Mezentius

Apologies for the delay, just had a moment to try to test this-- unfortunately I wasn't able to reproduce your issue, and I was able to use MouseCrank with the BMP-2 ATGM without problems. Is it possible one of the critical keys was rebound on your end? My steps to fire are: 1) From the gunner's seat, F4 to switch to the ATGM optics. 2) Shift-B to unlock the ATGM sight door. 3) Use powered (normal) traverse to find the target azimuth. 4) Hit V to activate the ATGM. 5) Turn on MouseCrank (with whatever hot key you use; for me it's Caps Lock per the default). 6) Space to fire the ATGM, then use the mouse to put the ATGM on target with MouseCrank.

MouseCrank itself doesn't need admin privileges. Only the MouseCrank installer requires admin privileges because it installs into the Program Files directory and gives you an uninstaller. If you don't want that, you can use the ZIP package instead and create your own folder for it. HOWEVER: if you run Steel Beasts with admin privileges (as some do), you will need to also run MouseCrank with admin privileges, as otherwise it won't be able to send keypresses to another application with a higher privilege level. I'll add that to the main post.

Updated MouseCrank to v0.2.0. You can grab the new installer or zip file here or from the link at the top. You should have somewhat more granular control of the cranking with the mouse in this version. Also, the crank will toggle itself off automatically if you alt-tab away from the Steel Beasts window (with an audible click if you have the sounds on). I've also updated the post above with a video of MouseCrank in action.

**updated 8/21/2023** Download latest release (v0.2.0): INSTALLER or ZIP (also requires Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime 7 x64) + Steel Beasts Test Scenario for Calibration Are you a Fennek fiend? A Scimitar simp? Do you love driving tanks with hand-cranked turrets, but hate mashing arrow keys? Well, mash no more! It's MouseCrank, a free utility that uses your mouse input to generate arrow-key presses for manually-traversed turrets. Features Toggle on and off with a configurable keybind Runs in the background, minimizes to tray, and sleeps when not in use for next-to-zero performance impact User-configurable sensitivity and curve settings, saved between sessions Sounds to indicate toggle state Sends keys exclusively to the Steel Beasts application — no errant key presses! DPI-aware Free and open source! (https://github.com/musurca/MouseCrank) How do I use it? Install MouseCrank. (If you see a security warning, please refer to the Q&A section below.) Run MouseCrank, either from the Windows Start menu, or by directly running the .exe. (Note that MouseCrank also requires the .NET Desktop Runtime 7 x64, which you'll be prompted to install if you haven't done so already.) Set your Toggle Key (default is Caps Lock) and Toggle Volume. (I've set the Calibration settings to a decent default — I recommend not messing with them until you've tried them.) Minimize MouseCrank, then start Steel Beasts. Load a scenario featuring a tank with a hand-cranked turret, such as the Fennek, Warrior, Scimitar, or BMP-2. (Or use this calibration scenario.) Switch to the gunner's GPS, and tap your Toggle Key. If you kept the Toggle Volume up, you should hear a clicking sound. You can now traverse the turret by moving the mouse around the center of the screen, in the same way that you would traverse a powered turret. When you've aimed at your target, tap the Toggle Key again to stop using the mouse for traversal. You can alt-tab over to MouseCrank and adjust the Calibration more to your liking as you play. When you close MouseCrank, your settings will be saved for your next session. Q&A Q: What's the deal with the Microsoft Defender SmartScreen security warning that pops up when I install it? A: Dealing with paranoid warnings is one of the unfortunate realities of developing software for Windows without an expensive code-signing subscription. To bypass this warning, click "More Info..." and then the "Run Anyway" button (and if you don't see the "More Info..." option, this article will show you how to fix it). If you have security concerns, I've provided the full source code for you to audit, which I distribute through my account on GitHub using my real name. You can even build this app from scratch with Visual Studio 2022 if you don't want to use my installer. Q: Will MouseCrank give me an unfair advantage in PvP multiplayer? A: Not really. MouseCrank will not allow you to traverse a hand-cranked turret any faster than you could with the arrow keys, nor would that be possible given the hard limits of the physical simulation in Steel Beasts. It's a tool to reduce fatigue, increase enjoyment, and open up a class of hand-cranked tanks to users with accessibility issues. Q: Why won't MouseCrank work if I run Steel Beasts with admin privileges? A: MouseCrank can only send keypresses to applications with the same privilege level—so if you're running Steel Beast as an administrator, you'll also have to do the same for MouseCrank. To do this, right-click on MouseCrank.exe (in C:\Program Files (x86)\MouseCrank by default if you used the installer), go to Properties -> Compatibility, check "Run this program as an administrator," then click OK. Caveats, Fine Print, etc. This software is an unofficial add-on for Steel Beasts Pro PE and is not a product of eSim Games. Please do not ask eSim to provide support for MouseCrank. I'd like to avoid any discussion of whether mouse input for hand-cranked turrets is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, whether or not it should be built-in, etc etc.; there's a different forum thread for that. This thread is best used for comments, suggestions, and bug reports from MouseCrank enthusiasts and the MouseCrank-curious. Beyond that, enjoy crankin'! And please let me know if you find any weird issues, or have any suggestions for additional features. (If you're a developer and would like to contribute to the project, please feel free to make a pull request via GitHub.)

