Lack of big games and online community ??

[Grenny]

Most of us "interested amateurs" take a few weeks or so to compile a BG level scenario and the paid eSim staff are already flat out working on the software.

...and most of the time , weeks don't cover it.

[Skoop]

The 10A you are hopping into, is it still landed at a base or in mid air?

Also one problem with stealbeasts: depending on how the scenario runs, units may lay in wait for a good amount at time. So people hopping in for 20-30 mike, will spend that time "looking at things" or doing a road march :-P

Running a ground battle, so it actually feels like a battle, you need to do multiple tasks at the same time as f.e. fire and movement have to be coordinated. Someone hopping in saying:"Hey dude i've got 20 mike...give me a job please, and make it something exiting." puts a HUGE task on the CO. I mean for about 10 minutes he has to abandon anything else to brief and task the newcommer (or you'd have one player who is ONLY doing that, to relieve the CO from it...good lukc in finding volunteers for that :-P ).

Most missions are parked cold starts which is a major feat in dcs, I've noticed alot more optional in air starts in an effort to bring in less skilled pilots to the fold.

[Grenny]

To have a join in progress style option it would require more of a random dynamic set of tasks / events that players could jump in to a server and start completing. Would take alot of work on the senario building, endless triggers and AI scripting to keep the mission going. It sounds Hoaky I know, but it could make some cool combat situations that could be fun to play out.

Ground warfare is "random and dynamic" by design ;-)

To get involved and be useful, you need to know the "commanders intend" for the given situation in detail!

How are we gonna do that? The CO to write it down every time he makes a decision so the prsopect "joiner" could read it in advance? What if the situation changes while he reads it?

Where should his( the "joiners") units be? In the thick of battle? Then he get blown apart before getting any SA?

In the reserve force? What does that mean for the CO? Does he commit his reserve when it is tactically sound...or when enough on hoppers get bored there?

[Skoop]

The more we discuss it, seems it would be a major undertaking that would not help the military clients much. It would be more appealing to video game types, but then they wouldn't spend 100+ on one game...even if it is the best tank sim money can buy.

[Grenny]

The more we discuss it, seems it would be a major undertaking that would not help the military clients much. It would be more appealing to video game types, but then they wouldn't spend 100+ on one game...even if it is the best tank sim money can buy.

Thinking about solutions is never a bad thing.

Personally I'd love to see a joins in progress option for "rejoin" purposes like Gibsomn stated it.

Also a way to well, save a running mission so you have an "end state" from which you could start at the next session, would really "revolutionize" MP-campains!

[Skoop]

In DCS the ground war is going on autonomously, you pick a mission...might be attack an armored column or fly to this location and report to JTAC for CAS. Upon completing the mission it sets off a trigger or event and the mission continues on in phases.

Funny thing is DCS recently announced that they are developing the ability to control ground forces in missions as a pay for addon.

I see your guys points about no SA or not knowing Commanders intent if this randomized type of senario was used in SB.

[Froggy]

Thinking about solutions is never a bad thing.

Personally I'd love to see a joins in progress option for "rejoin" purposes like Gibsomn stated it.

Also a way to well, save a running mission so you have an "end state" from which you could start at the next session, would really "revolutionize" MP-campains!

That is a good feature of WOT: If your game crash, you can rejoin the parti, because you are in at the launch.

[Gibsonm]

In DCS the ground war is going on autonomously, you pick a mission...might be attack an armored column or fly to this location and report to JTAC for CAS. Upon completing the mission it sets off a trigger or event and the mission continues on in phases.

I'm certainly not an Air Sim player and have never touched DCS-A10, but the fundamentals of every mission would appear to me to be (admittedly in simplistic terms) "fly somewhere and blow stuff up".

Whether the "stuff" is moving forwards, backwards or static probably doesn't matter and that probably makes the continuous "re spawning" of these missions possible without too much repetition.

The ground combat doesn't work that way in that the variations on a theme are more varied (defensive operations, for examaple, covers a whole range of possibilities) and as a result getting someone to recode all the possibilities (and the branches and sequels to each) would be daunting, let alone the transition stages where the result of one battle means the whole campaign changes from say Defensive to Offensive.

