Steel Beasts Pro PE - Training Mission #01
Welcome back! Yes, it's winter in the northern hemisphere - which means it's time to start another series of sim-related training articles. Nothing is more fun than learning a new sim when it's dark and miserable outside. This time I've picked the widely heralded Steel Beasts Professional - Personal Edition. I've long desired to poke my nose into the Steel Beasts world, and after spending $125 on it you can bet I'll get my value out of it! I'll be detailing my learning process throughout this series of training missions. Those that have seen my previous training missions will recognize that they aren't "teaching missions" because I normally end up learning a lot more from the interactions with more experienced users, so just realize that mistakes will be made, bad advice will be given, and hopefully in the end we'll all learn more about this fantastic sim.



For this first mission I thought I'd take advantage of a starting point that seems to make sense. I will eventually incorporate the training missions included with the default Steel Beasts Pro PE into the curriculum, but I wanted to start with something even more basic. So for our first mission we'll be taking a ride across the map on a fantastic older mission created by Gary Owen that stresses the importance of map reading and the ability to navigate by reference to terrain features. As a flight instructor, this type of mission warms my heart because a basic grasp of fundamentals is always a solid foundation to build off of. I'm also a big fan of maps, so it looks like SBPro is going to fulfill that map fetish I have. For all of these training missions I will provide a link to the training mission scenario so that you won't have to go searching for it if you wish to give it a shot yourself.

Training Mission #01: http://www.mudspike.com/SB/training01.zip

This mission is a great starting point because it doesn't have any shooting, or enemies, or any of the stresses related to more complex missions. This is purely a navigation and orienteering exercise. The briefing explains the procedure, which is basically to navigate to seven checkpoints, each featuring a distinctive geographic feature. Our mount for this mission will the simple HMMWV "Humvee".



Since real time map tracking is turned off in this scenario, the only time you'll be able to positively know your position on the map is at the initial starting point. Now, it is possible to cheat by simply lining up your cursor on the map grid coordinates and creating a route that the auto-driver can navigate too, but that kills the spirit and intent of the mission. Instead, you should manually direct your driver, or manually drive to all of the coordinates. Once you arrive at the given coordinates there should be an identification panel to mark the location, and the mission will give you the next set of coordinates.

Note: Some images have been cropped, composited, or highlighted to illustrate certain points.

The first thing I discovered (I'm reading the SBPro manual on the fly) is that as you move your cursor on the map the box on the right side of the screen reflects your cursor location via a standard 6 digit grid system. So when you are given the coordinates to navigate to, just move the cursor to that terrain feature by keeping an eye on those numbers. Once you are there, you should be able to recognize the terrain feature based on the topography (a hill, a valley, a ridgeline, etc.,). The map in SBPro is fantastic, allowing you to annotate it, put symbols, text, lines, circles and all kinds of things. For each point I was to navigate to, I simply used the "Checkpoint" symbol and put a text line describing the feature next to it.



Starting off I could clearly see the village due south that would be the first good reference point to set me on my way. I can see no option for a pop-up compass (I haven't read enough to know if that is available), but there is a small graphic of your vehicle on the bottom of the screen that indicates your direction of travel, assuming you know that North is up, South is down, and East and West are right and left respectively. While this works fine for roughly estimated direction a true compass bearing would be nice. I'm guessing that information might be available through a scope/aiming device on the tanks in future missions.



Just like in flying when using pilotage and dead reckoning, your map should be constantly updated with your current known location since all future navigation is predicated on accurately knowing your last location. The best way to do that is by comparing what you see out of your windows with what is on the map (the whole purpose of Gary Owen's mission!). So upon reaching the village I compared the location of the bridges to the general orientation (northwest) to ascertain I was on the right road leading out of town toward my first checkpoint. Bridges, towns, streams, and lakes make excellent reference points.



After crossing this bridge, I know that I should be seeing a hard left turn and that I should be running parallel to the stream off my left side.



I found the first waypoint and sure enough the next objective coordinates flashed up and I simply duplicated the procedure. Plot it on the map - and start looking for reference points. Each of the waypoints features a certain topographic feature. The first waypoint was a "saddle" formed by the natural depression between two high points. Since I do so much hiking in real life I'm intimately familiar with contour maps, so learning how to read and interpret them is essential to learning how to identify (and eventually take advantage of) terrain in SBPro maps.





One of the other waypoints was a "Depression" which looked a bit like a crater. I found it by figuring out that the road would travel between two high points and just took a 90 degree turn and headed up the heavily wooded slope. Wow - the woods are dense here and I'll be interested to see how this cover works in future missions!



One thing I finally realized was that driving from the "Driver" station is far better than driving from the "Commander" station. I hadn't realized that my commands from the "Commander" station were just that - commands. More precise driving can be done from the driver station.



Sure enough - down in the crater on the other side of the ridgeline I spied the next waypoint marker.



And so it went - saddle, draw, depression, spur, valley, etc. I traveled all over the map and got a good feel for some of the basic commands and using the map.



Crossroads also make good waypoints - and that definitely looks like a big valley up ahead!



The final waypoint was on the crest of a steep hill overlooking a small village. Up we go!



What a great first mission. Total elapsed time, because I was referencing a lot of material and taking screenshots and generally going nice and slow was 67 minutes. It can be done far faster for sure, but I was soaking in all the great simulation goodness. Thanks to Gary Owen for creating such a nice mission.

Stay tuned as we expand our knowledge in future scenarios!

BeachAV8R

Unfortunately, the compass won't get any better. You'll have to make do with the indicator.

Cool.

Just a point or two to add. One helpful aid to navigation is that prior to starting a scenario, the map contour interval can be changed in the planning phase for the duration of that mission. This allows the user to set the level of relief feature detail to best allow him to depict the terrain. I probably should have included that in the mission briefing.

And that crater is actually an open pit quarry. Here's a google maps shot of the area.



There's been a bit more mining since the map was made.

B6G aka Gary Owen

No problem. I'm smart enough to figure out directions based on the little graphic..


Hey alright! I didn't know BlueSixGolf = Gary Owen.. I really enjoyed the mission and thought the setup and terrain features illustrated were brilliant. It was also a great idea using the HUMVEE as the vehicle. I did notice, after the fact, that the contour intervals could be changed - that is a nice feature once you get zoomed in a spot a bit.

I hope you don't mind me changing the mission name for download purposes to "training01.zip". Since I'm going to be illustrating a bunch of these I thought it would make it easier for people to associate the missions with each post.

Regards!
BeachAV8R

Of course I don't mind. I'm flattered that anyone would play the scenario in the first place, much less use it as a point of discussion.