SB2 officially announced

[Skybird]

http://www.esimgames.com/steel_beasts_2.htm

Not much new info, and no release date, but now it is official that they are working on it.

[NeonSamurai]

Yep only thing of note is this one will be aimed at gamers/entertainment instead of the military, which likely meens a bit more gamey (and more polished in some area's) play, standard pricing, and no usb dongle.


Steel Beasts 2 Target audience: Consumers
Intended use: Entertainment.

The sequel to 2000's Best Simulation Game is in the works!

[Skybird]

They indicated at earlier occasions that for example SB2-improvements in the visual field will be carried over to SBP-Pro sooner or later, too.

Certain aspects that are more interesting for military professionals and are adding complexity the gamers-audience does not need or like, will be left out.

Both titles were described to be - probably - incompatible with regard to online playing, and mission designing.

I think the hardcore guys will stick with SBP-Pro for online play. This does not mean that there cannot emerge a strong SB2-community, too.

Judging by the developement timetable of SBP Pro and the many delays, I do not expect SB2 before second half of 2008. Wouldn't be surprised if it becomes even 2009. But that is just me and my own believing.

P.S. I wouldn't rule out the dongle this early - it worked well with SBP Pro, and is a very reasonable solution that has found wide acceptance in the community. Better than getting some intrusive software installed on your HD.

[HunterICX]

Still seems to me it could be a good sim
but I would like to see if they would keep it opcional to choose between Simple management of the tank and Complex (military) in a sort of dificulty setup of the game.

the good thing about it is.
people that just start playing the game will easily learn the game and what the tank does.
if they want more challenging and more control over the tank they can switch to Complex management to enjoy the game even more

just my 2cts
HunterICX

[Skybird]

Still seems to me it could be a good sim
but I would like to see if they would keep it opcional to choose between Simple management of the tank and Complex (military) in a sort of dificulty setup of the game.

the good thing about it is.
people that just start playing the game will easily learn the game and what the tank does.
if they want more challenging and more control over the tank they can switch to Complex management to enjoy the game even more

just my 2cts
HunterICX
But is tank handling as it is right now really that difficult...? ;)

Chances are they will simplify things that right now are a bit more complex than is needed for the game market, for example the procedures to call in artillery (which is planned to be turned into an even more realistic and thus: complex one in the future). I could imagine they will have shadows, better infantry animations (maybe polygon-people), bigger smoke fans, better graphic FX in general, maybe functional weather, "über"-night vision screens (like oyu had with SB1), etc.

I considered some of these things (weather, changing time of day, shadows) to be important. However, after getting into SBPro-testing, I immediately forgot all these factors I would have loved to see before. SBP makes you forget that these things are not there very quickly.

I also hope they resist the pressure to include a dynamic campaign. SBP lives very much from good and mean mission designs and clever tactics - and these efforts cannot be succesfully conducted by an AI. What we do not need is a clueless massing of enemy troops like we used to have with M1TP2 (not that I did not enjoy it in it's time...)

[HunterICX]

I've driven a Tank in a very old sim
if I,m right that where the windos 98 Days with in those day state of the art 3D effects.

just browsed tanksim.com and found the name
M1 Tank Platoon 2

it took me a while before I could manage to prevent my tank coliding against things.

I find SBP very pricey, and couldnt find it in any of the local shops here. So I never played it, it looks very nice from what I can see in the screenshot thread. and maybe its something for in the future when I got more free time to get thinks straighten out.

about tanks, I just like to be a big bully on a battlefield :up:

[Konovalov]

I will go for this because I just don't have the time to invest in a sim such as SBP. At least we now know that it is definately coming but as Sky said apart from that nothing new. Hopefully it will be out some time next year. The last tank sim/game I played and own is M1 Tank PLatoon II.

[ReM]

a release date will not be announced before the work on SB Pro PE has been finished

When will that be.....SBPPE is still very much a work in progress.

They will probably need to put some more eye candy in it to satisfy the hordes. Not that SBPPE looks bad, but it looks ...basic.

Looks like buying SBPPE was a good investment, the sequel to SB looks to be years away!