If your tank was on a lone mission then maybe (but again that's pretty unlikely and verging on "FPS land"), but as it needs to synchronise with a larger plan it becomes harder, esp. if there are time constraints.

E.g.: Some mission has been going for say 80 min and they have to secure the Objective by H+90 (+/- 10%) and someone joins then they only have what between 1 and 19 mins to participate.

I suspect it would be a challenge to make it work.

[SeanPatrick]

I love the DCS series, although I was rather disappointed with the last upgrade for Black Shark.

That being said, all of the ways that SB is not like DCS are why I love SB. It's even more of a "sim." Frankly, I wouldn't even mind if you couldn't jump in a new tank after yours got blow'd up (to simulate how tank crews are not immortal shapeshifting teleporters.) Take the XBox game Steel Battalion for example. You can get 99% of the way through a campaign, but if your mech blows up and you don't eject in time, you have to start all over. I love it. But I'm weird that way.

I, for one, am glad the eSim dev. team spends more time perfecting armor and projectile modeling than adding eye candy or more "arcade" style features. However, a re-join feature would be cool.

[Ssnake]

IMO the comparison to DCS is misleading. You have by far fewer units in the air even if you discount the fact that you can have dogfights with helicopters and A-10s and the associated inflated number of combatants. Therefore the amount of coordination that is required between the players is much smaller. The equivalent mission structure in SB Pro would be to just send out individual tanks dispersed over a 1600km² to perform raids on a number of fixed installations, mostly confronted with ATGMs, Technicals, and supply trucks. In such a situation it's relatively painless to have people drop in and out of sessions in a more or less random fashion.

(High intensity) ground combat is different. There are far more units in close proximity, and they all depend on a high degree of coordination among them in order to be successful in combat.

That's not to say that we can't improve. We will. But should we ever implement an option to allow late-comers to join a session in progress, we'll make sure that

1. The session host can control whether or not he wants to allow it at all
2. That he may eventually approve of clients knocking the door, or that he can define access codes
3. That the players stumbling into a session (who are not returning) will not be given access to a unit automatically, but that the owner will actually hand them over, so that an orderly conduct of battle is still possible and it doesn't just degenerate into a wanton frag fest
4. Most likely, all this will be combined with a pause function, simply because there's going to be a lot of synchronization info that must be passed from the session host to a joining client.
   As these pauses may turn out to be disruptive, we may limit access times to an ongoing session to a time slot every X minutes or so.

Clearly, all this requires a lot of testing, so don't expect it on a short notice. As we are currently preparing a necessary, major change of scenario file structure, we have put the development of a "Join mission in progress" feature on hold until this new file structure is in place (won't happen for the coming PE patch, don't worry).

[Panta]

I use to play co-op with a small group of friends in the USA with different time zones, other than my own (GMT+2). Therefore, sometimes one of us can't join in time, or else, somebody has to drop out due to time. Besides, sometimes one of us (usually me, though not recently) drops out in mid game because of connection issues, leaving a gap in the ranks. The possibility of being able to join an ongoing game would be a nice add on.

[DrDevice]

Then I guess you haven't flown DCS A10, because thats exactly how MP works, you join a server with a mission in progress, you pick an A10 and a mission task then go at it. You can come and go at anytime, spend 6 hours or 30 mins. So there's one example of a Hi fidelity sim with that functionality.

No need to get all World of Tanks now buddy, just making a suggestion on how large MP involvement could improve.

I completely understand the DCS A10 model. My point was that SB is NOT conducive to that kind of "drop in" play. It has zero to do with fidelity of sim, and more to do with how much coordination and independent action are expected on the parts of the players invovled. One plane going on a mission does not have an SB equivalent.

In DCS the ground war is going on autonomously...

