Questions, Flames, Gripes?

[Bullethead]

Howdy All-

Well, here I am. Let me have it. Ask or complain about anything, and I'll do my best to answer it. I suggest, however, that you start new threads for each topic, to avoid confusion.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and listen to the crickets :).

[CaptHawkeye]

I've been warned that "End Battle" is only to be used for engaging irrelevant targets like cargo ships, but every now and then i've had the terrible experience of a huge Enemy Fleet suddenly appearing in the middle of an End Battle map. This leaves my forces largely doomed, since the AI seems to piss itself the moment an enemy with serious capability shows up.

So has their been any mention of a "resume command of the fleet" button in End Battle? Would it be hard? The assets seem to be present still, a re-load screen wouldn't be too bothersome. It would be a small price to pay for getting control of a disaster in the making.

[Rockin Robbins]

Hi there! Tried to install. Works fine until the first time I start the game.

"Purchase? Activate? Evaluate"

Evaluate. "An update was found." Permission requests from Zone Alarm, all very normal, a short download window, Jutland reloads.

"Purchase? Activate? Evaluate"

Evaluate. Up pops the download window (no message about finding an update from now on) and downloads the same file again. Back to the beginning and around in circles ad nauseum.

I quit the program, actually had to terminate it with Process Explorer. Restarted. Ran and locked up. I'm about to try for the third time.

My computer doesn't have problems with games. I'm going to keep trying, but this isn't a good start.

Well, I got a little further. Nice music. Locked up in the startup screen....:damn: No panic. Try again.... I'm not having fun yet.

Now I'm having fun....a little. Does the 10 minute time limit go away when I enter the activation code? It's hard to evaluate a game where you can't fight. What I see is pretty impressive so far but getting it running is a chore that it shouldn't be.

Question: It appears that your copy protection is that the game calls home and checks to see if it is authorized? Why in the world don't other game companies take notice of how logical that is and how much sense that makes? Assuming that SecuROM or worse never raises it's ugly head, BRAVO!!!!! You are a game company worthy of support.

[Bullethead]

So has their been any mention of a "resume command of the fleet" button in End Battle? Would it be hard?

There's been mention of it. I've even suggested it myself. I have no idea how hard it would be--that's Norm's department.

So for the time being, best advice is to not use that button at all. Just jack the time acceleration up to 20x and let the battle end that way. It won't take but but a little longer that way, and you retain control should anything unexpected happen.

[Bullethead]

Hi there! Tried to install. Works fine until the first time I start the game.

"Purchase? Activate? Evaluate"

Evaluate. "An update was found." Permission requests from Zone Alarm, all very normal, a short download window, Jutland reloads.

"Purchase? Activate? Evaluate"

Evaluate. Up pops the download window (no message about finding an update from now on) and downloads the same file again. Back to the beginning and around in circles ad nauseum.

Somebody else had this problem a while back, but I can't find the relevant thread in our regular forum to be sure of how we solved it. So I'm having to dredge my memory here.....

Are you, by chance, running Vista? If so, you have to run the game as administrator, and you also need to install it with User Account Controls turned off (I have UAC turned off all the time because I don't share my computer anyway). Not doing those things can lead to problems like this. Vista doesn't think you should be changing executables and such, so the downloads don't take. As a result, the game sees it still needs the patch and tries to download it again.

If those things don't work, please send in a bug report. In your Start\All Programs\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder, there's a link to our bug report server. Go there and fill in the form. You can also attach files. In your case, look in your main Jutland folder (defaults to c:\Program Files\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland) for game_log.txt and diagnostic_log.txt, and update_log.txt if there is one. Zip these together and attach them to the bug report.

Sorry I can't be of more immediate help.

[Rockin Robbins]

Somebody else had this problem a while back, but I can't find the relevant thread in our regular forum to be sure of how we solved it. So I'm having to dredge my memory here.....

Are you, by chance, running Vista? If so, you have to run the game as administrator, and you also need to install it with User Account Controls turned off (I have UAC turned off all the time because I don't share my computer anyway). Not doing those things can lead to problems like this. Vista doesn't think you should be changing executables and such, so the downloads don't take. As a result, the game sees it still needs the patch and tries to download it again.

If those things don't work, please send in a bug report. In your Start\All Programs\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder, there's a link to our bug report server. Go there and fill in the form. You can also attach files. In your case, look in your main Jutland folder (defaults to c:\Program Files\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland) for game_log.txt and diagnostic_log.txt, and update_log.txt if there is one. Zip these together and attach them to the bug report.

Sorry I can't be of more immediate help.
Will do. Sorry, I should have included some environmental information. I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition on a self-made computer with Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard, AMD Opteron 175 processor, 2 GB RAM, EVGA 7600GT graphics and 1.1 TB of total hard drive real estate with about 400 GB free. I'm running Zone Alarm, Avast and Windows Defender. Although not a programmer, I am an advanced user having been on computers since 1984.

My interest in Jutland comes from having played (OK, attempted to play:rotfl:) Avalon Hill's boardless Jutland game in the early 1970's. Then I was thinking, "Someday all this tedium will be in the hands of a computer, leaving us with the fun and learning." Looks like the day is here!

By the way, confirmed your anti-piracy features show actual imagination and effectiveness without undue hampering of your actual customer, as opposed to the insufferable SecuROM snake oil, which costs game companies plenty, does nothing to eliminate piracy and makes customers' lives miserable, especially if they have several games installed on their computers. For the benefit of other visitors to this thread I'll quote your Piracy section:


Piracy of Our Games

Our License Verification technology has evolved to its' current 2nd Generation form. Issues that surfaced
in our 1st Generation of the protection method have all been addressed and streamlined. This also includes
several new features that will revel a hacked our pirated copy should you attempt to activate it or attempt to receive tech support for your hacked copy. Please don't waste our time. There is encrypted information that we will request from you that will show immediately if you have a hacked version. We will take appropriate action.

Except for a small security hole in a feature of our activation methods that were we have never used, which was closed the day after we found it, our games have never been successfully hacked. WHY? Because of the server component. Any attempts to hack our games turns them right back into DEMO Editions that will not pass the activation process.

Our games have numerous imbedded checks that require an absolute minimum of one successful License check to our server. If this is not accomplished, the game will not function.
SUPPORT THIS COMPANY! People with the courage and imagination to find a new way of fighting piracy when the old way has been long discredited deserve our support. They may have glitches and are perfecting the system, but it promises to lock Sony completely out of the process and save both us and the game companies lots of money by lowering piracy without inconveniencing legitimate game owners and lowering game company expenses. Bravo!

I plugged my activation number into the evaluation copy and got my 10 minutes. That's nowhere near long enough to evaluate the simulation. A half hour would be minimum to actually get some fighting going and control some action, instead of just maneuvering a couple of ships. We're still at the tender mercies of the reviewers. It successfully proves whether the game will run on the user's machine, though. I'm running without problems now.

My problems were arising from Zone Alarm, popping up a permission window. The game does not let the permission request window come to the foreground. So it sits behind the game waiting for input that you cannot give. The game stalls, waiting for permission to send data on the Internet. It's a Redmond standoff! You cannot alt-tab to the desktop to use the permission window, as Jutland hogs the foreground and won't yield. If you shut down Jutland the permission window closes and you've never seen it. You need to find a way to permit firewall permission windows to take the foreground so they can be granted permission. Otherwise a significant proportion of users will find it too complicated to get their firewalls to give the permissions the game needs. Alternately, you could have a script that users can use which would automatically configure their firewalls. My router was no problem, but for those with routers that are a problem, no such solution would work. You might put a reference to PortForward.com in your FAQ section.

You will have a PM in a bit.:up:

[CaptHawkeye]

Do you guys ever intend to do a naval sim with direct ship control? Jutland with aspects of a naval FPS per se? I've been waiting for another Task Force 1942/Destroyer Command for years. Directors and primaries and flooding compartments oh my.

I understand that the logic for Jutland was "having an impact on huge events" and while that's certainly the case, sometimes I want to just watch these huge battles happen from Joe Crew's seat. Sometimes I just want to see first hand what mere survival of these battles would be like.

Some others complained "well then you'd have to take orders all the time" frankly that doesn't bother me. I just want a more personal experience with a specific ship instead of a whole fleet.

[Bullethead]

Will do. Sorry, I should have included some environmental information

It wouldn't have done much good. I'm not a programmer, either, so my tech support capability is very limited. Basically, I can just repeat what I've heard or experienced myself, and recommend reporting any problems you're having to our bug server. That goes straight to the gurus.

For furture reference, here's what I did for Jutland, so I'm better at answering stuff in these areas:

Made the campaign map
Put in all ship weapons data
Put in all the ship data
Wrote the campaigns and all the canned scenarios
Researched and tested the bejeezus out of everythingMy interest in Jutland comes from having played (OK, attempted to play:rotfl:) Avalon Hill's boardless Jutland game in the early 1970's. Then I was thinking, "Someday all this tedium will be in the hands of a computer, leaving us with the fun and learning." Looks like the day is here!

Same here, actually. That old AH Jutland was my gateway to miniatures, which led me to wanting it on a computer eventually, and here I am.

By the way, confirmed your anti-piracy features show actual imagination and effectiveness without undue hampering of your actual customer

Thanks! You're the 1st person who's ever said anything nice about our DRM--the best we get from anybody else is that it's a necessary evil.

We really did try to make it as benign as possible and IMHO largely succeeded. It's a homebrew thing, made by Norm, so avoids most of the issues caused by the ones most folks are familiar with. However, the problems caused by the DRMs of others have left such a bad taste that many folks absolutely hate the whole idea. Thus, without even giving our product a try, they just rant and scream about the DRM.

It's funny, to me, how many DRMs people encounter every day, which cause way more problems. Your cell phone, probably various parts of your computer, your cable or satellite TV system, all use DRMs. Many of them are quite unfriendly towards users, too, such as that on your cell phone. But the only ones people rant about are those on computer games. :hmm:


I plugged my activation number into the evaluation copy and got my 10 minutes. That's nowhere near long enough to evaluate the simulation. A half hour would be minimum to actually get some fighting going and control some action

In the demo, the "Jutland at 1548" scenario runs for 20 minutes. This one starts the moment the opposing BCs opened fire, and has both battlefleets on the map. Thus, you can fight pretty much all of the Run to the South, deploy the Grand Fleet from columns to line, and take a look at many of the ship models included in the game.

My problems were arising from Zone Alarm, popping up a permission window. The game does not let the permission request window come to the foreground. So it sits behind the game waiting for input that you cannot give.

Glad you got it running.

You need to find a way to permit firewall permission windows to take the foreground so they can be granted permission. Otherwise a significant proportion of users will find it too complicated to get their firewalls to give the permissions the game needs. Alternately, you could have a script that users can use which would automatically configure their firewalls. My router was no problem, but for those with routers that are a problem, no such solution would work. You might put a reference to PortForward.com in your FAQ section.

Very good suggestions all. Please submit them. Go to the bug report server, where there's a box to select the category of your message. One of the options is "Suggestion".

[Dowly]

Who the heck are you? :-?

[Bullethead]

Do you guys ever intend to do a naval sim with direct ship control? Jutland with aspects of a naval FPS per se? I've been waiting for another Task Force 1942/Destroyer Command for years. Directors and primaries and flooding compartments oh my.

Jim and I have discussed the idea, but if he's made a definite decision he hasn't told me.

It would be very hard, if not impossible, to introduce FPS elements into Jutland. It's not a matter of fleet size, which of course can easily be made as small as possible. It has to do with the AI and game balance, both of which would have to function very differently than they do now.

