Battlesets where fighters seem to have no guns

[yojimboguy]

I have Ultimate Edition with all the stock battlesets. I see that in numerous battlesets, fighter planes that I would expect to have internal cannon -- don't seem to. I concluded this buy loading at least one stock scenario from each battleset and launching a fighter that I would expect to have a gun (typically F14s or F15s when available), and look at the unit window after selecting the plane I've just launched. If there is a message at the bottom of the box that says "Gun ammo available", then I assume it has a gun. If there is no such message, then I assume there is not a gun. If there is not a gun available in the first scenario I try in a battleset, I open at least two mare scenarios in the same set and try again.

 

Battlesets where fighters don't have guns:

EC2003 Battle for the GIUK Gap

EC2003 Battle for the Mediterranean

EC2003 Battle for the Atlantic Ocean

Western Pacific

Oddly or not the USN battleset, which IIRC came out in the same release as WestPac, DOES have fighters with guns.

Is this a problem with the game design, my copy of the game, or some setting in my computer?

A couple of more points. I'm pretty sure WestPac used to have guns, as I designed at least one scenario where the fighters needed them if they were to get all the targets. Also, I tried to use the "Issue Tracker" in the Defects forum to report this, and kept getting a "could not find this page" message.

 

[private]

Guns are still present in the EC2003 and later battlesets.

 

With version 2009.037, we disabled the 'hard wired' guns in these battlesets and instead began treating guns like any other disposable weapon. The hard wired guns (with fixed 3 nm range) still exist in the older legacy battlesets (EC2000 and earlier).

 

The new model offers more flexibility for variation between types of airborne guns, and allows more precise control of when and where use of guns is appropriate.

 

One of the limitations of the older model, for example, was that all aircraft with an air-to-air loadout had the built in gun, even if they didn't actually have a gun in real life. Also, you couldn't use the gun against surface targets unless the gun was otherwise modeled as a bomb or rocket.

 

I hope this helps clear up the issue for you.

[yojimboguy]

Well. it clears up one mystery and creates another. If I'm supposed to have guns in my planes and I don't, how do I get them (or maybe get them back, assuming they disappeared along the way somehow)?

[yojimboguy]

To clarify why I'm sure I either don't have guns or they don't work... It used to be that if my fighters came into gun range of an enemy, the guns would automatically engage and shoot it down. AFAIK there was no way to manually select and fire them. After a number of firings, the "Gun ammo available" would disappear, presumably because the gun had run out of shells.

 

Now none of that happens. The "Gun ammo available" is never visible in the first place and the fighters don't use guns when in close proximity to enemy planes.

[private]

Looks like you uncovered a bug, Yojimboguy.

 

Guns are not appearing as a weapon option in the attack window, as they should.

 

If you would, please put together a small test scenario and add the problem in the Issue Tracker.

[yojimboguy]

I'm not sure I understand you. By "attack window" do you mean the box where you assign the missiles of your group to the targets of an enemy group? A gun should somehow show up in that along with thelist of available missiles?

 

Because I've been playing Harpoon for many years, and I've never seen that in any version. For me, the guns worked entirely automatically if you got your fighter within a mile or so of an enemy plane. The only certain indicator that I ever saw of a fighter having a gun was the line "Gun ammo available" in the box with the description of the group or unit you have selected.

[private]

As I attempted to explain earlier, the current gun model is not at all the same as it was before.

 

Now, guns are treated just the same as missiles. You decide how many 'bursts' to throw at an enemy aircraft or ground target.

 

The bug appears to be that the guns aren't appearing as an option at all.

[yojimboguy]

I'll try writing this up, but since I don't know how this new gun function is supposed to work, I'm not sure how it's broken. Let me ask some questions ...

 

Any documents you can point me to to describe how it works?

 

Some or most of these other questions might be answered by any documentation you point me to, so just tell me if that's the case rather than writing out a an explanation that's already explained somewhere else.

 

Which battlesets are these guns supposed to work in?

 

Should the guns appear in the "Ready Aircraft" window where you select ordnance for a mission type? It that's the case, you don't need a special scenario to see this problem. You can look at practically any scenario and open that window for an airbase with some fighters, and see that they are not listed among the weapons, at least for modern planes. Presumably those guns are integral to the fighters and can't be removed. There are some older fighters like Phantoms where a gun "pod" is listed as part of the loadout.

 

I'm finding it hard to believe that this game has been out so long and nobody's noticed yet that the guns stopped working.

