SB Pro PE as Wargame

[MAXMAN]

Okay, I have had SB Pro PE since the beginning but only recently have I begun to play it seriously. I am not really interested in gunning or driving, but I am interested in the closest command simulation I can get. I am very impressed so far with SB Pro PE and I don't think there is anything remotely close to it in realism, detail, and quality of immersion.

As a wargamer I have come up with a list of items that I would personally find handy to have that would make this sim more realistic and easier to use:

Infantry

- I believe infantry dies too easily. I would rather see much more suppression and morale effects applied to an infantry unit under fire than just have them killed.

- Please give us a realistic representation of Squad support weapons, SAW, M-203, etc... I don't know if these are in the game right now, but it's impossible to tell if they are.

- I would like to see infantry units commanded at the Platoon level rather than the squad, just like vehicles. Allow the player to seperate them if they need finer control.

- generally more realistic representation of infantry TTPs when under AI control would be nice to see.

General Items

- I would like to see the AI pop smoke when fired on by enemy units. Or at least give us an option for a reactions SOP.

- A hierarchical command representation would be nice... I would like to see Battalion and Regimental TOCs on map... with the ability of placing a player at each echelon for multiplayer games, with the restrictions that would enforce.

- C3 model that simulates command friction and order delays (for formation orders, not individual vehicle orders).

- Order of Battle organization with the ability to cross-attach and task organize. Not just in multiplayer but in single player as well.

- Observer mode for Pro PE. This would be great for training or for umpire oversight in multiplayer campaigns.

- Ability to add custom names to formations.

- Communications Jamming... I know I can do this with scripting.. and perhaps that is the way to do it, but I would like to see a way to have this with player control.. perhaps only at Battalion or Regimental command levels.

- the ability to lock the player into the command position of his command vehicle only... while still allowing control over the rest of his command in map view.

- Pre-scripted tasks. I would LOVE to be able to look up a task (ie. delay, withdraw, bound, etc.) and assign it to a Platoon or Company. A library that could be added to by players would be great. I see this giving the player the proper map symbol for the task, the waypoints and the scripting necessary for it... the player would then only have to drag points where needed for his situation. Sort of like loading a plan, but on a smaller level. Something like this would be a huge time saver when playing this as a command simulation.

Thanks, Bil

[enigma6584]

Excellent post. I concurr.

[Ssnake]

Most of your suggestions are on The List and will get implemented over time. Some are already in there, but not in the Personal Edition - as a distinvtzion between it and the classroom version. You wouldn't want an umpire function in SB Pro PE, it's the ultimate cheating tool. Well, at least we don't want it in there for that reason.

Friction... well, in larger multiplayer sessions (LAN/classroom version of SB Pro) it's the players that will add the friction for free. There's little need to make matters even worse if it's still supposed to be useful as a training tool. I understand where you're coming from, though. But by the time that you're in command of a company or an entire battalion for real you have probably understood the ramifications of friction and delays for your own leadership style. Well, maybe we'll add it nonetheless, as an option maybe. I have thought about some sort of a user configurable delay to reflect the differences between digitized formations with C4I systems integrated at all levels, and those "good old times" of paper maps and voice only communications, heck, even messengers.

As entertaining it is from an intellectual point of view, as a game concept long delays between order and execution suck massively. It may be an important point to bring across, but it's maddening everybody with frustration.

[TankHunter]

Reference the friction Players not understanding the commander's intent fully, not hearing orders or requests, getting jumpy or bored, etc will do that for you. MP is the way to go for that.

[Tacbat]

- I would like to see the AI pop smoke when fired on by enemy units.

I think that the "Scout" option when making a route will give that effect.

[LarryHookins]

A retreat route option will sometimes pop smoke if the unit is engaged at the time it retreats. Or it would in SB1... oops. Um, anyone know for sure in SB PE?

Larry

[HotTom]

If it's in scout, you don't need a retreat route (unless you want the vehicle to retreat to somewhere else). If engaged, it will shoot smoke grenades, go into reverse and then turn around and go back to where it came from (start point or last waypoint).

I certainly agree about the infantry. It has a long way to go until SB is ready for combined arms. Mortars would be nice, too. In fact, a whole weapons platoon.

Wargaming? It assumes players know what to do with a battalion or a brigade (or even what's in them and what's there to support them). We're talking colonels here. I wouldn't bet very many do.

A waste of a great small unit (company or platoon) sim. This sim is mostly about shooting and driving (or using terrain); fire and maneuver. Lieutenants and captains, not colonels and generals. Not much use for a TOC around here

Oh, and welcome aboard!

HT

[Captain_Colossus]

Something else-

When games started drawing in grass, bushes, and whatnot, while looking more natural and realistic, it also meant that some units and game objects while concealed at short range became easier to detect at long ranges where the program stopped rendering ground cover. In most cases, the reverse should be true.

In FPS shooters players may often accuse one another of using some visibility hack when they would never really consider in the first place that while they would presume to be hiding in tall grass, they were actually quite naked to distant units. This very artificial effect may happen in the more sparse maps in SB as well- infantry units are simply apparent to anyone's line of sight once clear of a certain distance.

