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#2238572 - 06/19/07 06:45 AM
just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
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Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 28,506
Magnum
Lifer
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Lifer
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 28,506
Naples, Florida
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Now don't get me wrong, I love SB Pro PE too, as I said before, best damn 125 I've spent... but I don't know why... Sure plenty of vehicles, action, different roles, realisitic penitration tables and all that stuff... ect ect...
but then you have simple stuff like no shadows, no weather effects, ugly infantry, not much combined arms type stuff... ect ect...
Now I know this is a training sim, and not really a game... but people #%&*$# and complain about some of the most minor imperfections of our 40 dollar computer games. but no one seems to say anything negative about SB... why is that? Has anyone regreted buying SB pro PE? (the only regret I have is the lack of time to spend more on this sim.)
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#2238590 - 06/19/07 07:24 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Magnum]
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 174
BlueSixGolf
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Member
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 174
Mesa, Arizona
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As I recall, there was quite a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding the release date of Pro PE. There has also been some unhappiness regarding the decision to use the dongle as the form of copy protection. For years people have been begging for a playable Warsaw Pact MBT. There are now some requests to open the source code enough so that modding can be done.
I think that anyone who has spent the $125, gave it a bit of thought first. There is the occasional and rare announcement that someone is selling Pro PE on eBay, so apparently the sim isn't everybody's cup of tea. Usually, though, these announcements are accompanied by disclaimers that the seller just doesn't have the time to devote to the sim (as if anyone trying to sell something would talk bad about it). But of course anyone zealous enough about his gaming to buy both VBS1 & 2 probably isn't going to regret spending $125 for the armor counterpart.
Personally, I can think of many areas that could be improved; infantry, weather, and dynamic lighting, as you mentioned, primary among those. Additional objects for the map editor to increase variety would be great. Refinement of the helicopter models along with some anti-air assets, on-board mortars and 2S1's, and maybe some type of modelled radio network vehicles (ala M577, that would negatively affect communication between units if destroyed) would really add to the fight.
Kinda answering your question with another question though, if you were in charge of converting SB Pro PE from a training sim to a game, what changes would you make in order for it to be worth the average gamer's $40?
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#2239782 - 06/19/07 01:10 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: BlueSixGolf]
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
FlyRetired
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
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Kinda answering your question with another question though, if you were in charge of converting SB Pro PE from a training sim to a game, what changes would you make in order for it to be worth the average gamer's $40?
That's a good starting point to ask this basic question. Why is Steel Beast Pro not considered a wargame?
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#2239930 - 06/19/07 04:27 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Magnum]
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**DONOTDELETE**
Unregistered
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Anonymous
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Some things could stand to be cleaned up a little for the SB2 audience- occasionally you can see gaps in some of the models; you might see a little space in some of the closed hatches or where the turret ring meets the hull of the T-72 and BMP. Likewise, I can occasionally see tears in the ground textures masking the terrain tiles. Furthermore, the transition between dissimilar ground textures are sometimes a bit ugly- you can see the the effect where grass meets cement for example. Finally, some parts of the vehicle skins are recycled to such a degree that some kinds of details and camo systems are either impossible or are otherwise very difficult to reproduce for modding purposes- you won't really see this until you try to mod them, and generally the original artists and some modders have done a great job working within constraints. But where pieces of the texture maps are repeated, it can be difficult to avoid an artificially symmetrical appearance- for example, the T-80 turret front is quite difficult to play with: any detail applied to the reactive armor tile will be repeated for all, since there is one texure common for all. The BMP exit doors likewise occupy a lot of real estate, and therefore any detail applied to the texture might have an ungainly impact in that area. You can't have alternating road wheel colors for the same reasons. Again- most people probably won't notice or care so much, and the stock monotone olive drab and desert skins mask this pretty well.
For my taste, I'd like to see improved dust and smoke effects insofar as they look good and have tremendous tactical impact.
After that, an expanded vehicle set is always welcome- I could personally stand to see T-55/62 and M60, since these are still in service and in some cases are the likely MBT threat rather than T-72 or T-80. Besides, any serious player wants a Cold War set above all else. I'm not so sure about modding opened up to the customer base, but certainly I'd pay for add on packs. That's probably not in the cards for the near future though.
