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Steel Beasts: Content Wish List


Azure Lion

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I think a playable more modern soviet/Russian MBT like the T/80/72B3 with Thermals/T72M4 CZ/T-90. basically any model t tank with a more advanced fire control and thermal imager. If it were viable the T-90 would have the advantage of being marketable to A number of its current users the Indian army seems to be on a spending spree at the Moment. LoL

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I think a playable more modern soviet/Russian MBT like the T/80/72B3 with Thermals/T72M4 CZ/T-90. basically any model t tank with a more advanced fire control and thermal imager. If it were viable the T-90 would have the advantage of being marketable to A number of its current users the Indian army seems to be on a spending spree at the Moment. LoL

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For me, it would be just about making the game look more real. Graphics would be nicer if they were up to 2015 standards. Not that graphics make a game/sim but they certainly go along way towards the realism and immersion. Weather, mud and snow that hampers movement, rocks and other obstacles would be great. Last but not least, crew members that are visible. I never really understood this. There are other tanks sims such as Steel Armor which do a very good job at all of these things and there seems to be no reason why Steel Beasts can't move along in this department.

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For me, it would be just about making the game look more real. Graphics would be nicer if they were up to 2015 standards. Not that graphics make a game/sim but they certainly go along way towards the realism and immersion. Weather, mud and snow that hampers movement, rocks and other obstacles would be great. Last but not least, crew members that are visible. I never really understood this. There are other tanks sims such as Steel Armor which do a very good job at all of these things and there seems to be no reason why Steel Beasts can't move along in this department.

Agreed.

"mud and snow that hampers movement, rocks and other obstacles would be great" most of that is already in the package :-)

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The graphics would get a boost if there were settings to push the shadows out further on a sliding scale. Let players decide what it's worth in performance. Your sceenshots will look quite different if only the shadows were rendered out further around objects and buildings (and hopefully trees some day).

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Welcome Nightstalker,

Last but not least, crew members that are visible. I never really understood this. There are other tanks sims such as Steel Armor which do a very good job at all of these things and there seems to be no reason why Steel Beasts can't move along in this department.

Firstly I'd argue that "Steel Armor" is a game not a simulation and its primary audience its quite different to Steel Beast's one.

I'm pretty sure that the majority of military customers think such "chrome" comes a distant second to simulation accuracy and the product's ability to generate training outcomes.

So unless a military customer requests crewman its probably going to be a while.

Having said that I seem to recall a figure in one vehicle model (2S1?) that might see the light of day some day.

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+1.

The purpose of Steel Beasts - and the priorities of the company - have always been misunderstood by gamers looking for a photo-realistic shoot 'em up with tanks. And probably always will be.

Sadly, the relatively basic graphics result in many potential customers rejecting it out of hand. But it's a moot point as to whether such people would be willing to put in the 'hard work' needed to get the best out of it. The old saw that 'you only get out what you put in' seems no longer to apply in these days when so many products promise instant gratification without effort. That philosophy is, of course, fundamentally flawed. Which is the cause of much of the disillusionment with modern life. :heu:

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I hear what you are saying about simulation accuracy but the more real something looks the more real the training will seem or the gaming enjoyment. I'm not in the military, I'm in Law Enforcement but I know from my years of training, the more real it seems, the more you get out of it. You know what they say, "train like you fight and fight like you train". I'm not looking for a shoot 'em up. I enjoy sims and have been enjoying them since my Intel 386 in the 80's. Cheers!

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I hear what you are saying about simulation accuracy but the more real something looks the more real the training will seem or the gaming enjoyment. I'm not in the military, I'm in Law Enforcement but I know from my years of training, the more real it seems, the more you get out of it. You know what they say, "train like you fight and fight like you train". I'm not looking for a shoot 'em up. I enjoy sims and have been enjoying them since my Intel 386 in the 80's. Cheers!

Again agreed. interesting thing that my "house" found out during a study:for male trainees better graphics had not much effect on the training effectiveness. For female trainees it inceased situatinal awarness and eased land-navigation.

