I guess the thing that bothers me about trying to use manual soundings to figure out where to put the course in 'restricted' areas is the question of how close together to do the soundings - because it's obvious (from experience) that the depths can change quite abruptly -and unexpectedly- in such areas... and I'm unsure how much "granularity" needs to be accounted for when trying to detemine the depths along a prospective course.

 

I have to question why you seem to insist on putting your submarines into such shallow waters. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, HCE manages water depth as a function of distance from land. Its really quite simple. With all due respect, I don't hear anyone else clamoring about they are constantly beaching submarines.

 

Well, let me try to address these several things:

 

First, I only put subs in shallow waters when the scenario seems to call for it; for example, the scenarios in WestPac (which I don't recall the names of off-hand), one of which required that a sub or two must transit the island chain that extends from Kamchatka to Japan and separates the Sea of Okhotska from the North Pacific. The first challenge was finding a passage through those islands, but the even more surprising situation was that somewhere out in the Sea of Okhotka, my sub ran into unseen shallows which forced it to the surface, where the AI "just happened" to have aircraft on scene, and promptly hammered my sub. Other scenarios required that a sub or subs enter the Sea of Japan, where I managed to find all sorts of shallows out in what appeared to be open waters... and IIRC, there was a scenario around the Phillipines that required a sub to operate in the 'restricted' waters amongst the islands.

 

In the other matter, I find that either water depth is not necessarily a function of distance from land - or else there is land that is somehow not showing up in those apparently open waters - like perhaps somethng that is not seen except at extreme magnification - which I did not use to pan across the entire course, considering that it did appear to be open waters.

 

As I mentioned earlier, this would be managable if we're dealing only with one or two groups - but I have serious trouble just keeping all the air groups out of trouble, and so I have to rely on the ship and sub groups to sort of take care of themselves - especially during the peaks of air activity.

 

Unless I am ignoring my ships and submarines and leaving them to their own devices, I just don't have this problem. And since we added the ability to 'pause' the action, and sort out such things, its easier now than it has ever been.

 

Yes, I do tend to "ignore" my ships and subs - as I generally assume that they will at least follow the courses that I've layed out for them... and if I have no reason to believe there are any obstacles along those courses, it seems that it should be a reasonable assumption... but clearly, that isn't the case.

 

What do you mean by 'pausing' the action?

 

 

Now, all this sort of stuff may be "fun" to manage manually in a single engagement... but the problem is in a typical situation, there are multiple engagements going on simultaneously, so it becomes work overload when the player is required to micro-manage all aspects of multiple engagements or group actions all at once. That's my concern.

 

Maybe you should be sticking to the simple, linear scenarios, then? If I was finding myself frustrated and overwhelmed by too many things going on, I'd probably want to pick another scenario to play. To each his own, and all that.

 

Well, my point is that when you're operating in the role of theatre commander, setting strategies, coordinating forces, and such, it seems to me that the realistic situation would be that your subordinates (in this case, groups and individual units) would carry out your general orders without requiring your personal intervention in low-level details. For instance, if you wish a tanker to rendezvous with a strike group, it seems like the chain of command would make that happen... or pilots would manage their fuel state without your "help"... or ships and subs would navigate around local obstacles, and so forth - without needing to have you hold their hands. Sure, it's possible to manage all the nitty-gritty details of every group out there, but it's not very realistic to be doing so - neither as a theatre commander nor as a group or unit commander. I mean, if you wanted to play the commander of a single task group, or as the captain or pilot of an individual unit, that'd be fine - so long as you didn't also need to concern yourself with all the operational details of every other friendly group, too. That wouldn't be very realistic, either. So, what would be needed would be for units and groups to have the normal capability to realisitically execute your "global" orders, while allowing you to "take control" of an individual group or uint - when you desired to function as that group's or unit's commanders - and then have it revert to "automatic control" when you move to another group, or back into the role of theatre commander.

 

The current situation is managable for "traditional" scenarios that involve relatively few simultaneous groups, but the recent scenarios seem to be written such that they involve an exponential increase in the number of groups that must be active at any time - particularly the scenarios that provide the AI with huge numbers of aircraft - all of which must be fended off, requiring numerous friendly groups active at any given time. Trying to micro-manage 6-12 (or more) simultaneous dogfights, along with several other concurrent intercepts, not to mention trying to keep six or seven surface and sub groups out of trouble at the same time, gets to be just a bit much - and yet it wouldn't have to be so - if the individual groups and units could at least demonstrate basic tactics on their own, such that you didn't need to micro-manage every group all of the time.

 

 

Sounds like 'wish list' material to me. If you've seen the Wish List subforum, you'll note that there are many things that we'd each like to have. An enhanced AI is certainly one. Whether its reasonably within our grasp to introduce such code without breaking something else is quite another.

 

Actually, a lot of this "group intelligence" existed in HC Gold and even some of the earlier versions - but is no longer present for some reason... (I've heard rumors that it was discarded in HCE in order to increase the challenge of the game - which certain folks apparently felt was "inadequate". Whether such rumors are correct, I cannot say). In any case, the "old way" was at least more realistic from the standpoint of the "chain of command" behavior that I've discussed - where the groups behaved at least as something a bit more than missile fodder when "left to their own devices".

Hmmm ... is your sub in the centre of its formation? Because if it's not, then it isn't where the icon you're navigating with portrays it as being.

 

That's a good point, Warhorse. The Group Map will show your submarine as being in the centre of its formation, but the Unit Map will show where it actually is, in terms of what sector of its own formation it has been assigned to patrol. If you're anywhere near land, this could prove a critical factor.

 

I can only wish that something as simple as that would solve JoeK's particular problem.

 

Yes, this was the case in at least one instance of a single unit sub group - where the scenario designer had placed the single sub in one of the outer rings of the formation - rather than in the center - for some reason. Since it was a single sub "group", I never had reason to open the formation editor - which would have allowed me to notice to discrepancy. Well, at least not until things started getting "squirrelly"... which ultimately led me to check the formation editor. Actually, though, I don't believe depth was the issue in that particular case; instead I think it was a matter that torpedo positions didn't 'jibe' with the displayed group position.

 

Anyway, I concur this will present problems with course-setting... in fact, unless I misunderstand the behavior of units within the center of a formation, I believe even having the unit in the center zone, but having an excessively large center zone will also cause similar problems.

What do you mean by 'pausing' the action?

 

You can reduce time compression to '0', check your formations and things, and then bring TC back to '1:1' or higher.

 

Actually, a lot of this "group intelligence" existed in HC Gold and even some of the earlier versions - but is no longer present for some reason... (I've heard rumors that it was discarded in HCE in order to increase the challenge of the game - which certain folks apparently felt was "inadequate". Whether such rumors are correct, I cannot say). In any case, the "old way" was at least more realistic from the standpoint of the "chain of command" behavior that I've discussed - where the groups behaved at least as something a bit more than missile fodder when "left to their own devices".

 

I can dispel that rumour (though I am not sure its a 'rumour', since this is the first I've heard of it) here and now. I have been involved in Harpoon Classic development since HC97 was first cracked open, so I can tell you that efforts at enhancing AI (and I use that term loosely) have never moved backwards.

What do you mean by 'pausing' the action?

 

You can reduce time compression to '0', check your formations and things, and then bring TC back to '1:1' or higher.

 

Oh, I thought you meant that there was some sort of immediate pause - like a hotkey or something. Setting to zero time compression does give a "time-out" to collect yourself, but my problem with that has always been the difficulty in getting the thing set to Time Compression zero - because of the flurry of pop-ups that often occur at the very times when you need a time-out. Some of those pop-ups offer the ability to go to 1:1; others do not... but as far as I've seen, none allow you to go immediately to a paused state. At critical junctures, I typically have to "dismiss" (and/or respond to) anywhere from six to 25 or 30 rapid-fire pop-ups before I can even get the mouse cursor over to the time compression button! Which means that it's entirely possible to lose 5-10 air groups and/or ships/subs before I can even get a word in edgewise - that is, before I can even issue any command.