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#2239943 - 06/19/07 04:43 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: FlyRetired]
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**DONOTDELETE**
Unregistered
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Anonymous
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Kinda answering your question with another question though, if you were in charge of converting SB Pro PE from a training sim to a game, what changes would you make in order for it to be worth the average gamer's $40?
That's a good starting point to ask this basic question. Why is Steel Beast Pro not considered a wargame? I suppose it is, depending on what you want it to be- the sim crowd likes to operate the controls and shoot things up. Army customers probably want to drill their people on procedures and use it as an inexpensive gunnery course. Some wargamers may be put off by the pace of action- it's not a beer & pretzels wargame but has a habit of gaining momentum and can overwhelm the player with more than a few units. Dedicated I-GO-UGO turn-based wargames handle information a bit differently at the player's own pace, but generally speaking real time war games have always brought up certain issues of alter ego and and scale, which can't really be avoided. Finally, SB's map screen while functional doesn't have the glamour and flash of a dedicated wargame, while the 3D representation and interaction of these units make it much more difficult to execute strategy- it's not easy to make plans based on up what the player can see up to 5 km observations at ground level on a PC monitor; overhead map views in a grand strategy wargame or otherwise abstracted distances in other wargames better facilitate the player in this regard. Combat Mission allows you to pause the action and pan across the battlefield; SB has no compromises here- it's appropriately very difficult at this scale. I might qualify my assertion here and raise the issue of units cut off from the radio net- this has implications for the strategy gamer, as these units are not really isolated: you can still jump to them and operate them directly, and gather intellgence; the player is still in a sort of divine position that nothing precludes him from knowing what these units know, even when they are technically 'lost'. It's just that the control path becomes a little more difficult as the player can no longer issue orders to them indirectly but must now hop over to them. To be clear though variations on this more or less occurs in all games- the player has artificial knowledge and control beyond what any real world commander should have. On a few occasions in SB Pro, I have been able to return and extract revenge on a unit which killed me by deducing how close by it must have been and where its approximate location probably is, judging by the sound of the weapons fire. Perhaps the screen should just go blank rather than kicking the player to an outside view of his destroyed vehicle, where he can still gain information from sights and sounds- Boooooring. It's probably necessary to forgive these things in order to create a game, just like an overhead or side scrolling arcade-action game: a player can see things and events around his character even if they couldn't possibly be in his line of sight. It's inherent to game design that can't really be accounted for beyond mitigating it somewhat.
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#2240057 - 06/19/07 07:09 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Magnum]
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Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 494
Sepp
Member
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Member
Joined: Sep 2006
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Now don't get me wrong, I love SB Pro PE too, as I said before, best damn 125 I've spent... but I don't know why... Sure plenty of vehicles, action, different roles, realisitic penitration tables and all that stuff... ect ect...
but then you have simple stuff like no shadows, no weather effects, ugly infantry, not much combined arms type stuff... ect ect...
Now I know this is a training sim, and not really a game... but people #%&*$# and complain about some of the most minor imperfections of our 40 dollar computer games. but no one seems to say anything negative about SB... why is that? Has anyone regreted buying SB pro PE? (the only regret I have is the lack of time to spend more on this sim.)