[Skybird]

I find SBP very pricey, and couldnt find it in any of the local shops here.

The sim is exlusively available only via the publisher'S homepage. It is not and never will be avaiolable in local stores.

Concerning the price, I describe it as two Dangeorus Waters, or 2-3 buggy usual game releases one plays for some weeks and then leave behind. concenring what I got from it so far, it would be justified to have payed twice as much money for it. It's a years-to-come-long love affair. at least for me.

about tanks, I just like to be a big bully on a battlefield
Don't know that feeling. when sitting in my tank I get turned into a magical bullet-, missile- and SABOT-attractor...:huh:

[Skybird]

a release date will not be announced before the work on SB Pro PE has been finished

When will that be.....SBPPE is still very much a work in progress.

They will probably need to put some more eye candy in it to satisfy the hordes. Not that SBPPE looks bad, but it looks ...basic.

Looks like buying SBPPE was a good investment, the sequel to SB looks to be years away!
Late 2008 I assume, or even 2009.

SBP will always be a work in progress, and that is what it is designed to be. the military always shows up with some new wishes that will hget implemented, and sooner or later find their way into the PE version as well. This process we need to thank for having gotten the formidable and completely simulated CV9040, and the Strv-122 so far (an upgraded Leo2A5 that is), and we will get the Pizarro and the Australian Bushmaster in the future, too. SBP-PE will get upgraded as long as the military market keeps it alive and is willing to pay for ongoing developement.

[Skybird]

I will go for this because I just don't have the time to invest in a sim such as SBP. At least we now know that it is definately coming but as Sky said apart from that nothing new. Hopefully it will be out some time next year. The last tank sim/game I played and own is M1 Tank PLatoon II.
Do you mean you do not have the time, or not the money? Becasue I would be surprised to see that great differences between SBP and SB2 as you seem to assume when saying you could not invest time into SBP right now. In fact, learning to control your tank is surprisingly easy - the tricks begin when you need to adress tactics and manouver warfare. And do we really should hope that these aspects - that make SB1 and SBP standing apart from the crowd - get ignored in SB2? ;)

[ReM]

Concerning the price, I describe it as two Dangeorus Waters, or 2-3 buggy usual game releases one plays for some weeks and then leave behind. concenring what I got from it so far, it would be justified to have payed twice as much money for it


I can only second that

[Skybird]

I just stumbled over this statement that the technical director of esim apparently has made yesterday at the simHQ board. Markings by me.


Hm. Well, I can say that we won't see SB2 before late 2009. I can also say that despite the impression from first, second, and third look, we're still committed to developing SB2 although I am unwilling to provide hard evidence.

What I can say is that I am telling all our army customers that all their SB Pro related projects must be finished in 2008 as we're going to "take a year off" in 2009. Because, "taking a year off" means for us concentrating on development work that we always wanted to do but didn't find the time for it.
I think that having a game version is an important element in our business strategy, which is probably the strongest argument I can bring forward to convince you that we are committed - because it simply makes sense for us.

Needless to say that a lot of the stuff that we're working on for SB Pro in 2008 will make its way into SB2. And it's going to be pretty cool stuff, looking at those army wish lists - going far beyond trivialities like "yet another playable vehicle". I mean, new vehicles are a very tangible benefit, but "cool stuff" for me are features that add a whole new dimension to gameplay. Things without precedence in previous versions. 2010 is going to be an excellent year for the franchise, and I think we have a couple of aces up our sleeves to make the time worth the wait.
http://www.simhq.com/forum/images/graemlins/default/smile.gif

(Disclaimer: Yeah, that was the rhetoric equivalent to a smokescreen. Sorry, but it's our policy not to speculate about specifics of our development policy in public. We want to report if something's ready, not impress you with big plans. Sure, we have big plans, but if we fail to implement them we don'twant to do the dance of "Well, y'know, it didn't exactly work out as planned, but we have this consolation prize: Tadaa!")


Note that he mentions the year 2010 - it's now the year 2007, and the sim was released in early 2006 - that is what I call support of a sim! :yep: :up: clapclapclapclapclap

[NeonSamurai]

Well as for the dongle, i doubt it will make it to commercial, for one thing, though semi accepted in military or general professional circles (proffesionals hate the things because they often have multiple dongles taking up usb slots and switching them is a pain, its less of an issue for the military), it is absolutly NOT tolerated by gamers.

