It sort of makes me wish there was a practical way to "record" game play, such that it would play-back the game as actually played, for review.

 

There is such a thing. It's called a screenshot. I have provided 2 in the "scenario creation" thread from exactly the relevant instant. Now you claim, Joe, that your AEW planes are constantly being jumped by stealthy enemy fighters. Fine. Next time it happens, lean back, stretch, press "print screen", dump it into Paint, save as a JPEG, and upload it here. Then do it again. This will not help for formally debugging the problem, but it will certainly help to convince everyone here that you are actually seeing this effect.

 

Of course, after I have made this plain statement, if you do NOT provide such screenshots, then everyone here, realizing how easy it is to provide them, will be certain that you do not actually see such effects.

No, a screenshot - or even a series of screenshots does not provide the play-back that I was thinking of.

 

As far as screenshots providing any "evidence" necessary to convince anyone for or against this, I would debate the "weight" of that sort of "evidence" as being far less compelling than the game-saves I've already provided - albeit not for the sneak attacks situation. Since those were not believed, then I can't see this being believed, either. And lastly, how can it be logically contrued that if I fail to provide convincing screenshot(s), then that "proves" anything, one way or the other? At best (worst?), it might lead people to assume that I don't see the effects... but that has been the case since the outset, so nothing new there.

 

Be that as it may, I'd ask what sort of screenshot is going to demonstrate what you seek here - that is to "convince" anyone that the situation happens even once, let alone regularly. I mean, seriously, what would it have to show in order to be "convincing" of this situation? Is it even possible to demonstrate that way? (I surely don't see how).

It sort of makes me wish there was a practical way to "record" game play, such that it would play-back the game as actually played, for review.

 

There is such a thing. It's called a screenshot. I have provided 2 in the "scenario creation" thread from exactly the relevant instant. Now you claim, Joe, that your AEW planes are constantly being jumped by stealthy enemy fighters. Fine. Next time it happens, lean back, stretch, press "print screen", dump it into Paint, save as a JPEG, and upload it here. Then do it again. This will not help for formally debugging the problem, but it will certainly help to convince everyone here that you are actually seeing this effect.

 

Of course, after I have made this plain statement, if you do NOT provide such screenshots, then everyone here, realizing how easy it is to provide them, will be certain that you do not actually see such effects.

No, a screenshot - or even a series of screenshots does not provide the play-back that I was thinking of.

 

As far as screenshots providing any "evidence" necessary to convince anyone for or against this, I would debate the "weight" of that sort of "evidence" as being far less compelling than the game-saves I've already provided - albeit not for the sneak attacks situation. Since those were not believed, then I can't see this being believed, either. And lastly, how can it be logically contrued that if I fail to provide convincing screenshot(s), then that "proves" anything, one way or the other? At best (worst?), it might lead people to assume that I don't see the effects... but that has been the case since the outset, so nothing new there.

 

Be that as it may, I'd ask what sort of screenshot is going to demonstrate what you seek here - that is to "convince" anyone that the situation happens even once, let alone regularly. I mean, seriously, what would it have to show in order to be "convincing" of this situation? Is it even possible to demonstrate that way? (I surely don't see how).

Well I think screen shots are useful. In this situation I'd assume you get a game message (staff assistant or the like), before dismissing the message (while it is showing you are in a game pause) I look at my screen and if I think there is something to learn then as soon as I dismiss the message screen I go to 0 time compression, turn on 'see all' and see who is where. If I was still confused a screen shot will keep a visual record that a more experienced harpooner might be able to decipher. A screen shot of a single incident would be easy to talk about, what is there, what just got shot, who done it , how did they do it etc...

They might not be the ant's pants but screen shots are useful. If nothing else they show the whole story (if done in 'see all'), not just what I can remember or what I think happened.

Don Thomas

It sort of makes me wish there was a practical way to "record" game play, such that it would play-back the game as actually played, for review.

 

There is such a thing. It's called a screenshot. I have provided 2 in the "scenario creation" thread from exactly the relevant instant. Now you claim, Joe, that your AEW planes are constantly being jumped by stealthy enemy fighters. Fine. Next time it happens, lean back, stretch, press "print screen", dump it into Paint, save as a JPEG, and upload it here. Then do it again. This will not help for formally debugging the problem, but it will certainly help to convince everyone here that you are actually seeing this effect.