In our games, you're the top brass, so your main function is maneuvering huge fleets in a well-choreographed manner. Your impact on gunnery is indirect--you put your ships into advantageous positions for numbers, guns bearing, and with regard to the sun, wind direction, etc., and you designate targets. But actually aiming and firing the guns is done by the AI. Both sides, whether human or AI, use the same AI routines for shooting, so are equally accurate (apart from situational variables, ship-specific fire control differences, etc.).

In an FPS-type game like TF1942, however, the player's high level command role is very limited and he spends the bulk of his time aiming guns. The game forces the player to do this, because when he's not aiming his guns himself, his AI gunners are rather worse shots than the enemy AI gunners. Thus, to win, the player must jump to the critical point of the battle, man the most important weapons, and take out the most threatening enemy. Repeat for the next critical point in the battle, with a quick glance at the map in between to give some simple order to his rather small fleet.

Both types of games are quite fun on their own merits. However, they don't mesh well. In the FPS games, fleet size is limited not only by the limited time the player has to command it, but also by the rate at which the AI gunners can destroy the player's ships without the player intervening. The bigger the fleets involved on both sides, the more losses the player is going to take elsewhere while he's focused on 1 duel, meaning that the odds rapidly get overwhelming against him.

[CaptHawkeye]

I wouldn't expect you to introduce FPS elements right into the DG engine or game design as it is. It hasn't been designed for that. I'm referring to a future game built from the ground up to be an FPS/RTS hybrid. TF1942 maybe isn't a good example to use because while it was a good game it was also hilariously broken in plenty of areas.

Jutland's gunnery AI is waaaay better than anything that's come before it. The other naval sims i've played of the last few years have Pirates of the Carribean (AKA Sea Dogs 2), Battlestations Midway, and Silent Hunter. All of them did indeed suffer from the -> AI Gunnery = Ass; problem. But Jutland is the first real naval sim i've come accross without serious AI balancing issues in gunnery. Would their be a major difference in now just allowing the player to take control of one ship in the line?

In an FPS-type game like TF1942, however, the player's high level command role is very limited and he spends the bulk of his time aiming guns. The game forces the player to do this, because when he's not aiming his guns himself, his AI gunners are rather worse shots than the enemy AI gunners. Thus, to win, the player must jump to the critical point of the battle, man the most important weapons, and take out the most threatening enemy. Repeat for the next critical point in the battle, with a quick glance at the map in between to give some simple order to his rather small fleet.

A good point. On the other hand, Jutland makes the player spend most of his time giving direction and speed changes. Nothing wrong with that, after you've made your changes it's the down time between major orders that seems wasted to me. Time Compression and the shellcam were designed to diminish the lack of input during that time, (which in real world time can range anywhere from 1 minute to 1 hour) but why stop there?

I'm saying i've got the fleet setup in the manner I want it, but instead of hitting the "time compression" key, how about a button that makes me commander of a ship? A simplistic AI will control the fleet while you aren't, and you can leave it with basic incentives like "Attack Cautiously/Chaaaarge rarrarar." Simply hitting "resume fleet command" would bring you back to the sky. Ideally, this would be Jutland's gameplay covering for the weaknesses of a naval FPS and vice versa.

Both types of games are quite fun on their own merits. However, they don't mesh well.

They don't mesh well because no one has really tried to make them work. Back in the 90s it was attempted repeatedly, and progress was being made. Though we all know the story, the sim market dried up, high profile sim-studios died out, etc etc.

It's not a naval sim, but B-17 The Mighty Eigth was wildly successful at being an FPS/RTS hybrid.

[ExMachina]

ok, i'll gripe :D

camera control is pretty bad. might be a deal-breaker as the game relies a lot on being able to move about the map efficiently. i'll see if i can get any more comfortable with it and will try some of the other camera-control options the game offers.

saving grace might be the ability to fight from the 2D map.

otherwise, seems like a very impressive game.

[Bullethead]

i'll see if i can get any more comfortable with it and will try some of the other camera-control options the game offers.

Sorry you don't like it.

It's never bothered me. Different from what I was used to from other games, but it works well once you get used to it.

I use the options where the mouse rotates the view fast, with no delay, when moved to the screen edge. But mostly I move the camera with the numpad or by jumping around doing right-clicks on the 2D map.

[Lempereur1]

Somebody else had this problem a while back, but I can't find the relevant thread in our regular forum to be sure of how we solved it. So I'm having to dredge my memory here.....

Are you, by chance, running Vista? If so, you have to run the game as administrator, and you also need to install it with User Account Controls turned off (I have UAC turned off all the time because I don't share my computer anyway). Not doing those things can lead to problems like this. Vista doesn't think you should be changing executables and such, so the downloads don't take. As a result, the game sees it still needs the patch and tries to download it again.

If those things don't work, please send in a bug report. In your Start\All Programs\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder, there's a link to our bug report server. Go there and fill in the form. You can also attach files. In your case, look in your main Jutland folder (defaults to c:\Program Files\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland) for game_log.txt and diagnostic_log.txt, and update_log.txt if there is one. Zip these together and attach them to the bug report.

Sorry I can't be of more immediate help.
Will do. Sorry, I should have included some environmental information. I am running Windows XP Media Center Edition on a self-made computer with Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard, AMD Opteron 175 processor, 2 GB RAM, EVGA 7600GT graphics and 1.1 TB of total hard drive real estate with about 400 GB free. I'm running Zone Alarm, Avast and Windows Defender. Although not a programmer, I am an advanced user having been on computers since 1984.

My interest in Jutland comes from having played (OK, attempted to play:rotfl:) Avalon Hill's boardless Jutland game in the early 1970's. Then I was thinking, "Someday all this tedium will be in the hands of a computer, leaving us with the fun and learning." Looks like the day is here!

By the way, confirmed your anti-piracy features show actual imagination and effectiveness without undue hampering of your actual customer, as opposed to the insufferable SecuROM snake oil, which costs game companies plenty, does nothing to eliminate piracy and makes customers' lives miserable, especially if they have several games installed on their computers. For the benefit of other visitors to this thread I'll quote your Piracy section:


Piracy of Our Games

Our License Verification technology has evolved to its' current 2nd Generation form. Issues that surfaced
in our 1st Generation of the protection method have all been addressed and streamlined. This also includes
several new features that will revel a hacked our pirated copy should you attempt to activate it or attempt to receive tech support for your hacked copy. Please don't waste our time. There is encrypted information that we will request from you that will show immediately if you have a hacked version. We will take appropriate action.

Except for a small security hole in a feature of our activation methods that were we have never used, which was closed the day after we found it, our games have never been successfully hacked. WHY? Because of the server component. Any attempts to hack our games turns them right back into DEMO Editions that will not pass the activation process.

Our games have numerous imbedded checks that require an absolute minimum of one successful License check to our server. If this is not accomplished, the game will not function.
SUPPORT THIS COMPANY! People with the courage and imagination to find a new way of fighting piracy when the old way has been long discredited deserve our support. They may have glitches and are perfecting the system, but it promises to lock Sony completely out of the process and save both us and the game companies lots of money by lowering piracy without inconveniencing legitimate game owners and lowering game company expenses. Bravo!

I plugged my activation number into the evaluation copy and got my 10 minutes. That's nowhere near long enough to evaluate the simulation. A half hour would be minimum to actually get some fighting going and control some action, instead of just maneuvering a couple of ships. We're still at the tender mercies of the reviewers. It successfully proves whether the game will run on the user's machine, though. I'm running without problems now.

My problems were arising from Zone Alarm, popping up a permission window. The game does not let the permission request window come to the foreground. So it sits behind the game waiting for input that you cannot give. The game stalls, waiting for permission to send data on the Internet. It's a Redmond standoff! You cannot alt-tab to the desktop to use the permission window, as Jutland hogs the foreground and won't yield. If you shut down Jutland the permission window closes and you've never seen it. You need to find a way to permit firewall permission windows to take the foreground so they can be granted permission. Otherwise a significant proportion of users will find it too complicated to get their firewalls to give the permissions the game needs. Alternately, you could have a script that users can use which would automatically configure their firewalls. My router was no problem, but for those with routers that are a problem, no such solution would work. You might put a reference to PortForward.com in your FAQ section.

You will have a PM in a bit.:up:

Firewalls dont like Jutland.
You have to let it by pass the firewalls. YOu might also try running teh game in the Windowed mode. Change the display settings until the windowed mode shows up.

There are two scenarios in the game , The Duel, and Red Sky in the Morning. These can be played over and over.

THey will run to completion. The others are just enough to let you see the visuals.

The main Jutland 1548 will let you run for 20 min. BTW, you can keep reloading and playing the 10 & 20 min scenarios!

You have some excellent suggestions about the scripting.
Do you know of any existing scripts that do this?

Thanks,

Jim Rose

[Lempereur1]

ok, i'll gripe :D

camera control is pretty bad. might be a deal-breaker as the game relies a lot on being able to move about the map efficiently. i'll see if i can get any more comfortable with it and will try some of the other camera-control options the game offers.

saving grace might be the ability to fight from the 2D map.

otherwise, seems like a very impressive game.

There are 5 different Camera Mode sets.

YOu are just seeing the Default set of controls.

Hit the F1 Key and it will show you all the key controls in the game.

[Bis71]

ok, i'll gripe :D

camera control is pretty bad. might be a deal-breaker as the game relies a lot on being able to move about the map efficiently. i'll see if i can get any more comfortable with it and will try some of the other camera-control options the game offers.

saving grace might be the ability to fight from the 2D map.

otherwise, seems like a very impressive game.

At the very beginning of RJW, I had the same feeling, then I realized that I was stuck in an old paridigm. Once I realized what SES was trying to do with a PoV separate from a unit and starting to use all camera options, view became comfortable.

[AVGWarhawk]

There are several ways to use the camera. It is a bit strange at first but once you know what keys to us for what camera view, it all make sense. Hit F1 for you keys to use for the camera views.


Screenshots, any idea how to take them?

[darius359au]

There are several ways to use the camera. It is a bit strange at first but once you know what keys to us for what camera view, it all make sense. Hit F1 for you keys to use for the camera views.


Screenshots, any idea how to take them?

Shift-F8

[Bullethead]

Screenshots, any idea how to take them?

Shift-F8

In Jutland, they go in their own folder off the main folder. When you take one, the default file name is the scenario name + a gametime stamp. If the game is paused, all gametime stamps will be the same so any existing shots will be renamed to "backup X scenario name gametime stamp". Thus, you don't overwrite previous pics taken with the game paused.

In the RJW, the screenshots go into the main folder and DO get overwritten if you take more than 1 with the game paused. This is something that will probably get fixed in the 1.5 upgrade.

BTW, use SHF-F7 to get rid of all the GUI stuff to take more realistsic screenshots.

[Thomen]

I just took a quick look before heading to bed..

Not bad at all. It even supports resolutions up to 3840x1024 at least on my old machine. :up:
Even though the graphics got pretty pixelated and the models are out of proportion. Gonna look tomorrow if there is an option to fix this.

[AVGWarhawk]

Thanks for the screen shot tip! I had a few last night that I wanted to take.

Thomen, yes, the game supports many resolutions. I have it on my 22 inch widescreen. Supporting different resolutions these days is a must in my book. Looks great on the widescreen.

[Thomen]

Thanks for the screen shot tip! I had a few last night that I wanted to take.

Thomen, yes, the game supports many resolutions. I have it on my 22 inch widescreen. Supporting different resolutions these days is a must in my book. Looks great on the widescreen.

Got it fixed! I do play on lower details and without AA, tho.
Are we allowed to post screenshots here? Or rather link to ours? I'd rather not post one in a forum post.. it ought to blow the post out of proportion.

