Fantastic game.......

[koolman547]

Just got pro pe for x-mas and have not been able to tear myself away! Whata sim! I would really like to find some resources for a reaaaaaaalll newbie as everything in links seems geared toward people who have extensive knowledge of armored warfare doctrine. For example, how do you deal with tanks in defilade...or prepared positions...i'm getting my ass waxed by these guys...also positioning different types of forces for a deliberate assualt or defense.Dont play multi...just offline. I'm not gonna embarass myself..lol.And one more thing...when I download missions...they are all of file types i cannot open....any answers?But...I really think this is the best sim I've ever played...nice job e-sim!

[Jester_UK]

Practice and read.

If you look at the ESim\ Steel Beasts shortcut in your start menu, you'll find a link to the documents folder. apart from PDF versions of the manual, you'll find some declassified US field manuals that are very interesting reading. If you've updated to the latest version, you'll also find very comprehensive manuals for the CV90's and STRV 122.

Take your time going through the tutorials (Personally I'd strongly recommend getting to know one vehicle at a time really well rather than trying to learn them all. That's just me though, if you're better at multi-tasking than I am you may be able to handle more than one at a time!).

Then once you know the basic controls take some time on the tank range to practice your gunnery (which has the added advantage that AFAIK, as your gunnery rating improves, the rating of your AI gunner in scenarios also improves..... big help if you decide to play a scenario purely from the TC seat for example).

Then read an practice some more. There's a fairly steep learning curve, not only in getting used to the weapons and control systems, but also in how to make use of the terrain etc.

Finally, don't be slow to go online once you've mastered the basics to your satisfaction. I know the idea of going online in a tank sim with quite a few serving or ex tankers out there is daunting (the idea scares the crap outta me I can tell you!!), but you'll without doubt learn quicker online than you will offline. I'm itching to get online, but unfortunately technical problems with my connection are keeping me away from the online scene at the moment.

No idea why you can't open missions. They're usually compressed with either WinZip or WinRAR. If they're ZIP files then the built in file compression tool in XP should be able to open them. If they're RAR'ed you need an unpacker application. There's a couple out there that can do it (WinRAR, itself of course, 7z is another good one, but unfortunately I haven't got links available for them at the moment. Hopefully someone else will be able to help you out there).

Once you got the necessary unpacker, simply decompress them into the My Documents\Esim\Steel Beasts\MyScenarios folder and tehy should show up in the offline session option in game (and unless they scenario you download is passowrd protected, you'll also be able to open them with the mission editor and get a feel for how the AI routing etc is put together if you're interested in mission building yourself).

Hope all this helps.

[Elf`]

Armor warfare has ONE overriding rule: DUCK. Remember that and you will have time to learn the more intricate stuff, like using ground relief, not a hill, but a barely a bump, to hide you. Good Luck and Happy Hunting.

Elf