Harpoon II other
Frequently Asked Questions 1. Group speed changes 2. Sub Depth 3. 1:1 time with staff messages 4. Group speed to 0 5. Plotted and Unassigned missions 6. Unavailable carrier-based aircraft 7. Minimal loadouts 8. Colored Maps 9. Air-to-air missiles 10. Strike aircraft won't launch 11. Losing contact with units or groups 12. Mission names 13. Cancel Return to Base (RTB) 14. Time compression rates 15. Game pause 16. Losing contact 17. Contact color changes 18. Aircraft mission behavior 19. Intercepting enemy contacts 20. Remove units from mission 21. Aircraft mission list 22. Cancelling a mission 23. Changing mission reference points 24. Patrol aircraft behavior 25. Permanent game and symbol preferences 26. Memory Remaining window 27. Staff Message windows 28. Centering map windows 29. Sea State 30. Ship contacts on land 31. Uncertainty regions 32. Groups break up when attacking 33. SAMs fail to allocate 34. Losing contact with missiles 35. Missiles hitting target 36. Point defenses 37. Electronic Counter-Measures 38. Turning communications off 39. Passive and active sonobuoys 40. Dipping sonars 41. Aircraft loadout types 42. Tanker aircraft 43. ASW threat axis 44. Formation Editor range rings 45. Threat and Detections 46. Reloading mounts 47. Sensor selection 48. Disappearing torpedoes 49. Jumping contacts 50. Aircraft refuse orders 51. Database selection 52. Clearing old contacts 53. Damage to enemy bases 54. Aircraft won't drop bombs 55. Diesel submarines 56. Giving waypoint orders ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Q: When I give my Task Force a speed order to go at Full Speed or Flank, why does it slow down to 5 knots off and on? A: If there are units in the Task Force formation which are off of their designated stations, the whole formation slows down a bit to allow them to get where they are supposed to be. Be patient; the speed will resume when the Task Force AI is satisfied. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Q: I told my submarine to go to Deep and he stays at Shallow or Intermediate depth. Why won't he dive where I told him to? A: Make a Zoom window around the submarine. Then, click on the PREF button and click on Water Depth. Chances are the water is not deep enough for the sub to dive as deep as you ordered him. Alternatively, turn on thetoggle, which will display information (including the current depth/height) about every location where you click the mouse. This information will be shown in the Incoming Messages window. --------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Q: Why does the game stay in 1:1 time after clicking on a staff message? A: There may be one or more staff message boxes hidden behind your map. After clicking on the one you see, if the time still goes to 1:1, try minimizing all the windows and seeing if there are any open staff message boxes. Closing them all cures the problem. There is a check box in the Staff Message window that should be checked if you desire the game *stay* at 1:1 after you close the message window. --------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Q: Why do my groups suddenly go to 0 speed? A: The groups course may have been inadvertently set to 0 or it may have reached its destination. Giving the group a new course should cure the problem. --------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Q: What is the difference between "Plotted" and "Unassigned"? A: Any units on the "Plotted" mission belong to you. Your automatic Formation AI will not touch them. Neither will the Mission AI. They are completely yours to operate however you see fit. Any units that are "Unassigned" have no mission, and may be assigned to any mission (included "Plotted" if you wish control of them). The Formation AI will take unassigned units and use them if needed. The Mission AI will not use "Unassigned" units. It will only use units on a mission that are assigned to that mission. --------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Q: Why are all my carrier-based aircraft unavailable for missions? A: When a ship is assigned to a mission, all unassigned aircraft on that ship are also assigned to that mission. When you give the carrier a path, it changes from "Unassigned" to "Plotted." Its aircraft change too. You can either make the aircraft missions first or unassign them using the "Remove Aircraft" function of the mission editor. --------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Q: Why can't I load some aircraft with anything other than "minimal?" A: Some aircraft have no adjustable loadouts. These aircraft are generally good for only one type of mission. Examples include and E-2 Hawkeye or a Boeing-747 passenger liner. The "Ready" button will not respond when these aircraft are selected. --------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Q: How can I get my map window to look like the color map displayed on the box? A: Use the window preferences tool to turn on the display of land elevations and water depths, then shrink the window size. This works best with large area maps, and, although colorful, isn't really very useful. --------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Q: How come my air-to-air missiles keep missing the target? A: The probability of an air-to-air missile hitting the target depends greatly on the geometry of every situation, as well as which kind of missiles and targets are involved. Many factors will increase or degrade the probability of a hit or a miss. A common occurance of this is when a missile is fired at a target that is moving away (an opening shot). The probability of a successful engagement is greatly reduced for long range opening shots. Another common situation occurs when non-dogfight capable missiles such as the AIM-54 Phoenix are employed against nimble fighters. These missiles are designed for shooting down heavily laden, unsuspecting bombers, and as such, don't work very well against most modern fighters. If you are *really* doubting the validity of the model, you can run Harpoon2 with the "-W" command line parameter. This will show (in the Message Window) all the factors, modifiers, etc, of *every* missile engagement. Keep in mind that this will also ruin part of the fun of playing the game because information not normally available to you will be shown. We call this "cheating". --------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Q: How come my strike mission aircraft will not launch? A: Strike aircraft do not launch until they have a known hostile contact within engagement range. If you specified a target when you created the mission, the aircraft will wait until that target comes into range. If no target was specified, they will wait until the first appropriate target shows up. Keep in mind that aircraft combat ranges will be much shorter than the optimal ranges shown in the Launch/Ready dialog. This is because combat aircraft conducting strikes must fly faster and sometimes lower to avoid radar and enemy defenses. This consumes fuel at a much higher rate than normal flight. --------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Q: How come I lose contact with my units or groups? A: Harpoon uses a fairly realistic communications model, and several factors can drop a unit off the network. Some common ones are: a) The unit is out of range of your comm gear. b) The unit, either by design or enemy action, is now under water. c) Your communications gear or their comm gear has been destroyed or turned off. When the communication net breaks down, you will retain control of those units which are on the same net as your designated flagship. Others will act as their mission dictates. Aircraft which have flown beyond contact range will return home when they run out of path or complete their missions. If an aircraft runs low on fuel it will also return home. Submarines without orders will rise to periscope depth and 'phone home'. Submarines on patrol will periodically do this anyway. When these 'lost' units return to your local network, they will share with you any contact information they current hold. The "Auto Datalink" option (in Difficulty Settings) prevents this modeling and allows you to talk with all of your units, regardless of range or depth. When you play in this mode, if a unit will not talk to you then it is either dying/badly-damaged (eg. no radios), or it's not on your side. --------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Q: How do I edit the mission name list? A: Once a mission is created and approved (by pressing OK in the Create Mission window), you can't change it. Before that point however, you may type over the suggested mission name with whatever phrase or word you like. The computer will randomly generate mission names for you, drawing on the contents of two text files in your Harpoon2 directory. These files are MISSADJ.TXT and MISSNOUN.TXT and may be customized using any text editor. MISSADJ.TXT contains the adjectives (the first word) and MISSNOUN.TXT contains the nouns (the second word). These names will be matched randomly; results during development ranged from bland to appalling. --------------------------------------------------------------- 13. Q: How do I cancel an aircraft's Return to Base (RTB) order? A: Select the aircraft and hit the "Unassign Aircraft" hotkey (the "U" on the IBM PC). After this point, the plane (or air group) is yours. It is moved into the unassigned list and will loiter until given further instructions. If the plane was landing because of fuel considerations ("BINGO") it will still stop and await orders; it's up to you to get it to a tanker or a base before it runs out of fuel. --------------------------------------------------------------- 14. Q: How come the time compression rate is so slow? A: Performance varies with scenario size. The larger and more complex the scenarios will take more time to process, and should be run at lower time compression, especially on slower machines. --------------------------------------------------------------- 15. Q: How can I pause the game and still have access to game menus? A: At any difficulty level but full reality (HARD), the pause key will still allow the user access to the entire interface. This can be set at will using the Custom difficulty settings. The "Enforce Realtime" check box, if checked, causes the modal (blocking) pause and will not let you effect the game until you unpause it. --------------------------------------------------------------- 16. Q: How come I lose contact with all of my units? A: Check to make sure your flagship is on something reasonable. Designating a submarine as the flagship is liable to leave all your other units on their own when you submerge. If there are no units under your control at all, they're all dead. Better luck next time; Select Resign from the File menu and see how you did. --------------------------------------------------------------- 17. Q: Why do contacts change colors? A: Contact colors indicate two things; your posture towards them and the certainty with which the contact is known. Posture: Initially, most contacts are unknown, and are displayed as such. If an unknown contact is seen to take hostile action, it will change to the Hostile shape/color, although you still may not really know what side it is on. You may designate an unknown (or a known) contact as Hostile with the hotkey ("H" on the IBM PC), but you ought to have a good reason for suspecting them or you may be cited for a Rules-of-Engagement violation in your evaluation. Certainty: In the default palette set contacts are brighter if you have an exact location for them. They tend to grow dimmer if there is some uncertainty about their location. --------------------------------------------------------------- 18. Q: How come all of the aircraft I have assigned to a mission do not launch at once? A: Strike and ferry missions are single events, and all launch together. All other missions are attempting to maintain a steady on-station presence. These missions will try to keep one third of their aircraft in the air at once, replacing them as needed. If you wish to saturate an area immediately, the aircraft can be ordered to launch manually, and will join the mission. Be aware that you are leaving yourself open to shortages down the road. --------------------------------------------------------------- 19. Q: How do I intercept enemy contacts? A: There are two methods of getting an intercept. a) Select the interceptors, hit the air-ops button, and select the target. This is very fast, but does not provide much information about ranges or times. There may be other air assets better capable to intercept the target than the one you chose. b) Select the target (any contact), and hit the air-ops button. This will bring up a dialog listing all air units available, with ranges and loadouts listed. This takes longer, but allows you to pull units out of group CAP or ASW stations pretty fast, and allows a more considered response. --------------------------------------------------------------- 20. Q: How do I remove units or groups from a mission? A: Aircraft can be removed quickly with the "Unassign Aircraft" hotkey. For all other units, bring up the mission editor dialog, select the mission, and deallocate the units. This also works for aircraft, launched or landed. --------------------------------------------------------------- 21. Q: How do I get a list of aircraft currently assigned to a mission? A: Select the mission in the mission editor dialog. Aircraft in the air will be in the assigned units column. Landed aircraft can be viewed using the "Remove Aircraft" button in this dialog. This is also a way to change the loadouts of assigned aircraft; it is not necessary to remove them. --------------------------------------------------------------- 22. Q: How do I cancel a mission? A: Bring up the mission editor and delete the mission. All units on the mission will become "Unassigned." Mission generated launch orders and paths will be deleted for these units, and the units will become unassigned as well. --------------------------------------------------------------- 23. Q: How to I change which reference points an existing mission uses? A: Select the reference points, then bring up the mission editor. The "Remove" button under "Selected Reference Points" will remove the selected reference points from the list used by the selected mission. The "Add" button does the opposite. This makes some actions a two step process. If you have an anti-ship patrol "MOVING WINDOW" around reference points 1,2,3,4, and you want it to use 3,4,5,9 the following actions are needed. 1) Select reference points 1 and 2. 2) bring up the mission editor. 3) Select MOVING WINDOW. 4) Hit "Remove", then "Ok" to leave the mission editor. 5) Deselect points 1 and 2. (Don't forget this!) 6) Select points 5 and 9. 7) Bring up the mission editor and select "MOVING WINDOW". 8) Hit "Add", then "Ok" to leave the mission editor. --------------------------------------------------------------- 24. Q: Why do aircraft on an area mission sometimes patrol outside the region defined by the reference points? A: Aircraft on patrol are fairly curious about unknown contacts. They will wander over and attempt to ID contacts that match their patrol types (eg. Surface patrols look at ships, AAW patrols look at aircraft, etc). This 'closer look' might take them beyond their defined area by a few miles. Known hostile contacts will be attacked by Patrol missions if possible, and avoided (but reported on) by Recon missions. --------------------------------------------------------------- 25. Q: How do I set my permanent game and symbol preferences? A: Run H2SETUP.EXE to set your preferences. This