[AVGWarhawk]

Sure, start a screenshot thread:D

[Thomen]

Sure, start a screenshot thread:D

Done
:up:

[Janus]

SUPPORT THIS COMPANY! People with the courage and imagination to find a new way of fighting piracy when the old way has been long discredited deserve our support.
Definitely not! I agree that small companies like SES deserve me buying their games but I don't want to "own" a game which is requiring an internet connection in order to function properly. This paranoid copy protection simply is a no-go for me and it's a pity because I've only heared and read positive feedback about the games themselves.

At least you have a presence here at subsim now Bullethead, before that it was almost impossible to make contact with your company unless you were registered at the 'official' forums - there isn't even an ordinary contact email adress listed on stormeaglestudios.com which interested non-customers could write to...

[Bullethead]

Definitely not! I agree that small companies like SES deserve me buying their games but I don't want to "own" a game which is requiring an internet connection in order to function properly. This paranoid copy protection simply is a no-go for me and it's a pity because I've only heared and read positive feedback about the games themselves.

I was wondering when this subject was going to come up....

I believe you have been somewhat misinformed about how our DRM works. Jutland's version of it works like this:

Every time you start the game, it tries to phone home. If it succeeds, the game will work just fine. If it doesn't succeed, the game will still work just fine, provided it's been less than 7 days since it last made contact. However, if you go longer than 7 days without an internet connection, it will stop working. BUT ONLY until such time as you regain an internet connection. The game still keeps trying to phone home every time you run it. Once you regain contact, the game will start working again just fine, although you'll have to re-enter your license number.

The reason it's like this is actually for your protection. I know that sounds strange, but hear me out on this....

Your license is associated with the hardware of a single computer, so it will only run on 1 computer at a time. You can easily switch the license from computer to computer, or upgrade your hardware of the 1 computer, no problem. You just release the license on the machine it's on now and then put it on the other or the upgraded machine. However, you do these things deliberately and so can take care of the license beforehand.

But suppose your HD crashes, your mobo fries, or whatever. In this sort of case, obviously you hadn't released your license ahead of time. So your computer is down for however long, a few days at least. When you get it running again, the game will see it as a different computer, so your license won't work on it. HOWEVER, after the 7th day passes from whenever the game last phoned home, you can re-enter your license and it will start working again.

Say it takes you 3 days to fix your computer. Then you only have to wait 4 more at most. That's assuming you played the game the day the computer died. If you hadn't played the game for several days before the computer crashed, then you have correspondingly less time to wait once you're back up, all the way down to zero.

Basically, you've got an unlimited number of reinstalls and switches between computers when things are all working. AND if something goes wrong somewhere along the line, there's a fallback mechanism to get you going again in a reasonable amount of time.

The 7 day thing is really a pretty good compromise. The longer we make the time interval in which the game will work between calls home, the longer it will take to come back if your computer dies.

Note that this all means that after 7 days, you can put the license on ANY computer. IOW, suppose you go on a 2-week trip but forget to swap the license to your laptop before you go. After 7 days, you'll be able to put your license on your laptop without having to release it from your home computer.

Anyway, I know the whole DRM subject is a hot button to a lot of people. However, we're stuck with using one because we have to go download-only. Being a niche product, we can't get any shelf space on stores, and it's not economically feasible for us to mail-order DVDs. But we have tried VERY hard to make our DRM as benign as absolutely possible. IMHO, ours is the best one on the market today.

[Janus]

Thanks for the thorough explanation Bullethead. I know how your DRM works, I am not some kind of ignorant who starts criticising something he doesn't have a clue of. I did not want to start an in depth discussion of the DRM at this point. I only wanted to give a feedback about it so you know there are people who would buy Jutland or DG but won't due to the copy protection (many people stated this over at the battlefront.com (http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=85174) forum, too). I should have done it via private message instead maybe.

[Bullethead]

I did not want to start an in depth discussion of the DRM at this point. I only wanted to give a feedback about it so you know there are people who would buy Jutland or DG but won't due to the copy protection

No problem. We're well aware that some folks hate DRMs so much that they refuse to own anything (or so they think) with a DRM. Such folks periodically drop by our other forum to flame us about it, and some go so far as to actually lie about having bad experiences with it in an effort to turn away other customers. They also spread such tales elsewhere, which leads to much disinformation. Thus, I'm happy for the the chance you offered here to set the record straight :).

I find it humorous that the only DRMs people complain about are on games. I guess that the folks who say they refuse to buy DRM'd products don't realize just how many DRMs they have to deal with every day. Or maybe they just don't have an iPod, a cell phone, a computer, or Windows. Many of the DRMs on these things are QUITE nasty, requiring visits to the shop to solve problems with them. And yet they get on SES for the very benign DRM on our games.

Every day, the use of DRMs increases. I firmly believe that we're living in the last days of discs of all sorts. They've already been rendered obsolete by downloadable software, music, movies, and even books, each with its own DRM scheme. Thus, it's only a matter of time until physical media for all such things go the way of the flint spearhead. Economics will force it--it's WAY cheaper to just have a download server than it is to have a disc factory, printing shop, warehouse, delivery trucks, retail outlets, and the employees and utilities for all of that. Economics are already forcing download-only on us small companies, but the big boys will be next. Until that happens, though, us on the leading edge of the wave are necessarily going to take some flak.

[CaptHawkeye]

So lately i'm kind of wondering what's up with the British Light Vessel AI. The moment I get into a fight with Brits, they call their light ships away from my fleet. That's all well and good, until you realize that they don't ever really *stop* running. It's happening every time, in every scenario. British Destroyers, Light Cruisers, ACs just completely abandon the dreadnoughts. Moreoever, this only happens to the British, German DDs and other assorted escorts remain in formation or nearby capital ships at all times.

This seems to have occured recently. A few patches ago it didn't happen.

[Lempereur1]

So lately i'm kind of wondering what's up with the British Light Vessel AI. The moment I get into a fight with Brits, they call their light ships away from my fleet. That's all well and good, until you realize that they don't ever really *stop* running. It's happening every time, in every scenario. British Destroyers, Light Cruisers, ACs just completely abandon the dreadnoughts. Moreoever, this only happens to the British, German DDs and other assorted escorts remain in formation or nearby capital ships at all times.

This seems to have occured recently. A few patches ago it didn't happen.

Capt Hawkeye:

Others have reported the exact opposite since we made an AI pass a few updates back. If you have a saved game and campaign game file, please goto our customer support server, open up a ticket and attach your saved files.

We will look at it to see if its a problem or you are scaring the crap out of them with your billiant tactics!

SES Customer SUpport Server.
http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/readydesk/readydesk/default.aspx[/URL][URL="http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/readydesk/readydesk/default.aspx"] (http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/readydesk/readydesk/default.aspx)

[Rockin Robbins]

Firewalls dont like Jutland.
You have to let it by pass the firewalls. You might also try running the game in the Windowed mode. Change the display settings until the windowed mode shows up.

Brilliant!!! Windowed mode would fix the whole problem and no game adjustments would be necessary at all. But that does beg the question of why the game keeps firewall permission windows from taking the foreground when windowed mode gives you access to the entire desktop.

I do love the entire concept of your anti-piracy measures, especially the reversion to demo mode on violation. This makes the demo very promiscuous, while keeping full rights games to those willing to pay your salary. This game is worth a trip to the movies with a small family. If you won't pay and feel entitled to steal it you're pretty pitiful. I just read AVG Warhawk's review. That's enough for me. I'm convinced.


You have some excellent suggestions about the scripting.
Do you know of any existing scripts that do this?

Thanks,

Jim Rose

I'm afraid I'm not a programmer. I do have a script recorder, but you'd need a script that identified the firewall being used and executed the proper commands to grant the proper permission for that specific firewall. That's out of my league! I wouldn't be surprised if Firewalls weren't programmed not to allow script control anyway. The windowed mode suggestion is best.

[Lempereur1]

We are testing JUtland trial build 2 (Which will also be the current version of Jutland the day we compile the release candiate.)

This version 2 of the Trial will also include all the patches and bug fixes that we have completed since relase (Currently version 1.019, that means we have issued 19 patches since release!)

We have added several additional scripts that remove the Vista permissions issues from release 1.0

We have also included a link to the website Portforward.com for Router issues.

That site may be the best place we have ever seen for gamers with Router vs. Games issues!

Becasue we access the internet from inside the game, alot of Firewalls dont like it.
Starting up in WIndowed mode will solve many, many issues, mostly with Zone Alarm and such.


The other side of the coin on the DRM is the autoupdating allows for uniform game updating and decreases the support issues resulting from having to troubleshoot multiple versions.

We always try to make the kind of games we would want to buy.:rock:

Sincerely,

Jim Rose

[CaptHawkeye]

I gotta hand it to you guys with some of the recent patches. Destroyers finally handle like they should and night attacks are feasible now because the AI doesn't have thermal vision anymore and its cool. I've been playing Death of Pommern relentlessly because it plays like it's supposed to. Last night I finally managed to sink Konig, Pommern, and Hessen with a well managed torpedo assault on the German fleet and we got away with nary a shot fired in return. The newspapers in Germany sure won't be calling Jutland a one sided victory now. :lol:

[Bullethead]

I've been playing Death of Pommern relentlessly because it plays like it's supposed to. Last night I finally managed to sink Konig, Pommern, and Hessen with a well managed torpedo assault on the German fleet and we got away with nary a shot fired in return. The newspapers in Germany sure won't be calling Jutland a one sided victory now. :lol:

Congrats! My cousin Capt. Stirling, who led the real attack, would be quite proud :)

[GlobalExplorer]

No problem. We're well aware that some folks hate DRMs so much that they refuse to own anything (or so they think) with a DRM. Such folks periodically drop by our other forum to flame us about it, and some go so far as to actually lie about having bad experiences with it in an effort to turn away other customers. They also spread such tales elsewhere, which leads to much disinformation.

Translation: people complaining about your DRM are liars. Can you back that up with facts? I.e. give links to threads where this was taking place.

I have searched a bit on the internet and i.m.o. most people have just made it clear that they will never give money for a software that will self-deactivate after seven days. Badmouthing them for just that is very bad style.

[TheSamuraiJedi]

Didnt stop me from buying the game. I understand where people are coming from, but alot of games require a connection to the internet just to play it, Half Life 2 comes to mind.

[MoToM]

Also consider you have to have an internet connection to even get the game, why would you then play it on a computer without one?

[Task Force]

Hello Bullethead.

Ive been playing Jutland since the day after it came out. I have had no no issues with the game. the only problem ive had sofar is that I sometimes useing that end battle button, after a while the game crashes. (which is no big deal, I probably would have lost anyway.):up:

[GlobalExplorer]

Also consider you have to have an internet connection to even get the game, why would you then play it on a computer without one?
This remark is absolutely typical for this kind of discussion.

Myself I was without internet for about three years. First I lived in a flat without a telephone, then I moved to a place where the technician couldnt enter the cellar because it was litterally filled with junk. I tried UMTS but they said it's not available or much too slow where I lived. I could go online periodically with the help of wireless routers but it was never permanent and generally too slow.

During that time I used to download demos and patches from the office or from internet cafes. I was very active online and participated in several projects in the web. I downloaded and tried Distant Guns during that time. Most importantly, I could play all my games without any problems or artificial obstacles.

People who have internet connections are completely ignorant of the problem. But they will learn as soon as they intend to move, especially in countries like Germany where internet is often not available for several reasons. And outside of Europe and North America, people with internet access in their homes are still a minority.

Imagine a world where all games would use this kind of "copy protection". Would people actually have to move to another place only to be able to play games?

This system is prone to failure for many other reasons, but internet access is reason number 1 why it must not become the norm.

[Zakalwe]

But they will learn as soon as they intend to move, especially in countries like Germany where internet is often not available for several reasons.
Huh?!?

