Help With ARMs (Full Version)

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msin -> Help With ARMs (8/6/2006 11:26:55 PM)

I have been playing the DB2000 version of Midway Revisited and have encountered a problem with using anti-radiation missiles.

After sighting the Russian SAG, I thought I would send a flight of A-7s armed with Shrikes to blind the enemy taskforce. I launched 6 A-7s and an E-6 and sent them on their way to towards the enemy.

According to the database, the Shrike missile has a range of about 20 miles. Once the A-7s were within 15 miles of the first few any ships, I sent them to medium altitude and ordered them to fire their Shrikes. Even though the flight was less than 15 miles to the target, I recieved a pop-up window indicating that the units were not within range. I flew my A-7s to within 10 miles and tried firing again. Yet once again, I received a message that my units were not within range. After that, my A-7s were shot out of the sky...

I then ran an test using a single A-7. The results were the same as before. I flew the A-7 to within 12 miles of the first ship and was still not able to fire. I have attached a screenshot that shows my test.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why this would occur or how to better employ Shrikes? Oh and before anyone asks, Yes I verified that the target was radiating before I tried to fire [:D]




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/6/2006 11:40:25 PM)

Sounds like you have checked to see if the SAG is radiating.

The addition of a screenshot does help, but it would really be useful if you had a saved game file to accompany the question. With a saved game, we can open it up in ScenEditor and find out exactly what might be happening to explain your observations.

Although Matrix does not have the capability to post up files, these two sites will allow you to host small files:
[image]http://img275.echo.cx/img275/3526/szologo47ty.gif[/image]SZO file archives - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB

[image]http://img271.echo.cx/img271/7972/badger0ma.th.jpg[/image]FilesOfScenShare

You have attached an image of the sensors on the Corsair. Do you have an image of the Sensors radiating from the target?




msin -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/6/2006 11:43:49 PM)

Herman,

Give me a little while and I will post a copy of the saved game file on Strategyzone's Harpoon forum. Thanks for the help.

Mike




msin -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/7/2006 12:33:49 AM)

I've posted a zip file containing a saved game with this problem over at Strategy Zone

Thanks
Mike




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/7/2006 1:16:26 AM)

I've done some preliminary investigation on the behaviour reported and have proposed an explanation on StrategyZoneOnline.

Apologies for re-directing the discussion to another board, but a number of test files and images were posted.




Bucks -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:04:55 AM)

This isn't a game problem seems DB related I checked the range of the Shrike's seeker in DB2000 set at 5nm. Missile has a range of 25nm. To make sure this is the problem get to within 5nm (if you can) and see if they will launch. Not my DB but that may be the source of your issue. Then again so is the seeker for the AGM-88 (set @ 5nm). If the seeker can't detect the target then I imagine the game will tell you the weapon is out of range (logic). Did you use the Ctrl+F1 attack function? That will list the radars that the missile can specifically target. Otherwise contact the DB2000 crew to see if it's an issue?

Cheers

Darren




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:07:05 AM)

I already reported the same thing over on SZO.  [:)]




Bucks -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:10:24 AM)

At least post the text Herman...

After reading your other post the 6nm launch range would look close enough for me to say that the seeker range is the problem. Not a game bug DB related. msin, you should contact the guys at DB2000 and let them know so they can verify and take appropriate action.

Cheers

Darren




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:15:09 AM)

Picky, picky....  [;)]

HUD and PDb don't have that problem since they both have the 70nm range set for the seeker head.

quote:

Thanks for putting up the saved games. I've opened them up and taken a look and have a possible explanation for the behaviour.

I confirm what you are seeing with the following image. The Radar of the SAG is definitely ON as you can see in the first image.

I wanted to find out exactly what was happening so I made up a test file with just a Radar and a Corsair. The file is attached.

The Corsair has been ordered to attack the radar. It closes on the target. Instead of firing at maximum range, it fires at about 6nm. Now, in the SAVED game that you posted, the Corsair is shot down well before it reaches 6nm so you cannot see the Shrikes launch. Previously, in 3.6.3 and in 3.7.0, the ARMs would fire at maximum range.

