Steel Beasts Pro 4.0

[Skybird]

No more "Personal Edition" since version 3.0 :)

4.0 is around the corner, could be released just any day. It brings a new terrain engine (a biggie in my book), over two dozen new units including engineers, helicopters, anti-air and the family of TAM vehicles, finally the crewable Marder (I like that, that thing still is one of the best protected IFV in the world), improved special GFX including some spectacular cookoffs, and much more.

These videos are advertising it a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzpzFDkOAgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLq7jxmPls4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4YBxGDSg5o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EOJrqB7Mtc

I have been away from SBP for the last two years or even longer, all my time went into race simming, Assetto Corsa and Raceroom Racing. I feel an appetite to return to tanking again. I have not used variable time of day and new weather since it was introduced with 3.0, that long my absence has been!

[Skybird]

It should be announced loud and clear that the specs for SBP have become much more demanding already with 3.0, than they have been for original PE and 2.x versions. With 4.0 they seem to take another climb, even more so when the new terrain engines comes into play (which different to my original impression seems to be delayed to winter and is not part of the original 4.0 release planned for August).

Please familiarize yourself with the official announcement about the specs:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/10539-sb-pro-pe-40-hardware-recommendations/

Seems to be a real battle they fight.

[Skybird]

SBP sticky updated, decluttered and cleaned of obsolete links.

[Skybird]

SBP version 4.0 was released yesterday.

Cannot further comment on it myself, since I still do not have it and am not certain whether my system is even good enough to run it. Some guys have some low frame rates while most are happy, almost everybody gives praise to the improved graphics and new stuff and features. Seems to be a very substantial, important improvement, hence the new version number. New sounds and graphics seem to have boosted immersion.

Important tip seems to be this: if you run into FPS problems, reduce visibility by adding heavy weather, fog, sandstorm, rain, snow, whatever. Sounds counter-intuitive, compared to what you are used to from other games, but thats how the sim works. It puts CPU over GPU performance.

Will be some time before I get a hand on it.

[Skybird]

Crewable Marders and BMP-2s - this release could get me back into tanking business. Some first vids:

Demonstration of several new platforms on German Truppenübungsplatz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p5G6-hC1Uc
Visible crew members - yumyum. More smoke, new explosions...

"Wowh...! I am so home...!" :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDL8xNy2EhU
Thats what I call a foggy Border Patrol in winter!

Sparkles! Lots of sparkles! :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozxn1N1sBIo#t=130.018708

[Cybermat47]

Looks interesting, though when you mentioned Marders, I thought you meant this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-297-1701-31,_Im_Westen,_Panzer_%22Marder_I%22.jpg

Either way, a very interesting looking game, I'll be sure to look at it some more :D

[Skybird]

The looks surely are dated by nowaday's standards, but looks is not what its about, but functionality and hardcore simulation. And "game"play is most excellent, it just begins where others already have left off.

Their problem is - and they are realising that it is a very substantial problem - that they are locked in very expensive (for gamer's standards) treaties that forbids that they just play foolish engine replacement games at the risk of pissing their professional customers when something gets broken, and who paid very different prices than gamers, and then sometimes invest even more hundreds of thousands into building computer training centres around the sim (in the real world, not viortually). Not to mention that thse professional customers maybe also then wood need to upgrade their hardware. And adapting the new one into old hardware architectures again comes at risks that at least mean more work. The graphics engine, the LOS calculations and the physics and game engine are very closely interwoven, can one say that in English? If you replac eone of these, the ammont of work to adjust the replcmeent to the other things, practically borders todevelopng a new sim.

They are a bit intimidated by the task, I got the impression, but see that sooner or later they must find solutions there - or quit business. The old engine really hits its limits now, performance-wise, while they are preparing the new terrain engine for release in winter, it will bring much smoother, more detailed terrain surfaces - at a high CPU cost.

Its over ten years since release of original SBP PE.

I am seriously considering to stick with SBP 3.0. I am not certain my rig cna handle the 4.0 version. Their internal hardware tests showed extremely diverse results, they say, they cannot give too precise and reliable guidelines on what hardware works with good frames and what not. My rig is based on a i5-2500K@3.3GHz...

The good news is that eSim is very cool-minded and reasonable. They hardly will pull off any premature stunts, I cannot imagine that.

P.S. You are Australian? You should have been a tanker in your armed forces - the Australian defence ministry aquired many private licenses years ago, additionally to the professional contracts, and gave these as free copies to all its active tankers so that they should train in their free time at home, too. :)

[Skybird]

The parade - in game menu lists of all vehicles included in SBP 4.0:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/10355-sb-pro-pe-40-discussion-thread/?page=33#comment-152091

44 tanks
46 personell carriers and IFVs
16 trucks
14 artillery
16 technicals and civilian vehicles
25 "other" armoured and figthing support vehicles
9 engineer vehicles (repair, mine sweeper, bridge layer)
11 base units of infantry and fireteams
dozens and dozens of individually designed civilian pedestrians

helicopters and air defence units are not shown in this list, but I know for sure they are included, and got additions. Should be 8-10 different choppers, both gunships and transport.