program makes changes to the HARPOON2.INI file. When loading a scenario, Harpoon II will default to the settings found in the HARPOON2.INI file. --------------------------------------------------------------- 26. Q: Why do I have more memory listed in the Memory Remaining window than I have in actual RAM? A: Harpoon II uses a virtual memory DOS Extender. This means the theoretical maximum amount of RAM a program can use is limited by the disk space on the drive with the executable. It should be noted that the game does slow down somewhat when virtual memory is actually used, so it is only used when no more real RAM remains. --------------------------------------------------------------- 27. Q: There are too many Staff Message windows. How can I get rid of them? A: Select Game Preferences from the Settings menu and turn off the more common ones. The messages will still be shown in the "Incoming Messages" window; the only difference is that the Staff Message pop-up windows allowed you to put the game in 1-1 time. --------------------------------------------------------------- 28. Q: How come I can't center my map window? A: Map windows won't move outside the defined scenario boundaries. If a Map Window is against one or more of the scenario boundaries, it will not move or expand further in that direction. The main map window contains the entire area of the scenario and can't be moved at all. --------------------------------------------------------------- 29. Q: How come Sea State data is shown on land? A: Sea state data also shows wind speed. --------------------------------------------------------------- 30. Q: Why are ship contacts appearing on land? A: If the contact is uncertain, it is displayed in the center of the uncertainty region for the contact. This sometimes shows contacts over land, especially for detections that reveal only a relative bearing or direction (eg. "We hear something over that-a-way, but we're not sure how far"). ESM detections commonly do this. --------------------------------------------------------------- 31. Q: What are the lines, expanding circles, and wedges that appear around contacts? A: These are the uncertainty regions mentioned above. The uncertainty region is created by the accumulated information from the most recent detection cycle, and then it ages when the contact is no longer detected. These concepts are explained very thoroughly in the tutorial section of your manual. --------------------------------------------------------------- 32. Q: How come my group breaks up when I order it to close and attack? A: The units which are capable of attacking the target are removed from the group and placed on an intercept mission for the contact(s). I don't recommend doing this with your carrier groups. --------------------------------------------------------------- 33. Q: Why do my surface-to-air missiles fail to allocate? A: The theoretical engagement distance for semi-active missiles is much longer than the engagement distance against low targets. These missiles require direction from radars on the firing platform, and any target over the radar horizon can't be engaged. This will display as "Target not Illuminated". Sometimes you will see a range ring that indicates an optimal engagement range against closing targets. This optimal range is no often realized and you must frequently wait until the geometry is more favorable (ie. the target is closer). The missile will also fail to allocate if the projected intercept point is beyond the range of the missile. This will display as "Out of Range." --------------------------------------------------------------- 34. Q: Why do I lose contact with the missiles I just launched? A: If the missile does not have a command data link, it must be tracked with a search radar just like everything else. You have to decide if your curiosity about the fate of that Tomahawk is worth giving away your location by turning on a radar. But that's up to you. --------------------------------------------------------------- 35. Q: How come I can't see when my missiles hit their target? A: For the same reason you don't know what is happening anyplace else you can't see. If you don't have a current visual/IR/passive-sonar track on the target, or a datalink with your missile, you will not know what is going on. You can later fly over the target and perhaps you'll see some visible damage. Perhaps your plane will be shot down instead. But that's a kind of target damage assessment too, now isn't it? BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) is always shown for individual land facilities. Make sure you have UNITs showing instead of GROUPs and you will see any relevant damage to facility targets. If you can no longer find the target facility (which are always automatically detected) that you have destroyed it. If the facility is not destroyed or visibly damaged, that does not mean it has any functional equipment remaining. --------------------------------------------------------------- 36. Q: How do I use point defenses? A: Point defenses are automatically fired for you. This includes chaff and flares, and point defense deceptive ECM (if you have the appropriate gear). If you do not have the "Weapons Tight" option set, missiles