Over all enjoyment and the concentration-over time factor increased for both groups. Better graphics are desireable!

But only if the graphic refinement is not hampering overall performance.

20x20km (or for mil user even bigger maps) and sometimes 200+ "agents" on the map are not to kind to any GPU/CPU.

What I woulde like to see in the graphics departement before they include 3D crew is:

A higher resolution of ground detail (down from the current 12,5x12,5 m scale).

Oh, and I'd like to see a dynamic thermal model (gun barrel only hot after the 1st round and such)

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I hear what you are saying about simulation accuracy but the more real something looks the more real the training will seem or the gaming enjoyment. I'm not in the military, I'm in Law Enforcement but I know from my years of training, the more real it seems, the more you get out of it. You know what they say, "train like you fight and fight like you train". I'm not looking for a shoot 'em up. I enjoy sims and have been enjoying them since my Intel 386 in the 80's. Cheers!

Yes that's just the point, "reality".

I want to train crewman to engage and destroy targets at over 2,000m.

At that range I don't care if you can see if the guy in the tank you are shooting at has shaved or not. :)

Your Police range with targets at 20m where people make choices between Friend and Foe is a totally different article.

Then at the next level up I want a constructive sim where one or two people can run a combat team and execute a plan, knowing that the AI will give a reasonable reflection of real life and give "realisitic" outcomes for a given plan.

Again on a X by X km map with icons, the training value of whether you can see an opposing (or friendly) crewman is non existent.

Unless you are role playing the SSM and checking that everyone shaved this morning. :)

Then there's the burden on the IT equipment.

Do we really want the engine to draw crews for everybody here (Including the dead on the knocked out vehicles):

18441519778_1d72ef018d_o.png

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Yes that's just the point, "reality".

I want to train crewman to engage and destroy targets at over 2,000m.

At that range I don't care if you can see if the guy in the tank you are shooting at has shaved or not. :)

Your Police range with targets at 20m where people make choices between Friend and Foe is a totally different article.

Then at the next level up I want a constructive sim where one or two people can run a combat team and execute a plan, knowing that the AI will give a reasonable reflection of real life and give "realisitic" outcomes for a given plan.

Again on a X by X km map with icons, the training value of whether you can see an opposing (or friendly) crewman is non existent.

Unless you are role playing the SSM and checking that everyone shaved this morning. :)

Then there's the burden on the IT equipment.

Do we really want the engine to draw crews for everybody here (Including the dead on the knocked out vehicles):

18441519778_1d72ef018d_o.png

Oh, +1, definitely. I guess there are various sorts of realism. For the likes of us, the realism/accuracy you describe above is the absolute priority. Others are apparently unable to immerse themselve in the virtual world if it isn't photo-realistic. Just a matter of choice I suppose, but I sometimes wonder if the latter attitude is simply down to a lack of imagination. But for someone who has been playing games since the days when tanks and ships were just representative blocks of pixels rather like Lego, that shouldn't be the case.

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It seems some people are too hung up on my tank crew comment and ignoring the rest of my comments on graphical upgrade. I didn't ask for less realism or for graphics to take priority. This thread was asking for a wish list. Not everyone using this software is preparing for real world combat. My son is in the military. He is not training on my home computer and neither am I. This version of the sim is never going to prepare you for real world combat. It can't, because it can't simulate how you are going to react under real combat stress.

I've only posted a couple times on this forum and I think I will go back to being an observer....lol. By the way training on my C7 doesn't usually happen in a range from 20 meters. I hear what you are saying though in regards to friend or foe from such distances. I guess my question to you is, will better graphical realism make the sim less realistic or more? The more real it looks and feels the more likely you are going to be immersed which will subconsciously cause you stress, which will create a more realistic simulation of a combat scenario. I guess we are all looking for something different in a simulation. Cheers!