You can now set up crewable cold war era T72s and BMPs against cold war era crewable Leopard 1s, Leopard 2s and Marders. No more placeholders and surrogate platforms needed. And yes, cold war era M1s and M60s as well as M113s and early M2s are there, too. Plus some old fashioned Brits. Spice it up with according artillery and helicopters, and what was meant to be left cold, now will turn hot. :D

[Skybird]

And some most excellent screenshots, they are from v3.0, but are outstanding.

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/55-we-love-screenshots/?page=96#comment-156392

This one is epic:
http://i.imgur.com/6Coz1W9.png

[Skybird]

The postings-link above seems to have gone over the river Jordan, so i post the screenshots themsleves. They are not mine, all shots were made by "Splash". I think they are very good.

http://i.imgur.com/HZFy186.png

http://i.imgur.com/pXXCVof.png

http://i.imgur.com/U2L1q4F.png

http://i.imgur.com/rC9wkmH.png

http://i.imgur.com/nt8M5tK.png

http://i.imgur.com/xm3I3eC.png

[Onkel Neal]

I'm going to need to get back into this game someday.

[Skybird]

"Back"...? :) Have you ever been "in" in the first?

Demonstration of all infantry-launched ATGMs in the sim, quite some diversity there. Demostrates also the new need to adjust the foci TIS imagers, like a tele on a camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZKRiRmCyds

Dis somebody say BMP-2s are inferior?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwLm4d_3t9g

And oooops, in another video I just spotted a Merkava...

[Skybird]

Milans ruining several T-72s' day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSfMxL3jlM
Visually, things really made a certain step forward.

Chieftain MK5, Centurion, and the M60A3 now with fully modelled interior:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjxKdHN53-s

[Skybird]

Russian "cavalry" charging - want to know what it feels like to be part of a massive frontal tank attack at unforgivingly high speed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1kuaoqlqQI

Huge multiplayer operation with 25 human players, plus AI, lasting 2+ hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF-gmoHh9LY

[Skybird]

The new looks of destruction:

by munckmb:
http://www.steelbeasts.com/uploads//monthly_2016_08/SS_23_09_25.jpg.343be76dfc3aa056a8ede29927688466.j pg


by smithcorp:
http://www.steelbeasts.com/uploads//monthly_2016_08/Hit.jpg.e1adbe965d6b3159c7f95cc602348ef6.jpg

Particle effects. Sparkles. Finally reasonable smoke. Much greater fires burning.

There are also blowouts now, as to be seen in the videos.

Apropos particles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSPk88UUZVY

Even the smaller ones can make the bigger one's day miserable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Hk36Pkl5c
Works the other way around as well, of course. :D

[Skybird]

The new feature of that the TIS needs manually adjusting the depth of field, is a real game changer. The all-seeing eye of God that TIS was before, is gone. Great feature, making things more difficult at times!

[Skybird]

Flower power!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOt5vQbs0Ug

New features and details on parade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDp9DQMNxr4

[Skybird]

Hotpatch released, bringing SBP to version 4.004.

P.S. Announcement ^ withdrawn, an even newer version is about to be released any day this week.

[Onkel Neal]

One of these days I have to get back into SB.

[Skybird]

On beefy systems, this is what the new bloom effects can do:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/uploads//monthly_2016_08/SS_22_04_09.jpg.afabcdf1076c056ccf1d6c411ea8ea7b.j pg

Pic by Captain Colossus.

[Skybird]

Neal,

your notebook has the same CPU like mine, but a slightly more capable graphics card, since mine is not designed to be a gaming notebook. However, you may want to wait with getting 4.0 until they have implemented the new terrain engine later this year - hopefully - and then see the feedback what it will do to frames. And that frames will suffer a drop from this new smoothness, I take for granted. If it is too much to handle, it might be better to stick with an older version, say 3.x .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4YBxGDSg5o

Their internal testings are inconsistent, some systems that are strong on the paper do not do much better than weaker configurations they have tested.

I assume that SBP 4 - as it is right now, v4.004 -, can be run on your/my notebook if reducing graphics to minimum. (However, I run it on a PC with a weaker CPU, but a stronger gfx card.)

http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/10539-sb-pro-pe-40-hardware-recommendations/#comment-155118

[Skybird]

SBP v 4.010 has been released.

Files: http://www.esimgames.com/?page_id=1390

Readme: http://www.steelbeasts.com/updates/SBProPE_4-009_RN.pdf

http://i.imgur.com/xPfT0y1.png
(screenshot by Splash)

http://www.steelbeasts.com/uploads//monthly_2016_09/SS_21_31_58.jpg.8a01f4918dc0a68d15af3d4f7af57d9b.j pg
(screenshot by Bond-Villian)

http://www.steelbeasts.com/uploads//monthly_2016_09/SS_20_38_20.jpg.57d96e85c6c4cc57237df695e975bd0b.j pg
(screenshot by Bond-Villian)