 

Of course, after I have made this plain statement, if you do NOT provide such screenshots, then everyone here, realizing how easy it is to provide them, will be certain that you do not actually see such effects.

No, a screenshot - or even a series of screenshots does not provide the play-back that I was thinking of.

 

As far as screenshots providing any "evidence" necessary to convince anyone for or against this, I would debate the "weight" of that sort of "evidence" as being far less compelling than the game-saves I've already provided - albeit not for the sneak attacks situation. Since those were not believed, then I can't see this being believed, either. And lastly, how can it be logically contrued that if I fail to provide convincing screenshot(s), then that "proves" anything, one way or the other? At best (worst?), it might lead people to assume that I don't see the effects... but that has been the case since the outset, so nothing new there.

 

Be that as it may, I'd ask what sort of screenshot is going to demonstrate what you seek here - that is to "convince" anyone that the situation happens even once, let alone regularly. I mean, seriously, what would it have to show in order to be "convincing" of this situation? Is it even possible to demonstrate that way? (I surely don't see how).

 

Joe, I'm not trying to be nasty, merely logical. There is a very clear mechanism for resolving this and related issues, and I am using it. But you need to be cooperating.

 

The thing I've asked for is precisely the thing I want and need to see.

 

It's sort of like someone phoning me up to say that there's a Susquatch in his yard. Well, maybe I believe him, and maybe I don't. So I tell him, take a picture with your cell phone and email it to me. If he does so, then there probably is a Susquatch in his yard. But if he refuses, then I am going to conclude that there is no such event.

 

The screenshot I have asked for has great forensic value. Here's why:

 

At the moment of first detection of a unit, a very specific thing occurs. All the HCE veterans know what this thing is. This thing has a very specific signature. In addition, the game is paused when it occurs, so there is no rush to take any action. When you take the screenshot, you record a whole bunch of things. When we look at the screenshot, we can learn a great deal from it. It may even completely resolve this particular issue.

 

Now maybe you can photoshop together something that looks reasonable. I am betting that you can't make an adequate forgery. Therefore, if you provide the screenshot as requested, I am going to believe you. However, it is possible that an AEW plane does get jumped, once in a blue moon. That's why I want to see 2 screenshots.

 

Based on your claims so far, this ambushing happens frequently, so it should be easy for you to reproduce. I am not making an onerous demand.

 

Finally, what I am asking for is completely different from what Tony asked for (saved games), and for different reasons.

Enable iterative saving at 1 sec intervals (command line options "-s -t 0.0166")... Takes a bit of space but gives you a pretty fine grained set of save games to work with.

 

Heck, you can even back track a few save games and do a show-all to track the behavior of the "sneaky" planes...

Joe, I'm not trying to be nasty, merely logical. There is a very clear mechanism for resolving this and related issues, and I am using it. But you need to be cooperating.

 

The thing I've asked for is precisely the thing I want and need to see.

 

It's sort of like someone phoning me up to say that there's a Susquatch in his yard. Well, maybe I believe him, and maybe I don't. So I tell him, take a picture with your cell phone and email it to me. If he does so, then there probably is a Susquatch in his yard. But if he refuses, then I am going to conclude that there is no such event.

Unortunately, in my case your conclusion would be flawed - because I don't own a cell phone. Seriously. So I simply couldn't comply.

 

 

The screenshot I have asked for has great forensic value. Here's why:

 

At the moment of first detection of a unit, a very specific thing occurs. All the HCE veterans know what this thing is. This thing has a very specific signature. In addition, the game is paused when it occurs, so there is no rush to take any action. When you take the screenshot, you record a whole bunch of things. When we look at the screenshot, we can learn a great deal from it. It may even completely resolve this particular issue.

 

Now maybe you can photoshop together something that looks reasonable. I am betting that you can't make an adequate forgery. Therefore, if you provide the screenshot as requested, I am going to believe you. However, it is possible that an AEW plane does get jumped, once in a blue moon. That's why I want to see 2 screenshots.

 

Based on your claims so far, this ambushing happens frequently, so it should be easy for you to reproduce. I am not making an onerous demand.

 

Finally, what I am asking for is completely different from what Tony asked for (saved games), and for different reasons.

 

Well, I hope it's useful, because I just spent six hours re-running THB, taking strategic screenshots - hopefully at the points that you needed - and noting the info that seemed to be relevent, and even a game-save... so, I sure hope it was worthwhile. Unfortunately, from my standpoint, it wasn't - because the blasted run refused to do the main thing that I was trying to capture - that is, that "early intercept" that I'd seen in the two previous test runs of THB.