Most gamers dont have many if any free usb slots (i for example have less then 0 free, to use my joystick i gotta unplug my external hard drive), they arnt gona wana put it in each time they wana play, i also can not think of a single commercial game (not the specialized military sims like sbp-pro or vbs-1) that uses dongles, they are also the most expensive form of copy protection. If they did ship it with a dongle the outcry will be great. Shame the wait is probably gona be pretty long


Also i wouldnt mind seeing a good dynamic campaign, as they already have the mission tools made more or less. But i would expect something along the lines of a fought out war (a truely dynamic campaign akin to EECH or Falcon 4). Canned missions get old after a while, and i never found it any fun to play your own missions, as you know everything about them.

I am realy looking forward to this though as i dont have the money to get SBP-Pro, and its sounding realy good from what ya just posted Skybird. Its been a long while since ive had a good NATO Tank sim, other then OFP and ARMA (but neither are realy true simulations or dedicated tank sims).

[Skybird]

A campaign - like in Falcon 4...? Not gonna happen, i bet money on that. F4 team themselves recommended everyone never to try that stunt themselves, that complicated it is. It costed years until the campaign worked - more or less - as intended, btw. F4 had so many bugs in the first years...

While the EECH campaign is more simplistic, it also is extremely unrealistic, and does in no way create battles that match what would be done by enemy commanders in real life. Dynamic missions, I think, are easier to be done in air sims, than in ground sim, since the starting positions in air sims can be more fluid and thus meeting the way AI wants to handle their automatted generation, without loosing too much realism (see Falcon), while that system does not work well in automatically orchestrating ground forces according to an elaborated tactical plan. I think that is the reason why until today no ground sim I know of has ever offered a reasonable dynamic campaign. Air tactic is very much about timing, while groudn tactic puts at least as much attention, if not more, on positions - and determining these is far more complex and difficult on the ground, than in an air campaign. It is also more decisive. An AI of today cannot acchieve that.

The tanks in OFP I do not consider to be tanks. Not even carricatures. I think of them as hopping tennisballs. :) I always ignroed them in mission deisgning, they ruined it all too easily. OFP is an infantry sim for me.

On the dongle, in summer 2005 eSim launched a public poll, asking what kind of copy protection people would find acceptable. The big looser was starforce, and any kind of intrusive software. Some thoughts on online registration procedures, which did not raise too much sympathy, too. The great winner was the dongle, which found huge public acceptance after people understood that they had to accept a kind of reliable copy protection anyway, and would not get SBP unprotected at all. Left with the choices that were available, a clear majority supported the dongle. Until today, voices complaining are extremely rare. i remember of only one guy in the past 16 months posting in the SB-forums that his dongle broke. that was because he stepped onto it.

I support it, too. It does protect justified interests of the producer (which esim fully deserves), and keeps my harddrive free of possible malware infestations and intrusive crap that harms my system (like starforce for example did). Many standard protection schemes (CD always in drive, etc), simply do not work reliably, and get cracked pretty soon, usually. Cracking a dongle is more work, and time-consuming, and more difficult to be spread as a "solution" for others as well - and that's what it is about, buzying time, making it hard to spread a crack. It's best for safeguarding company interests, and holds the smallest possible risk for the user.

Anyhow, no word on that question from them. We simply need to wait and see. I don't think they ask their customers a second time on this question anyway, since they already have gotten their answers.

[NeonSamurai]

Well i would still prefer a dynamic campaign to dynamic or canned missions. As a tank sim the method falcon 4 used would probably work better, basicly a bubble or zone where the mission is played out involving the player is fully rendered, and the rest of the action happening across the war be completely simplified to unit dice rolls and group movement across the map. I do not know though how sophisticated the AI in SBP is, if it needs to be heavily scripted, with full pathing, or if it is capable of deciding objectives, picking its own paths etc. Mainly though i want something that is replayable, where i dont have to create missions myself (a self contained mission generator would be nice) to play the game. I would even be happy with a dynamic random mission generator campaign, where the action happens on the mission level, and the results of the campaign are based on how successfull i am overall for each mission.