The only thing that has p!ssed me off about it so far is the omnipotent AI. There seems to be no variation in the skill of the AI crews, they are all capable of both spotting and killing you instantly. I pulled a beautiful flanking maneouver, on my own, against a large force of enemy inf and armor, coming out behind them from a forest while they were engaged with my friendlies to their front. Enemy was approx half a klick away. I was presented with the rears of three T80s, a couple of APCs and some infantry. I figured I'd get at least one of the T80s before they sussed me, kind of hoped I'd get the full nine yards of a turkey-shoot actually. Didn't get a single shot off before all three T80s turned around and did me (I wasn't helped by my not-so-omnipotent TC constantly changing his mind about which target was more dangerous and throwing off my aim). I'm finding this 'instant death from nowhere' to be a consistent bug-bear, and it's beginning to put me off playing. I've tried the ultra-cautious routine, even hiding well inside forests and trying to spot them before they spot me, using the thermal imager, but I never see them. But somehow they see me, and as soon as I poke my nose out for a better look...KA-BLAMMO!!! Are real crews this good? All of them? Uniformly so? I've turned the settings down to 'easy', hoping to hobble the AI to what I'd consider a more realistic level. Surround sound doesn't work for me either. I have 5.1 speakers, but all sound comes from all around me, so I can't even get any cues from that. Impact sounds also seem to be missing, I've been pasted by MG fire for minutes on end, and can hear only the distant sound of their shots. I get the flashes of strikes on my hull, but no sounds to go with them. I like a challenge, but this is beyond that. I did finally beat the last mission in which I'd previously got the failed drop on the T80s, but only on the 6th attempt, and only because my units elsewhere prevailed (without any input from me at all). I survived in my third tank of the mission, and got two or three kills, but only because the enemy I finally met were already heavily engaged with at least five or six of my AI Abrahms elsewhere (even the omnipotent enemy AI couldn't cope with that). But, to conclude, the one and only thing I'm not liking is the ability of the enemy AI in tanks to instantly spot, shoot and hit me, while I'm unable to see where they are (either myself or my TC/gunner). I'd like to see some variety in their skills...surely not every crew can be so elite in real life. Where are the rookies, or average dudes? Regardless of all the above, the sim still draws me with it's incredible view distances, quality of terrain and sense of freedom. And the controls are superlative. If this was a WW2 tank sim, with more believable AI tank-crew abilities, I'd pay a lot more than $125 for it. It really is that good. With a good RPG layer on top...holy god, it'd be totally unbeatable. Well, it's already that anyway...what else is there, RO? Pa-tooey! 
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#2240083 - 06/19/07 08:02 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: ]
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
FlyRetired
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
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Thanks Devil M for your informative reply. This is what we used back in the 1980's to practice combined arms tactics in the US Army:  It too was called a "training simulation", even though the exercises were adjudicated on a sand table with miniature vehicles and units:  The interesting fact about Dunn Kempf, is that it was developed from a wargaming hobby ruleset of the day, and for all intents and purposes the military module differed little from its commercial counterpart, other than the Combined Arms Center used it for "training" as a "high resolution battle simulation" (the difference was largely one of semantics). This brings me now to Steel Beast Pro PE, and the question of whether there is much difference between it as a "training simulation" derivative, and what a commercial "tank sim" could/should offer?
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#2240092 - 06/19/07 08:08 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Sepp]
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**DONOTDELETE**
Unregistered
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Anonymous
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The only thing that has p!ssed me off about it so far is the omnipotent AI. There seems to be no variation in the skill of the AI crews, they are all capable of both spotting and killing you instantly.
It's probably quite tricky to fine tune the right balance- seemingly omniscient computer on the one hand, or apparently a computer which seems to miss the 'obvious' threat (obvious to us). The T-72 is reported to have very poor situational awareness when buttoned up- I don't know if this is modeled in SB so that some vehicles have an easier time than others. However, the computer crews can realistically detect you easier when you are moving, and they also rely on your sounds. So although you are sneaking up on a static position, you can be defeated by virtue of your movement, which makes you easier to spot and locate. We aren't talking about infantry here but relatively large and noisy combat vehicles. However- now here's a deep issue: I don't know if anyone can program ambiguous detection in their games: in other words, the computer can distinguish the sound between an M1 and T-80 gas turbine. It can identify blurry thermal images and sort out the enemy. It can discern friendly troops from the bad guys at any distance it can detect them. Against human opponents, you could probably ride through an enemy's rear area and it may take them a while to figure you out, since they probably weren't expecting you there. Not so with computer units- they can't really be surprised by your sudden appearance based on their expectations- they don't have any. Although you can force a general handicap upon them, they never hestiate because they are unsure of themselves as in an online game where human players delay killing each other because they are unsure or unaware of enemies camped in the spawn zone; often times opposing players run right by each other in absurd-looking scenes eliciting the Keystone Cops. Therefore, computer units behave as efficiently and diligently under all circumstances, for better or for worse. I've never seen the contrary to any game, unless it were the basis for a scripted scenario. A scenario designer might try giving fire control orders to units only when they spot enemies in a given region, or if they are fired on first- that way you can give affectations of reduced reactions and capabilites. Still a ponderous solution which couldn't possibly satsify every case, but it's probably all there is.
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#2240138 - 06/19/07 08:50 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Sepp]
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 174
BlueSixGolf
Member
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Member
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 174
Mesa, Arizona
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I like a challenge, but this is beyond that.