I would say yes if you said "DSL", but if you don`t decide to live in a place without a phoneline (which should be really rare in Germany), you always have dial-up or maybe ISDN. Sure, no fun, but enough for the game to connect and letting you play. Most patches are in 1 to 2 MB range, so also possible with dial-up.

[GlobalExplorer]

As I said have seen several places where there was either no phone plug or where the technicians could not get it to work. This is usually not so much an issue because a lot of people only have a mobile phone and no landline. I for instance have had no landline for more than 5 years.

So, following MoTom's logic I'd say there are quite a lot of folks without internet, you just don't hear very much from them in the www.

[HS]

Two simple newbie questions (hope its ok within this thread):

1. Can anyone describe how (i.e. by which orders) to make best use of zeppelins and submarines during a campaign? Is it better to use as much way points as possible (e.g. near British bases) or are patrol or area patrol orders a better alternative? :hmmm:

2. (How) is it possible to use single u-boats and zeppelins?

As to these questions I did not find direct answers in the manual. Sorry in case I overlooked sth.

Thank you :yep:
HS

[Raptor1]

Simple newbie question (hope its ok within this thread): Can anyone describe how (i.e. by which orders) to make best use of zeppelins and submarines during a campaign? Is it better to use as much way points as possible (e.g. near British bases) or are patrol or area patrol orders a better alternative? :hmmm:

Thank you :yep:
HS

Area patrol seems to make as much use of the Zeps or Submarines, they're really not meant to be used in groups

[Bullethead]

hope its ok within this thread

Questions is in the title so I guess it's OK :).

1. Can anyone describe how (i.e. by which orders) to make best use of zeppelins and submarines during a campaign? Is it better to use as much way points as possible (e.g. near British bases) or are patrol or area patrol orders a better alternative? :hmmm:

As Raptor1 said, the best thing to do is Area Patrol. To use this, select the sub/zep TF then put the cursor on the campaign map where you want the center of the patrol area. Right click there and select the Area Patrol order. At that point, a box will pop up where you can enter the radius. This is in map HEXES (actually squares, but I'm in the habit of saying "hexes"). Move the slider to however many hexes you want to go out in all directions from the center point, and hit the OK button.

2. (How) is it possible to use single u-boats and zeppelins?

Use the Task Force Organization screen to drag individual subs or zeps out of their parent TFs into their own, solo TFs. Then order them around like any of your other TFs.

[HS]

"... put the cursor on the campaign map where you want the center of the patrol area. Right click there and select the Area Patrol order ..."

Ok, thanks. But how can I find/ see the center or the radius on the map afterwards (eg in order to check them or to remember their exact position a few days later)?

[Bullethead]

Ok, thanks. But how can I find/ see the center or the radius on the map afterwards (eg in order to check them or to remember their exact position a few days later)?

Is there a way you can tweak your settings in this forum so your quoted text isn't in white? I can't see it very well at all because I've got a very light background color, so I have to highlight it like the spoiler posts in the Fallout 3 forum ;).

Anyway, to answer your question, I'm afraid there's no graphical representation of patrol areas on the campaign map. I've mentioned this several times but I guess it will take customer complaints to make it happen. Thus, go to the bug report server and send in a SUGGESTION-type message to this effect.

For the time being, about the best you can do is hit F3 to bring up the shipping lanes map overlay. This highlights map hexes and odds are some will be near where you want to patrol, so you can guage distance from them. Also, beside the cursor you can see the map coordinates for a given hex. So. you can move the mouse around the map and note the coordinates in the patrol area, which will help you determine the radius you want.

[HS]

Ok, thank you for your latest answers, bullethead. :) Sorry for causing inconvenience with my settings in this forum, but when changing to a dark text colour I can't read my own sentences. :oops: Anyway, here are my (hopefully last) 3 questions, two of them concerning bombard missions in a campaign. Up to now I’ve been unable to complete a bombard missions since my fleet always got intercepted before and the rest of my ships was homeward bound afterwards. Is there anything I can do avoid meeting interception forces at an early stage or to make it more unlikely to meet them? And secondly: What happens during such a mission? Will a bombarding scenario be created or will the mission goal be achieved automatically in the campaign modus unless any naval battles take place before?

Finally the division turn by succession. Up to now it works for me only by selecting the relevant division leaders, which means that for a whole fleet I have to change course with turn by succession division by division, one after the other (I usually do that by pausing the game). Is there any simple possibility to use a division turn by succession for all divisions of the fleet with one command?

Thank you.
HS

[Bullethead]

Sorry for causing inconvenience with my settings in this forum, but when changing to a dark text colour I can't read my own sentences.

Must be a bug in the forum software. Every other forum I've been in, your own settings down affect anybody else. IOW, if you have white text on a dark backgound and I have black text on a light background, your messages should still show up on my end as black on light. Strange.

It's not that big a deal, though. When I see a huge blank post from you like this one, I just highlight it like a spoiler and can see it. When I reply, I set the text color to black in the quoted parts and I'm fine. What's it look like on your end after I change your quotes to black on me end?

to now I’ve been unable to complete a bombard missions since my fleet always got intercepted before and the rest of my ships was homeward bound afterwards. Is there anything I can do avoid meeting interception forces at an early stage or to make it more unlikely to meet them?

Well, after the battle, if your bombardment TF has changed its orders to return home, you should be able to give them new orders to bombard again.

As for meeting the enemy, that's pretty much to be expected. Both sides have a lot of patrol boats out to give early warning, and some areas like the upper Channel have fairly strong patrols of real warships. All these things are there to give early warning, disrupt your plans, etc. If you want to minimize contact, therefore, try picking targets where patrols might be expected to be thinner, or spend some time trying to thin out the opposition.

And secondly: What happens during such a mission? Will a bombarding scenario be created or will the mission goal be achieved automatically in the campaign modus unless any naval battles take place before?

Bombardments only happen on the campaign map; there's no tactical battle for them. Battles only happen if both sides have surface ships.

Finally the division turn by succession. Up to now it works for me only by selecting the relevant division leaders, which means that for a whole fleet I have to change course with turn by succession division by division, one after the other (I usually do that by pausing the game). Is there any simple possibility to use a division turn by succession for all divisions of the fleet with one command?

You can reduce your workload with the "guide on other division" command. You can make long chains of divisions this way (like the GF's battle line). Then all you have to do is give the order to the 1st division and all the others in the line will turn in succession when they reach the point the 1st division turned.

There are 2 ways to give the "guide on other division" order. First, in the TF Org screen where you set up your TF formation, if you put 1 division directly behind another, it will automatically be on "guide on other division" to the division ahead when a battle starts. You can also give this command during battles by selecting the division you want to be the follower, putting the cursor over any ship in the division you want to be the leader, and right-clicking. This enables the "guide on other division" order button, which you then click on.

NOTE: Once you have a division guiding on another, you have to tell it to "guide independently" to break the chain.

But to turn a whole TF, you still need to give separate orders to every division not guiding on another. The reason for that is because in most cases, rotating a whole TF while maintaining the original formation can't just be done by 1 simple turn order for every division. To maintain the formation, most divisions will have to change speed at least twice, those on the outside of the turn will have to turn on a bigger radius using several waypoints, etc. And even if you don't mind the formation getting skewed, many times telling each division to make the same turn simultaneously will result in divisions trying to drive through each other, leading to much chaos if not collisions.

[HS]

While I continue to play Jutland this game (together with SH III) appears to be the most attractive naval game since the days of GNBNA from my point of view. Some more questions:

Is there a compact list or sheet somewhere in the campaign and in the battle modus which indicates the status of all available ships and the lost ships by class and name? I think I have seen this somewhere (together with small ship graphics) but I can’t remember where. What about information on enemy losses?

Is it yet possible to save the display settings for future launchings of the game? It’s a bit disturbing to start every session with the same old display fine tuning.

Thanks
HS

[Bullethead]

Is there a compact list or sheet somewhere in the campaign and in the battle modus which indicates the status of all available ships and the lost ships by class and name?

Hit SHF-O to bring up the OOB overlay on the campaign map. It shows all your task forces, which you can expand to show their divisions, which you can expand to show their ships, which you can expand to show how many of which types of weapons they have left, as well as ammo. Any level that shows ship names shows a colored dot for the ship's status.

Losses, both friendly and enemy, however, you still have to write down yourself. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Is it yet possible to save the display settings for future launchings of the game? It’s a bit disturbing to start every session with the same old display fine tuning.

Sure. This has been possible since Jutland 1st came out.

The main Dislay Options (AA, AF, screen resolution, etc.) automatically save provided you exit the game from within the game. If you're running in a window and close the window, they don't save. Also, if the game crashes, they don't save.

These settings are saved in the DG.cfg file in the main Jutland folder. If you're ending the game from the "Exit Game" button within the game and these settings aren't saving, then you've probably got a "read-only" setting on the Jutland folder or something similar.

All the lighting, wave height, etc. options in the other display menus can be saved directly from those menus. Just type in a name for them. These are saved as (the name you gave it).ADO files, again the main Jutland folder.

However, the current settings of these sliders also go into the DG.cfg folder, so you don't have save the settings to a separate file if you don't want to. IOW, the game remembers what all the sliders are set at, but if the main options above aren't being remembered, then you've got some other problem as indicated above.

You might have noticed the "presets" options? Those are just ADO files in the main folder. Your own ADO files aren't added to the preset list, but can be loaded off the same menus where you can save them. I have separate files for day and night battles, which I load during the campaign depending on when battles happen.

[TheSamuraiJedi]

Maybe its just me..but why does the icon on the water show an Imperial Japanese Navy flag?

[Bullethead]

Maybe its just me..but why does the icon on the water show an Imperial Japanese Navy flag?

Which icon on the water? In the strategic map or during a tactical battle? A screenshot might help ;).

Apart from the flag icons used for task forces on the campaign map, I can't think of any reason why there'd be a flag drawn on the water. In the tactical battles, there are port and base icons, minefields, etc., drawn on the water, but not flags.

Either way, you're seeing the wrong texture, which is usually a sign of your hardware biting off more than it can chew. If your box is a few years old, that might be the problem. OTOH, Jutland did grow out of the RJW game, so did in fact start with some IJN and IRN flags here and there. It's been at least a year since I saw any, but that doesn't mean there aren't still a few buried deep in the guts and you've managed to find one. Thus, a bit more info would help :).

[HS]

"... which you can expand to show their divisions, which you can expand to show their ships ..."

How? :oops:

"If you're running in a window and close the window, they don't save."

Unfortunately my game freezes to a black screen every time I try changing from a window to 1024x768.

HS

[Bullethead]

"... which you can expand to show their divisions, which you can expand to show their ships ..."

How? :oops:

It's like in Windows Explorer. Beside each TF name is a +. Click on that it and shows divisions, which also have +s by their names. Click on those and you see the ships in the divisions, which again have +s. Click on a ship's + and you'll see its current status for weapons.

"If you're running in a window and close the window, they don't save."

Unfortunately my game freezes to a black screen every time I try changing from a window to 1024x768

Sometimes when people have problems like this, something's gone wrong with their DG.cfg file. If that's what's happened to you, there's an easy way to solve it.

Go into your main Jutland folder and rename the file DG.cfg to something else. Then start the game. This forces the game to generate a new DG.cfg file with all the default settings, including full-screen 1024x768. Once the game comes up, just exit it immediately to save the new DG.cfg file. Then restart the game and put all the display and sound options where you want them, load any ADO files you like, etc., and exit again to save all that into the DG.cfg file. After that, you should be OK.

If this doesn't work, please send us a bug report and include the DG.cfg file as well as whatever log files you want to include.

[HS]

Thank you!

[Bullethead]

Thank you!

I take it the DG.cfg thing solved your problem?

