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What year is it? Why is Pro PE going back in time and how far?


dpabrams

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Forgive me if I ask or pose stupid questions or make moot points. I have not played Pro PE for 3 years and recently the 2.538 upgrade brought me back with a vengeance. I have been busy playing, doing mods, hanging out at Stealbeasts.com and kicking myself for shelving this awesome sim for 3 years. The question is what direction is the sim going, way back, forwards or both?

• With the addition of the M60A3 and M1A0, the answer would seem to be back to the mid 80’s.

• Throw in a Challenger 2 and we have the mid to late 90’s.

• Add the Pizarro and a few other very new systems and we have now.

I have always been under the impression that what we get in Pro PE are the weapons systems of Sim’s that are built and customized to various military’s needs. It seems odd that older systems like the M60A3 and M1A0 would make it into the sim if in fact this is the case. Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer the old days of the 1980’s but why would older tanks be appealing to simming in the military today?

Or are the weapons systems just placed into the sim because they are finished models and cover a greater span of time, possibly creating more customers? Or is it a combination of all the above. Maybe this has been asked and answered and I am sorry if I wasted your time. I just have no idea what to expect from a sim I have paid over $150.00 bucks for. Granted I am totally happy with Pro PE and am happy to pay for more upgrades if they appeal to me.

Pete

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The answer is that the people working on SB love and respect tanks/AFVs of all types, nationalities and time periods. The goal isn't a time period at all, it is just to represent every AFV ever made. Whether or not this happens or whether it is even a realistic goal or not is up to time, practicality, and logistics. The non-military requests that you mention (M1 and M60) are done out of the interest of the team members when there is spare time - they are labors of love.

I can see where this might be going. There seems to be a train of thought that paying for an update means that someone can demand what vehicle is added to the next update, because X number of dollars were spent, therefore some solicitations must be accepted. Well, it is more correct to think of it this way: if someone is not interested in the "extras" offered in a particular update then they should wait for an update they are interested in. But other than that, people throwing out a request in a post doesn't exactly help since everyone has their own interests. Polls in the community might help show interest in one thing or another, but the problem there is that the creator of the poll usually loads it up with things they want to see put in so polls are usually not helpful either.

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• Throw in a Challenger 2 and we have the mid to late 90’s.

Pete

I think that should really read:

"Throw in a Challenger 2 and we have the mid to late 90’s until now."

Personally I don't know of a military client (from the public list of who uses SB Pro) who currently have M60.

However it does give people the option to expand the timeframe for engagements to cover from the 1970s (M60 and M113 Vs T-55, T-62, BTR60 and BMP-1) until pretty much now.

This combined with the fact that most but not all of their development efforts are driven by military customers suggests that a few of the vehicles included in the latest update are driven by that "not all" portion of their development efforts.

It also helps with current military users who want to simulate stuff "peace support operations" in countries that do have these older AFVs (e.g. Somalia, Thailand, etc.) or even in current Ops in places like Afghanistan (who I think have some ex Greek vehicles).

Most of the vehicle models driven by military requirements tend to be the "crewable" ones).

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The answer is that the people working on SB love and respect tanks/AFVs of all types........ The non-military requests that you mention (M1 and M60) are done out of the interest of the team members when there is spare time - they are labors of love.

That speaks volumes, I understand.

There seems to be a belief that paying for an update means that someone can request what vehicle is added to the next update, because XXX number of dollars were spent.

Oh, I know better than that.

people throwing out a request in a post doesn't exactly help since everyone has their own interests.

Requests are a pain. Judging from what has come out recently someone on the team is interested in the same things I am.

Thanks

Pete

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In a perfect world we could systematically add vehicles by region and time period. Being in the world in which we are and having to work under business constraints, this represents what we can do. Our army customers neither asked explicitly for the M60 nor for T-55 or T-62, or the Challenger 2. They were made for PE users to allow for an expasion of scope and variety of scenarios.

On the other hand, military requests brought you deep snow, to give you an example of items that are of general use for everybody, so it's not just contemporary AFVs that represent the army side of our business.

Speaking in military terms, we are fighting on multiple fronts.

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While it is probably unrealistic to expect the M60 or T-55 appearing in a future West-Russia conflict :), these tanks can still be found on not rare occasions in the third world, African and Asian theatres. Seen that way, they are a nice enhancement as opponents for scenarios taking place in such locations.