will be engaged by longer ranged SAMs as soon as an intercept is possible. --------------------------------------------------------------- 37. Q: How do I use Electronic Counter-Measures? A: The ON/OFF switch can be found in the Sensor dialog. This will activate any barrage/noise jamming equipment for the selected platform. This will certainly give away the location of the jamming platform, but may hide other platforms or weapons from detection. --------------------------------------------------------------- 38. Q: Why would I ever want to turn my communications off? A: Broadcast communications gear can be intercepted by ESM equipment, and may give away your location. Most modern communications gear, when employed properly is hard to detect. This type of datalink is shown in the "Secure datalink" color. Some units aren't capable of using this type of equipment (or have moved beyond its' range) and must now broadcast openly to remain in communications with you. These units have datalinks shown in the "Broadcast datalink" color. Units will always attempt to use secure gear where possible. Turning communications to Active gives the selected unit permission to broadcast (if needed) to stay in communications. Broadcasted communications links only give an ESM cut to listening enemy units. Since most units are capable of secure communications, we recommend you just keep this on for most units. The AI opponent does NOT currently take advantage of communications ESM cuts so there is no penalty. NOTE: Sonobuoys will self-destruct via sinking if they lose their datalinks with their parent unit. Selecting a buoy and turning off its comm gear is a good way to drop unneeded sonobuoys. --------------------------------------------------------------- 39. Q: What is the difference between a passive and active sonobouy? A: Passive sonobuoys use passive sonar. Active sonobuoys will give a more positive location on the enemy, but can be easily detected by submarines and tells them how close to being discovered they are. Active sonobuoys are also useful in shallow water, where all passive sonar works poorly. --------------------------------------------------------------- 40. Q: How do I use dipping sonars? A: If the helicopter is hovering at or below fifty meters, it will deploy dipping sonar. If you tell the unit to use active sonar, it will go active when the sonar deploys. --------------------------------------------------------------- 41. Q: What loadouts should I use for various aircraft missions? A: This is a style question. Generally speaking, the following holds true; IB (Iron Bombs) will give you the most destruction per aircraft. The disadvantage of IB loadouts is that you must fly very close to the target. If the target is heavily defended... SO (Standoff) loadouts tend to work on heavily defended ships where the price for a close-in attack with IB may be too high. PGM (Precision Guided Munitions) require a fairly close attack (though not as bad as IB), but promise a much higher hit ratio. SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) tends to be either decoys or anti-radar missiles and can help reduce the defenses around a target. ATA (Air-to-Air) is good for shooting down other planes. This is by no means an exhaustive list... Many variations on loadouts exists such as LR (long range) loadouts which tend to trade ordnance for extra fuel. This means you can strike targets further away. Read up on how modern aircraft are generally employed and as always, experiment. --------------------------------------------------------------- 42. Q: What types of aircraft can I use as tankers for aerial re-fueling? A: Obviously, anything with a TANKER loadout will do, as will any loadout containing a buddy-store. Single purpose tankers will not have loadouts, but will be described in the platform display. Common tanker aircraft include the Kc-135, the KC-130, the A-6, and the Tu-16 Badger. --------------------------------------------------------------- 43. Q: Why can't I move the ASW threat axis in the formation editor? A: The principle ASW threat comes from the PIM (Path of Intended Motion), because a sub in front of your group can wait quietly for you to set the shot up for him. Elsewhere he must make noise to close range. We therefore tie the ASW axis to the group path, as per USN doctrine. If resources permit, ASW units are placed behind the group as well. --------------------------------------------------------------- 44. Q: Why are my range rings in the formation editor showing up as only ones and zeros? A: The formation editor window is sized to include all of the vessels in the group and all of their stations (even if they're not there yet). The range rings are then placed evenly out from the center. If the group is less than 2 miles across, the described behavior will occur because we round the displayed number down the nearest mile. Don't panic, the rings can be dragged to wherever you want them and the window can be zoomed. --------------------------------------------------------------- 45. Q: What is the difference between a Threat Nav Zone and a Detection Nav Zone? A: Threat Nav zones are placed around areas where positive danger exists, such as around enemy SAM sites. Detection