[HS]

This seems to be the key to my problem but there is no dg.cfg file in the main folder.

[Bullethead]

This seems to be the key to my problem but there is no dg.cfg file in the main folder.

Hmmm....

It should be in your \Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder. There should always be one there, because if there isn't one to start with, the game creates one, and it always saves this file afresh when you exit. IOW, if you sort that folder by date modified, it'll be up near the top with the log files.

If you really don't have this file at all, do 2 things. First, PM me with your email address and I'll send you mine. 2nd, submit a bug report on our bug server. Then, after you try mine, if that solves your problem, go back to the bug server and amend your ticket with that info.

[TheSamuraiJedi]

Maybe its just me..but why does the icon on the water show an Imperial Japanese Navy flag?

Which icon on the water? In the strategic map or during a tactical battle? A screenshot might help ;).

Apart from the flag icons used for task forces on the campaign map, I can't think of any reason why there'd be a flag drawn on the water. In the tactical battles, there are port and base icons, minefields, etc., drawn on the water, but not flags.

Either way, you're seeing the wrong texture, which is usually a sign of your hardware biting off more than it can chew. If your box is a few years old, that might be the problem. OTOH, Jutland did grow out of the RJW game, so did in fact start with some IJN and IRN flags here and there. It's been at least a year since I saw any, but that doesn't mean there aren't still a few buried deep in the guts and you've managed to find one. Thus, a bit more info would help :).

No problem!

Auto-updated with no mods or messing with the game, build is the current version and my box is only two years old.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/ViperTomcat85/errr.jpg

[Bullethead]

Auto-updated with no mods or messing with the game, build is the current version and my box is only two years old.

Thanks for the pic. That's definitely a new one for me. I take it you drew both the black and the white ovals? You'd best send this pic in along with a log and descrition of the problem to our bug server.

Question: would that flag happen to be at a waypoint for the ship's course? I've noticed a minor bug myself lately where sometimes you see little gray crosshair icons at waypoints. I'm guessing maybe your getting the flag texture for some reason instead of the crosshair (which you shouldn't be seeing anyway).

Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience.

[Sailor Steve]

Every time you start the game, it tries to phone home. If it succeeds, the game will work just fine. If it doesn't succeed, the game will still work just fine, provided it's been less than 7 days since it last made contact. However, if you go longer than 7 days without an internet connection, it will stop working. BUT ONLY until such time as you regain an internet connection. The game still keeps trying to phone home every time you run it. Once you regain contact, the game will start working again just fine, although you'll have to re-enter your license number.
Unfortunately I currently don't have an internet connection at all. But I'm enjoying it so far - ten minutes at a time.:sunny:

[TheSamuraiJedi]

Auto-updated with no mods or messing with the game, build is the current version and my box is only two years old.

Thanks for the pic. That's definitely a new one for me. I take it you drew both the black and the white ovals? You'd best send this pic in along with a log and descrition of the problem to our bug server.

Question: would that flag happen to be at a waypoint for the ship's course? I've noticed a minor bug myself lately where sometimes you see little gray crosshair icons at waypoints. I'm guessing maybe your getting the flag texture for some reason instead of the crosshair (which you shouldn't be seeing anyway).

Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience.

It wasnt a way point, it follows my cursor all around the surface.

I'll send a picture and log/info ASAP.

[Bullethead]

Unfortunately I currently don't have an internet connection at all.

Maybe I'm being dense here, but how then did you post this? :).

[Bullethead]

It wasnt a way point, it follows my cursor all around the surface. I'll send a picture and log/info ASAP.

Wow, that's definitely something I've never seen before.

Do you have the regular mouse cursor arrow, or just the flag? The cursor doesn't show up in screenshots so I can't tell from looking at your pic.

If you have the cursor, then I assume the flag is taking the place of the yellow dot on the water under the cursor. Do you have the yellow dot?

[HS]

Hi,

how can I get sighting reports from patrolling zeppelins or submarines in the campaign modus? Are these only represented by the flag icons of enemy units on the map (f3)?

Are there any circles on the 2D- map representing various gun ranges, similar to GNBNA?

Thanks again
HS

[Bullethead]

how can I get sighting reports from patrolling zeppelins or submarines in the campaign modus? Are these only represented by the flag icons of enemy units on the map (f3)?

Yup, when you see enemy flags on the campaign map, it's because one of your units spotted it. Then you can mouse over the enemy flag to find out what it is. There's no message popping up to tell you about it.

Are there any circles on the 2D- map representing various gun ranges, similar to GNBNA?

Yes. These show up on the minimap during tactical battles. They're pretty faint, though, so are best viewed with the map expanded to full size (hit M to cycle this). When you get the map full-size, put the mouse over it to make it opaque, and you should see the circles pretty well.

Note, however, that these circles are only shown at their correct scale when the map is at zoom level 1 (hit the 1 key, not numpad 1). If you're zoomed in, the circles are still there but they're shrunk so no longer give you an accurate idea of if you're in range.

[Sailor Steve]

Unfortunately I currently don't have an internet connection at all.

Maybe I'm being dense here, but how then did you post this? :).
At the library.:D

[Bullethead]

At the library.:D

Do you have a laptop? If so, you could use free hotspots as long as you want.

[Sailor Steve]

At the library.:D

Do you have a laptop? If so, you could use free hotspots as long as you want.
Nope. Only my plain old desktop. Lost my internet a few months ago. Lost my new job before I could get it back. I'm only a couple steps away from losing my place again.

But there will be better times.:sunny:

[Bullethead]

But there will be better times.:sunny:

Let's hope. Geez, good luck for the future :-?

[AlExal]

I downloaded demo to try it. Launched it and everything was ok. I've tried 2 scenarios (Duel and one other) and it was a really great) But then I tried to launch some other ones and game crashed the very moment I clicked at the name of the scenario at the menu. The same stuff happenned with most of the scenarios:cry:
Can you help me to resolve that problem?

[SeaSprite]

Tried the demo real quick, just the duel this morning and sunk the enemy bb. Pretty nice thus far.

But, I do have a question and sorry to say its over this DRM thing:

Why did you not choose Steam? It seems to offer the same advantages that your software does and more.

Just curious :).

I'll probably get the game anyway, but was wondering...

Matt

[Bullethead]

But then I tried to launch some other ones and game crashed the very moment I clicked at the name of the scenario at the menu. The same stuff happenned with most of the scenarios:cry:
Can you help me to resolve that problem?

Hmmm. It might be that the other scenarios are too big for your computer, but that's just a guess because I have no idea what hardware you've got.

The best thing to do would be, immediately after the game crashes, to look in the main Jutland folder for "game_log.txt" and "diagnostic_log.txt". Then send these in to the bug report server. You can find the a shortcut to the server in the Start\All Programs\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder.

[Bullethead]

Why did you not choose Steam? It seems to offer the same advantages that your software does and more.

Not my department so I don't know. I must say, however, that Steam has its detractors, too.

[Highbury]

Not my department so I don't know. I must say, however, that Steam has its detractors, too.

Yeah it does but many games are available through Steam and other sources. They also will give it huge exposure. It may not be your department, but you are closer to that department then we are so maybe you can mention it.

[ParaB]

I somehow can't get Jutland to run. Downloaded the game, installed, and run it. Clicked on 'Evaluation', the game starts in windowed mode but never loads to the main menu. I've allowed the game access via the windows (XP) firewall, I have no idea what's causing the problem. Any ideas?

[Buddahaid]

I downloaded demo to try it. Launched it and everything was ok. I've tried 2 scenarios (Duel and one other) and it was a really great) But then I tried to launch some other ones and game crashed the very moment I clicked at the name of the scenario at the menu. The same stuff happenned with most of the scenarios:cry:
Can you help me to resolve that problem?

I had that problem for a short time, but it cleared up after one of the larger updates. Sorry I can't remember what update. I thought the little patches had changed things enough to render some canned missions unusable.

Buddahaid

[Bullethead]

I somehow can't get Jutland to run. Downloaded the game, installed, and run it. Clicked on 'Evaluation', the game starts in windowed mode but never loads to the main menu. I've allowed the game access via the windows (XP) firewall, I have no idea what's causing the problem. Any ideas?

Sorry to be lagged here, been busy lately.

There are several potential causes here, but I'm not a techie so can't give you an answer. I suggest that you send in a report to the bug server, which you can find on a link in the Start\All Programs\Storm Eagle Studios\Jutland folder.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm interested in moving Jutland from my obsolete desktop to my waaaay better laptop. I know I can only have one of them active at a time though, how do I transfer the license?

[Raptor1]

I'm interested in moving Jutland from my obsolete desktop to my waaaay better laptop. I know I can only have one of them active at a time though, how do I transfer the license?

Ctrl-F12 ingame, disable your license and then you can activate it normally on your other comp

[Bullethead]

I'm interested in moving Jutland from my obsolete desktop to my waaaay better laptop. I know I can only have one of them active at a time though, how do I transfer the license?

Just to clarify what Raptor said:

1. Start the game on your current computer.
2. At the main menu, hit CTRL-F12. This releases your license off the old computer. Write down your ID and password that appears in the box as you do this.
3. Install the game on the new computer and run it.
4. When the message comes up asking what you what you want to do, select ACTIVATE
5. Enter your ID and password that you wrote down in step 2. Voila.

[CaptHawkeye]

Hitting Ctrl-F12 in the menu doesn't get a response from the game for some reason.

[Bullethead]

Hitting Ctrl-F12 in the menu doesn't get a response from the game for some reason.

It's SHF-F12. Sorry. I blame Raptor for confusing me :).

[Raptor1]

Ah, whoops, been a while since I did that

[XLegion]

Well, the subject says it all. I have the trial version right now but I certainly can't see me paying $50 for this when I can't do a thing in the ten minute demo version. It's just too short to learn anything.

I can't even get the ships to fire or turn. I have read the pages in the pdf file concerning turning, targetting etc...but the scenario ends before anything happens. And I mean anything.

All I 'hear' is the chug of engines. I don't hear or see any gunfire. This game may have potential but the learning curve is probably tremendous for this thing and if it isn't how do I learn it?

Really nice looking, the best I have seen in a naval game. But it looks too much like "eye candy" and no game.

If anyone has any hints on how to learn the game from the demo I may purchase the final key version, but unless I can learn the demo. No way.

[Bullethead]

Well, the subject says it all. I have the trial version right now but I certainly can't see me paying $50 for this when I can't do a thing in the ten minute demo version. It's just too short to learn anything.

2 scenarios in the demo can be fought to the bitter end, however long that takes: Red Sky at Morning and The Duel. Jutland at 1548 runs for 20 minutes, which is enough to fight most of the Run to the South. But all the other scenarios only run 10 minutes.

[XLegion]

I didn't know about "The Duel" scenario so I tried that. I at least heard and saw gunfire but how the devil do you change course? I understand the left clicking to select the ship and then apparently you right click to bring up a turning menu and then these colored lines appear on the water. Now what? I right click, left click but the ships never turn.

I see an 'arrow' menus that says turn but by how much and how? I also don't understand how "I see" what is happening to my ship.

Like I said the learning curve will probably be steep but so far the game doesn't 'excite' me much to purchase. And I love Naval Surface games.

[Bullethead]

..how the devil do you change course?

Left-click on a ship to select it. Right-click to bring up the orders buttons. Left-click on the one that looks like --> (course change). Once you do that, you can drag the mouse around the map and it trails a yellow arrow showing the path the ship(s) will follow. Move it to where you want and right-click to separate the arrow from the mouse and bring up the buttons for the type of turn you want to do. Left-click on the button for that type of turn, and voila. Also note that you can, before the last right-click, hit W. This sets a waypoint at that place from which you can bend the yellow arrow again. You can have about 11 waypoints.