I think this is another area that's tough. The CC units need explicit orders that can't just be "returned to the computer." when someone logs off. In SB, units are tightly controlled, and have no "plan" unless it's pre-programmed. They will react to their local environment, but won't DO anything. Unless every unit is manned, someone has to take up the orders for every non-human unit. You can imagine the confusion when one callsign just goes dark and you find yourself in charge of his vehicle/platoon/company.

I'm just saying, that's apples and pineapples comparison. Yes, they are both high-fi sims, but no, they don't share an MP capability in the same way, IMO.

[Skoop]

I see your point about apples vs pineapples, it seems a daunting task to make both as apples sort of speak. Having a big on going dynamic scenario for players to randomly join maybe too ambitious a suggestion.

But hey, Ssnakes comments on the subject seem positive. Just having the ability to join an in progress game will no doubt improve MP.

[Toyguy]

I think it's do-able certainly. You can do it in ARMA, which may be a closer comparison than DCS. There, you join back in where the mission originally started and you either hoof it or get a ride back to the fight. No in-place respawns or any of that nonsense.

For SB, I think you could do it similarly. Join in back at the proper Deployment Zone and you wait there in-limbo until the overall CO assigns you a place. That bit of additional work shouldn't be that bad, as the community in general is well-used to passing vehicles around now.

[Brun]

Having players that have dropped during a session be able to rejoin would be nice. As of now the aar can be seen if you drop early. Perhaps remove this feature to avoid people taking a peek and rejoing type of thing.

If I was co'ing a battle I would not take My attention away from the battle to get a jump in player up to speed. Not in the planning phase = no business in the battle. If this is the case then give the player in the Co position the option to kick any player on his team instantly.

[oscar19681]

Sorry, I was talking about Oscar, mate.

?? I play with you guys all the time! The reason i left after 2 minutes is because you guys allready started a game and it was allready late.

[Tonywjones44]

...should we ever implement an option to allow late-comers to join a session in progress, we'll make sure that

The session host can control whether or not he wants to allow it at allThat he may eventually approve of clients knocking the door, or that he can define access codesThat the players stumbling into a session (who are not returning) will not be given access to a unit automatically, but that the owner will actually hand them over, so that an orderly conduct of battle is still possible and it doesn't just degenerate into a wanton frag fest[

I speak as a raw newbie to SB but a long-time flight simmer. And I'd like to say straight away that SB is superior to any flight sim I've ever played. As an ex-RAF helicopter pilot, it's a joy for me to watch how real professionals go about their business rather than a bunch of people who think RL air warfare is conducted the flight sim way with rudimentary scenario briefings and pilots allowed to jump into their choice of aircraft and go shoot or bomb things at will. Most 24/7 servers are no more than an excuse for a perpetual dogfight in which you have unlimited lives. Which is what most people seem to want. (Hosted, structured coops are a different animal of course and more like SB).
However... it seems to me that letting someone who has fallen out of a SB coop mission - perhaps due to computer problems - to rejoin is totally different to allowing newcomers to join. In the former case the person will have attended the briefing and will have only missed around 5min of play while they reboot - or whatever.
But a newcomer won''t have any of that. Someone 'dropped into' a platoon or even a single tank in the middle of a battle cold, is unlikely to be effective. And would probably disrupt the the plan with lots of 'silly' questions.
So, IMHO the two things need to be considered separately. The former looks feasible; the latter, a recipe for disaster!
I normally charge 2p, but will waive my fee just this once.

[-bliss-]

I speak as a raw newbie to SB but a long-time flight simmer. And I'd like to say straight away that SB is superior to any flight sim I've ever played. As an ex-RAF helicopter pilot, it's a joy for me to watch how real professionals go about their business rather than a bunch of people who think RL air warfare is conducted the flight sim way with rudimentary scenario briefings and pilots allowed to jump into their choice of aircraft and go shoot or bomb things at will. Most 24/7 servers are no more than an excuse for a perpetual dogfight in which you have unlimited lives. Which is what most people seem to want. (Hosted, structured coops are a different animal of course and more like SB).

I normally charge 2p, but will waive my fee just this once.