 

Anyway, what I had hoped to capture were these issues:

 

1. The early intercept of a Hawkeye, before it had even reached its fairly distant patrol position and turned on its radars. (This failed, as the MiG did not turn up this time; really not sure what I did differently, but...).

 

2. The apparent incredulous speed involved in that intercept in #1. (Also failed due to lack of MiG, but I did track other trips and found them to be generally right on, but a couple were somewhat off, albeit not extremely).

 

3. Ability of MiGs to sneak up on RA-5C, Phantom IIs, ships, etc. without being detected. (This was pretty successfully captured).

 

4. Inability of Phantoms to find the MiGs (without the MiGs using radar). (This was successful).

 

5. Inability of Sparrows to kill MiGs in that scenario. (This was sort of successful, although the Sparrows did manage to kill one MiG-17F).

 

There were also some other assorted things that seemed odd to me, and I noted them in the text. In particular, Although the MiGs initially tried to intercept both of the Hawkeyes that I put up, later in the game, they ignored the one that was actually closer to both of the Red bases, and only kept at the more distant one. Seemed strange, but didn't really affect the demo.

 

So, with that intro, I'm attaching a Zip that has 10 screenshots, one game-save, and a set of notes that I took, that also describe the screenshots. Enjoy!

THB_Demo.zip

Enable iterative saving at 1 sec intervals (command line options "-s -t 0.0166")... Takes a bit of space but gives you a pretty fine grained set of save games to work with.

 

Heck, you can even back track a few save games and do a show-all to track the behavior of the "sneaky" planes...

Geez... I wish I'd seen that before I did the test; it might've helped, in a few spots at least.

Thanks, Joe, for doing all that work. The first point to keep in mind is that I cannot imagine that you photoshopped those screenshots together, and presumably no one else is going to either, so you have provided clear proof of certain things. I will need to study the information in detail to know exactly what it is I am looking at.

 

Just one tidbit: In the first screenshot, how could any AI unit possibly know about the Hawkeye going NE? (it's being intercepted.) It's below the radar horizon from the Vietnamese bases, and its radar is off in any case. Are the Vietnamese fighters carrying telescopes?

Just one tidbit: In the first screenshot, how could any AI unit possibly know about the Hawkeye going NE? (it's being intercepted.) It's below the radar horizon from the Vietnamese bases, and its radar is off in any case. Are the Vietnamese fighters carrying telescopes?

 

Well, let's see ...

 

I ran the Thanh Hoa Bridge scenario myself, using the HCE Demo and trying to replicate Joe's observations.

 

Here is a screenshot of my E-2B taking off and heading off to the northeast, just as Joe's did, staying radar silent and outside the range of North Vietnamese radars.

 

You can see a frenzy of North Vietnamese formation patrols in the Unit Map, including a pair of MiG-17s and a pair of MiG-21s in the Gulf of Tonkin (inside the blue circle).

 

There is also a long range patrol by a pair of MiG-21s just off the southwest coast of Hainan, which is visible on both the Unit and Group Maps (inside the blue square).

 

There's another long range patrol just off the Vietnamese coast.

 

 

Neither of these showed the slightest interest in my E-2B. Why? Because they had no idea it was there.

 

The next screenshot shows me loitering the E-2B right off the west side of Hainan at High altitude, still radar silent. And, again, no intercept coming to get me.

 

 

Now, watch what happens when I run the scenario again.

 

This time I energize the radar of my E-2B (Group ACA) upon launch and I move northeast just as before.

 

 

Almost immediately I attract the attention of not just one, but two, separate groups of enemy aircraft moving east over the Gulf of Tonkin in an attempt to intercept me.

 

(The third group just to their south is the long range patrol mentioned above).

 

Now it gets real interesting.

 

When I shut down my E-2B's radar, and select one of the two enemy interceptor groups (in this case, ZGR), I can see that despite my radar being off it is still on an intercept course.

 

 

Why is that? Because the enemy interceptors are still working off my last known position. They have an uncertainty zone now that I can't see, but rest assured it is there.

 

So even though I have an E-2B sitting radar silent and outside enemy radar range, I am still being subjected to an intercept.

 

I suspect this is not a surprise for most of you.

