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Comming upgrade thread


oscar19681

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I wonder when we will get some preview screenshots for the upgrade Its only 3 months till santa comes!

I was planning to do that from late October on, with about one or two weekly installments. The planned release is around December 6th or so, depending on how quickly the new DVDs and manual get produced.

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Just to keep the conversation rolling here is my 7 cents worth:

1, Surprised I am not seeing more people talking about universal transport? The ability to use Helos and empty vehicles to load troops of a random nature, including weapon teams. This would dramatically improve the tactical possibilities and options.

2, I would also add the ability to move supplies by air.

3, Physical/modeled static supplies that can be loaded and moved within the above concept. Allowing greater use of CSS assets, fuel and ammo static dumps for defensive potions, forward basing etc. objects loaded perhaps in a similar way vehicles are hitched and unhitched perhaps?

4, Night fighting, something not yet implemented, what we have is not at all realistic and not really useful. I don’t use it at the moment as it makes little sense, unless you are into historic scenarios I guess. This is all about lighting I guess.

5, Infantry formations? Even if its just the ability to move into line or column would dramatically increase our ability to use terrain effectively and maneuver in built up areas.

6, Engineering assets capable of interacting with the environment in real time/in game. Creating a fortification (a hole) or creating a barrier/cover (a bank). Also we don’t have the ability to cross most water obstacles one finds on maps today. E.g if given engineering assets could be given a breach command next to a large river and after a certain time a span will appear?

7, Visual effects that enhanced immersion, tracer, round impacts and damage modeling. Those few alone would add a lot I think, but yes there are the obvious shadows and suspension to boot. But infantry and effects are lagging behind we are still using SB1 graphics so its becoming very lopsided. The new infantry graphics is well overdue and I am overjoyed we are getting there!

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6, Engineering assets capable of interacting with the environment in real time/in game. Creating a fortification (a hole) or creating a barrier/cover (a bank). Also we don’t have the ability to cross most water obstacles one finds on maps today. E.g if given engineering assets could be given a breach command next to a large river and after a certain time a span will appear?

I guess that's a function of scenario length as well.

Even with armoured Engr assets, building berms, etc takes a bit of time (and ideally several bounds behind the shooting).

As for bridging, if you want to bridge something beyond the span of an AVLB then you are starting to talk about line of communication type bridging or ferries, etc. and while the ferries and some bridging is quick, most of it takes a while and uses assets normally held well to the rear.

And again these guys tend not to do their best work under fire and bridging assets tend to be very high up on people's HVT lists.

With the larger SB Pro maps you could have an engagement at one end of the map and bridging happening a few km behind it but then you'd probably have player morale issues because one guy is doing the "boring" bit while his colleagues are involved in the "fun" shoot em up part.

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Speaking as an avid single player, (not everyone has unlimited or even stable internet connections yet) I find the custom game scenarios naturally grow in complexity and scale. I have run a game for 25hrs (that’s real time) christ we need a save game option!, I guess some of us get off on the details, in those lines of communications, it feels like war when you are exhorted with the details, when you feel like you can hardly follow what is going on! You will naturally add a little more, to go a little further, it just evolves and our hardware is also evolving allowing us to try adding another company plus etc. There are already elements that work on such timeframes already implemented regarding ammo fuel and the ability to recover and repair damaged vehicles. Most games would not run long enough to benefit from these assets. Depth makes the gaming side very interesting and sets it apart but I understand it would have little training benefits and as such its low priority. However, having such bewildering options and capabilities might make a difference in the phycology of customers pro or private.

There are great maps out there with limited use due to the fact…I don’t have the assets to cross that water?!

...and OPFOR ENG modles, my Red commanders get pissed at me when they have to use M113's

Edited by cata
note!
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Then with all these incredible features and expanding abilities, there is the question of putting it all together. I spend more time map making than playing. Again, it might just be me and the way I use SB Pro but as we build more content we need better ways to implement it. You have to be autistic in nature if you want to build good urban environments today, its mind numbingly tedious. But...i still do it!!

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Is that a new, updated manual or a re print of the current one?

It's in the process of being updated, so it'll be the Third, Revised Edition. We commissioned the update work, but found that it required a lot of heavy editing unfortunately.

Guess where the buck just stopped. ;)

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It's in the process of being updated, so it'll be the Third, Revised Edition. We commissioned the update work, but found that it required a lot of heavy editing unfortunately.

Guess where the buck just stopped. ;)

OK so that's:

1 x Upgrade

8 x Secondary licence upgrades

1 x Printed manual.

Should be room for that in the Christmas budget. :)

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Just to keep the conversation rolling here is my 7 cents worth:

1, Surprised I am not seeing more people talking about universal transport? The ability to use Helos and empty vehicles to load troops of a random nature, including weapon teams. This would dramatically improve the tactical possibilities and options.

2, I would also add the ability to move supplies by air.

3, Physical/modeled static supplies that can be loaded and moved within the above concept. Allowing greater use of CSS assets, fuel and ammo static dumps for defensive potions, forward basing etc. objects loaded perhaps in a similar way vehicles are hitched and unhitched perhaps?

4, Night fighting, something not yet implemented, what we have is not at all realistic and not really useful. I dont use it at the moment as it makes little sense, unless you are into historic scenarios I guess. This is all about lighting I guess.

5, Infantry formations? Even if its just the ability to move into line or column would dramatically increase our ability to use terrain effectively and maneuver in built up areas.

6, Engineering assets capable of interacting with the environment in real time/in game. Creating a fortification (a hole) or creating a barrier/cover (a bank). Also we dont have the ability to cross most water obstacles one finds on maps today. E.g if given engineering assets could be given a breach command next to a large river and after a certain time a span will appear?

7, Visual effects that enhanced immersion, tracer, round impacts and damage modeling. Those few alone would add a lot I think, but yes there are the obvious shadows and suspension to boot. But infantry and effects are lagging behind we are still using SB1 graphics so its becoming very lopsided. The new infantry graphics is well overdue and I am overjoyed we are getting there!

well said i totally agree but if you dont mind i like to add another point.

9, Weather is something i like to see implemented , one would think that the militairy customers would have requested it a long time ago. Sure some might say tanks are barely affected by weather because they have thermals and such. But if it would be dynamic and tied in with behavure of the terrain it could add in interesting factor to SBP. For example if there is heavy rain tanks could have difficulty manauvering and wheeled vehicles get bogged down and such and towing vehicles out of the mud could more interessting.

Edited by oscar19681
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If I had the time, I'd like to do a set of burned out textures- if only the destroyed folder could be implemented, or a system which shows the burned out texture over time. Here is the beginning of what I'm trying to do with the T-55. The potential is there for Steel Beasts to look even better- which I realize is low priority, but in some cases even looks are functional for purposes of identifying units or orientation.

SS_21_24_35.jpg

SS_21_24_22.jpg

SS_21_24_06.jpg

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I was planning to do that from late October on, with about one or two weekly installments. The planned release is around December 6th or so, depending on how quickly the new DVDs and manual get produced.

December 6th, sounds like a birthday present :biggrin:

Can't wait to see (and shoot) the new goodies.

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urning vehicles too would telegraph their positions better, sometimes you could miss them unless they were within a few meters:

At the same time though, in RL not all K-kills result in massive burns or turrets flying through the air. Sometimes the thing just sits there, immobile, taking hit after hit, the crew long dead, with no obvious way to tell from the outside that it isn't fully functioning and still a threat.

Personally, my wishlist is more about the back end. I'd like to see way more conditions and triggers that can be used as part of AI logic to script events. I'd like to have a way to do a non-destructive "spot" (put the crosshairs on a unit, press a key, game engine fires a non-destructive, non-ballistic "bullet" that if it encounters a unit, registers that unit as "spotted" and plots it on the map) I'd like to have a "camouflaged" status that represents a unit trying very hard not to be seen (cam net up, covered in brush) that makes it much harder to spot (and takes a while to establish to prevent gamey-ness) so OPs and hides can be properly simulated. (Right now, OPs are tough to simulate because the AI will spot even sights-up vehicles almost immediately)

I really do not care about eye candy. I care about tactical fidelity.

DG

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I'd like to have a way to do a non-destructive "spot" (put the crosshairs on a unit, press a key, game engine fires a non-destructive, non-ballistic "bullet" that if it encounters a unit, registers that unit as "spotted" and plots it on the map)

Hold the shift and laser key, move the blinking red star on the target, release the laser key.

Ta-daa!

:)

(It's been here since, uh, 2005, I think)

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Needless to say that it'd be tempting to comment on many of the suggestions in this thread, but as I will start to reveal the news in about four weeks anyway, I guess I can just wait a little longer.

:)

You can. Meanwhile, I'm inclined to inquire how many (more) pages the revised manual will be. Yes, this is an unimaginitive attempt to find out if there will be new versions or addition of featured and playable vehicles.

Looking forward to your reply and looking forward to the upgrade!

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At the same time though, in RL not all K-kills result in massive burns or turrets flying through the air. Sometimes the thing just sits there, immobile, taking hit after hit, the crew long dead, with no obvious way to tell from the outside that it isn't fully functioning and still a threat.

Personally, my wishlist is more about the back end. I'd like to see way more conditions and triggers that can be used as part of AI logic to script events. I'd like to have a way to do a non-destructive "spot" (put the crosshairs on a unit, press a key, game engine fires a non-destructive, non-ballistic "bullet" that if it encounters a unit, registers that unit as "spotted" and plots it on the map) I'd like to have a "camouflaged" status that represents a unit trying very hard not to be seen (cam net up, covered in brush) that makes it much harder to spot (and takes a while to establish to prevent gamey-ness) so OPs and hides can be properly simulated. (Right now, OPs are tough to simulate because the AI will spot even sights-up vehicles almost immediately)

I really do not care about eye candy. I care about tactical fidelity.

DG

I'm not talking about those instances- I'm talking about when the vehicle is seriously burning, doesn't that appear to be the case?

It's not all mere eye candy. If everything boils down to that, then you shouldn't have too much problem playing around with vector graphics or basic triangle shapes in single, flat colors like moving around.

In some cases though, it should be possible to orient oneself based on visual cues- sorry if I don't agree that it's all mere eye candy, but there it is. Some visual cues are too subtle in my opinion- and that does change the tactical picture. For instance, a burning town could really obscure visibilty more than it does now.

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