Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!clarkson!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!rocksanne!parc!gerson From: gerson@parc.xerox.com (Dan Gerson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: harpoon Message-ID: Date: 1 May 91 18:29:08 GMT Sender: news@parc.xerox.com Distribution: comp Organization: Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 40 I don't recall seeing this mentioned before, so for those of you who don't mind occasionally cheating (as in, I've accomplished my mission, and have had an overwhelming victory, but shucks, I really want to have a TOTAL victory and they have a couple of subs somewhere sitting around not moving and I want to experiment with how to attack with subs effectively - yeah, I'm a bit crazy), option-s will toggle the display of all enemy units. I was experimenting with how to attack subs using this option. I got on both sides of a pair of NATO subs (oscar class) which had much better range than my foxtrot and something, maybe victor, class subs. I tried charging around on the surface going top speed (a dismal 18 knots) with the foxtrots to try to lead the NATO subs into the stopped victors, but the NATO subs refused to take the bait. Besides, their sensors always seemed to detect even the stopped victors, and they would always fire right when the victors got within range. So instead, I tried charging them from top speed from two opposite sides, where I would charge into range, fire a whole load of torps from both directions, and then charge back out (with a following torp of course). Even the 18 knot foxtrot could outrun the torps in this scenario (they wouldn't get as close as my victors), and so this technique worked. However, other than for trying to figure out how the computer plays and what its sensor limits really are, the option-s thing isn't very useful. Even this technique isn't really too valid since it only works when you know exactly what the other subs position is, and in this case, the active sensor range is pretty lousy compared to the oscar subs attack range, so I wouldn't have been able to detect them in real life very easily. The best I could have hoped for would have been to charge around in a search pattern until I detected a torpedo, and then (after running away from the torp) charging in the direction of the torp bearing at top speed until I ran right into the oscar. Kind of dicey about whether I would detect them before I would detect the torp a couple of inches from my nose (sorry, millimeters - I am the USSR after all). -- Dan Gerson gerson@parc.xerox.com Xerox Palo Alto Research Center 415-494-4745 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA