Akmatov

Easing back into Harpoon and want to set up some simple scenarios to experiment with the variious weapon systems. I'm using Clancey's RSR as a template for setting up Iceland as a Soviet base against which to conduce air attacks, which leads to a couple of questions: 1) As I see it the original four battlesets are the only ones that that include the Soviet Union, right? 2) The only way to adjust the weapon systems present at a base are via the Platform Editor, right? For example, as per RSR, I would like to add 4x SAM6 launchers, so I would have to go to the Platform Editor to do this - however, if I remember correctly that would not be possible for the orginal scenarios, right? 3) Or would using the most utd HarpGamer DB make a difference? Poking around in the dark, so any advice would be great.

Was reading in Shattered Sword a description of the mechanics of putting together a Japanese carrier strike in 1942. I had never realized that you needed to warm up a radial engine for about 15 minutes before it was safe to take off. Was wondering: 1) Do you needed to warm up a jet engine?, and 2) if so, for how long? Also, got me wondering, how many aircraft can a catapult launch how quickly? Figured you guys might know.

Thanks Tony. I'll follow your advise and if I'm still seeing things I don't understand I'll give you specifics.

Looking at the DB associated with the 2009.42 install and I'm finding some little errors. The most noticeable is that a number of SS diesel subs are listed as having nuclear propulsion. Could this be a game thing where these subs display characteristics associated in the game with nuclear or are they true errors? Also, is this the most uptodate 'standard' DB or should I be downloading something newer from the database downloads? UPDATE Putting my DB exploration on hold till I figure this out. The data I'm working with is copy and paste to Excel of the data tables in the Platform Editor, I can work better with Excel. First thing I'm checking is the accuracy of the copy and paste. Here is some of the weirdness: -Nuclear Propulsion listed for many diesel subs and Sea Mines and WHALES! -Diesel Propulsion listed for quite a few nuclear subs, like the Akula and the Alpha and the Virginia -Many subs with no passive or active sonar. Something isn't right here.

Watched the animation of the collision, freighter seems to have just clipped the starboard stern corner of the frigate - should that have reasonably caused it to burst into flames? Just seems awfully fragile for a warship.

Golly Gee Mista CV, Gomer is just a classic. Actually, looking over at the Matrix version of Carriers at War, I'm either going to dig out my old copy of Complete CAW or try out Harpoon WW2-I like the idea of having just one base program to use. And, of course, you guys could always tweak the code some more in your copious free time. Seriously, the air to air gunnery seems the biggest problem as long as one is not getting involved in surface gunnery engagements. And it should really be fixed anyway, otherwise the problems, and solutions, in VN aren't really modeled. And you know the problem with AAA is going to eat at you until you fix it. Really seems not too far off. And was radio direction finding actually used at the operational level much? I'm not remembering reading about it used that way back then.

Ah, now I understand more better. So for Harpoon to shine, one should restrict oneself to periods when aircraft are more reliant on missiles than guns, there is radar and there is little surface to surface gunnery; basically approx 1960 ???? forward.

Didn't you guys recently improve this? Can't find it in the Release Notes now, of course. What is 'radio intercept? Hmm, didn't the modern carrier at the center formation evolve during WW2? Thinking Midway, wouldn't putting the four big Japanese carriers in the center section of the Formation Editor simulate things fairly well? The only other simulation I can think of usable for WW2 carrier ops is Carriers at War. Do you feel that does a better job than HCE for the time period?

Thank you for explaining. Given that as far as I know, you guys are what is keeping HCE alive, I just didn't understand how you would be receiving no compensation for your many efforts to keep improving Harpoon. Fortunately, you guys are involved for reasons other than making money. I will eventually be buying HUE, I seem to buy whatever version of Harpoon is currently available sooner or later so there will be another stroke to the stroke tally of the interested. I still have some old 5.25" install disks for Harpoon.

I'd be very interested to hear why?

I have a copy of HCE and can keep it up to date with the latest beta .exes. Other than having a complete collection of all the various versions of Harpoon, what is the benefit for a HCE player? And from something I read in one of the threads, did I correctly understand that purchase of HUE from Matrix benefits you guys not at all? This seems weird as aren't you the guys who provided all the update work?

Just noticed that the World War DB is live and still being added to. But I am not noticing that there are any scenarios to be downloaded using it. Am I missing something? I am currently reading Shattered Sword, about the battle of Midway, and am wondering about using HCE to look at some WW2 actions. I'm assuming that HCE would not be especially useful for surface actions, but my interest is mainly carrier operations so it seems HCE might do just fine. If I were to put together a simple WW2 carrier scenario using the WWDB, how would I approach it as I assume there is no battle set for it. I guess I'm confused about how to go from a DB to an actual scenario (I had done scenarios before within a HCE battle set).

LOL

Thanks Tony, that is exactly what I needed to know.