There are a couple of things that you can do to get ahead of the power curve on this one (keeping the AI from getting the drop on you). Using the After Action Review tool really helps. After the mission is over, you're given a scoring screen. If you switch that screen to the terrain view, you're given a tape recorder icon that you can use to review the battle. At the top of the screen is a pull-down menu from which you can select that all units, friendly and enemy, be shown. This is a great learning device. Another thing that you can do is to modify the scenario in the mission editor. There is a wide variety in the number, type, and complexity of the user-made missions. This is another complaint that can reasonably be lodged. It's very difficult to tell what the deal with a mission is until after you've played it. If you find a particular scenario overly difficult, pass on it or modify it. It's rather easy to go in the mission editor and delete units (right-click on the unit and hit the delete button). You also might consider, if you haven't done so already, working on your score on the gunnery range. Until you get a decent score on the gunnery range, your friendly AI vehicles are going to shooting like Gomers. Getting a couple Davy Crocketts on your side will make things a bit easier on you.
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#2240183 - 06/19/07 09:41 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: BlueSixGolf]
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 912
TheHammer
Member
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Member
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 912
San Diego, CA
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@FlyRetired - miniatures rules???  what were they based off of? Tractics? not many folks know much about miniatures any more...and it is a lot easier to get together online in a computer sim than for a long time period at a place (if you can even find enough local folks interested...). i think there are some things folks would like to have different in SBPPE. i think the reason folks are not displeased is that eSim is quite up front and tells folks ahead of time what to and what not to expect. no marketeering, no BS. set the proper expectations. very different from the folks that are mass producing games... not to mention the quality for what it is intended is extremely high, and they are very responsive and manage to juggle the general public and their higher paying customers needs quite well. i bought the 'game' for two reasons... one was to have a higher fidelity SB. there has not really been a good armor game in quite a long while. second waas to support eSim to get SB2 out (i.e. to have that crewable Opfor tank!).
Last edited by Steel; 06/19/07 09:42 PM.
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#2240285 - 06/19/07 11:45 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: TheHammer]
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
FlyRetired
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 3,380
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Hi Steel. Dunn-Kempf was updated from what we called "fast rules" back then, based on War Game Rules, Armour and Infantry, 1950-1975, and adapted for USACGSC by Captains Hilton Dunn and Steve Kempf. I gamed with Micheal Reese, who was also in the US Army and wrote Tractics (primarily for WW2 wargaming, but with updates for modern). The price of Steel Beast Pro PE is still too steep for me, and I have to admit that I'm more fond of historical simming and not hypotheticals, but if eSim did The Yom Kippur War '73, I would jump at it! 
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#2240433 - 06/20/07 03:41 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: FlyRetired]
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,454
MajorMagee
Member
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Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,454
Dayton, OH
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Wow, Dunn-Kempf, a blast from the past. My last session with that was in 1979.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
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#2240777 - 06/20/07 04:39 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: FlyRetired]
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 22,405
letterboy1
(Heterosexual)Tchaikovsky Ballet Fan
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(Heterosexual)Tchaikovsky Ballet Fan
Lifer
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 22,405
Columbus, GA USA
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I don't play it often, but haven't ceased to be impressed with its quality. After some of the more recent patches though, it seems like the game has slowed down more and I'm not sure why. If anything, it should be smoother because I've upgraded my graphics card several times (X1950 Pro now).
The one mission I like to play repeatedly (because it's not too hard) is '73 Eastings. When I get to the first little village on the right, I man the gun and start with the one armoured vehicle parked by a building. Then I machine gun the infantry. This used to be smooth video for me, but now the view panning seems to be considerably harder on the frame rates.
Other than that I have no complaints. I'm sure I'll find some setting that will mitigate this little annoyance. I have no regret at all spending the $120 on this game, even though I don't play it very much. If anything, it's like buying something from a collector's point of view. I've always appreciated a well-made sim and will buy one even if I don't plan to play it alot.
