that the mechanism often pre-empts the uer's ability to issue any orders - and effectively puts him out of control. Second, I totally concur with the reality issue of having to deal with information overload in a real situation. But, because the current mechanism circumvents the equal reality of a commander's ability to issue timely orders, then it seems "fair" to have a "work-around" that will allow the user to regain control - even it if is a little outside the scope of reality - or at least purist "legitimacy". But, the game somehow needs to remain playable by the user in these situations, so lacking a good alternative, the zero time compression seems like a good compromise - assuming it was universally accessible when needed. Now, regarding Tony's comment about programmers who are "agin" the Staff Assistant, I know of at least one who's in favor of the SA - or at least neutral. BTW - Howcum I can't get notification of posts in this thread???