EECH may not be the best example of a campaign, and its ground units do have problems. Also its easier to move around air units then ground units (air units cant fall off a cliff, or get stuck on the terain, at a river, etc).

All i know is i do not want static or semi dynamic campaigns for any game. Sub command, and dangerouns waters are collecting dust. Both lack real replayability in their "campaigns". ARMA has one of the worst campaigns ive ever seen (way too short, bug ridden, broken, no replayability). Games that do not have some form of dynamic campaign or mission generation system dont last very long compared to those games that do (like falcon 4, EECH, SH3, etc) have some sort of open campaign. It is key to a game's long term survivability.

OFP and ARMA are not tank sims, no question (infact they are pretty unrealistic/simplified on all levels including infantry), i just mentioned them to illustrate that they are the only games i have that are even remotely close to a modern tank sim, in almost a decade now.

Well i still dont think they will go with it for a commercial in store release. Dongle's work best where only 1 or 2 programs are on a system that use dongles. They are perfectly fine for a graphic arts program at an office, or a computer that runs simulations for the military. Ordinary gamers wont tollerate it though. Could you imagine if every game you have used dongles, it would be a nightmare of keeping track of the key, switching the keys out all the darn time. You would need a key rack to keep track of them all, not to mention how easy it would be to loose them.

Also dongles are not the super copy protection you may think they are. The only reason why SB hasnt been "broken" yet is because the company and game are so obscure and unheard of that the people who do this sort of thing dont even know of its existence. Most proffessional software that uses dongles has had that protection broken (and btw you would be shocked how many otherwise upstanding companies who legitimatly own the software use illegaly broken code to bypass the pesky dongles).

Anyhow i digress on the above subject, not something we should realy be getting into. If the company does a commercial game release to the stores, they probably wont go with dongles if they are wise, as the dongle will raise the price of the game (which will affect how it sells), dongles will get lost, broken, or be a pain (and people will complain). But mainly the dynamic of the type of people playing this game will shift from dedicated simmers (who are usualy well above 25) who can afford a 125$ game, to everyone we see in the sh3/sh4 section. So though the hardcore simmers and miltary will put up with dongles, i can assure you the rest (which will definatly out number the hardcore people) will most definatly not.

[Skybird]

Well i would still prefer a dynamic campaign to dynamic or canned missions. As a tank sim the method falcon 4 used would probably work better, basicly a bubble or zone where the mission is played out involving the player is fully rendered, and the rest of the action happening across the war be completely simplified to unit dice rolls and group movement across the map. I do not know though how sophisticated the AI in SBP is, if it needs to be heavily scripted, with full pathing, or if it is capable of deciding objectives, picking its own paths etc.

It is fully scripted. AI is moving on a railway-like network of paths that consist of conditioned routes. Only at battle positions the AI automatically micro-manages a tanks behavior, it may stroll off a 100 m or so to find better cover, and if possible face the enemy with frontal armour, and get a hull-down position. Your driver also will also sprint back and forth when you fire the gun, to give you cover while reloading, then popping up again when ready to fire.

A mission must not necessarily play in the same manner whenever you start it. It totally depends on the mission designer. Missions could be that much randomized that you should have several possible stories to tell after each time you played them. Since the tactical competence of the AI depends on scripting, the designer has the freedom to add as miuch tactical rafinesse and nastiness as his brain is able to come up with. An AI never could compete with a human in this regard.

BTW, there is a huge ressource of missions to download, and it is constantly growing. Also, the editor is top class - easy, flexible, able to do almost everything.

Mainly though i want something that is replayable, where i dont have to create missions myself (a self contained mission generator would be nice) to play the game. I would even be happy with a dynamic random mission generator campaign, where the action happens on the mission level, and the results of the campaign are based on how successfull i am overall for each mission. i do not want static or semi dynamic campaigns for any game. Sub command, and dangerouns waters are collecting dust. Both lack real replayability in their "campaigns".