 

If we're getting into "Wish List" items, then I'd wish for the ability for user input to take priority over the occurrence of the pop-ups, or maybe better yet, for each pop-up to have a button that allows an immediate pause of the game, in order to permit the "interjecting" of urgent commands.

 

 

Actually, a lot of this "group intelligence" existed in HC Gold and even some of the earlier versions - but is no longer present for some reason... (I've heard rumors that it was discarded in HCE in order to increase the challenge of the game - which certain folks apparently felt was "inadequate". Whether such rumors are correct, I cannot say). In any case, the "old way" was at least more realistic from the standpoint of the "chain of command" behavior that I've discussed - where the groups behaved at least as something a bit more than missile fodder when "left to their own devices".

 

I can dispel that rumour (though I am not sure its a 'rumour', since this is the first I've heard of it) here and now. I have been involved in Harpoon Classic development since HC97 was first cracked open, so I can tell you that efforts at enhancing AI (and I use that term loosely) have never moved backwards.

 

As far as the rumor goes, several years ago (back in the days when HC Gold was fairly new, IIRC) there was some on-line discussion, probably on the HULL, where somebody was "complaining" that the game was "too easy" for the player to win. IIRC, offense seemed to be taken over this, and subsequently there were some allusions to "steps having been taken to 'toughen things up'" or some such. Perhaps there was no actual action taken, but that exchange left an impression that is often repeated to me by one fellow 'Pooner, who steadfastly feels that the AI was given certain "unrealistic advantages" in subsequent versions of the game, and that new scenarios were written such as to give the AI side near-overwhelming strength, all as result of that claim that the game was "too easy to win". And this impression does seem to have certain justifications, vis-a-vis the "dumbing down" of the automatic behaviors of the player's air groups, and the AI's "immaculate intelligence" about the player's forces and deployments, and the differences in the effectiveness of weapons depending on which side is using them, etc. Of course, in reality, all this may be only coincidental - yet it does build an impression... or, would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

In any case, rumors are what rumors are... but fact or fiction notwithstanding, in recent HCE, the player's air groups do have less "tactical smarts" than they did as recently as HC Gold, which tends to force the player to operate primarily in the "micro-managing" mode. If this is "Wish List" territory, then I'd wish for at least the option for the player's groups to operate in some semblence of a self-reliant mode - more like they did in older versions. (Note: I'm not suggesting the removal of the ability to manage low-level details - because that too can be enjoyable under the right circumstances (and, in fact, there are some additional details that I'd like the player to be able to control - if desired, but that's beyond this scope); but I would like see the player have the ability to operate in the "theatre commander" role as well - by which, I mean that he could issue general orders, and the groups would dutifully execute the orders in a reasonably autonomous manner - as opposed to the situation where groups are essentially going on "suicide missions" if left to their own devices. )

Oh, I thought you meant that there was some sort of immediate pause - like a hotkey or something. Setting to zero time compression does give a "time-out" to collect yourself, but my problem with that has always been the difficulty in getting the thing set to Time Compression zero - because of the flurry of pop-ups that often occur at the very times when you need a time-out. Some of those pop-ups offer the ability to go to 1:1; others do not... but as far as I've seen, none allow you to go immediately to a paused state. At critical junctures, I typically have to "dismiss" (and/or respond to) anywhere from six to 25 or 30 rapid-fire pop-ups before I can even get the mouse cursor over to the time compression button! Which means that it's entirely possible to lose 5-10 air groups and/or ships/subs before I can even get a word in edgewise - that is, before I can even issue any command. If we're getting into "Wish List" items, then I'd wish for the ability for user input to take priority over the occurrence of the pop-ups, or maybe better yet, for each pop-up to have a button that allows an immediate pause of the game, in order to permit the "interjecting" of urgent commands.

 

Playing at too high a time compression can lead to rather obvious and unfortunate results. Beyond that, it simply sounds to me like you're not having much fun with HCE and should probably stick to HC Gold or some other game.

 

... would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

Since I don't agree that many of these behaviors are actually happening, then yeah, smells like a conspiracy theory to me. Or, at least, a theory without much proof of existence.