The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
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#2241064 - 06/21/07 01:21 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: letterboy1]
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,454
MajorMagee
Member
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Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,454
Dayton, OH
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I've had it for quite a while, and it plays great. I spend most of my time on development projects, so I don't play all that much, but yes, it's worth every penny, and the whole community associated with it is great.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
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#2241081 - 06/21/07 02:03 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: MajorMagee]
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 1,458
Smithcorp
Member
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Member
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 1,458
Oz
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I've never really been unhappy with it. I understand Sepp's comments about getting killed by the AI very quickly and sometimes my games (including MP) are frustratingly short, and I'm aware that the AI gunners have some major advantages over my eyes (like being able to see through rocks and buildings); but I think it's mostly me not being terribly good rather than a flaw in the sim (understanding its not intended as something for me to play with, but as a training tool for tankers and applied as part of structured training). You can certainly game it by jumping from position to position to give your AI crew their best chances.
On the other hand, I have had plenty of experiences where I have come upon enemy vehicles and troops and successfully outdrew them, which is satisfying.
I don't set out to "beat" games and so for me, SBProPE is more about having an experience of being a tanker, so winning isn't as important for me as just being part of something exciting. In that sense, SB gives me what I want and I don't mind so much when i get clobbered by three hits in 2 seconds before I even have time to put the sight on a bad guy. I figure it's about trade-offs, so I happily trade off some of the visuals (the sprite infantry, the lack of shadows, the explosions etc) for the amazing sounds and the technical integrity and richness of the guts of the sim (targeting, ammo types, gunner's sights etc).
I've played as a tanker in ARMA and several times really missed a TIS and LRF when up against T72s - the pretty explosions don't make up for it when compared with SB.
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#2241123 - 06/21/07 03:47 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Smithcorp]
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Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Ssnake
Virtual Shiva Beast
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Virtual Shiva Beast
Hotshot
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 7,747
Germoney
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I think that one of the reasons why there are few people voicing disappointment is that we are about as hoest as we can be about our product in order to shape realistic expectations. If you care to do a minimum of research before paying the money - and at $125.- a pop most people do - then you do get what you can read in the forums about what you will get. To that extent the decided absence of hyping helps to increase customer happiness.
One thing that ...irritates... me (I hope that this really is the best word to express concerned curiosity, and not mild annoyance) is the impression that people get that computer controlled units are able to look through buildings and boulders. We never managed to verify that assertion in the debugger, and believe me, we really tried. The only occasion where it could happen was if you were trying to hide between boulders that are used in full size as ground cover objects in the terrain theme editor; they were never supposed to be used full size but rather as breadcrumb type of pebbles in the ground to improve the impression of a detail-rich environment, hence these terrain theme generated ground cover objects are discared in the LOS calculations irrespective of their size. Performance-wise there simply is no way around this.
Computer-controlled supercrews... there's never been a deliberate attempt to make them superhuman in their abilities. Overall I think that computer-controlled crews represent the quality of trained recruits equipped with vehicles in mint condition (unless the mission designer applies random light damage to them at mission start). They may be a bit more effective than you would expect from human crews but then again they will occasionally suffer from symptoms of being the brain-dead zombies that they actually are. Overall my impression is that it's in a way balanced out though one could make the case for both them being too weak and too strong at the same time.
We had people being decidedly unhappy with SB Pro PE. One guy had a serious personality conflict with about 51% of the community and not enough support from the other 49%. And I got very angry emails by about five to ten guys over the past year, fortunately all were cases that could be solved in a way that they were happy afterwards. There have been times where the absence of negative feedback made me nervous. That really isn't the norm. But clearly customer satisfaction with SB Pro PE is way, way above average. It doesn't mean that nobody couldn't come up with ideas how it could be made better. There clearly are issues that need to be addressed, some of which have been listed in this thread. Well, for one we are systematically tackling one issue after the other. Second, we don't #%&*$# around whether or not something is an "opinion bug" or whether our customers actually have the mental capacity to understand what our software is about. I will admit bugs and shortfalls. Most of the time these items are on The List, sometimes they are deliberate design decisions (and I understand if some people would make other decisions than the ones we did).
Just be honest with your customers, it really pays off. You don't have to try and be everybody's darling, you don't have to try to promise everything to everybody. But what you can and should do as a developer is to explain the constraints under which you're working, and why you made certain decisions, why you took certain shortcuts. The better people understand the background of the software and its developmental aspects, the more they are willing to accept deficits, at least for some time.
