noobie WEAPONS FREE and RANGE question

[leftydad]

I recently started playing HARPOON (I’ve got ANW). I am playing Tutorial 4, about using weapons. I have the sim set to “Weapons Free,” but those air contacts fly right over me, with nothing being launched against them. In order to bring them down, I have to launch weapons manually.

Am I doing something wrong so that in Weapons Free mode nothing gets shot up at those bombers overhead? They are in range; as I said, they fly right over me and continue on their way.

Also, is the only way to get a range readout on a contact to use the TOGGE RANGE/BEARING feature in SETTINGS?

[barniewhittle]

Hi - I had similar frustrations with the tutorials - see this thread that discusses tut 4 and then some issues with 6:
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1753165
 
You will probably get most of the answers you need there.  I was very frustrated by the differing behaviour between the game and tutorial text and IMO ANW need to make it a priority to 'fix' the tutorials - otherwise there remains an unneccessary 'barrier to entry' for noobies that does this great game / sim no justice.  They need to be giving noobs every help to get into the game, not the opposite.
 
I would love to see a few videos supporting the tutorials narrated by ANW - would be interesting to hear what they say .. 'oops, sorry, no the ship doesn't do what I said... let me think about that.....  ' [;)]  Serious suggestion though - how about a few videos - UTube, podcasts or something ... a few tutorials and maybe the odd 'master class'...
 
Hang on in there - you do come out the other side and this is a great game, well worth the investment....
 
BW

[Shemar]

The text on the tutorials is for a much older version of the game, so don't be surprised if not everything works as declared.
 
Some basic guidelines regarding weapons free:
- The computer will not fire against incoming units unless they are identified as hostile (red icons). To manually set the unit's state as hostile select it and click the 'H' key, otherwise the computer may wait until the unit fires at you to identify it as hostile.
- Even if a unit is identified as hostile, the computer may not fire on it automatically if the enemy unit has no weapon capable of attacking the friendly platform in question. In that case you have to manually order the unit to fire.
- When you are ordering a unit to intercept an enemy, the weapons free state must be re-issued after the order has been given, even if the general game state is weapons free. To do that click the ~ key.
 
Regarding the range, yes it is a bit frustrating to monitor the range to a specific target with the current UI. The range rings help a lot, as they provide a scale to a known distance. I also like to have the map scale displayed at the top left ('S' key). Using these two methods I get a good visual approximation on range.