Nav zones are used for areas where detection is either possible or certain. They operate in the same way, but units can always be told to ignore any of them separately. --------------------------------------------------------------- 46. Q: How do I reload my weapons mounts? A: Mounts will automatically reload from on-board magazines when completely empty. To change the loaded weapon or reload early, use the reload toolbar button. The dialog works similar to the Weapon Allocation dialog. --------------------------------------------------------------- 47. Q: Even though I select Sonar, Radar, ECM, and Comm Link active, only some of them change? A: You only keep sensor states for those types of sensors you have. If there are no sonars on the ship, they will always come up "Passive." --------------------------------------------------------------- 48. Q: Why do my missiles/torps turn dark blue and disappear? A: The missile has gone out of your sensor range. --------------------------------------------------------------- 49. Q:. Why does a contact seem to jump from place to place? A: You are probably getting uncertain contacts from several different detecting units. Not all of these will get hits every cycle, so the contact may be updated differently. This is pretty common when a sub crashes through a sonobuoy line. --------------------------------------------------------------- 50. Q: Why won't my planes follow my orders to go somewhere? When planes are launched as a group, they must form up as a formation before they can go anywhere. This means that all of the planes you launched as a block will wait until they are all airborne before they set off on a path or mission. Generally speaking, planes launched together will form into groups of 4. If you don't want them to be in a group, break them into single unit launch requests. It is also possible that the plane is going home, either because it has run low on fuel or ammo, or perhaps has completed the mission it performing. These must be unassigned before they will follow orders. --------------------------------------------------------------- 51. Q: When I select a ship in the game and press DATABASE, it shows me the wrong ship entry. A: You cannot get DATABASE information on unknown contacts because you do not know what they are yet. If you selected a ship whose exact identity is known, or if you selected one of your own ships, then you will see the database entry for the class of ship to which your selection belongs. For example; If you selected the USS Eisenhower and pressed DATABASE, you would see the entry for the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier because the Eisenhower is a member of this ship class. --------------------------------------------------------------- 52. Q: I have an old contact left behind from a ship I sank with missiles. Since I didn't actually *see* it sink, (but I'm pretty sure it did), how do I get rid of the old contact which is still cluttering up my screen? A: By selecting the contact and pressing the hotkey (3/PGDN on the IBM PC). If the contact is not really gone, you will see it again as soon as it is redetected. --------------------------------------------------------------- 53. Q: Why does the is the enemy airbase I keep bombing still say "No Apparent Damage" in the Unit Status window? A: Many of the bases in the Harpoon II scenarios are groups of facilities. Use the hot key to toggle to unit view to see the individual components that you have been targeting during your attacks. Each individual facility will have a damage level. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 54. Q: My planes won't drop bombs or fire air-to-ground missiles, why? A: There are restrictions on some weapons as to what speed and altitude they can be released from to operate properly. Try using medium altitude and cruise speed. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 55. Q: What is the difference between diesel and electric power for diesel submarines? A: Diesel subs use electric motors with battery power when submerged. The fuel status indicator shows the endurance at the current throttle setting. If you switch from creep to cruise you should see a dramatic drop in the amount of endurance. To charge batteries, you need to go to at least periscope depth to run the diesel engines to charge the batteries. The battery charge process happens automatically when you reach periscope depth as the sub will start using the diesel engines as soon as the snorkle can be deployed. There are two fuel indicators for diesel subs, one shows the endurance at the present speed and the other shows the endurance capability of the batteries. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 56. Q: When I set a waypoint order for a unit or group the order is not being executed when the waypoint is reached. Why? A: Waypoint orders can only be set AFTER the course has been plotted. If you are in navigation mode (pencil cursor) any order you give a waypoint will not be retained as the waypoint does not exist until after you click on the Navigation toolbar button to exit the navigation mode. After the course has been created you can assign waypoint orders.
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