Access the "DB Share" navigation button, at HarpGamer.com

 

While it still has a single active link to the current HCDB commondb.res (in .zip format), the new section includes reserved slots for future efforts from the members of this group.

 

There are also instructions on what to do if you have a db you'd like to share with the community, so have a look, and if you need the current HCDB, please grab it there.

Has anyone come up with a DB for WWII? I know there was one being worked on for H3 but I also remember problems with Torpedoes amongst other things. If know one has started one could you point me to a place where I could learn how to put one together for myself? Don't know if it will ever be a sharable resource - Don't even know where I'd get stats for those plaforms & weapons but I'd like to try.

 

Thanks

 

T-Rex

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I thought one of the guys (Jan ?) was looking at the possibility of creating a WWII DB but I am not sure what the status of that effort is. I've toyed with the idea now and then myself. I think HCG might make a pretty decent WWII simulator, given the less sophisticated sensor model, for example. The Command at Sea (CaS) gaming system would probably be a decent source of DB info.

I have resumed putting together a custom composite database using platforms of whatever survived WWII and moving forward. The ships are currently under construction. Some ships have been heavily modified (think Dale Hillier's ADB for H3). The only concern is when I get to the aircraft, and if I run into the records limit on the loadouts.

 

Question for Tony Eischens:

When the Database Editor downloads into the SE/GE, there is an intermediate step where CSV files are generated before loading into the RES file. Could there be a way to break into the intermediate step where the CSV file is saved? That may be a way around the current quantity of installations limit in the database, where several files of installation annexes (I'm using an H3 database term) can be set aside.

Question for Tony Eischens:

When the Database Editor downloads into the SE/GE, there is an intermediate step where CSV files are generated before loading into the RES file. Could there be a way to break into the intermediate step where the CSV file is saved? That may be a way around the current quantity of installations limit in the database, where several files of installation annexes (I'm using an H3 database term) can be set aside.

 

Hi Greg,

The csv files are a handy place to make custom filters and such and they allow anyone to write a database editor, just provide the correct data in the csv files. However, the limitation on quantity of items in each annex is driven by the game, not the pfBuild2002.mdb database editor. So editing the csv files directly won't alleviate the limits at all but I imagine you could do some interesting filtering (i.e. filter records to create a database per scenario or something). I see potential but making such a beast effective in the way of increasing loadouts see in the PE (platform editor) would be quite a bit of work, but doable.

I wasn't thinking in terms of editing the .csv, instead being able to stash them in subdirectories. It would be a workaround for the current problem of quantity of installations, where the limit of 2047 (2^11-1) has in fact been hit. An artifact of some of the legacy code in past versions (although I would think in the original versions that limit in the GE/SE would have been more like 255, or 2^8-1)

 

It may be a variation on the download routine where first the Access database downloads into the .csv. Then move in the appropriate .csv, say in this case for the desired set of installations, then go from the .csv set to the .res.

 

What I may be describing may involve a bit more for the end user, unless the end user has some decent computer skills (not programming level, but willing to follow some steps in the file management that is involved).

 

Kick this around further via pm's?

I wasn't thinking in terms of editing the .csv, instead being able to stash them in subdirectories. It would be a workaround for the current problem of quantity of installations, where the limit of 2047 (2^11-1) has in fact been hit. An artifact of some of the legacy code in past versions (although I would think in the original versions that limit in the GE/SE would have been more like 255, or 2^8-1)

 

Kick this around further via pm's?

 

Not sure where you got the idea that 255 was the old limit, not that is matters. Moral of the story being that people were smart enough that if they were going to increase from 255, they sure would not have stopped at 4096. The original limit was 4096 aka 4095, halved to 2048 as a shortcut to get the editable database going for EC2003+WestPac. In those battlesets there is an internal ID and a disk ID for each item, hence 4096/2.

 

Anyway, if you would be kind enough to start another thread with a quick recap of your crazy idea of swapping csv files I think a public discussion would be best at this point.

On the subject of a WWII DB, I've been kicking the idea around some myself, and I came up with a few Qs that require some thought.

 

Harpoon as it is simulates things nicely given an even playing field. WWII started badly for the allies and ended badly for the axis for a few reasons that I'm not sure can be simulated that easily.

 

1. How do you model in the training factor where Axis troops (particularly Japanese pilots) were so much better trained at the beginning of the war than their allied counter-parts, then the opposite being true late?

 

2. How do you simulate low morale and fatigue which accounted for some of the allied losses that could have easily been victories early in the war?

 

3. And how to accurately model the gun only attacks of WWII aircraft? How do you simulate that a B-17 was hard to attack from any angle?

 

I've kicked around a few ideas, all of them involving making different models of the same ship/aircraft with the armament having different hit % chances. But there may be a better way.

1. How do you model in the training factor where Axis troops (particularly Japanese pilots) were so much better trained at the beginning of the war than their allied counter-parts, then the opposite being true late?

 

2. How do you simulate low morale and fatigue which accounted for some of the allied losses that could have easily been victories early in the war?

It is not possible to simulate training or experience levels, or low morale or fatigue. You might, however, experiment with adjusting the ATA and DATA values to roughly model such things.

 

3. And how to accurately model the gun only attacks of WWII aircraft? How do you simulate that a B-17 was hard to attack from any angle?

 

I don't think its possible to adjust gun arcs on an aircraft.

 

Tony, the code guru, is in the best position to point out the pro's and con's of the code.