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Nightstalker, we would all like better graphics. And you are right, this is a 'wish list' so you are quite entitled to state what would improve the game from your perspective. The trouble is that historically, 'complaints' about the graphics have been made by people who haven't taken the trouble to find out what SB Pro PE actually is - which is a 'cut down' version of the SB Pro military training software. It was developed so that students could use their own PCs to augment what they leart in the classroom. We are fortunate that eSim makes it available to non military personel to use for private entertainment. The military consider the graphics to be perfectly adequate for their purposes so a big upgrade that would undoubtedly bump up the price is err, unlikely.

Hope that helps explain things in more sympathetic manner. :)

Edited by Tjay
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It seems some people are too hung up on my tank crew comment and ignoring the rest of my comments on graphical upgrade. I didn't ask for less realism or for graphics to take priority. This thread was asking for a wish list. Not everyone using this software is preparing for real world combat. My son is in the military. He is not training on my home computer and neither am I. This version of the sim is never going to prepare you for real world combat. It can't, because it can't simulate how you are going to react under real combat stress.

I've only posted a couple times on this forum and I think I will go back to being an observer....lol. By the way training on my C7 doesn't usually happen in a range from 20 meters. I hear what you are saying though in regards to friend or foe from such distances. I guess my question to you is, will better graphical realism make the sim less realistic or more? The more real it looks and feels the more likely you are going to be immersed which will subconsciously cause you stress, which will create a more realistic simulation of a combat scenario. I guess we are all looking for something different in a simulation. Cheers!

Don't get frustrated. There are just some here that a more "blunt" then other. Like accusing someone of "lack of imagination" when better graphics are demanded.

That is usually no malvolence or unfirendliness of 'em...just their normal way ;-)

With that I want to invite you to stay in the forum and take part in the discussion. Every view has its value, but every view here will also get challenged. Frankly that what I like about this forum.

In my current job I have to provide technical solutions to military problems.

Very often you present the deision maker with:

Option A, which has benefit X and dowside U

Option B, which has benefit Y and downside V

They will answer you: We want an option C that has X and Y but not U and V.

Makes me laugh always :-D

As far as the graphic detail is currently, and that true for most software I know:

You can either have photo realistic graphics OR 15+ km view distance 20x20 map and 200 vehicles on the ground. So you can optimize your engine for one of these tasks and still have it running on a standart PC. Given that choice many users here will opt for performance over looks. So this is not a question about "more or less realistic"...it is more about what can be done with the current hardware in order to achieve the needed traing level. Some people here may misunderstand your desire for better graphics for a "skip on the other things and just improve the looks"...and then they get defensive. Just switch out your "give-a-fück-o-meter" on that :-P

A simulator/or training in general, will never be able to simulate fear for your life. But just before your reptile brain switches to "flight or fight" modus and all is lost anyway...there a 3 this that will still help you to act: drill, drill and drill. For that a simulator can help very much and in an economic way. Getting an AFV company out in the field to do movement and contact drills costs a shitload of money, so you want to get it right as fast as possible. A simulator can not replace field-EX or the life fire range. But you can get your crews to a level, where can skip the "try, fuck up and learn" phase and directly start with the "drill" phase.

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No worries. I don't know much about developing software so I assume, possibly falsely, that it is possible to run a simulation like this at more detailed levels without sacrificing somewhere else. It may just be much more difficult then in a flight sim such as DCS world where many objects or targets are beyond visual range. I realize the software wasn't developed for the purpose of gaming. I enjoy the sim either way so I'm not bent out of shape over it. There are other sims to scratch that itch.

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No worries. I don't know much about developing software so I assume, possibly falsely, that it is possible to run a simulation like this at more detailed levels without sacrificing somewhere else. It may just be much more difficult then in a flight sim such as DCS world where many objects or targets are beyond visual range. I realize the software wasn't developed for the purpose of gaming. I enjoy the sim either way so I'm not bent out of shape over it. There are other sims to scratch that itch.

Hi Nightstalker.

personally I am looking forward to the new engine due sometime next year

Who knows we just mite see some of the additions many have looked for

In fairness to Esim they wont promise anything they can not deliver unlike DCS

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