[broncepulido]

From the mentioned patch we use the air guns without major issues, and they are full editables in the platform databases.

In the platform databases you can see the guns in the planes loadouts, if the concrete plane and loadout is gun-equipped.

And playing the game, If a plane is equipped with guns, it's clearly visible in his loadouts in the section "ready air(craft)" when you select a base, a plane and his loadout.

That is in relation to Battlesets and games using the HCDB, HCWW and HCCW databases, those Battlesets labeled as "2003" and some others recent Battlesets, as South Africa, South Atlantic or WestPac.

Previously, in older Battlesets, the mechanism is different and you can not see the guns clearly.

[private]

I'm finding it hard to believe that this game has been out so long and nobody's noticed yet that the guns stopped working.

Maybe you haven't looked at the Release Notes in your HCE directory, or you aren't familar with coding, but this game has been in constant development and improvement for a very long time now.

 

There is nothing unusual about new bugs appearing as this process continues. (Albeit at a reduced rate these days).

 

Afaik, guns were working just fine until fairly recently, and I expect some of our veteran players like Broncepulido (thanks for your input, btw) would have noticed if this were not the case.

[TonyE]

yojimboguy, we are using this issue as a instructional moment of sorts so if you felt extra abused, that is probably why. From the thread so far you have at least tacit verification of the problem from Brad.

 

The next step is indeed gathering a better understanding of what is expected in the commondb battlesets. I'll help you there, the AI should use the guns automatically and the player should have the option to use guns in the F1 (Attack) dialog.

 

Once you have that it is time to craft the small test scenario.

1. Blue airbase, Red airbase in close proximity.

2. One type of Red aircraft, preferably without weapons.

3. One type of Blue aircraft with air to air guns.

4. Set up a Long Range patrol for each side.

5. Save, test, and file issue report with detailed instructions and the files.

 

The small test scenario is very important for the sole reason that it makes finding and fixing the bug much easier. Using a scenario with 20 groups may mean I have to sift through literally hundreds of times more harpoon events than the simple test scenario. Yes, it sucks but we're in the position of one programmer, many players so the more the players do to make good use of programmer time, the more improvements you get.

[yojimboguy]

Ok, my first followup questions is: were WestPac and USNI released at the same time, and should their guns behave the same? Because they don't.

 

And am I correct in thinking guns should operate the same in all battlesets from EC2003 onward?

[TonyE]

It depends which USNI battleset you mean. The one with five scenarios is quite old, released around 1991 and should show the old behavior. The re-made USNI battleset (ten scenarios)(called USNI - US Naval Institute) is very new and should show the new behavior.

 

Yes, guns should operate the same in all battlesets EC2003 and newer.

[yojimboguy]

Ok, now I'm really confused. A few days ago, this and some other problems had me wondering if my version of the game had some corrupt files. So I un-installed the games entirely, downloaded the whole program again from Matrix, and re-installed from scratch. The first thing I did then was "check for updates" and was assured by the program I had the current version.

 

Yet my version of USNI has 5 scenarios, not ten, and I acquired it direct from Matrix within this week. Which leads me to think -- either Matrix is not distributing exactly the game you think it is, or you have the expectation that people are downloading patches/upgrades/whatever from here (or some mysterious 3rd site) rather than the Matrix site.

 

Maybe this is not a bug of the newest version. Maybe Matrix is distributing an older version of the game. Is there something I (and I'm not a programmer) can look at among the various game components to see if everything is as current as it should be.

[mavfin]

Ok, now I'm really confused. A few days ago, this and some other problems had me wondering if my version of the game had some corrupt files. So I un-installed the games entirely, downloaded the whole program again from Matrix, and re-installed from scratch. The first thing I did then was "check for updates" and was assured by the program I had the current version.

 

Yet my version of USNI has 5 scenarios, not ten, and I acquired it direct from Matrix within this week. Which leads me to think -- either Matrix is not distributing exactly the game you think it is, or you have the expectation that people are downloading patches/upgrades/whatever from here (or some mysterious 3rd site) rather than the Matrix site.

 

Maybe this is not a bug of the newest version. Maybe Matrix is distributing an older version of the game. Is there something I (and I'm not a programmer) can look at among the various game components to see if everything is as current as it should be.

The 'stock' Ultimate Commanders Edition version from Matrix is 2009.050, as far as I know.

 

In the Beta forum here is the 2009.072 zip that includes the newer usni battleset, and a couple other files. After installing that, get the 2009.076 file from the same post. At that point you'll be at the 'best stable' configuration.