[turnerg]

BH:
Do you guys have an honest "suggestion box" sorta thing going for Jutland? Since you've already mushed my fingers a number of times on the modding question (Burninator on GameSquad forums) you guys are all I have to rely on to get this game just right..

There's just so many things that could use work, before we start going for extra ship packs and such (don't get me wrong, I REALLY want the Texas), for example:

Sound engine: Ambient sea noise, better fidelity of multiple sounds (more sounds at once, no more maxed out number of stuff going on), Umm, how about a music volume slider? Distance attenuation of sound, ie sounds are different between up close, and far away, speed of sound modeling (sounds taking time to travel across the water)

Graphics: The rain. PLEASE, a new rain effect, the current one just, well, could use work... New lighting, currently at night wakes, smoke, and other things tend to light up red, no matter what I do. Water, even at night, with ambient light all the way and backlighting turned down, practically glows. Seems by photos and descriptions I read, the sea at night can be almost an inky black, not glowing blue... Options for increasing how much smoke is generated, and how long it lasts... Which leads to smokescreens please..

The ships themselves look very good. Very detailed, yet not so poly crazy that a persons system is going to run 3 FPS when the fleet is present. So really nothing there to note. The big thing is the environment the ships are in. Great looking ships, in an okay sea/sky/world kinda pulls things back a bit. Best way to put it, the foundation of the game, the damage model, the gunnery, th super important part, is there and it's sound. From that foundation, I'd say on the eye candy (graphics) goal could be Silent Hunter 3's environment. It looks GREAT, almost photo realistic, and is easy on the framerates for any computer built in the last say 5-6 years.

As far as gameplay goes, the AI could use some work. I've yet to see the British fleet attempt to use their gunnery range advantage. Or, for that matter, form a proper battle line. And no matter what, if any element of the HSF, or even the scouting forces undocks, the entirety of the GF undocks and comes after me. Even just the scouting forces... Never mind the Brits bringing their BC's to counter, EVERYTHING comes out it seems...

And others casually mentioned it once before, but some sort of external bridge view of sorts would be incredible. Even just a reference point on the ship the camera locks to. Just to add that awesome battle immersion.

Oh, and BTW, was Jutland/DG by any chance built on any other pre-existing engines? I rembember there was an open source engine out a number of years abo called the OGRE engine, which has changed a lot over time btw... Just curious as to whether everything had to be built from the ground up, or whether you guys had a basis to start on in that regard.

I have this inevitable feeling that I will be playing Jutland and it's follow on series for a long, long time. If even some of the above gets addressed, you can be quite sure you will be seeing my credit card number a lot over the coming years!

Semper Fi Mac!

[Bullethead]

Sorry to be lagged.

Do you guys have an honest "suggestion box" sorta thing going for Jutland?

Yup. If you go to the bug report server, you can change the message type from being a game error to being a suggestion. And we do listen to suggestions. Quite a few things in both our games are the result of player feedback.

BTW, was Jutland/DG by any chance built on any other pre-existing engines?

Nope. We have Norm to make our own engines. Well, Jutland was built kinda on the DG engine, but with enough serious changes and additions that it's practically a new engine.

[geosub1978]

Hello! I am thinking of buying this game. Just one question. Does it include shore bombardment or merchant hunting or it's only fleet interactions?

[Raptor1]

Hello! I am thinking of buying this game. Just one question. Does it include shore bombardment or merchant hunting or it's only fleet interactions?

There's shore bombardment (Though it's played out automatically, except when fighting a battle against land batteries) and merchant raiding in the campaign

[Bullethead]

Hello! I am thinking of buying this game. Just one question. Does it include shore bombardment or merchant hunting or it's only fleet interactions?

Just to clarify...

Both shore bombardments and merchant captures are in the campaigns.

Shore bombardments are handled abstractly. They don't do much, if any, real damage to anything important (which is historically accurate), but mostly are for morale/prestige purposes. Move your ships to the target, the bombardment happens, and that's it. You don't fight them out in a 3D battle. In Jutland, shore bombardments score more points for the Germans than for the Entente. In DG, I don't think they do very much for either side.

As for merchants, in DG the whole campaign depends on merchant capturing, because the Japanese Army has to be supplied by sea. Only the Russians can capture merchants, and if they do this well enough, they can greatly slow or even stop the IJA's progress toward Port Arthur.

In Jutland's long campaign, both sides can capture merchants. This is more important for the Germans because if they can stop the cross-Channel shipping in the 1st 1/2 of 1916, they can actually win the war by causing the French to make a separate peace after losing at Verdun.

[alexsmith]

Hello! I am thinking of buying this game. Just one question. Does it include shore bombardment or merchant hunting or it's only fleet interactions?
I would say TOO MUCH merchant hunting ;) At least probably more than you would like ;) Sometimes only "Finish battle automatically" button helps...


Both shore bombardments


Aren't you kidding? Could you please tell more about it? I dream I could bobmard an enemy base on Elliot's islands! The most exciting that it's called UNPROTECTED naval base :)

[Bullethead]

Aren't you kidding? Could you please tell more about it? I dream I could bobmard an enemy base on Elliot's islands! The most exciting that it's called UNPROTECTED naval base :)

I was wrong; there are no shore bombardments in DG 1.5.

The reason why is that in real life, despite numerous attempts, they had no effect, so it wasn't worth it to put them in the game.

[Kptlt Thomsen]

Hey Bullethead and the crew from Jutland..Great game you have here. Easy to use interface, nice gfx and love the battle editor! Keep up the good work!:up::up::up:

Just one quick question...How do you edit the briefing text for your custom built battle? I can't seem to find it anywhere..

[Kptlt Thomsen]

The simulation options..gunnery accuracy, damage control, torpedo damage etc.. do they adjust for YOUR ship or for ALL ships in the battle? Put another way, can I have deadly accurate gunnery while the AI ships are average?

[Bullethead]

Just one quick question...How do you edit the briefing text for your custom built battle? I can't seem to find it anywhere..

In the Jutland\Data2\Scenarios folder, you create a .txt file with the same name as you used when you saved the scenario with the editor. Once this .txt file exists, next time you save the scenario with the editor, it will incorporate this text into the scenario.

This text appears in the upper part of the scenario selection screen when you start a new battle. It'll be under the date, time, and weather info so you'll probably have to use the scroll bar to see it.

I think this is covered in the scenario editor tutorial. If not, I need to fix that.

The simulation options..gunnery accuracy, damage control, torpedo damage etc.. do they adjust for YOUR ship or for ALL ships in the battle? Put another way, can I have deadly accurate gunnery while the AI ships are average?

Nope. The sliders affect all ships.

[Kptlt Thomsen]

In the Jutland\Data2\Scenarios folder, you create a .txt file with the same name as you used when you saved the scenario with the editor. Once this .txt file exists, next time you save the scenario with the editor, it will incorporate this text into the scenario.

This text appears in the upper part of the scenario selection screen when you start a new battle. It'll be under the date, time, and weather info so you'll probably have to use the scroll bar to see it.

I think this is covered in the scenario editor tutorial. If not, I need to fix that.



Nope. The sliders affect all ships.


Great, Thank you for the tips.:) I hope to see more releases from SES

[Kptlt Thomsen]

I'm having a problem with getting my division to turn in succession. The instruction are clear enough, but whenever I select a division and order a turn in succession, the lead ship in formation and thus the group just stay on the heading they were previously given. :-(

[Bullethead]

I'm having a problem with getting my division to turn in succession. The instruction are clear enough, but whenever I select a division and order a turn in succession, the lead ship in formation and thus the group just stay on the heading they were previously given. :-(

When other folks have had this problem, it's been because they're leaving a right-click out of the sequence. It goes like this:

1. Left-click to select a ship in the division (any one will do, doesn't have to be the leader).
2. Right-click to bring up the orders menu.
3. Left-click on the button that looks like an arrow to the right (course change button). When this happens, a yellow line will appear on the water connected to your cursor.
4. Move the cursor to get the yellow arrow pointed in the desired direction.
5. **This is what others have left out** Once you've got the yellow arrow where you want it, right-click. This does 2 things. First, it disconnects the yellow arrow from the cursor, so you can use it to push buttons again. Second, it brings up the menu buttons for the different types of turns.
6. Move the mouse to the button for Turn in Succession and left-click to order the turn in succession (or to one of the other buttons to do that type of turn).

NOTE: There are options steps 4A and 4B as follows, if you want to preprogram a series of turns at waypoints (useful for zig-zagging to dodge bullets and to go around coastlines):

4A. Move the yellow arrow so that not only the arrow is pointing where you want it, but the cursor itself is at the position where you want the 1st waypoint. That is, the ship will make its 1st turn at its present position and will turn again at the waypoint.

4B. Hit W. This creates a waypoint at the cursor's current location and fixes the yellow arrow between the ship and the waypoint. But the yellow arrow can now be stretched and bent beyond the waypoint.

If you want to enter more waypoints, repeat steps 4A and 4B. You can have a total of 8 or 9 waypoints per division or independent ship. Once you've got all your waypoints set, continue with step 5 above. Note that all turns at all waypoints will be of the same type (succession or immediate).

[Kptlt Thomsen]

Has anyone else noticed that the german gunners seem to be ridiculously inaccurrate with their gunnery while the Brits land three out four shells consistently?

[Kptlt Thomsen]

I sat here and watched 2 German light cruisers shoot at HMS Yarmouth from a range of 5000 yards for 15 minutes...and they missed 8 out of ten times. Meanwhile, the brit cruiser fired and hit, fired and hit, fired and hit....


Can you say "Unbalanced"?

[Bullethead]

Can you say "Unbalanced"?

How many times did you run this experiment, and for how long? Gunnery in Jutland is highly variable, just as it was in real life. Not only is it subject to many situational modifiers based on weather, lighting conditions, sea state, and ship design, but you have to remember that WW1 gunnery was heavily dependent on human judgment under difficult conditions. Sometimes the people do a good job, sometimes they don't, and often they alternate between these states during the course of a single battle. As a result, you can't watch 1 fight and make a fair assessment of how gunnery works.

In general, the newer German CLs have gun directors and single-caliber main batteries, and the RN CLs usually have neither. This usually gives the German CLs better accuracy at longer ranges, but within about 5km the director advantage goes away. However, even with the director working, if the Germans have to squint into the sun, or have their funnel smoke in their eyes, or are blinded by spray, etc., then they probably won't shoot as well as RN ships that don't have these problems. And then of course they just might not be able to find the range for a while.

[Kptlt Thomsen]

How many times did you run this experiment, and for how long? Gunnery in Jutland is highly variable, just as it was in real life. Not only is it subject to many situational modifiers based on weather, lighting conditions, sea state, and ship design, but you have to remember that WW1 gunnery was heavily dependent on human judgment under difficult conditions. Sometimes the people do a good job, sometimes they don't, and often they alternate between these states during the course of a single battle. As a result, you can't watch 1 fight and make a fair assessment of how gunnery works.

In general, the newer German CLs have gun directors and single-caliber main batteries, and the RN CLs usually have neither. This usually gives the German CLs better accuracy at longer ranges, but within about 5km the director advantage goes away. However, even with the director working, if the Germans have to squint into the sun, or have their funnel smoke in their eyes, or are blinded by spray, etc., then they probably won't shoot as well as RN ships that don't have these problems. And then of course they just might not be able to find the range for a while.

My apologies, BH, really. I had not considered that these details were, in fact, modelled in. Looks like I have some learning to do. Thank you for setting me straight. :-)

[ancient46]

Would you be able to compare your game with Jutland by Software Sorcery released in 1993? I liked the game but it had a steep learning curve.
Do they still own the copyright to the name?

[Bullethead]

Would you be able to compare your game with Jutland by Software Sorcery released in 1993? I liked the game but it had a steep learning curve.

