I understand ROF for gun mounts is per minute, but please explain what ROF = for missile mounts. For example a Mk41 VLS has ROF of 30 per tactical turn (30 seconds) per Harpoon Data Annex. What value would you put in the database for ROF for the Mk41 mount? Example Mk26 has ROF of 6 missiles per tactical turn (30 seconds) per Harpoon Data Annex. What value would you put in the database for ROF for the Mk26?

 

From testing it appears the ROF is irrelevant for non-SAM mounts. SSM missile or torpedo mounts for example fire as many round as allocated in the attack menu all at the same time. I'm more concerned about getting a good understanding of how SAM ROF works and how to use the ROF field in the database for them.

 

What impact does the target field have? It appears it should be the number of fire control radars aboard the platform. Testing shows that the target field has little if nothing to do with the number of SAMs fired and that the ROF field is the real determiner of how many SAMs are fired. Please help me understand how these 2 fields work within the program, so that we can troubleshoot it.

You should have come and chatted on IRC with us , I was even looking at the code while you were writing the message. You could have witnessed my adventure thru the code (especially for Targets). Anyway...

 

ROF for missile mounts is also per minute. No matter how many cells your VLS has or how many arms on the launcher, the mount as a whole should still only launch a maximum of ROF pieces of ordnance per minute.

 

It is easier to see the ROF limiter working on mounts with a low ROF, AEGIS ships with Mk41 VLS are often limited by how many SAMs are already in the air allocated to a threat (but you can overwhelm them of course in the right situation).

 

Targets as you've surmised should be an indication of how many different targets the mount can engage. However, the code making use of Targets it horribly messed up (first messed up from what I can see in 1996) in multiple ways so I can't really tell what limiting effect, if any it is having on the mounts. The safest bet would be to set the Targets to 254 on all mounts and test that compared to Targets = 1.

 

And yes as you found player initiated launching of ASMs, Bombs, Torpedoes, and such do not adhere to ROF restrictions.

Edited April 25, 200917 yr by TonyE
changed 255 to 254

You guys will have to email me in advance and I'll try to attend.

 

As you suspected putting 255 in targets field has absolutely no bearing on number of SAMs fire any more th putting 1 in the field. ROF field is the sole determiner it appears. Now, what is in the target field is what appears in the "platform display" annex. It appears 10 second intervals has something to do with SAM ROF. It's unpredictible though in the sense that sometimes the program will fire every 10 seconds x number of missiles and other times not. Not sure why or what its doing. Bottom line, seems like whatever it's doing it's not doing it the way any of us would like. I can tell you that the early versions of Harpoon (DOS/Amiga versions 1.2 or something early like that) had code that controlled all mount firing (SAM, SSM, Torpedo, etc). If you allocated 8 Harpoons or torpedoes to fire it would fire 1 then x number of seconds would pass then the next would fire, etc....similar to Harpoon ANW. Sometime after Three-Sixty went under and Alliance got it's hands on the code and produced The "Classic" versions of the program it all went to hell. I've got these early versions of Harpoon for PC, but they're on 5.25 inch floppy and I don't have a 5.25 inch drive!

 

Anyway, I'll help with testing/debugging mount ROF/Target matters if the mission is issued to in earnest correct and improve that portion of the code.

I can tell you that the early versions of Harpoon (DOS/Amiga versions 1.2 or something early like that) had code that controlled all mount firing (SAM, SSM, Torpedo, etc). If you allocated 8 Harpoons or torpedoes to fire it would fire 1 then x number of seconds would pass then the next would fire, etc....similar to Harpoon ANW.

I remember pretty well the times when if you're commanding a sub with 4 torpedo tubes, you only can shot 4 torpedoes, and after you must to wait a reasonable amount of time for the next salvo of 4 torpedoes, no the full load of 24 or so torpedoes like in the current HCE .... !!!

You guys will have to email me in advance and I'll try to attend.

 

 

Anyway, I'll help with testing/debugging mount ROF/Target matters if the mission is issued to in earnest correct and improve that portion of the code.

 

I don't see any real issue with SAM ROF. The game looks every 10 seconds to see if it needs to fire more SAMs at threats, if the threat isn't sufficiently covered and there is ROF available, it fires more, if covered no more missiles are fired in that 10 second period. As such there is no near-term plan to re-work this.

 

On the IRC front, if you are tinkering with the game, come see if we're on IRC, very often someone is.

 

<snip>

 

I don't see any real issue with SAM ROF. The game looks every 10 seconds to see if it needs to fire more SAMs at threats, if the threat isn't sufficiently covered and there is ROF available, it fires more, if covered no more missiles are fired in that 10 second period. As such there is no near-term plan to re-work this.

 

 

Yeah, I believe 10 second interval checking is good. I think the question is then what is it looking at/for every 10 secs and what's the logic behind the programmed behavior from what it sees every 10 seconds. The answer to this would be a pretty good discussion and tweaks made if necesary could dramatically improve the playability and re-add a degree of reality missing from Traditional Harpoon for a very long time!

Thanks for stopping in IRC, I was at my office playing Harpoon 1.2 at that moment (that's right, EGA graphics baby!) running Dawn Patrol and when I fired my four missiles, all launched at the same moment so even back then other than SAMs weren't relying on the ROF limiter (same deal with AI missiles fired at me). Anyway, that indeed doesn't really matter, what happens going forward is what matters and that's one thing I hope to discuss with you on IRC (re: harpoon 3 paper compabitility).

Tony...if you can get your hand on v1.3 or v1.31 you'll see mount ROF limits...acording to the 31-page v1.31 manual supplement and from my recollection this was the version that mount cycling limits were added to all mounts. I believe this was the last version Three-Sixty published. I dug out all my old Harpoon boxed games and looks like v.1.3 was realesed with the HDS II battleset and Three-Sixty's Challenger Pack Signature Edition (had all 4 original battlesets and the scenario editor in one big box). v1.31 tied up some loose ends and bugs in v1.3. Unfortunately everything's on 5.25 in floppy, so all I have that will run is Harpoon Classic (Win and DOS version) from Alliance Interactive (the ones I blame for breaking this fine product!).

 

I do have HDS II on 3.5 in floppy, but I don't have the original Harpoon on 3.5 in to install it over thus upgrading to v1.3. I tried installing it over Harpoon Classic DOS (to roll back the version from 1.5x, but it won't work. If anyone has a working version of v1.3 or v1.31 I'd love to play with it!

The earliest version I have kicking around here on my desk is Harpoon Classic v1.52 (yes, produced by Alliance Interactive).

 

It seems to happily run under WinXP, itself operated through VMWare Player under Vista 64.

I experimented with SAM ROF this morning and I'm comfortable with how it's working. Because we're working with 10 second checks (instead of every second) it's not going to be perfect in how it looks on the surface, but I can say the program seems to not allow more than whatever is in the ROF field to be fired within any given 1 minute span. At least I couldn't get get it to break! Additionally the program will fire no more missiles at any given time than whats in the TARGET field....will fire what's in the TARGET field or less if that amount would violate what's already been fired in the previous minute.

 

How difficult would it be to have non-SAM/gunnery mounts honor 10 second checks too/ROF field = shots per minute? Ideally, however many weapons are allocated during weapon allocation would be "ripple fired" to adhere to ROF limitations....

 

Example: Allocate 4 Harpoons from a quad mount (database is set to ROF = 16/min (8 per 30 sec tac turn per Harpoon rules = 16 per min)). It will fire 2 immediately and then 2 at the next 10 second interval.

 

Explanation: 60sec/16ROF = 3.75, 10sec/3.75 = 2.66 (drop fraction) = 2 to fire ASAP (max rate per 10sec cycle), next 10sec cycle --- orginally alocated = 4 - 2 (already fired) = fire last 2 (but not exceed max rate per 10sec cycle calculated previously)...in these secon 2 fired = the number allocated, but if it didn't then the algorithm continues to the next 10 second cycle, etc until all allocated originally are fired.

 

Sorry for the crude algebra grammer...I'm not a math guy! I would think what I crudely decribed is probably the layman version of how the new gunnery model works to a degree.

How difficult would it be to have non-SAM/gunnery mounts honor 10 second checks too/ROF field = shots per minute? Ideally, however many weapons are allocated during weapon allocation would be "ripple fired" to adhere to ROF limitations....

 

Example: Allocate 4 Harpoons from a quad mount (database is set to ROF = 16/min (8 per 30 sec tac turn per Harpoon rules = 16 per min)). It will fire 2 immediately and then 2 at the next 10 second interval.

 

The data structure for missiles units does not work with such an approach at all. Each missile (pair in this case) would have to be in its own unit in its own group for the rest of the game mechanics to work properly. The first thing to raise havoc would be the limitation on groups per side which would make such a solution highly maddening to anyone who likes playing moderately sized and larger scenarios.

Well, it was worth the idea!

I've got these early versions of Harpoon for PC, but they're on 5.25 inch floppy and I don't have a 5.25 inch drive!

 

If you live in a big city, you could try your local computer chop shop. I actually managed to get one, to use for my SSG game "Rommel, Battles for N. Africa".

Thanks...I found a place locally that will transfer from 5.25 in floppy. I'm going to stop in and get it done sometime this week!