 

In any case, rumors are what rumors are... but fact or fiction notwithstanding, in recent HCE, the player's air groups do have less "tactical smarts" than they did as recently as HC Gold, which tends to force the player to operate primarily in the "micro-managing" mode.

 

I wouldn't agree with that being true at all. And I don't hear any other people complaining about it either.

 

I'd like to help you with your numerous HCE issues, JoeK, but frankly, you seem to have so many, and respectfully, rather dubious complaints that I doubt that the HCE dev team could ever satisfy your concerns.

 

In the meantime, I really do hope you enjoy HC Gold. A lot of folks worked very hard on that project.

In the meantime, I really do hope you enjoy HC Gold. A lot of folks worked very hard on that project.

 

Brad, I thought HCE was an evolution of HC Gold, am I wrong?

 

The last version I played of HC Gold, AI planes were very adept at evading AA missiles, to the point they weren't being shot down, but were not accomplishing much either and were running out of fuel. I rather had them on death charges that may kill something than flying around doing not much at all.

Brad, I thought HCE was an evolution of HC Gold, am I wrong?

 

Yes, it is. The evolution generally goes something like this:

 

Harpoon Classic (HC) --> Harpoon Classic 97 (HC97) --> Harpoon Classic 2002 (HC2002) --> HC Gold (HCG) --> Harpoon Commander's Edition (HCE)

Playing at too high a time compression can lead to rather obvious and unfortunate results...

 

Certainly true... however, I typically run at 1 sec or 5 sec timing, except in the somewhat rare cases where relatively nothing much is happening; I may then go to 10 sec or even 30 sec for brief periods.

 

 

... would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

Since I don't agree that many of these behaviors are actually happening, then yeah, smells like a conspiracy theory to me. Or, at least, a theory without much proof of existence.

 

If that is true (and I personally know of one other player who also would disagree), then it would tend to support the notion that there is some general problem that is inherent to our particular situations (i.e. - computer, game installation, etc.) Are you aware of any issues with particular types or configurations of computers, or with installation quirks, etc.?

As I've mentioned before, the "quirky" behaviors (that is, those that don't appear to be intentional design elements), often don't turn up until days (in real time) into the game... I typically leave active games paused in the background throughout the entire game session - which typically lasts me two-four weeks per game - rather than saving the game and closing the app when it's not in use. Is there any reason to believe that the app can become subtly corrupted in such a scenario? Like, maybe something gets screwed up in the basic system services, such as timing, randomizing, etc., for the app when it sits idle like this? (If so, then it's a bit ironic, because I "learned" to operate this way due to some cases back in HC Gold where the save files apparently didn't reload properly, and so I'd lose games-in-progress due to the situation... so, I started leaving the app up all the time, just to avoid that problem! )

 

 

In any case, rumors are what rumors are... but fact or fiction notwithstanding, in recent HCE, the player's air groups do have less "tactical smarts" than they did as recently as HC Gold, which tends to force the player to operate primarily in the "micro-managing" mode.

 

I wouldn't agree with that being true at all. And I don't hear any other people complaining about it either.

 

How so? Seems pretty obvious to me.

 

I can't speak to any issue of not hearing other complaints.

 

 

I'd like to help you with your numerous HCE issues, JoeK, but frankly, you seem to have so many, and respectfully, rather dubious complaints that I doubt that the HCE dev team could ever satisfy your concerns.

 

Dubious?? Hmmm... Maybe you should recruit my friend onto the development team.

 

 

In the meantime, I really do hope you enjoy HC Gold. A lot of folks worked very hard on that project.

 

I did enjoy HC Gold... of course there were minor wrinkles that needed further development in that flavor, as well... things which HCE has addressed in some cases. Unfortunately, there are also some design choices specific to HCE that I disagree with - as you know ... and, of course, these annoying operational issues which reportedly affect only us two country hicks. Seriously, though, if I could get past these few quirks, (and also have the viable opportunity to play the game at a more "global" level when I want/need to), then I'd prefer HCE overall. If this wasn't the case, then I wouldn't waste the time trying to sort things out.

Are you aware of any issues with particular types or configurations of computers, or with installation quirks, etc.?

As I've mentioned before, the "quirky" behaviors (that is, those that don't appear to be intentional design elements), often don't turn up until days (in real time) into the game... I typically leave active games paused in the background throughout the entire game session - which typically lasts me two-four weeks per game - rather than saving the game and closing the app when it's not in use. Is there any reason to believe that the app can become subtly corrupted in such a scenario?

 

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that doing so would cause odd behaviors in the AI like invincible air groups, utterly dysfunctional player weaponry, or ultra sophisticated enemy reconnaissance. And I expect any corruption of the scenario would result in a crash rather than changes in AI behavior.

 

How so? Seems pretty obvious to me. I can't speak to any issue of not hearing other complaints.

 

The 'how so' is due to the fact that we don't hear anyone else making complaints about it.

 

Dubious?? Hmmm... Maybe you should recruit my friend onto the development team.

 

I say 'dubious' because I am hearing anecdotal accounts of bizarre game play behaviors (like those mentioned above) from you only, and talk of 'mystery friends' and a lack of savegame files doesn't help us get to the bottom of it. Hence the complaints are dubious at best.

 

Actually, until I see some concrete proof of these things actually happening, I feel like I am just wasting my time trying to chase down these complaints. I'm sorry about that, because I think we have a very good track record here of responding to bug reports and dealing with them best we can.

 

If a reported bug is real, and can be verified, we can at least try to attack it. But until then, there is nothing being done here that is helpful at all.

or, would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

That's kind of what I'm thinking. We've over the last 8 years eviscerated the vast majority of the unfair advantages given to the AI (some were accidental, some were required for the game to operate on the systems of the time). My opinion (just that as I'm not seeing the example save games either...) is that most such complaints of phantom planes and such are as a result of the increased width of inputs to the radar and sonar models. Going from 3 or 5 RCS ratings (depending upon how you count them) to over 100 is certainly going to impact the game and make some planes less detectable than others. Similar deal with sonar. The WestPac intro scenario demonstrates both of these quite specifically and obviously.

 

I'm with Brad, if you want a better product take ownership of your gripes and turn them into saved games and something we can use please instead of general complaints with no backing except your word and the anti-evidence of ourselves and others not having similar issues. The game isn't perfect and I think you'll find us incredibly open to constructive complaint but your posts are reading as gripes and nothing more. This is a hobby for us and we'd like you to be a force to move the game forward, not a force driving us to leave the game.

 

I hope your back-woods 'friend' isn't the Herminator

or, would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

That's kind of what I'm thinking. We've over the last 8 years eviscerated the vast majority of the unfair advantages given to the AI (some were accidental, some were required for the game to operate on the systems of the time). My opinion (just that as I'm not seeing the example save games either...) is that most such complaints of phantom planes and such are as a result of the increased width of inputs to the radar and sonar models. Going from 3 or 5 RCS ratings (depending upon how you count them) to over 100 is certainly going to impact the game and make some planes less detectable than others. Similar deal with sonar. The WestPac intro scenario demonstrates both of these quite specifically and obviously.

 

I'm with Brad, if you want a better product take ownership of your gripes and turn them into saved games and something we can use please instead of general complaints with no backing except your word and the anti-evidence of ourselves and others not having similar issues. The game isn't perfect and I think you'll find us incredibly open to constructive complaint but your posts are reading as gripes and nothing more. This is a hobby for us and we'd like you to be a force to move the game forward, not a force driving us to leave the game.

 

I hope your back-woods 'friend' isn't the Herminator

Hi guys, (I've just come back on line after a while busy looking after my sick dog), I've read this thread from start to finish and I'm wondering if any one is getting anything out of it, are you?

My interpretation of Tony's advise is that individual problems be targetted and a saved game showing the problem be sent in for us all to look at. In my experience any problem I've had and gone to the trouble of doing this has produced a result.