As a lark, I also put in a E/A-18 Growler armed with HARM. When it was ordered to fire on the Radar facility, it showed a "Weapon Cannot Acquire Target" message. The plane kept closing and only fired at the same 6nm range.

This behaviour is definitely problematic. The HARM and Shrike have ranges of 70nm and 20nm, respectively. To force them to close to 6nm before firing is definitely unacceptable. I am not a programmer, but I strongly suspect that this behaviour is created by the new 'feature' added by AGSI:

    Changes to non-BOL capable non-Datalinked weapons

    Weapons that don't have the BOL flag set and that don't have a Datalink to the launching platform will now have to be able to see their target before they are launched. These weapons are assumed to require their own sensors to lock on to the target (think Sidewinder) before they are launched. DB authors will probably want to set the BOL flag or add datalinks to most SSMs as most of those weapons are able to fly part of the way without direct lockon to their target.

Now, this might mean that all third-party Databases now have to change in order to accommodate this new code. I hope that this helps.


quote:

Okay, I did a bit more investigating. The DB2k sensor for the HARM / Shrike missile is listed with a range of 5nm. I suspect that this reason why the missiles did not fire before that point. They simply could not 'see' the target.

Now, the PlayersDB has apparently already accounted for this new 'feature'. The sensor for the HARM missiles in the PlayersDB have a range of 80nm set for it and thus launch at the maximum range as specified. Looks like the DB editors are going to have to modify their databases to reflect this new reality.

Great to see a novice player digging into the guts of the game in this manner. You wouldn't believe all the great things you can discover with testing like you are doing.


Test files and images on StrategyZoneOnline





msin -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:51:32 AM)

Bucks,

I appreciate the follow-up. I downloaded the latest beta version of DB2000 and found what I believe to be a bigger typo with the Shrike. In DB2000 v6.5.32 the Shrike is listed as having a maximum range of 2.5 miles [X(]

I have posted a note over at HarpoonHQ.com.

Thanks,
Mike




mikmykWS -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:59:05 AM)

Try 25.

http://harpoondb.brinkster.net/Weapon.aspx?DB=1&ID=621


Pretty sure the seekers the problem.




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 6:06:57 AM)

I believe that you are in error.

I just loaded it and it appears that the range for the AGM-45B Shrike is 25nm.

[image]local://upfiles/18146/E0D371F65D564FC9B5A637D72F7B61B5.gif[/image]




mikmykWS -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 6:55:54 AM)

Yeah we got that straight Herman. Thanks for your help. 




msin -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 12:44:24 PM)

Herman, Mikmyk:

Thanks for the clarifications. The problem seemed to be related to using the new DB version with a saved game file from a previous version. Once I started the scenario anew, the problem disappeared.

On a related note, Ragnar posted a note over on StrategyZone's forum indicating that he has corrected the senor range problems for the most current version of DB2000.

Thanks,
Mike




hermanhum -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 12:49:53 PM)

Keep digging and asking questions. 

That's how we find most of the bugs in this game.  [8D]




mikmykWS -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 3:11:10 PM)

Yeah fixed thanks Mike[:)]




ComDev -> RE: Help With ARMs (8/8/2006 7:16:24 PM)

Okay here's what I posted over at SZO:

quote:

Hi MikeSinn, thanks for pointing out this one. The database has been updated and the missiles should work fine now. You can get the updated database here:

http://www.harpoonhq.com/harpoon3/scenarios/db2000v6532beta.zip

Strangely enough, this problem only affected a handful of the missiles in the database. Weapons such as the ALARM, ARMIGER, ARMAT works fine in the old datbase. So I've gone through all ARM missiles and made sure they have the right flags set to work around certain new bugs in 3.7. The weapons work fine in 3.6 of course.


Note that this fix to the DB2000 does NOT change the missile seekers. Changing the seekers the way Herman suggests may sorta solve the problem, but is not realistic (too long range!) and will cause unwanted/unrealistic behaviour in the game. Also note that this problem only affected a handful of the ARM missiles in the DB2000, and all of them should now be working correctly.




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