That's your opinion, but I'd suggest not throwing in the stereotypes that you have in your head. Not all flight simmers think RL air warfare is conducted the flight sim way. Actually I'd like to find one that did :confused: As someone who's flown SEOW, ADW, and a whole assortment of other online activities from campaigns, coops, to servers that run 24/7, I don't really care for COOPs at all. It's a scripted, structured action where team A needs to do x,y,z while team be needs to do a,b,c. So if everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, you basically know exactly what's going to happen. Not the final outcome of course, but you know what both sides will be going after etc. That's not dynamic in the slightest and that's why it's boring to me. In a persistent world, you also will have one side with orders to do x,y,z and the other side with orders to do a,b,c. The real fun comes in because some people choose not to do that. So you get random events, groups of enemy in different spots other than where you would expect, (if they were following a structured "do this" type situation - just like RL where not every single airplane in the sky in WWII could communicate with each other) and because anything can happen at anytime instead of the proposed my team is doing this and their team is doing that atmosphere, you create a my team is doing this, but another group on my same side may be doing something else, while the same thing happens on the other side, makes for a dynamic and appealing situation.

We, as a group, fly with teamwork and to complete the mission. So we are flying exactly how you would in a COOP, but we enjoy the fact that we don't expect the other team to be going after x,y,z in a structured way. We enjoy the fact that anything can happen at anytime, such as RL. In RL the enemy might not even know you are there. In any COOP for any game ever created that uses COOP (with humans) you know exactly how many enemies there are and they know exactly how many friendlies there are. (not talking robot AI btw) I've got many friends that run teams and missions for various SOCOM activities in theater. If you think their intel (your briefing or sit down for your mission) is even remotely 100% accurate on the "now" of any situation when on mission, you'll be sadly mistaken. The more dynamic things are, the more unknown, the more realistic it is, such as RL.

I charge more than anyone can afford for common sense.

[Tonywjones44]

In any COOP for any game ever created that uses COOP (with humans) you know exactly how many enemies there are and they know exactly how many friendlies there are. .

Absolute rubbish. Do you think the Finnish forces in Zipuli's upcoming campaign have that information about the Russian forces - or vice versa?

My commments about flight simmmers were not directed against you, and your self appointment as the representative of the flight sim community on this forum is extremely tedious. Particularly as you've started banging on again about the joys of continuous 'dogfight' servers.

And that is all I am going to say on the subject.

Tjay out.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Tonywjones44

[Gibsonm]

In any COOP for any game ever created that uses COOP (with humans) you know exactly how many enemies there are and they know exactly how many friendlies there are. (not talking robot AI btw).

Well if you look here:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showthread.php?t=16338 post 7

There are 12 players scattered between Red and Blue and I'm sure as the stiuation developed neither side knew exactly what they were up against.

The pictures are from Blue's perspective (not perfect knowledge).

But again the best way to confirm or dispell your fears is to particpate in one.

[SeanPatrick]

Yeah, even with the recce units you only get a picture of "spotted" units and only for as long as someone has eyes on (& for about 1 min. after contact is broken, but then it's just a "last known" location.)

I've been playing the old "Are they attacking here?" .sce and it illustrates the point well: based on what you are seeing, you can guess at the size/makeup of the enemy force. But in the end it's still a guess. You might not be prepared for what you'll actually face. This represents your corner of the battlefield in a larger war (i.e. last night's game.)

BTW, that .sce is a little more interesting now that you can actually destroy the bridges. :sonic:

[Tonywjones44]

Well if you look here:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showthread.php?t=16338 post 7

There are 12 players scattered between Red and Blue and I'm sure as the stiuation developed neither side knew exactly what they were up against.

But again the best way to confirm or dispell your fears is to particpate in one.

Are you sure Mark? According to our resident expert on online gaming, a coop is: '... a scripted, structured action where team A needs to do x,y,z while team be needs to do a,b,c. So if everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, you basically know exactly what's going to happen. (My italics).

:heu:

[Grenny]

Absolute rubbish. Do you think the Finnish forces in Zipuli's upcoming campaign have that information about the Russian forces - or vice versa?

