Upgrading from HCCE to HUCE

[Smitty]

Hi,

 

I just upgraded from HCCE (2009.50) to HUCE ( 2015.27 ) and had a few questions:

 

1. Is there any way to invoke the GE directly using a desktop icon rather than going through the feature selection box ? Attaching a shortcut directly to the game executable doesn't seem to work.

 

2. There is some sort of window at the bottom of the screen in HUCE, that gives credits for harpoon and where to get digital art. It is no biggie, but is there some way to delete that window?

 

3. I now have both HCCE and HUCE on my machine. They seem to co-exist with no problem. I was wondering if there was something in this regard that I am unaware of ? Is it possible to use saved games back and forth assuming they are using the same data base?

 

4. There was some issue in the new SE about column headings not lining up with loadout info in the platform display box, that resulted in data in the right most columns being cutoff. Is there any change in regard to this problem?

 

 

Thanks for all your work. One thing I don't think current player appreciate is the stability of the game. Back in the 1989-1990 era you had to continuously save games because it was likely the game would crash sometime in the next few minutes.

 

Smitty

[TonyE]

1. Is there any way to invoke the GE directly using a desktop icon rather than going through the feature selection box ? Attaching a shortcut directly to the game executable doesn't seem to work.

Yes, on the properties of the shortcut, on the compatibility tab, set it to run as administrator. The game itself doesn't require that but the license checker from Matrix Games (publisher) does.

 

2. There is some sort of window at the bottom of the screen in HUCE, that gives credits for harpoon and where to get digital art. It is no biggie, but is there some way to delete that window?

Yes, navigate to the game directory (default c:\Matrix Games\HUCE) then to the subdirectory called ExportDLLs. Rename DigMilArt.dll to DigMilArt.dll.bak (or delete it).

 

3. I now have both HCCE and HUCE on my machine. They seem to co-exist with no problem. I was wondering if there was something in this regard that I am unaware of ? Is it possible to use saved games back and forth assuming they are using the same data base?

In general saved games from HUCE won't work in HCCE but they may work in the other direction HCCE -> HUCE. If you read the ReleaseNotes.txt you'll notice a number of callouts of the saved game version changing which means the structure of the saved game changed. In most cases I write conversions but they are almost always lossy meaning it is better to start the scenario anew. By lossy I mean if you started a game in 2015.023 the saved game would have the orders embedded for later viewing but if you started a game in 2015.022 then opened the save in 2015.023, the orders wouldn't be there since builds before 2015.023 didn't include the orders.

 

4. There was some issue in the new SE about column headings not lining up with loadout info in the platform display box, that resulted in data in the right most columns being cutoff. Is there any change in regard to this problem?

Hmm, didn't fix it yet but didn't think there was data being lost, just lack of alignment between header and data rows. If I'm mistaken, let me know and I'll bump it up in priority.

 

Thanks for all your work. One thing I don't think current player appreciate is the stability of the game. Back in the 1989-1990 era you had to continuously save games because it was likely the game would crash sometime in the next few minutes.

Thanks Smitty, agreed on the stability.

[Smitty]

Hi Tony,

 

Thx for the fast response.

 

I regard to item 4.... I am using SE build 2015.004 which came with HUCE build 2015.027

 

If you edit a group and highlight a ship or aircraft then click on the "display" button and then the "weapons" button, the box has headers with columns of data underneath. The data is written to the right of the headers so that the last data column is written in the imaginary space outside the box and is invisible. The same thing occurs if you highlight aircraft at a base of group and press F5 ( Ready Aircraft ). the result is you can't see the damage various munitions cause unless you go to the game and look at them or go to the platform editor, a rather cumbersome process. It doesn't matter if the data doesn't show up under the header but it would be nice if the box could be little bigger so the data could be seen. An interesting feature is that the box for an aircraft on a ship is different than the ship. The aircraft display gives the first character of the last column. Also if you press F5 the box that you see has a different display area than that after you select an aircraft and press the "ready' button.

 

Smitty

[TonyE]

Started digging into this yesterday. It isn't a terribly large technical challenge since the screen(s) exist in the GE. Mainly a copy + paste exercise moving them from separate GE and SE implementations to share the same code between them. That said, time is scarce right now so don't hold up your games on my account

[Smitty]

Hi Tony,

 

Thanks for looking into this. Actually I am more concerned for the future. At this point I am still using Virtual Windows XP and the old code.

 

Smitty

[TonyE]

http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/tracker/issue-146-se-formation-ready-air-windows/?gopid=788&do=findComment&comment=788

 

Fixed, at least for aircraft loadouts. Will be posting build in a few minutes.