In some ways I like to play more at the top end of the command, looking at strategies and not so much the micro management, but considering that Harpoon deals in very real life quantities (I know of no other such game that comes close to the realism) I think it does a very good job of dealing with the micro stuff and what admiral is going to dream up some big plan where the smaller detail isn't doable?

Don

Are you aware of any issues with particular types or configurations of computers, or with installation quirks, etc.?

As I've mentioned before, the "quirky" behaviors (that is, those that don't appear to be intentional design elements), often don't turn up until days (in real time) into the game... I typically leave active games paused in the background throughout the entire game session - which typically lasts me two-four weeks per game - rather than saving the game and closing the app when it's not in use. Is there any reason to believe that the app can become subtly corrupted in such a scenario?

 

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that doing so would cause odd behaviors in the AI like invincible air groups, utterly dysfunctional player weaponry, or ultra sophisticated enemy reconnaissance. And I expect any corruption of the scenario would result in a crash rather than changes in AI behavior.

 

How so? Seems pretty obvious to me. I can't speak to any issue of not hearing other complaints.

 

The 'how so' is due to the fact that we don't hear anyone else making complaints about it.

 

Dubious?? Hmmm... Maybe you should recruit my friend onto the development team.

 

I say 'dubious' because I am hearing anecdotal accounts of bizarre game play behaviors (like those mentioned above) from you only, and talk of 'mystery friends' and a lack of savegame files doesn't help us get to the bottom of it. Hence the complaints are dubious at best.

 

Actually, until I see some concrete proof of these things actually happening, I feel like I am just wasting my time trying to chase down these complaints. I'm sorry about that, because I think we have a very good track record here of responding to bug reports and dealing with them best we can.

 

If a reported bug is real, and can be verified, we can at least try to attack it. But until then, there is nothing being done here that is helpful at all.

 

 

First off, I don't know which of these things that we've kicked around are "bugs", versus just intentional design choices.

 

Secondly, These things that we observe in the two installations that I have personal exposure to are so prevalent (in our installations) that I have a real hard time imagining that they don't exist in other installations - possible, yes... but it seems so highly improbable that this stuff doesn't exist everywhere that my reaction is, "How in the heck can you guys say this stuff doesn't happen???" It's just really hard for me to accept that none of this stuff shows up anywhere else!

 

Third, if our two installations really are the only places where these characteristics are ever present/observed, then I see no reason other than there is something seriously wrong with these particular installations - yet that would be a major coincidence that we happened to have the only two fouled installations, because about the only thing the two installations have in common is that they're both running on Toshiba laptops. (Mine is currently the 2009.042 demo; while his is the full release, purchased from Matrix a year or so ago... we each did our own installations, totally independently... his current computer is a fairly recent model (less than a year old), while mine is circa 2004... his runs Vista; mine runs XP Pro/SP3... mine is a 1.2 GHz P4 with 380 Mb RAM; IIRC, his is a Celeron, is faster, and has considerably more memory, although I don't recall the specifics... and we live far enough apart that it seems unlikely that there is any common "environmental" condition - like power line problems or RF interference, etc. - affecting this). Yet, both installations display pretty much the same behaviors.

 

Given the above, I'm seriously wondering whether even games saved from either of these installations of the app will demonstrate the same behaviors when run on other installations which don't already exhibit those behaviors on their own. In other words, what will it "prove" if our saved games don't screw up elsewhere... and for that matter, what would it "prove" if the saves do screw up on other installations? It would still be a matter of whatever is going on is specific to these installations, right? So, what does it buy us?

 

I am currently working on a game session of the Middleweights scenario in hopes of capturing a save of those "impervious F-16s" that I have observed in that particular scenario; I will certainly forward a game save if it does show up. Be aware however, that this will be a save from playing the full scenario, not from a contrived scenario that has all extraneous stuff stripped out. (This is because I have no Scenario Editor for HCE, where I could create such a "stripped-down" demo scenario).

 

As far as the "invincible air group" situation goes, I will try to capture that if/when it shows up again (unlike other issues discussed, this one does not show up with any regularity) but I suspect that the best I'll be able to do for it is to make a "snapshot" save once I realize that it is happening (consequently, I probably won't be able to capture events that occur much before it becomes obvious that an air group is "invincible"); will that be adequate?