Actually, if your card doesn't support D3D9 Overlay, that's a good reason to use DXVK — one of the reasons that the library is useful (beyond the performance bump) is that it allows you to get around spotty DX9 support in newer cards. And even slightly older Nvidia drivers (within the last 4-6 months or so) should support Vulkan 1.3, which was introduced in January of last year. Your milage may vary, of course, but if you're experiencing other issues with SB and can't find a solution, it's possible that DXVK might actually solve them, so long as you're using the latest version and not the dll that was floating around the discord recently. Good luck— sounds very frustrating!

- For a brand-new gfx card, see https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases and make sure you're using the latest version (which is 2.1 currently, not the 1.10 from the first post in this thread). - Make sure you copy from the "x64" folder, and copy both d3d9.dll and dxgi.dll. (Do NOT use the dxvk.conf listed above.) - Vulkan 1.3 is required so using the latest graphics drivers is a must.

I don't mean to open a can of worms here-- this is really more of a question for my own edification. Ultimately, after "baking in" the magnification ratios of the internal optics, every sight just has some apparent field of view (FOV) that it covers, right? So is it not possible to set the render camera FOV dynamically so that it produces the correct sight FOV through a fixed overlay, based on the user's monitor resolution? In other words, if you were to make the sight picture overlay occupy the same proportion of vertical space on every monitor (say, 80%), then wouldn't it just be an issue of setting the render camera's horizontal FOV to (<screen width> * <sight FOV>) / ( 0.8 * <screen height>)? If the answer is, "yes, but we can't do this for various reasons relating to engine architecture," fine -- but was just wondering if my reasoning was correct in general, or if there are more interesting/complicated optical factors being modeled here.

Just wanted to say thanks for your train sim recommendations. I picked up Run8 v3 after your post and am having a great time with it—and I'm not even much of a train guy, aside from enjoying John McPhee's book, "Uncommon Carriers" (which might as well be the user manual for Run8, as documentation is a little bit on the sparse side).

SF is not an entirely faithful depiction of the ASL rules, I’m afraid — it deviates in certain ways, and I’m not sure the developer has thought through the implications of those choices. For example, in ASL, you can combine FP from multiple squads onto a single enemy hex as a single attack, so long as those squads are adjacent to each other (it’s called a fire group). In SF you can’t do that, so all piecemeal attacks are resolved individually and can be shrugged off as low FP attacks on the results table. I’m not sure why SF made that particular change, as it almost certainly leads to quagmire if you can’t coordinate fire on individual hexes. (And the fire group rule isn’t even bolted-on chrome from one of the optional modules—it’s literally in the ASL starter pack.) But perhaps that was an oversight and will be addressed in an update? (Full disclosure: I don’t love ASL myself—I think there are probably better tabletop rules for infantry combat these days—but if I were going to tweak the rules, I definitely wouldn’t have changed that one.)

Nah I'm the clueless one! After some tweaking, I had much better luck with dxvk-async, which is a fork of the project you linked. Saw the same huge improvement in frame rate, and now Reshade is also a lot more reliable in missions with weather. Thanks for the recommendation -- it's a literal game changer! EDIT: It's possible dxvk would work too-- however in both cases I think it may be necessary (for me, at least) to also copy the dxgi.dll into the ../Release/ directory in order for this to work. Also, if you want to try dxvk-async, which is advertised as producing much less stuttering, you'll also want to copy the attached file into your ../Release/ directory to enable it. dxvk.conf

Noticed the same thing recently in Connaugh's "Elgin Marbles" scenario. Soft targets pulling up in front of the PT-76 were completely ignored.

This unofficial CMO scenario remains the gold standard for ground combat: Defensive Operation, 3rd Regimental Combat Team (3CT) in Nayoro It proves you can do it, but you have to do so much custom scripting to fight against the game that the juice doesn't really seem worth the squeeze. At some point they may improve the ground combat modeling but unfortunately it's just not there yet.

I understand the sentiment—and I'm of course biased (full disclosure: I'm the author of the PBEM mod for Command)—but it's worth trying it out if you haven't yet. It is somewhat different from the base game in that when you play Command with the PBEM mod, you are not giving orders in real-time—you give orders in distinct phases, and watch your units play them out simultaneously, WEGO-style. It makes the game more about delegation, planning, and command delay as opposed to real-time micromanagement. (Somewhat comparable to a PvP game in the Combat Mission series, if you're familiar.) I've been working on this framework for almost a year to make sure that it's stable, reasonably easy to use, and fun to play, and it's been great to see the community picking it up and running games with it. The CMO team is of course planning their own official RT multiplayer, as far as I know, but this PBEM mod will likely remain a different experience from what they have in development. (But thank you for the link to active Harpoon 5 groups—would love to dip my toe into that at some point as well, time permitting.)

If anyone here plays Command: Modern Operations, today's the last day to sign up for the first-ever PBEM tournament! https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5098638

Got it -- thanks!