Currently have HCE and haven't yet purchased HUE. Can I still use the more UTD betas without trashing things?

I VERY much like the idea of a zero time pause that allows one to look around and issue orders. This is neither 'pansy' or unrealistic. You as the player are not just acting in the role of senior decision maker, you are also acting as your whole command staff plus the unit operators. You decide what to do and then you have to issue all the various orders to realize that decision. This is the job of several people and to have to perform all these functions in 1:1 time is both unrealistic and very irritating. I'm hoping that I'm correctly understanding that in the newest version of HCE such a function exists.

Thx, didn't think to check, thought it would be too new. You guys rock.

That is pretty much my question.

Thanks for the info guys. Now lets see what comes of it. I may take a good look and run gibbering back to Fallout 3. Really you guys have everything under control and when I get the platform templates to Tony, I will have made any big contribution I might be able to make. Really looking forward to seeing what he will be able to do with that project. Will be a huge help for those of us who don't have the radar ranges memorized for three national navies.

Sorry if I keep asking the obvious, but . . . . * If I were to create a new HCE DB in Access 2000/PE, assuming I do it correctly, would it run in HCE (presumably by naming it 'commondb.rsr)? * If yes, would it run directly from what I produce or would you need to tweak/convert it somehow so it would work? * Would the same be true of H3 ANW? Been wanting to poke at the Harpoon DB for a long time and being very tempted to give it a try, at some level. My primary interest is to be able to pull out the data and organize it in a useful way and it looks like I will probably get that from you when I send you the 'templates'. It must be getting late, I just had a strange idea. Would it be possible to add additional information fields to an already extant HCE DB without screwing up its compatibility with HCE? For example, adding a field to each record for the first date a ship in that class was commissioned and a another for the date the last one was taken out of commission. Was thinking might just be possible as the added fields would not be expected by HCE and might just be ignored. Could use them for either the addition to the PE or just for myself.

OK, long weekend coming up. I'll see if I can find my files on that. Will make my life much easier not having to become a DB guru.

Ah, I see. I looked in my new copy of Access 97 for Dummies and found one entire paragraph about linking Access to Word. What I worked up manually was something like: Name [________________] Type [__________] Class [________________ ] DOI [_____] Country Code [________] SENSORS Type Dsgn CC Max Rng Radar [.....] [........] [......] [............] Sonar [.....] [........] [......] [............] WEAPONS Wpn 01 etc, etc My old manual report forms combined key data for the platform, sensors and weapons onto a one page reference. Ships and subs were fairly easy, aircraft and all the possible mission loads was a major pain. I have done this repeatedly over the years using home made forms into which I filled the data from the game - tedious. Now that the data is user accessible I have been aware it could probably be done via a db report. All I have to do is learn how to use Access, and/or Word, to produce the report I want, which will involve a LOT of transfer of data into little boxes in the report template. Now if all you need is a layout, I would think a copy of one of my old Word .doc manual forms might answer the need. All I would need to do is find it. Am I understanding you correctly? If you can do the computer skills portion that would be incredibly good!!!! I was thinking I needed to develop the whole report via Access/Word for it to be useful for you, hence my buying some old Access manuals. Oh, question. If I understand correctly the user modifiable Harp DBs are 2003 + CVE's updates + Rene's work, right? And the DB program used is Access 97. Can later versions of Access be used? (I think I have a copy of Access 2000 as well as I just bought a copy of Access 97 Upgrade, which I thinks will upgrade my Access-less version of MS Office 97 to then having Access 97 also - the text on the box is actually quite murky). The HCCE:PE Guide page mentions most newer versions of Access, yet I have a vauge memory that the Harp DBs are in version 97 and that we are supposed to use that version - my vauge memories are always in need of updating with more correct info.

While interested in reports, somewhere I have a paper format I used to fill in for Harpoon platforms and weapons, I'm entering into this in total ignorance. I just received what I think will add Access 97 to my old, old copy of MS Office 97 (wo Access). My primary interest is in developing a way, reports of some sort, to present relable information on Harpoon platforms and weapons so the player isn't having to either grope around in the dark or spend a lot of time scribbling down info from the Platform Report. However, having done a tiny bit of looking around - probable Rene's DB, I'm seeing what seem to be opportunities to do a bit of editing, things like entries with the wrong text or blank fields. I have both available and was not aware one could develop a report in these programs to display information from a DB program. Refer back to the first sentence comment about total ignorance. I'm confused. Isn't the Platform Editor an Access 97 based program? If so, why a preference for a word processor program report generator? Of course, we may be looping back to t total ignorance again.

Could that be fixed?

I still haven't found my old copy of Office 97 and I'm wondering about Access 97 Runtime that you guys have made available to us. Is it more than a viewer or can it be used to modify and save DBs? Create report formats, etc?