Never had that game so can't compare.

Do they still own the copyright to the name?

Jutland is a place on the map so you can't copyright that. There have been many games for miniatures, boardgames, and computers games named that. What you copyright is what you put out under that name: the guts of your game :). But just to be clear, the full name of our product is "Distant Guns: Jutland", which nobody but SES ever uses.

[CCIP]

But just to be clear, the full name of our product is "Distant Guns: Jutland", which nobody but SES ever uses.

Which is mostly the first DG's fault. Noone calls it "Distant Guns: The Russo-Japanese War At Sea", or even just Russo-Japanese War At Sea. So "Distant Guns" ended up firmly stuck with the original RJW title!

[Vainglory]

Uh, newbie here...

I do hope Bullethead checks in now and then. I've had the game for maybe a month now and I think it's great. Well worth what I paid, but there are a few issues I've had with it.

Firstly, I've had ships that seemed to sink after I left a battle. In my first campaign SMS Seydlitz took heavy damage (pumping exceeded flooding, however, and there were no out of control fires) engaging the channel monitors. She vanished from my orbat once the battle ended. Because she was so badly damaged I could understand it, annoying though it is.

But recently I lost SMS Grosser Kurfurst... she had suffered moderate damage, but there were no uncontrolled fires and pumping exceeded flooding. I'd engaged Beatty's battlecruisers in the dark so she'd taken out HMS Tiger and Queen Mary. I'd dropped her out of the line when damage became moderate to ensure she survived. I saved with her well out of harm's way, no uncontrolled fires, and pumping exceeded flooding.

The battle ended and another one began with her in it. I quit without saving, but when I reloaded from the save (with Grosser Kurfurst seemingly okay), the battle finished, and a new one began, she was gone.

It's perplexing that she would disappear when previously, in identical circumstances, she hadn't. Surely if fires are under control, and flooding is under control, your ships shouldn't sink? And if she didn't sink, where did she go? The manual has no clues.

Secondly, chasing the merchants. I understand that this is a feature, but personally I find it annoying. I know a game can't be tailored to everyone's tastes, but I just thought it was worth saying. Most times the merchant can do nothing to escape, or if it can escape then the pursuit vessels can do nothing to prevent it. Seems like a tedious distraction either running the game at 20x or resolving via end battle.

[Bullethead]

Uh, newbie here...

Welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks :()1:

But recently I lost SMS Grosser Kurfurst... The battle ended and another one began with her in it. I quit without saving, but when I reloaded from the save (with Grosser Kurfurst seemingly okay), the battle finished, and a new one began, she was gone.

It's perplexing that she would disappear when previously, in identical circumstances, she hadn't. Surely if fires are under control, and flooding is under control, your ships shouldn't sink? And if she didn't sink, where did she go? The manual has no clues.

There are several possible explanations:

First off, it depends on where you saved the 1st time. She might have ended up taking fatal damage later in that battle if it continued to run.

Second, perhaps her damage proved fatal the 2nd go-round. All damage control resolution, whether in a battle or afterwards, has a random element in it. It's thus possible, from the same starting point, to end up at different results. For example, suppose she was on fire at the end of the 1st battle. That fire might have been enough to damage the propulsion or crew to the point that the rest of the damage became fatal. Same with flooding damage to some extent.

Third, she might have hit a mine or been torpedoed by a sub in between battles. Such encounters also have a random element so might not always happen.

[Vainglory]

Thanks for the timely reply, it's much appreciated. Many games have awful support.

As far as your suggestions... well what makes it perplexing is that when I saved Grosser Kurfurst was well out of the line of fire, with no uncontrolled fires, and pumping exceeding flooding.

The battle ran for about another ten minutes as Tiger and Queen Mary sank, then it ended because there were no HM Ships in view.

Another battle started a few hours later (somewhere between midnight, but before dawn) a hundred KM or so away, again with Beatty bumping into the HSF.

Grosser Kurfurst was there, but I got slightly miffed when Kaiserin didn't turn to starboard (she was avoiding a torpedo) and instead turned to port. The turn to port put her about a kilometer closer to Princess Royal. Eight x 1,250lb shells at point blank range saw the end of Kaiserin...

I was rather frustrated with myself (I let my priceless Kaiser class ships get way too close to the pair of British BCs) so I quit without saving.

When I restarted from the aforementioned save point, played out the sinking of Tiger and Queen Mary, then stumbled into Beatty once more (the BCF is southeast of the HSF which is heading home so it seems to cause another clash every time) Grosser Kurfurst was gone.

What makes it perplexing is that GK has no uncontrolled fires, flooding exceeds pumping, and the general damage level is moderate. She doesn't take any more damage between when I saved and when the next battle starts (only enemy ships visible are Tiger and Queen Mary because Beatty's scattering), but she appears to sink anyway. I've tried it a few times and GK seems to survive less frequently than she sinks.

I guess it's the randomness in the damage control? A submarine or mine taking down Grosser Kurfurst specifically, several times in a row, seems unlikely to me.

My problem is just that I'd expect a German battleship with moderate damage to make it home... is that wrong? I'd not be surprised if ships with Very Heavy damage are always adjudicated as "sunk" after the battle ends. Even with heavy damage, if there are uncontrolled fires, or uncontrolled flooding, I'd expect them to sink. But if it's only moderate damage with flooding and fires in hand (and well over 3/4 of the crew alive) I'd expect that ship to make it home.

It occurs to me that I've seen two British "Inflexibles" sink in the same fashion. They had heavy damage though.

[Bullethead]

My problem is just that I'd expect a German battleship with moderate damage to make it home... is that wrong? I'd not be surprised if ships with Very Heavy damage are always adjudicated as "sunk" after the battle ends. Even with heavy damage, if there are uncontrolled fires, or uncontrolled flooding, I'd expect them to sink. But if it's only moderate damage with flooding and fires in hand (and well over 3/4 of the crew alive) I'd expect that ship to make it home.

I'd expect a ship as you describe GK to survive, too. I'm quite curious as to what's happening to her.

If you would, please open a ticket with our support system. If you've never done that before, look in START/All Programs/Storm Eagle Studios/Jutland. The tech support and "report a bug" shortcuts there both open your browser to our support page. Scroll down past all the stock FAQ troubleshooting stuff and at the bottom there's a place to log in. Type in your customer ID number (which is different from your license number) and you'll go to where you can open a ticket. The tickets are like emails and you can attach files to them. So type in your observations and attach the saved game so we can take a look at it. Thanks.

[Vainglory]

I may have found what the issue is. When I've looked at GK she's been moderately damaged, with flooding and fire controlled.

I bothered to watch her from the save to the conclusion of the battle; the save point has her at 25% fire level (my mistake, I should have made 100% certain before posting anything, sorry). Watching her, the fires were put out, but flooding periodically went out of control until that was done.

Given that she's on fire, but with the fires being brought under control, is it still unusual for a moderately damaged ship to sink?

I would have thought that a moderately damaged ship should make it home, whereas heavy damage would be where it starts to get dicey - but I'm only new to the game and I could simply be misinterpreting what "moderate" damage means.

[Bullethead]

I would have thought that a moderately damaged ship should make it home, whereas heavy damage would be where it starts to get dicey - but I'm only new to the game and I could simply be misinterpreting what "moderate" damage means.

The various named damage states shouldn't be taken as absolute status definitions. They should instead be considered as general indicators of how bad the situation is AT THAT MOMENT. This takes a bit of getting used to.

Ships in our games don't have "hit points", as in take some fixed amount of damage and sink. Instead, they have a number of systems that affect the ship's ability to control various forms of damage, and each of these systems can be damaged and repaired at least some. Ships eventually sink because water is coming in faster than the pumps can throw it back out, and is spreading throughout the ship usually due to shell holes in key bulkheads.

As a result, 2 ships in the same battle rarely have the same exact damage from the same type and number of hits. Usually, they'll be hit in different places so will have damage to different systems, different rates of flooding, etc. Thus, the only way to give an overall status like "moderate damage" is add and average the amounts of damage to all the individual components. The amount of flooding in a ship, however, carries more weight than other things.

The pump capacity of a ship is largely a function of propulsion system damage, plus crew casualties. Both of these can be damaged by the spread of flooding and ongoing fires, as well as further hits. It can therefore happen that a ship be right on the edge of its pump capacity at a relatively low overall damage state due to not having shipped too much water yet. But a fairly large fire is raging, which kills some crew and/or damages the propulsion a bit, and that suddenly makes flooding exceed pump capacity.

When a ship exceeds its pumping capacity, it's probably going to sink unless the propulsion gets repaired, the fire goes out, or whatever, which allows an increase in pump capacity back to safe levels. But such a ship might still show as "moderate" because it hasn't shipped significant water yet. The only place to notice this is on the ship info screen where "flooding exceeds pumping capacity" will appear in red.

Anyway, I'm guessing this is what happened to your ship. She was right at the limit of her pump capacity, then the fire took out a few more guys and/or hurt the engines a bit, and that put her over the line. But because fire damage is somewhat random, this wouldn't happen every time you restarted the game.

[crackaces]

I have noticed that a ship determined to sink, continues pouring accurate fire until about 2 minutes left and then decides to abandon ship. Is there an historic reference that a sinking ship's crew should act like the French Foreign Legion :O: ? I would think once the fate is known that crew would be thinking about survival?

I have also noted that accuracy does not increase as much as I would think at less than 5K meters. (Given the ship is not sinking :03:) At this point the guns are simply bore sighted as the danger area is rather large. Has SES looked at this?

Thanks! Great game as I cannot find players for AH Jutland...

[Bullethead]

I have noticed that a ship determined to sink, continues pouring accurate fire until about 2 minutes left and then decides to abandon ship. Is there an historic reference that a sinking ship's crew should act like the French Foreign Legion :O: ? I would think once the fate is known that crew would be thinking about survival?

There are many cases of ships going down with guns still firing, if they had any left in operation. It was probably a matter of folks not getting the word, or not realizing something was seriously wrong.

In moments of great stress, such as combat, folks tend to get tunnel vision. They fixate totally on the task at hand, such as shoveling coal, humping ammo, or aiming guns, until forcibly reminded that things are badly haywire, such as by water coming up their legs. Remember, in a ship, very few folks can see beyond the bulkheads of the compartments they are in, and only a few of those folks have any contact with other compartments. And if the ship's communications are damaged, nobody near the bow will know the stern no longer exists until the ships stands on end.

There's also the difference between what the game notes as "sinking" and what people in the ship would comprehend. The game marks ships as sinking when they've been "mathematically eliminated", as in flooding exceeding pumping beyond hope of recovery. But real captains live in eternal fear of being remembered for abaondoning their ships too quickly, and don't have anywhere near as accurate a "death clock" for their ships as the game provides. Hence, when the game says a ship will sink in 20-odd minutes, in real life the captain would still probably think he could do something to save her, and most of the rest of the crew would know they'd been hit but wouldn't have given up the ship yet.

I have also noted that accuracy does not increase as much as I would think at less than 5K meters. (Given the ship is not sinking :03:) At this point the guns are simply bore sighted as the danger area is rather large. Has SES looked at this?

The hit rates in Jutland with default accuracy were tested extensively and give the same values, over the long run, as historical data provides. Even at pretty short ranges, hit rates seldom exceeded 10% in real life combat. This of course was rather less than obtained in practice, but this is a game about combat, not practice.