 

I've attached my savegame from when the E-2B was radar silent and NOT attracting any enemy attention.

THB_BL.zip

Just one tidbit: In the first screenshot, how could any AI unit possibly know about the Hawkeye going NE? (it's being intercepted.) It's below the radar horizon from the Vietnamese bases, and its radar is off in any case. Are the Vietnamese fighters carrying telescopes?

 

Well, let's see ...

 

I ran the Thanh Hoa Bridge scenario myself, using the HCE Demo and trying to replicate Joe's observations.

 

Here is a screenshot of my E-2B taking off and heading off to the northeast, just as Joe's did, staying radar silent and outside the range of North Vietnamese radars.

 

You can see a frenzy of North Vietnamese formation patrols in the Unit Map, including a pair of MiG-17s and a pair of MiG-21s in the Gulf of Tonkin (inside the blue circle).

 

There is also a long range patrol by a pair of MiG-21s just off the southwest coast of Hainan, which is visible on both the Unit and Group Maps (inside the blue square).

I also see what looks like a Red surface vessel lurking behind a green to the north of the carrier group at about what looks like AAM range red circle

ESM platform?

There's another long range patrol just off the Vietnamese coast.

 

 

Neither of these showed the slightest interest in my E-2B. Why? Because they had no idea it was there.

....................................................

A win for screen shots, yes?

Don Thomas

The red thing north of the carrier group is a November-class sub. Better not be ESM on that thing; it's underwater.

 

I presume the neutral units aren't feeding info to the Vietnamese, especially the whales.

Are the Vietnamese fighters ESM-capable? I believe we've already worked out that the Hawkeye, starting from the carrier and moving NE, is always outside ESM range from any Vietnamese ground unit.

My comments on Joe's screenshots (other than the above):

 

[sS1]

Why does the intercepting AI fighter have its radar on? Doesn't this require a specific reason? One, I know, is if it is itself detected by radar. The other might be that it is tracking down an uncertain contact.

The red thing north of the carrier group is a November-class sub. Better not be ESM on that thing; it's underwater.

I presume the neutral units aren't feeding info to the Vietnamese, especially the whales.

Yes, I've had time to play with this and see that now.

Are the Vietnamese fighters ESM-capable? I believe we've already worked out that the Hawkeye, starting from the carrier and moving NE, is always outside ESM range from any Vietnamese ground unit.

 

I'm guessing the database for the demo is based on HCDB-something, if so none of the red planes are ESM capable, (some are missile warning capable).

 

I like to take one problem at a time and I think the screen-shot THB-1 and Joe's AAR at:

At 11:43:xx to-go, Red group ZER appears 138 nm SE of its base, cruising at Low (560 knots) with radar active and target of ADA.

are pretty hard to fathom.

Fact: the hawkeye heading NE (high altitude, radar silent?) has been detected by Red and the closest CAP (from one of the base formations) has been sent to intercept.

Questions:

1/ what type of detection. I'm baffled (unless Victor's idea about neutrals?)

2/ what platform detected. I'm baffled (ditto)

3/ is it reproducible? I've tried in my HCE versions and can't get it to happen.

4/ is it a fluke (e.g. a dice roll of 0 deciding some probability of 1%) or is it something in the demo version?

5/ has anyone set up the plot in the demo game, taken an early game save and done lots of auto play (ctrl-alt-z) high time compression runs to see how often it occurs.

 

Even in Brad's post I'm thinking Red was lucky to get an esm from one of the land platforms, that's assuming the migs in the demo have no esm (and the green drug runners aren't on the take), and I didn't reproduce that (hawkeye with radar on going to station) over a half dozen attempts in various HCE game versions.

I presume the neutral units aren't feeding info to the Vietnamese, especially the whales.

 

It has been known to happen. That is one of the items that will be taken care of by the massive code re-work I'm doing at present (in prior versions, including 2009.050 neutrals are really an offshoot of the AI side so it has taken trial and error to eliminate all of the spots where neutrals might leak information to one side of the other). I think in 2009.050 we prevented the whales from be blubber mouths but I wouldn't stake my life on it.

I'm guessing the database for the demo is based on HCDB-something, if so none of the red planes are ESM capable, (some are missile warning capable).

The database is exactly HCDB something as listed down in the status bar of the game. HCDB-091024 according to my copy. That would be http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?a...load&id=385 for use in the full HUCE and for examination in the PE.