My commments about flight simmmers were not directed against you, and your self appointment as the representative of the flight sim community on this forum is extremely tedious. Particularly as you've started banging on again about the joys of continuous 'dogfight' servers.

And that is all I am going to say on the subject.

Tjay out.

Rubbish is a harsch word. ;-)

@-bliss-, if a scenario is really well made, then even the sce designer will have a hard time guessing what the enemy is up to.

With the control logic of the sce.-editor, you can pretty much generate dozens of different courses in the scenarion. The routes of enemy patrols f.e. can be splitted at a couple of points and then use random numbers and conditins on which rounte they gonna take. Or even if the are in the game at all (you have f.e. "spawn if" conditions)

Once you've got your copy. have a look at the scenario editor to see what I mean.

[Fuby]

Are you sure Mark? According to our resident expert on online gaming

Are you sure your not taking personally what others "new" to the game wonder why is not implemented?, which is standard these days? or how they play and see a game? Do you have the certificate that makes "you" the resident online gaming expert? most certificates to me are pure (pardon the word) Rubbish also. He is just seeing a lack of a big community in an awesome tank game. Communities do matter, and this title seems to have a very strong hearted one, but small one.

There is always more than one way to skin a cat and opinions like "ours" are usually a dime a dozen and "yes", probably already thought of by those that can actually program it in. I thought these have all been suggestions and nothing more. The last thing I saw written in "stone" was some tablets long ago. (ok, I didn't actually see them..but I heard quite a bit about them)

I normally charge 2p, but will waive my fee just this once.

I charge more than anyone can afford for common sense.

if a scenario is really well made, then even the sce designer will have a hard time guessing what the enemy is up to.

Would have to agree... Common Sense will dictate the future of drop in or not for this title. I think that has been clear and will be decided in the next "year" or two as Ssnake has mentioned, so case closed.

As for the Editor, the random feature, Im still learning and love the simplistic abilities allowed within the mission editor. Chance engagements and change of tactics can be manipulated pretty easily. Im still learning as to what extent. the event switch to count members, I guess already allows for the spawn of additional units if "human" player count adds up?

But with once again no disrespect to the present community, this is basicly how Arma does it also and has dropin 24/7 servers with the AI losing and regaining areas as the days(yes days) pass. Does not mean Arma Series is better, in fact if the vehicles had any feel to them, I wouldn't be here. We just don't live in a perfect world. But also does not mean adding dropins and 24/7 servers makes a quake gamish type game.

Once any scenario in "any" game is played enough, you "do" know what your heading into. If you got the script in front of you of the scenario, you even know before hand. Yes, its all scripted in the end, hopefully this is one mean editor with a great tree branch for this scripting. Looks like it so far!

Common Sense is FREE.. and I am sure the development team here knows what vision they are leading to and also have common sense of their own.

Till the future arrives.. Im going to be quite happy learning the present.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Fuby
Usually edit due to bad spelling and rewording to not "insult" anyones feelings.

[-bliss-]

Absolute rubbish. Do you think the Finnish forces in Zipuli's upcoming campaign have that information about the Russian forces - or vice versa?

My commments about flight simmmers were not directed against you, and your self appointment as the representative of the flight sim community on this forum is extremely tedious. Particularly as you've started banging on again about the joys of continuous 'dogfight' servers.

And that is all I am going to say on the subject.

Tjay out.

Are you sure Mark? According to our resident expert on online gaming, a coop is: '... a scripted, structured action where team A needs to do x,y,z while team be needs to do a,b,c. So if everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, you basically know exactly what's going to happen. (My italics).

:heu:

Your senseless jabs only go to show that you can't respect anyone's opinion other than your own. I gave valid reasons and supported those reasons why I don't much care for COOPs.

And it's people like yourself that make other people not want to do anything with this sim. I've had 4 PM's on our forums now from flight simmers thanking me for my attempt at expanding the game. Every one of em had the same response "Nice try at talking to those guys on the steel beasts forums but they are all full of themselves, a$$holes, etc"

Good work..