[Hooker]

This sounds like a hole new program,not just a update or new patch.

[MAXMAN]

Ssnake... glad to hear that some of my list are scheduled for inclusion eventually.. any hints?

As entertaining it is from an intellectual point of view, as a game concept long delays between order and execution suck massively. It may be an important point to bring across, but it's maddening everybody with frustration.

Well, in my experience with the only game series that has realistic order delays, the Airborne Assault series (Highway to the Reich and Conquest of the Aegean) they are not maddening or frustrating at all.. they actually add to the immersion and realism and the experience is really top notch. Basing these on communications is the right way to do it... a user configurable option would be perfect... preferably if we could do it on a per-unit basis.

I'm sorry most have gotten hung up on the smoke comment... I'll try the scout option, but I'm not sure that is what I want.

The most important of my points was the pre-scripted tasks... I'm disappointed that nobody has picked up on that.

HotTom said:

Wargaming? It assumes players know what to do with a battalion or a brigade (or even what's in them and what's there to support them). We're talking colonels here. I wouldn't bet very many do.

A waste of a great small unit (company or platoon) sim. This sim is mostly about shooting and driving (or using terrain); fire and maneuver. Lieutenants and captains, not colonels and generals. Not much use for a TOC around here

Well, not everybody plays it the way you do... I am not as interested in driving as you are obviously (not even interested in playing with guys that play the game like that)... yet I am having a great time using the game as a Command sim. Right now it works great up to Company level, but I would like to see it be easy up to Battalion. So yes, IMO there is a use for a TOC in SB Pro PE.

I remember reading somewhere... can't recall where, Ssnake saying that he wanted to cater more to wargamers in the future... well, here I am, and I have a fair database of friends, mostly professional military or tactics instructors (C&GSC for example) that are also interested in using the game as a command sim. I'm not asking for the game to be changed.. only to be added to in certain areas to make it a more approachable command sim.

I think it's an untapped market. The ability to give plans in a realistic manner and then to be able to drop down to the 3D view to watch it unfold is unmatched anywhere else.

Sorry for the rant.

Best,

Bil

[MAXMAN]

You wouldn't want an umpire function in SB Pro PE, it's the ultimate cheating tool. Well, at least we don't want it in there for that reason.

Ssnake, okay, Umpire isn't the word I used .. more of an observer is what I would like to see. No frills, just someone who can oversee both sides of a multiplayer scenario without having any influence on it.

Bil

[LarryHookins]

I'm sorry most have gotten hung up on the smoke comment... I'll try the scout option, but I'm not sure that is what I want.

I just checked it in a couple of scenarios in SB Pro PE. A unit sitting in a defensive position (not dug in) with a conditional retreat command will usually pop smoke when the retreat command is executed if that unit is engaged at the time of the retreat.

The CV9040 Introduction scenario in the tutorials for that vehicle shows this happening.

Hook

[Grenny]

Infantry

- I believe infantry dies too easily. I would rather see much more suppression and morale effects applied to an infantry unit under fire than just have them killed.

- Please give us a realistic representation of Squad support weapons, SAW, M-203, etc... I don't know if these are in the game right now, but it's impossible to tell if they are.

- I would like to see infantry units commanded at the Platoon level rather than the squad, just like vehicles. Allow the player to seperate them if they need finer control.

- generally more realistic representation of infantry TTPs when under AI control would be nice to see.

Thanks, Bil

Just my 2 cents:

-Nope...I don't think the die too easily. They are just spotted to easily.Then the standart drill for Inf if a 120 HE lands in the middle of your squad is to catch as many shrapnel as you can and drop dead to the ground :-P

-SAW (you can switch to 5.56mm MG in the sce editor by the way)and M-203 may be standart(and therefor realistic) for US squads but for many other armies (i.e. SB customers) they are not. But I agree that in many situations(f.e. squad on squad) in this SIM you would love to have some sort of indirekt fire weapon

-to have Inf platoons would be nice indeed. But I guess if would be a bitch to programm an at least decent platoon behavior! Hell, I needed at least 2 years of training to work a platoon...how will the make the AI do it ;-)

...and that goes for the last point too

[Ghost]

Well if you like to use SB as a command sim i guess it's ok, I mean it's your game, but this is not a command sim, it's an armor sim, so i don't see where you comming from on the feature requests? I mean there are enough point and click games that do the stuff your requesting much better than SB ever will. Which actually makes me think what made you pay the 125$ in the first place. if it was for the ability to roam around in 3d view watching what happens, then u really did waste your money since the "free 3d view" is restricted to the Pro version only and most likely we will never see it in this version.

Jeez so much stuff that really needs to be fixed or added...

[Ssnake]

... but this is not a command sim, it's an armor sim

It was designed for tactical instruction and gaming, and we chose armor to start with because it was easiest to implement given the level of detail that we had in mind. There is absolutely not inherent contradiction between a chosen play style of a wargame and Steel Beasts' design.

Of course, it's a vehicle centric simulation and as such armored and mechanized units are in the focus. But I also think that it is quite obvious from the features that got added over the past year or two that tanks aren't our exclusive area of interest.

