Is Steel Beasts a better choice as a tank sim?

[Shiherlis733]

Anybody here play both games? SABOW reminds me of MSDOS games with how unintuitive and clunky the interface is. It completely negates any joy in this game, and this is coming from a 19D who loves armor sims. Question: in your opinion is an upgrade to Steel Beasts Pro PE worth the price? Thanks

[Mak]

The interface really isnt that bad, I think there is a guide to learning it, just watch a few videos on the game and read the RPS article, or something like that.

[Sul]

This is more immersive than SB and has actual physics. I don't know what people find about the interface being clunky, It's quite good, offers alot of things to do ranging from in-tank things to platoon orders and so on. It's certainly cleaner and easier than SB's for example.

If you want tank simulation, you don't have much other than this and SB. You're looking at a genre with less than 10 games, most of them published in the early 2000's and almost half of them unfinished and 3 of them being made by the devs who made this game. SABOW is the best, latest, and prettiest looking tank simulator we have. And I'm glad out of the so few people who got around the cold road of producing tank simulation games, graviteam was one of them. They couldn't have made SABOW better. It looks and feels so real and immersive.

[badinfo]

You can now buy subscriptions to Steel Beasts Pro PE instead of buying the whole game. Good way to demo it for not a lot of $$ to see if you like it. I did a year sub for $40 and it is definitely a step up from the original Steel Beasts from back in the day. Just got distracted by real life and didnt get as much out of my year as I would have liked.
You can try a month for a tenner.
Better than the MCOFT lol!

[Shiherlis733]

Thanks! Yea I just picked up Steel Beasts and it is like drinking a glass of clean water. It is nice to be in a bradley again.

[badinfo]

Cheers! Keep thinking I need to re-up or just give in and buy the dang thing.

[Mors]

Originally posted by Azir:

This is more immersive than SB and has actual physics.

Need to remind that SB ain't a simulator for the gamers, it is a simulator for tank crews in actual service.

So it is there to teach crews to communicate, operate and fight together as with the other ops in the military. It is as well for officers training simulator to operate and handle larger scale troops.

SB has amazingly great simulations for the systems as well physics for the weapons and such, but it does lack things in graphics. But those graphics are really a second tier in the requirements as it is a education and training simulator and not after graphics.

Totally different target audience, but similar theme.

If you want tank simulation, you don't have much other than this and SB. You're looking at a genre with less than 10 games, most of them published in the early 2000's and almost half of them unfinished and 3 of them being made by the devs who made this game. SABOW is the best, latest, and prettiest looking tank simulator we have. And I'm glad out of the so few people who got around the cold road of producing tank simulation games, graviteam was one of them. They couldn't have made SABOW better. It looks and feels so real and immersive.

This seems to be great one (I don't have it, I have it on wishlist) for the average simulator fanboy as well for casual gamer. very likely excellent as well then the physics for the era etc. But what turns me off, is no Co-Op and now the latest thing no VR support.

Like if this would have a Co-Op function, it would be amazingly great to go with friend in same MBT or even in different ones in same platoon. But it is very difficult to find players who are willing to learn and master such complex things as MBT combat. But just having a one or two friends who could do it, it would be great.

What comes to VR, it would be just the immersion thing to be able be inside a MBT. But the current state of the HMD lack of resolution and narrow FOV it wouldn't be so great experience, until 2019-2020 when Oculus and HTC will bring their next versions of the VR.


One thing that turned me off from the SB was the requirement to have the physical dongle attached to computer so you can get it working as it is encrypted, and then that you only had access to PE, but it just is so.

The simulators are there to simulate the things like rules, operations, commands etc and not the graphics. So there is just a difference for many.

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Originally posted by Mors:

Originally posted by Azir:

This is more immersive than SB and has actual physics.

Need to remind that SB ain't a simulator for the gamers, it is a simulator for tank crews in actual service.

But it sells it for some reason as a game for the players :)

Originally posted by Mors:

So it is there to teach crews to communicate, operate and fight together as with the other ops in the military. It is as well for officers training simulator to operate and handle larger scale troops.

For those countries that have nowhere to use tanks massively. Even in theory.
But the tank simulators on which the Graviteam's staff worked, are used in those countries that used tanks massively in past, used now, and can use them in the future. It's about actual combat, of course, not about training.
I think this is a very weak argument for choosing a game :)

Originally posted by Mors:

SB has amazingly great simulations for the systems as well physics for the weapons and such, but it does lack things in graphics.

What's about physics of the movement? Tanks no longer fly on anti-gravity over reinforced concrete landscapes? Or is it still so sad?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMGgV4k1OLk&feature=youtu.be

What about the physics of tankers? Just in case, let me remind you that even the most impoverished tank has a crew who always performs some actions, for example, charges a cannon, controls the movement of a tank, looks into surveillance devices. I think the tank simulator in which there are no live tankers, it's a very strange thing :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcv-wb_LUAM&feature=youtu.be


What about the damage model? Let me remind you that the tanks shoot each other and sometimes hit, while the tank is broken.
What about thermal imagers, especially those with a spotlight? For example, on a T-72 tank. Have they already begun to work as they should, or are they all painted in green?

https://youtu.be/MlvJlU8DbYs

How about modeling the internal tank equipment? The ejection of cartridges, the operation of automatic loading/ejecting devices? That's at least how it's done in SABOW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMGgV4k1OLk&feature=youtu.be

Originally posted by Mors:

But those graphics are really a second tier in the requirements as it is a education and training simulator and not after graphics.

Let's remove it, because to shoot from the tank do not need to look at the sights, no matter what the weather/light conditions, it does not affect the shooting (especially for training real tankmen!)? Right?

Originally posted by Mors:

One thing that turned me off from the SB was the requirement to have the physical dongle attached to computer so you can get it working as it is encrypted, and then that you only had access to PE, but it just is so.

What is the sense the developers problem transfer to the players for their own money? And also giving it out as an advantage. This is ridiculous :)

Originally posted by Mors:

The simulators are there to simulate the things like rules, operations, commands etc and not the graphics. So there is just a difference for many.

And they (The simulators) simulate the laws of the physics of the real world at first. And if instead of tanks the UFO is moving on antigraves on a reinforced concrete landscape on a planet where it is always cloudy, and objects never heat and not cool down. Then what's the difference that there with the commands and operations?
And the difference is absolutely not in the graphics, but in the SABOW approach the simulation goes in all directions, not only for those selective and unimportant, which are easier to implement.