Hello,

played some Harpoon Classic (1.58E) and noticed that the rings look like ellipses with the y axis being longer than the x axis. Is this intended or a bug? H3 suffers from the same effect and I wonder why. I'm playing with 4:3 screen.
Can I fix this somehow?

Greetings,
Cabal

I gave this a go thru DosBox, my range rings were circular but the window was tiny. I'm guessing I'd need to get into the DosBox config fiile to get it bigger. Did you have a good window size, are you playing it from the HarpoonUltimate Commanders Edition (that's what I did)

 

7 hours ago, donaldseadog said:

I gave this a go thru DosBox, my range rings were circular but the window was tiny. I'm guessing I'd need to get into the DosBox config fiile to get it bigger. Did you have a good window size, are you playing it from the HarpoonUltimate Commanders Edition (that's what I did)

 

Hi

Im playing the older Harpoon with Dosbox since its better for my eyes when playing on the laptop. Its not so tiny. Commanders edition tires my eyes quickly when the laptop screen is too far away. Can this be changed somehow?
Also, had some strange Master Handles warning when playing a scenario... Harpoon 1.58E prompted me to restart the game.

I play on my laptop too. I need glasses to read and use a particular pair for the computer.

Also my laptop you can in the windows setting alter screen scaling, it will effect everything not just harpoon. For me harpoon is best on a 150% scaling but I dont like it for other things so compromise at 125%.

I find it easiest on my eyes to run with light grey land and light colour sea. Although I made a map with names of oceans as an experiment and you need to run textured maps to read it.

There are a huge number of improvements in the game since those old versions and I think worth a bit of a try to get the latest working well for yourself. That said the basics are just the same in my mind.

The generic answer is that the rings should not be circular unless the map scale is the same in the X and Y direction.  They are not.  In some releases of Harpoon, the rings are forced to be circles which makes them inaccurate.  In other releases of Harpoon an ellipse is used instead to give a more accurate representation of the listed range.

Thanks for answering mates. Despite these issues, I cant believe how playable, fun and pretty recent this game is thanks to its scenarios. It deserved way more attention. 
Dont know why Harpoon Ultimate Edition isnt on Steam yet which could be a good promotion for this game.

Currently playing "The return of the Jeep Carrier" (pretty hard) and "Circle the wagons" from the HDS1. What a blast, pretty dramatic and the opponent always feels like acting against you in a logical way.
 

Again, HUE needs more promotion. Harpoon 97 will be released shortly on Steam but this package here is the real gem. This genre gets additionally boosted by Sea Power. There are hungry folks on Steam for that kind of game.

I also was very happy to see a recent Update for HUE. Is there gonna be more eventually? Thanks for keeping this game alive. I was too young during the Amiga days to understand what Im doing but right now Im having a great time playing it. Like reading a book and utilizing close to real tactics.

My goal is to send a build to Matrix at the end of February (which means one week into March in volunteer programmer-speak) so there should be an official patch by mid April.

23 hours ago, TonyE said:

My goal is to send a build to Matrix at the end of February (which means one week into March in volunteer programmer-speak) so there should be an official patch by mid April.

I can speak for everyone that its really great news!! What does working on a game like this look like? Is the to-do list quite long? I sense big amounts of passion here.
Also: did the water color change perhaps? Its not so flashy bright as I remember or my eyes are playing tricks on me.

Colors have shifted a bit over time, yes.  The game is semi-stuck in 256-color land with a custom 256-color pallette that I do something to mess with once in a great while.  

I've been a programmer of HC for over 20 years now and what working on it looks like continually changes.  When I converted from tester to programmer there were four of us programmers, one working on the platform editor and the rest of us on everything else.  At the time my real job was running my own IT contracting firm but to be taken under the wings of a genius Harpoon programmer was an amazing gift.  There were a ton of surrounding people, I don't say supporting because I was no more important than the people creating platforms in the database.  Anyone can learn to sling code but to sift through mountains of articles to derive platform data, that is a special skill!  The collaboration was efficient and rarely were there insurmountable agreements. 

You ask about the to-do list and being infinitely long, there is always something of particular personal interest to build or improve when a break is needed from the drudgery of maintaining a 36 year old piece of software.  A fraction of the to-do list is illustrated in the Issue Tracker here and the Wishlist forums.  

For the last decade or so I've put I'd say around 1/3 of my effort into the ExportDLL interface that allows those without the game source code to write addons.  That has brought fresh life to the game as you see from donaldseadog's addons and will allow it to live on when the rights holders (Bond & Carlson) pull the plug on the publishing of the game.  

Maintaining a semblance of backwards compatibility is a huge but rewarding burden.  Many times in those early years we nearly dropped all legacy BattleSets to reduce that burden but we always left them in and accepted the burden.  I went even further sometime after 2007 and started writing saved game format converters.  Between 2002 and then we would periodically enhance/break the saved game format (not the scenario format) meaning we didn't commit to saved games from a previous build being able to be opened in the current build.  

These days I'm the only one programming the package that you get from Matrix games; one other pops in every few years and does something amazing.  Most of the administrative tasks fall to me as well, it is a tiny group compared to what we had.  You've seen some passionate testers here and amazing scenario authors but they are few in number.  

There are interesting times ahead with much opportunity for someone to come along and re-build a strong community that can get the best out of each of us.  Much more help is needed to make efficient use of myself, donaldseadog, and when we provide the tools for them, the database editors.

That is quite some epic work Tony. Thanks for clearing it up and thanks for making it possible to enjoy! Among all titles available, Harpoon has a very good position, filling a hole. Too bad Matrix won't just release it on Steam; focussing on CMO.
Btw, instead of starting a new thread:

Do jets use their gun?
 

38 minutes ago, TheCabal said:

Do jets use their gun?

Yes...

In pre-commondb BattleSets (think anything thru EC2000 but not EC2003, WestPac, ...), air units with a MISSION_ATA type of loadout have internal guns with four bursts of ammo that will try to engage if the opponent is within 3nm.  So yes, some will, Intercept & Escort loadouts but not ASuW for instance.

In commondb BattleSets any ATA guns must be part of the loadout.

4 hours ago, TonyE said:

Yes...

In pre-commondb BattleSets (think anything thru EC2000 but not EC2003, WestPac, ...), air units with a MISSION_ATA type of loadout have internal guns with four bursts of ammo that will try to engage if the opponent is within 3nm.  So yes, some will, Intercept & Escort loadouts but not ASuW for instance.

In commondb BattleSets any ATA guns must be part of the loadout.

So when playing the HDS 1 battlescenario set "Circle the wagons" with the current official Matrix Update, my F-14s can still intercept bandits with their gun? Its a pretty dramatic scenario incl. Return of the jeep carrier.