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While it is probably unrealistic to expect the M60 or T-55 appearing in a future West-Russia conflict :), these tanks can still be found on not rare occasions in the third world, African and Asian theatres. Seen that way, they are a nice enhancement as opponents for scenarios taking place in such locations.

Which is why I said above:

It also helps with current military users who want to simulate stuff "peace support operations" in countries that do have these older AFVs (e.g. Somalia, Thailand, etc.) or even in current Ops in places like Afghanistan (who I think have some ex Greek vehicles).

:)

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While it is probably unrealistic to expect the M60 or T-55 appearing in a future West-Russia conflict :), these tanks can still be found on not rare occasions in the third world, African and Asian theatres. Seen that way, they are a nice enhancement as opponents for scenarios taking place in such locations.

I dare to says that you will see those two types more frequently in today's news bulletins than a Leopard 2...

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Still, no army ever wanted to spend even the paltry sum for any of these external vehicle models, not even for the T-55 with arguably the widest proliferation both in regional spread and sheer numbers. Just sayin'...

I get it. Adding the old gear added a huge dimension to Pro PE. It was believed that around 87 the Soviets had:

T-54/55- 38% of inventory

T62- 24% of inventory

T64- 18% of inventory

T72-16% of inventory

T80- 10%

Pete

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Still, no army ever wanted to spend even the paltry sum for any of these external vehicle models, not even for the T-55 with arguably the widest proliferation both in regional spread and sheer numbers. Just sayin'...

The logic of Military procurement... :)

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I'm not complaining. The salient point is that we need development capacity in excess of pure customer demands so we can still remain in control over the general direction of Steel Beasts' development, and we have that now, if only by a little margin. But it shows again that even with little means one can make a significant differences in selected areas.

:)

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Maybe, but the brits, having a history of extreme carefulness in classifing stuff, are likely to veto any apearance of Chally 2 interior in the PE version...

Why? They allready made a 360 view walkaround of the CR2 interior.

http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/fighting-vehicles/1475.aspx#

Only soldiers still are very... resilent about showing more detailed photos.

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  • 4 weeks later...
I get it. Adding the old gear added a huge dimension to Pro PE. It was believed that around 87 the Soviets had:

T-54/55- 38% of inventory

T62- 24% of inventory

T64- 18% of inventory

T72-16% of inventory

T80- 10%

Pete

Which makes it interesting that so Many SB Pro PE engagements/scenarios pit players against AI with only 26% of expected inventory. Futhermore, since so much of our exercise is with Blue on Blue equipment, you'd think that the more skilled SB Pro PE guys would actually be pretty sharp vis-a-vis RW expected engagements (for the time period that is).

Perhaps even more interesting is how the in-game armor stacks up as percentages of MBT inventory world-wide according to this source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_main_battle_tanks_by_country

Which I acknowledge is far from authoritative, but serves as something to get a ballpark figure from.

Some liberties I've taken

  • No distinction between subtypes of M1 (I've assumed all M1A1)
  • No distinction between Subtypes of T-72, T-62, T-55 and the like
  • No distinction between Challenger 1 and 2
  • Not entirely distinguishing between the Leo 2 subtypes for Germany
  • Making every M60 and A3 type

MBT-Percentages.png

Edited by tarball
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Which makes it interesting that so Many SB Pro PE engagements/scenarios pit players against AI with only 26% of expected inventory. Futhermore, since so much of our exercise is with Blue on Blue equipment, you'd think that the more skilled SB Pro PE guys would actually be pretty sharp vis-a-vis RW expected engagements (for the time period that is).

Perhaps even more interesting is how the in-game armor stacks up as percentages of MBT inventory world-wide according to this source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_main_battle_tanks_by_country

Which I acknowledge is far from authoritative, but serves as something to get a ballpark figure from.

Some liberties I've taken

  • No distinction between subtypes of M1 (I've assumed all M1A1)
  • No distinction between Subtypes of T-72, T-62, T-55 and the like
  • No distinction between Challenger 1 and 2
  • Not entirely distinguishing between the Leo 2 subtypes for Germany
  • Making every M60 and A3 type

MBT-Percentages.png

You forgot the 700 Leclercs :)

Did you also count export or copy versions like the Type59 from China? (5000 of those things)

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You forgot the 700 Leclercs :)

Did you also count export or copy versions like the Type59 from China? (5000 of those things)

He did say "Perhaps even more interesting is how the in-game armor stacks up as percentages of MBT inventory world-wide according to this source:" which I read to mean just the tanks in SB not every tank in the world.

Mog

Edited by Mogwa
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