Matrix Games Forums

Hi. I'm using the new BlankDB. I've created several ship platforms, but I can only get them to show up for selection when I add a Blue group. When I add a new Ble group all my nice new platforms are there for selection, but if I add a Red group none of my platforms show on the selection list. What determines if a platfrom will show on the new group selection list for Blue or Red or Neutral or for all three, or should they always show up on all three lists?

Sounds to me like you need to establish some country names, or different ones anyway.  I don't know if it is absolutely required, but not using the first 8 possible country names is a smart move since they are also used as the side names. 
 
You'll note as the BlankDB arrives, all platforms are assigned to one country, named Country.  I just created a scen in EC2003 IOPG with red groups without issue using HCBlankDB (doh, I forgot to rename it to HCBlankDB-080330).  Then I did the sem in Rene's Caribean BS, both worked fine. 
 
How does one know which 8 slots are the first 8 slots?  Well, it helps to be familiar with Access, go into the Queries and open qLst_Country.  My first order of business would be entering placeholders for 2-7, i.e. first 9 would be
0 Blue
1 Red
2 Neutral
3 Unknown
4 zSide5
5 zSide6
6 zSide7
7 zSide8
8 USA
 
Then make sure your platforms use country 8 or above, if you assign a platform to side Blue, strange things happen (like not being able to add it to a Red group).  The theory or reserving the first 8 is that the game will eventually (hopefully) be expanded to that many sides.

Understand. I'm not familiar with Access and I use the runtime (don't own the full program), so don't know if I can "edit" anything under the hood if I did know Access! The platforms I mentioned I added to the blank database I assigned to a new country that I added (Argentina). I typed Argentina in the country field of the Installation annex and it asks you if you want to add and I click yes (the Installation annex is the only place you can add a country this way, all other country fields in other annexes tell you to pick something from the list if you type something new not already in the list). Is there another way to add a country? Could I send you my database (so I don't have to start over again for the 4th time) if necessary and could you set it up so that new countries I type in are added appropriately so that they will show up on Reb, Blue, and Neutral group selection lists. I think platforms shouldn't be either red or blue, they become one or the other based on whether you add them to a newly created blue or red group from the SE.

Yes, feel free to send it over (zip up both your pfData...mdb and commondb.res and send), I suppose I should actually modify the BlankDB to start the countries where I suggest they start .  You would be able to do what I suggested with the runtime, but yes, it is looking under the hood a bit.  sysop@tgp.net

Tony...just sent you my database files.

Okay, sent your modified DB back to you, future adds of countries will put them in useable spots.  I've also updated the HCBlankDB with the suggested changes in the 2nd message of this thread.
 
http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=26
 
 

Thanks, Tony! Everything works just fine now.