Ultimately this is marketing 101. Many people misunderstand what Marketing Theory is actually trying to tell (at least the way I understood it). Yes, you can put lipstick on a pig as long as you're not deceptive about its true nature. You can say "Look! It's the most beautiful pig you've ever seen!" - just don't try to make people belive that it is anything but a pig.
In our case I think that Steel Beasts is not a pig with red lips but a diamond in the rough. Which makes my job decidedly easier. Being brutally honest may make me a bad salesman, but I have a great product to sell if the customer is willing to accept the rough edges.
Just. Don't. Lie.
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#2241288 - 06/21/07 11:08 AM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Ssnake]
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,896
bogusheadbox
Opinionated Aussie Bloke
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Opinionated Aussie Bloke
Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 2,896
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Oh thats rich. Definitely not the plan of attack, i used on the wife to buy this game. Most expensive fanbelt i ever bought 
Fighterops...
The only TRUE Stealth crowd funded game.
Devs said there was stuff there, but you just couldn't see it.
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#2241527 - 06/21/07 04:29 PM
Re: just wondering... has anyone been unhappy with SB pro pe?
[Re: Ssnake]
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Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 494
Sepp
Member
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Member
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 494
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I think that one of the reasons why there are few people voicing disappointment is that we are about as hoest as we can be about our product in order to shape realistic expectations. If you care to do a minimum of research before paying the money - and at $125.- a pop most people do - then you do get what you can read in the forums about what you will get. To that extent the decided absence of hyping helps to increase customer happiness.
One thing that ...irritates... me (I hope that this really is the best word to express concerned curiosity, and not mild annoyance) is the impression that people get that computer controlled units are able to look through buildings and boulders. We never managed to verify that assertion in the debugger, and believe me, we really tried. The only occasion where it could happen was if you were trying to hide between boulders that are used in full size as ground cover objects in the terrain theme editor; they were never supposed to be used full size but rather as breadcrumb type of pebbles in the ground to improve the impression of a detail-rich environment, hence these terrain theme generated ground cover objects are discared in the LOS calculations irrespective of their size. Performance-wise there simply is no way around this.
Computer-controlled supercrews... there's never been a deliberate attempt to make them superhuman in their abilities. Overall I think that computer-controlled crews represent the quality of trained recruits equipped with vehicles in mint condition (unless the mission designer applies random light damage to them at mission start). They may be a bit more effective than you would expect from human crews but then again they will occasionally suffer from symptoms of being the brain-dead zombies that they actually are. Overall my impression is that it's in a way balanced out though one could make the case for both them being too weak and too strong at the same time.
We had people being decidedly unhappy with SB Pro PE. One guy had a serious personality conflict with about 51% of the community and not enough support from the other 49%. And I got very angry emails by about five to ten guys over the past year, fortunately all were cases that could be solved in a way that they were happy afterwards. There have been times where the absence of negative feedback made me nervous. That really isn't the norm. But clearly customer satisfaction with SB Pro PE is way, way above average. It doesn't mean that nobody couldn't come up with ideas how it could be made better. There clearly are issues that need to be addressed, some of which have been listed in this thread. Well, for one we are systematically tackling one issue after the other. Second, we don't #%&*$# around whether or not something is an "opinion bug" or whether our customers actually have the mental capacity to understand what our software is about. I will admit bugs and shortfalls. Most of the time these items are on The List, sometimes they are deliberate design decisions (and I understand if some people would make other decisions than the ones we did).
Just be honest with your customers, it really pays off. You don't have to try and be everybody's darling, you don't have to try to promise everything to everybody. But what you can and should do as a developer is to explain the constraints under which you're working, and why you made certain decisions, why you took certain shortcuts. The better people understand the background of the software and its developmental aspects, the more they are willing to accept deficits, at least for some time.
Ultimately this is marketing 101. Many people misunderstand what Marketing Theory is actually trying to tell (at least the way I understood it). Yes, you can put lipstick on a pig as long as you're not deceptive about its true nature. You can say "Look! It's the most beautiful pig you've ever seen!" - just don't try to make people belive that it is anything but a pig.
In our case I think that Steel Beasts is not a pig with red lips but a diamond in the rough. Which makes my job decidedly easier. Being brutally honest may make me a bad salesman, but I have a great product to sell if the customer is willing to accept the rough edges.
Just. Don't. Lie. You're a class act Snake. 
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Exodus
by RedOneAlpha. 04/18/24 05:46 PM
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