I just bought (in the last 2 months) HCE. My last working version was the OLD Mac version of Classic, and I did get the beta of HC2002 for a while. So, anyway, I'm looking through it all, and I like the changes, but I did notice one thing:

 

What, functionally, is the difference between the EC2000 and the EC2003 battlesets? Is there any? i.e. should I just ignore the 2000 ones, basically? Is it just there to support a base of scenarios written for it?

 

Also, is there (somewhere) a list of back-end improvements to the simulation since the old days all in one place? Even if it's a list of patch notes, I can skim it so see what all is there. Even in the OLD hardcoded battlesets the game plays a little differently. Not a bad thing, I like it, but I'm curious what else I might not know about. I came in when you could still shoot harpoons at anything, and progressed to the days when LAND/SEA/SURFACE came in.

 

For example, I ran Gauntlet a couple times, just to get a feel for the game again, and it felt different.

 

Any info or links would be appreciated.

 

And a gameplay question. Is the AI still so easy to fool by illuminating it once, and then you can locate it by ESM for the rest of the scenario's run?

You can read the Release Notes going back to 2003.16b4 at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?showtopic=2395

 

The difference between EC2000 and EC2003 is mainly that EC2003 uses the commondb database which really means it uses the editable database that in the stock case is HCDB, maintained by CV32 here so it has much more and much more pertinent data than the platforms in EC2000. A player has just started going thru the Victory Conditions for EC2003 and helping us bring them up to date since many of the Victory Conditions cannot be met.

 

We pretty much consider everything before EC2003 as legacy, we want it to work but we aren't putting a ton of effort into making sure it plays the same as it always did (as you've found).

 

The AI is still dumb as a post, yes but the turning on of sensors recently had a major overhaul in 2007.027 thru 2009.034 (in other words 2009.036 has it) that makes the AI and Staff Assistant a little smarter about when to turn on sensors.

When EC2000 was released, the designers said they had modified the aircraft ranges to reflect what an average pilot would get in the real world, rather than what a test pilot would get in perfect conditions. Unfortunately, they only seem to have applied this philosophy to American aircraft. EC2003 saw the US ranges back to something more reasonable, which means that it is once again possible to launch a deckload strike of F-18s (unrefuelled) against a hostile base without actually having the CVN inside the detection radius of the base AEW aircraft ...

We pretty much consider everything before EC2003 as legacy, we want it to work but we aren't putting a ton of effort into making sure it plays the same as it always did (as you've found).

 

The AI is still dumb as a post, yes but the turning on of sensors recently had a major overhaul in 2007.027 thru 2009.034 (in other words 2009.036 has it) that makes the AI and Staff Assistant a little smarter about when to turn on sensors.

 

Thanks for the links. Yeah, it's different, but it seems to be a good different. As I said elsewhere, HCE seems to be well worth what I paid for it.

 

As far as the AI, yeah, it's still pretty dumb sometimes. In playing Gauntlet, the Victor launched 3 Type 65s at my formation from about 90 degrees. I immediately moved the ships, and got a sonobuoy out there to get a lock on the fish, and maybe get a lock on the sub, so I could either prosecute or get away. I found what direction they were heading and got the formation headed in a different direction safely, as he had fired at 20 miles, and in the wrong direction. Still, until the fish ran out of fuel, the staff kept wanting me to turn on my active sonars, once a minute.

Still, until the fish ran out of fuel, the staff kept wanting me to turn on my active sonars, once a minute.

 

This behavior has been changed in the latest version. What version are you running?

Still, until the fish ran out of fuel, the staff kept wanting me to turn on my active sonars, once a minute.

 

This behavior has been changed in the latest version. What version are you running?

 

The last 'released' version. 2008.044, I think? It's as far as it will upgrade w/o getting the beta.

 

Been thinking about getting it, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

Edit: I've now got 2009.036 running. Will post any weird behavior I don't remember seeing in the patch notes.