I mean there are enough point and click games that do the stuff your requesting much better than SB ever will.

Interesting. Name some examples, please, which are realistic, with contemporary equipment, and real-time, at tactical scales up to battalion, and with corresponding map dimensions.

Jeez so much stuff that really needs to be fixed or added...

Exactly.

[Ghost]

Ok i stand corrected, you can discard my earlier grumpy post with premature conclusions of what i think i have installed on my PC. I will instead ask a grumpy question :debile2:

In what aspect is SB a command sim at Battalion level except for the fancy map icons, I mean we all know that the so called "AI" doesn't do anything you tell it and it has a strange fetish for water and larger formations of rocks or pebbles. It's not that i don't believe or disagree with you, I just don't get it.

[Ssnake]

Well, of course the results vary with the degree by which the terrain suits the intended form of maneuver. And I also concede that, for a single player game, the battalion scale isn't really manageable in SB Pro, you'd rather need a network environment with several players in a cooperative mode.

But there are several aspects that SB Pro offers which aren't easily found anywhere else - the map sizes of 20x20km² (even more in the classroom version), the practical limit of more than 1,000 actors per side, contemporary equipment, NATO STANAG compliant symbology, reasonably accurate modelling of weapon ranges and effects, the detailed AAR (both action playback as well as the HTML spreadsheet with the logistical footprint breakdown and the event list).

All these are elements that appeal quite a lot to those who want a command post exercise "event generator". And on top of it, 3D visualization.

It's a question of perspective - whether your personal interest is at vehicle/platoon/action level, or at battalion/operational level. The beauty of SB Pro is, it's flexible enough to support both. Needless to say that there's always room for improvement.

[MAXMAN]

You said it better than I could Ssnake. What has sold me on this game as a Command Sim were the planning tools, the huge maps, the attention to detail, the huge amount of available units, the AAR mode, and especially the co-op multiplayer.

Being able to drop down to 3D and watch the action unfold is not necessary but is a terrific bonus IMO. I would however say that at Company and Platoon command levels that it is necessary.

Bil

[CL_Gazú]

Hi, MAXMAN your not wrong, in our Unit we use SB Pro like a wargame to trainning Military Making-Decision Process and Section Commander Planning.

Each course has access to one PC. Students must develop their planning process on a real-life map so as to then enter their planning on the computer.

But we don´t use PE version.

Rodrigo

[MAXMAN]

we use SB Pro like a wargame to trainning Military Making-Decision Process and Section Commander Planning.

I'm not surprised... what else is there that allows you to do what this sim does?

I'm only surprised the US Army (or at least the professionals in the Officer Corps) hasn't bought SB Pro PE by the truck load. Wish it had been available when I was in.

But we don´t use PE version.

Rodrigo, time to upgrade. There is no comparison between versions IMO, the engineer tools alone are worth the price.

Bil

[IrishHussar]

Hey Maxman

nice subject you are talking about. The other Sims out there that the millitary use for Higher formation training are ABACUS, BC2T, URBAT, JANUS, JCATs amoungst a few. I do realise they do not offer the detail that SB Pro PE does however in return SB Pro PE falls down on a few G4 reporting issues.

The reason I'm up to speed on this is that I am employed to field one of these sims.

Irish

[tarball]

Wargaming? It assumes players know what to do with a battalion or a brigade (or even what's in them and what's there to support them). We're talking colonels here. I wouldn't bet very many do.

Oh, and welcome aboard!

HT

There might be some quibble over terms here, but I've wargamed many a time with steel beasts and value the sim for its ability to let me scoot and shoot AND be the battalion commander.

The beauty of a simulator is that I can play as a Lt. Colonel even if I am not a Lt. Colonel. I can "game" things over and over and learn that way. Certainly the simulacrum doth not equate to reality, but our ability to transcend reality with a model offers some opportunities to learn.

Sure, I don't "know" what to do with a battalion in reality, but I can learn how to move these digital units around and, depending on the mission design and the AI, I can develop strategies from that experience.

Furthermore, one option with the game is something I coined "Head to Red" a year or so ago:

In a MP game, one guy goes to RED and uses all uncrewable Warsaw Pact stuff, while the remaining 7+ people (depending on whether Sean is hosting) play the crewable BLUE stuff. That is also an education and certainly "wargaming" in a sense.

[tarball]

But there are several aspects that SB Pro offers which aren't easily found anywhere else - the map sizes of 20x20km² (even more in the classroom version)

I thought we had 80x80km^2?

[MAXMAN]

Hey Maxman

nice subject you are talking about. The other Sims out there that the millitary use for Higher formation training are ABACUS, BC2T, URBAT, JANUS, JCATs amoungst a few.

I have been out since 1992 and at that time there was nothing available for the individual soldier. Can any of these be loaded on a PC and used off line by the soldier? Also what are the price points for these games in comparison to what you get in SB Pro PE at $125?

I do realise they do not offer the detail that SB Pro PE does however in return SB Pro PE falls down on a few G4 reporting issues.

Always room for improvement eh?

Bil

[Kingtiger]

For us retarted, what does G4 stands for?