BTW, I haven't properly welcomed you yet. New guy buys the drinks :()1:

[crackaces]

I have just crossed the 100 hour mark of playing SES Jutland. I am a 'veteran' of AH Jutland and TSR Cordite and Steel-- both games primarly designed for WWI ship to ship combat and Jutland having some strategic componet. However, SES Jutland IMHO combines a nice blend of strategic (What is the goal of the Navy? How should forces be distributed?); Operational considerations (Which fleet goes where and how do they get to the targets?) and Tatical (How do I position ships in the place places and maneuver to inflict the most damage while saving my ships?), 50 bucks for a 100 hours enjoyment and I am still playing is a great value! :yeah:I pay $100 to play golf or see an NHL game, and sometimes it is not as enjoyable!

More so -- this game is playable and does not require a living room or a gym floor to play!:)

Here is another big plus -- at least on my platform I have never encoutered a single crash to desktop. I beleive that is fantastic for a game that uses such complex graphics. Heck the Total War series 10 years later still has users complaining about CTD's!

I am a former geek by trade and so I am not one to assume 'X' is a bug, because I do not have the Functional Specification to say behavior 'X' is a defect, but the following software behaviors are annoying to me:

* I have observed the behavior that if ships break contact within the tatical map because of visablity (thus the visibility is far less than a 'hex') the ships are placed at the center of the hex(?) as a united task force for the next contact. The situation was that a division of a TS squadron made to to zeebrugue while the other divsion was about 20000 meters away when contact broke. A force finds the other divsion and the force at zeebrugee is teleported out. Forcing me to maneuver the forces once again for safety. I think I understand that reforming task forces after battles would be a nightmare for users, but maybe an option to "reform task force after the battle," or make that the default and have a button to "leave ships in current location"

* I still think a point should be reached where the AI abandons the guns to save the ship rather than make a last ditch stand. But at least I know the philosophy of SES and will adjust my play to assume that a sinking ship still requires attention to keep down accurate fire.

* I set area patrol for my Zep's and I have found the balloons taking a Sunday stroll over France. Let the Army use Albatros planes to patrol the front lines :O:! Maybe allow the user to select an area or enter vectors (between X to Y degrees for Z thousand meters). I like allowing a mouse select over an area to patrol.

* When I click on a ship and it zooms in -- the screen always turns toward a profile of the ship, which always involves readjusing the screen to make a change of course possible. It is very annoying :x

Ok back to fighting the war ...

[crackaces]

I realize double posting is bad etiquette but I think the battle recentering issue this is worthy of seperate attention because now its a problem.

I have a flotilla of Torpedo boats ordered to "Return to Base" and after successive battles of maneuvering back to Zeebrugee and then reenaging because another ship is in sight -- the game proceeds to teleport the forces out about 15K meters to do this again. Right now the game is stuck in a loop where as a CL and 4 destoyers sail within range realize they are outgunned by batteries and retreat. Game goes in strategic mode and then battle mode starts as a continous loop. Over and over again. :nope: I sail back toward port and wash rinse and repeat. I will try some things like keeping my ships say 1K Meters out and let the brits face my guns or something to get out of this loop.

Maybe a way to prevent this is to equate division leader in port (over that anchor) as division in port and division leader(s) in port as task force in port for stratigic purposes. Thus stop the endless loop of stratigic map to battle map.

[CCIP]

I realize double posting is bad etiquette but I think the battle recentering issue this is worthy of seperate attention because now its a problem.

I have a flotilla of Torpedo boats ordered to "Return to Base" and after successive battles of maneuvering back to Zeebrugee and then reenaging because another ship is in sight -- the game proceeds to teleport the forces out about 15K meters to do this again. Right now the game is stuck in a loop where as a CL and 4 destoyers sail within range realize they are outgunned by batteries and retreat. Game goes in strategic mode and then battle mode starts as a continous loop. Over and over again. :nope: I sail back toward port and wash rinse and repeat. I will try some things like keeping my ships say 1K Meters out and let the brits face my guns or something to get out of this loop.

Maybe a way to prevent this is to equate division leader in port (over that anchor) as division in port and division leader(s) in port as task force in port for stratigic purposes. Thus stop the endless loop of stratigic map to battle map.

Yeah, I agree, there's still a lot of oddities with "bouncing" forces right now. I hope something is eventually done with them. I think one solution would be to give one, probably larger, force the "right of way" to continue moving forward no matter what, while the other one can be repositioned relative to it. The problem right now is that both forces "bounce" back from each other after a battle. If they were on opposing courses before the battle, it indeed does cause a very silly loop - one that can sometimes cause a puny destroyer flotilla to force the whole High Seas Fleet to get stuck for many hours in a dangerous place while the Grand Fleet closes in on it...

[crackaces]

Yeah, I agree, there's still a lot of oddities with "bouncing" forces right now. I hope something is eventually done with them. I think one solution would be to give one, probably larger, force the "right of way" to continue moving forward no matter what, while the other one can be repositioned relative to it. The problem right now is that both forces "bounce" back from each other after a battle. If they were on opposing courses before the battle, it indeed does cause a very silly loop - one that can sometimes cause a puny destroyer flotilla to force the whole High Seas Fleet to get stuck for many hours in a dangerous place while the Grand Fleet closes in on it...

Oh this problem is far more complex than I thought :hmmm: So the fact that the logic recenters task forces after a battle has lots of ramifications beyond just the one I described. My thought is the option of leaving ships in place and an option of reforming the fleet but this problem seems deeper. But I do think if the battle continues to move in a direction that is the forces are not recentered unless requested, and if forces are allowed to port in tatitical mode carried over to the stratgic map .. the problem would be solved ....

[Bullethead]

* I have observed the behavior that if ships break contact within the tatical map because of visablity (thus the visibility is far less than a 'hex') the ships are placed at the center of the hex(?) as a united task force for the next contact.

This is a very complex and irksome issue for us at SES. We have ammeliorated it considerably, but it's still a problem at night in areas of high traffic and narrow water, such as the Channel. Sorry for the inconvenience. We might be able to tweak it a bit more in the future, but we'll have to see.

The underlying cause is the necessity of having granularity (call them "hexes" but they're really squares) in the campaign map. Without going into the long technical explanation, suffice to say that when the game has to set up a battle, places like the Channel at night sometimes cause it to have to fudge a bit due to the various rules for how often TFs can engage, plus all the LOS issues in heavily travelled areas. Thus, sometimes your TF isn't where you think it should be. From the POV of the player as Lord High Admiral back in port, you can rationalize this as your commander at sea not always doing what you think is best.

* I set area patrol for my Zep's and I have found the balloons taking a Sunday stroll over France. Let the Army use Albatros planes to patrol the front lines :O:! Maybe allow the user to select an area or enter vectors (between X to Y degrees for Z thousand meters). I like allowing a mouse select over an area to patrol.

You CAN set the patrol area. It goes like this:
1. Select the TF you want to do an area patrol.
2. Click on the check-mark button to close the order button flyout while keeping the TF selected.
3. Move the cursor to the point where you want the center of the patrol area to be and right-click there.
4. When the orders buttons come up again, select Area Patrol.
5. A slider for patrol radius then appears. This is in MAP "HEXES", not Kms or miles, BTW. Select the desired radius and there you go.

Once set up, an area patrol works like this. The TF will try to keep about 1/3 of its ships/zeps in the patrol area, 1/3 in tansit both coming and going, and 1/3 refitting in port, but having about 1/3 in the patrol area takes priority. The individual ships will take a direct path to the center of the patrol area, then wander around more or less randomly within it, usualy going through each "hex" in it once (fuel permitting) and only once, then go straight back home. The TF will dispatch a relief ship timed to reach the patrol area just as another ship is leaving for home, trying to keep 1/3 of its ships in the patrol area at all times.

Assuming the ships have adequate range to complete the whole patrol area, there are a few of things you should keep in mind when setting up patrols:

The larger the patrol's radius, the longer individual ships will be on station, so the less often the TF will need to dispatch relief ships, and vice versa. The further away the patrol area is from the TF's base, the longer it takes to get there, so relief ships go out more often, and vice versa. The more often relief ships need to sail, the more ships the TF needs to contain in order to keep the patrol flowing smoothly.

IOW, to keep a few ships always in the patrol area, you need to balance the transit distance, area radius, and TF size. For any give TF size, there comes a point where the patrol area is so far away, and so relatively small, that the priority given to keeping ships on station means the TF will send out all its ships in a conga line before any come back. Thus, there will be a gap in the patrol while the 1st ships sent out are refitting prior to going out again. As a player, you can overcome this by adding ships to the TF, moving it to a base closer to the patrol area, and/or tweaking the radius. If you have any patrols you think are very critical to do right, therefore, I recommend testing them in a separate campaign until you arrive at suitable parameters, then replicating them in your real compaign.

Note, however, that you can exploit this behavior to form linear patrols. Set the patrol radius to 0 or 1 and put it a fair distance away from base. Because the TF's ships essentially just go to the center point and come straight back, they have to be replaced very frequently, so you end up with a double parade of ships going and coming between the base and the patrol center point. This is quite useful for blocking straits.

[crackaces]

You CAN set the patrol area. It goes like this:
1. Select the TF you want to do an area patrol.
2. Click on the check-mark button to close the order button flyout while keeping the TF selected.
3. Move the cursor to the point where you want the center of the patrol area to be and right-click there.
4. When the orders buttons come up again, select Area Patrol.
5. A slider for patrol radius then appears. This is in MAP "HEXES", not Kms or miles, BTW. Select the desired radius and there you go.




Thanks very much for the clarification. I was assuming meters :doh: Ok I have tried this and it works quite nicely.


The underlying cause is the necessity of having granularity (call them "hexes" but they're really squares) in the campaign map. Without going into the long technical explanation, suffice to say that when the game has to set up a battle, places like the Channel at night sometimes cause it to have to fudge a bit due to the various rules for how often TFs can engage, plus all the LOS issues in heavily travelled areas. Thus, sometimes your TF isn't where you think it should be. From the POV of the player as Lord High Admiral back in port, you can rationalize this as your commander at sea not always doing what you think is best.




I believe this problem is far worse than rationalization. I would agree with you to blow it off as a commander not following orders if it happened on occasion; however, it totally affects the ability to perform a hit and run strategy near ones port. Let us send some DD's in Zeebruggee as per the Beef Run strategy ... it is inevitable that the Task force will engage ships near Zeebrugee. The strategy of a running home to port can be made impossible. I defeated 4 DD's, a TB, 5 more French DD's each time successfully making it back to port but on the forth loop I am facing 4 more DD's and some TB's and the task force teleported out once again 28 Kilometers from Zeebruggee out of ammo ... I guess I can start over and not try a Zeebruggee Strategy but that just does not seem fulfulling ...

At the very least I hope SES could allow task force division leaders that make it to the blue anchor to stratigically consider the division in port -- and not teleport those elements.

EDIT: In the meantime I had a situation where ships at rest and ships coming to port suddenly started colliding in a massive ball of yarn just because an enemy TB caused the ships at rest to be activated and teleported at the wrong time. Even before the first command could be issued 3 ships sank.

[crackaces]

I find myself having to pause the action -- even if I want to make a simple maneuver because of the two step change of course process. One thought is if a division leader is selected allow the player to use the arrow keys to move the course arrow tracking the points on the compass clockwise and counter-clockwise and assume that the orders are follow in succession. Always center the course on a compass point if the division is currently on some oddball compass direction. If anything else is desired then the two step process on the flyout is used.

Thus one could quickly order "Turn two points to port follow me" for a division very quickly -- even in real time without pausing. Heck even if the view focuses on the ship and away from the action I could still issue meaningful orders from the compass.

Just a thought ...

[raymond6751]

Hi
I searched my HD and this thread but could not find where Jutland save game files are stored. Also, I was running in fast speed and saw a unit report critical but the messages went off screen so fast that I missed it.

That started my search for the action report text log to review, no luck. Search for saved game files, no luck.

How can I get past info? Where is the campaign activity logged?