For that reason I did a small handful of randomized scenarios for SC, for my personal use. arena-type missions: randomization of enemy number and type of units, and own team units. But compared to the highly dramatic and dynamic battles in SBP, SC/DW are very much static sims. Better do not compare submarines, and tank battles.

Games that do not have some form of dynamic campaign or mission generation system dont last very long compared to those games that do (like falcon 4, EECH, SH3, etc) have some sort of open campaign. It is key to a game's long term survivability.

SB1 has no dynamic campaign - and still has survived until today. Same is true for the Lockon-series. Jane'S FA-18. I think Balcan on Fire is lacking a dynmaic campaign too, nevertheless it was so successful that the re-released it. SB1 was in very heavy use until SBP came out last year. Do not get me wrong, I like dynmaic camaigns a la F4, too, but with a scripted AI it is very unlikely to happen. The sim simply is too good to waste it's tactical depth by giving it a mission generator that produces nonsens missions like in M1TP2. when I caution you or anyone else of expecting a dynamic campaign, then this is only meant to save you from dissapointment, for I followed SB over the years since SB1, and I am 95% sure there will be no dynamic campaign.

Also, you said you never have played SBP, and I assume even not SB1. You then simply do not know the taste of the gameplay of these sims. I strongly recommend to get SB1 for 5-10 bucks via second hand shop, and give it a try. I can hardly imagine you will put it down again because it has no DC. The gold edition had many dozens of user-created mission instead. they had been finetuned by hand, and manually developed. the quality of the mission experience reflects that. No auto-generated mission ever could compete with that. chances are that you will collect your favpurites, and play them time and again. If the design is no turkey shooting, but reflects competent tactics considerations, it will keep you busy every time.

[BigBadVuk]

I agree it is realy hard(but : not impossible) to make fuly dynamic campaign for tank sim.However im 110% against linked&scripted mission campaign.
There are so many ways around that (even random generated missions in M1A2 platoon II) are ok if they are concipied corectly...They can make 20 diferent conditions ( like convoys escort,urban patrols,crosroads blocks,frontal assaults,ambushes,etc..) and then depending on situation on battlefield just fill the template with units who are near ( arty.support from that and that unit..infantry from that etc..) and put all that on map where players unit is..rest of battlefield can be calculated on day basis like IL2 forgoten battles.
This way it will be possible to pull player more deep in game,and it will have much greater replay value.
2nd Great thing will be ( but i think we will not see that) opfor tanks playable (t-72,t-80),BMP3......
Oh,yeas..and attack chopers and aircafts...

[Skybird]

I say nothing on dynmaic campaigns anymore. No need to repeat myself.

I disagree on playable OpFor tanks. there already is a very high demand for a playable T72 or T80 in SBP. that they are not there is becasue no military customer has ordered them as playables. I am very sure we will see one of these as playable in SB2 - and maybe from there being exported backwards into SBP (like much eyecandy stuff will be backward-exported into SBP as well).

aircrafts: add a whole new complexity level to programming. If you do not take entertainment from being blown up together with the rest of your tank per company time and again while being found by a pair of gunships, you need air defenses as well, and that is a whole new game in itself. We will need to see if they find the time to implement this in a simplified form. Not impossible, but I do not bet money on it. However, I am very sure that we will not see adequate air warfare in SBP in the forseeable future. They have very explicitly ruled that one out.

[Skybird]

Braking News :p

The latest quote by the technical director of the producing company:

"Releasing SB2 without a playable T-72 is unthinkable for me." - Ssnake on 18-07-07

That settles it, doesn't it!? :p

[Castout]

Playable Merkava would be nice too...:up:. Also a playable T-80. Hmm yummy.

Abt big bully on the battlefield i think any tanker must be ready to die a horrific death. At the minimum is losing some limbs. Ever seen burnt up bodies coming out from tanks? I can imagine how horrific it would be if one was to get shot inside a tank be it with infantry AT, Artillery or opposing tank.

The big bullies on the battlefield are the visiting politicians:rotfl:.

[Skybird]

Everybody better takes care that his expectations are not going skyrocketing. eSim is a very small company, with tight time tables, and plenty of other obligations - they can do only so much, not more.