 

Meanwhile, I really don't see any point in my trying do game saves to "prove" any behaviors that are simply due to design choices... so I have to ask what other issues here do you feel need to be demonstrated/proven?

or, would it more appropiately be classed as a conspiracy theory??

 

That's kind of what I'm thinking. We've over the last 8 years eviscerated the vast majority of the unfair advantages given to the AI (some were accidental, some were required for the game to operate on the systems of the time). My opinion (just that as I'm not seeing the example save games either...) is that most such complaints of phantom planes and such are as a result of the increased width of inputs to the radar and sonar models. Going from 3 or 5 RCS ratings (depending upon how you count them) to over 100 is certainly going to impact the game and make some planes less detectable than others. Similar deal with sonar. The WestPac intro scenario demonstrates both of these quite specifically and obviously.

 

I'm with Brad, if you want a better product take ownership of your gripes and turn them into saved games and something we can use please instead of general complaints with no backing except your word and the anti-evidence of ourselves and others not having similar issues. The game isn't perfect and I think you'll find us incredibly open to constructive complaint but your posts are reading as gripes and nothing more. This is a hobby for us and we'd like you to be a force to move the game forward, not a force driving us to leave the game.

 

I hope your back-woods 'friend' isn't the Herminator

 

Not sure what your reference to 'Phantom planes' is...

 

Regarding saved games, please refer to comments and questions that I just posted in reply to CV32.

 

Now, if the game were already "perfect", then we couldn't have any of the fun of trying to figure out how to make it even better, right?

 

I sincerely hope that the game will move forward! But - without wanting to be inflammatory - there are a few recent changes which do seem to be a bit of a step backwards, IMO. Mainly referring to the dumb moves (or non-moves) that are now made by the player's air groups, that force me to micro-manage each and every group in order for them to have any hope of accomplishing their missions - or even just surviving. But all this was discussed earlier. I'll be quick to add my opinion that in other respects, HCE is certainly a significant improvement over previous versions!

 

I apologise if my expressions of occasional frustration are taken only as gripes. I was kind of hoping that my attempts to explain things that bug me and don't make sense to me - and why - would elicit some sort of discussion of the "other side" of the reasoning behind things being the way they are. (Sorry, I guess I'm naturally inquisitive about things that I can't quite make sense of).

 

What's a Herminator? Something played by the Gov. of California?

My friend/fellow 'Pooner isn't a "mystery man", but apparently he did once have a bit of a "run-in" with someone on the development team for HC Gold (I don't know any of the specifics of that situation, and really have no desire to, either... ); consequently he has seemed to have no interest in participating in the forums since then.

Let's skip right to the chase...

 

• Describe the problem in simple direct terms. Skip the conclusions and guesswork, stick to what you observe and what you expected.
  
• Provide a save game and a series of steps to replicate the problem.
  

Straightforward and relatively easy. No need to posit any "magic" until you've done the basics first.

 

They are generally very responsive and more eager to help out than most of us have any right to expect so do us all a favor and don't abuse 'em.

imho Brains states it well. What I'll add is...

 

* We'll deal with whatever level of detail can be given. You don't have the SE (well, you have your HC Gold SE and could make test scens there and run them in HCE) so we do what we can with your saved games.

 

* Sometimes saved games don't reproduce a problem but if you don't try, you won't know. Saved games after the fact are better than no saved game at all but there is little excuse not to have one before the fact with the iterative saving options (see beta tester manual in beta tester general forum).

 

* While it isn't neccessarily fair, reports with the proper backing, focused saved games/scenarios are going to tend to be addressed before reports without such collateral. Occasionally I chase down random reports but it is a huge time-sink, generally not as fun for me, and takes time away from reports that are well-formed and quickly addressable.

 

* Many of the things you mention are 'big' issues better addressed in a re-write of the game. I support such a rewrite but there isn't a lineup of people behind me to make it happen. I'm not content with the game we have but cannot craft a new one alone. You could make yourself visible on IRC and become more involved.