OK... maybe one is a game question... In the planning stage, i order my unit to engage to a point, I then send out a few scout vehicles with the scout command, and some of the combat vehicles out with an engage command... half the time when I click play after the plan... the AI vehicles will immediately move to their assigned routes, the other half of the time no one moves till I "jump to unit" and order then to continue to waypaoint... am i missing something here... when I lay out a plan, i expect all assigned vehicles to move out when game starts... no delay was put on them?

also... my biggest problem with SB Pro PE isn't driving, gunning, or TC'ing or any of the actual armor stuff, can even control and order my platoon... but understanding what I'm looking at on the map... where, what route is best to take, wheres the hills and elevations compared to where the enemy may come from... my skills lack seriously in the planning and execution of a great attack or engagement... any ideas, suggestions, or feedback?

screen below shows both of my problems above... I ordered all the vehicles to a location, but only I moved at game start... and my routes were best guesses, NOT, intelligent guesses.

thx

A lot could be said about it. But a few rules of thumb may already be helpful, plus a decidedly non-comprehensive check-list of questions that will arise time and again.

1. SB Pro rule of thumb: If a route is longer than 500m, it's probably best to cut it in half. You can copy a single route leg and paste it to a new waypoint to create a longer, "segmentized" route. This may appear as a needless inflation of waypoints - but it gives you flexibility to add alternative routes later, or order changes in formation, fire control, movement speed, etc.; you may not immediately have everything in your mind, so retaining a bit of flexibility is a good thing.
2. It may be a good idea to identify key terrain, and to mark it with battle positions during the planning phase which need not be connected by routes, but wich you can utilize on the fly during the mission.
   Think of alternate battle positions as well, as you may be forced to evade artillery strikes if you have to overwatch a certain area for an extended period.
3. Present the enemy with unpleasant alternatives: If he wants to shoot, force him to expose himself. If he's exposed, you can harass him with artillery fire. If he breaks contact in order to avoid the fire, use the opportunity to move to a new position from which you can apply your firepower better. Fire and maneuver.
4. If direct gun fire can't solve a problem, maybe artillery can. Or helicopters. Or missiles. If neither can, you're probably in the wrong place to begin with.

Fundamentally, you always have to consider two elements - firepower, and maneuver. For every battle position and every route that you plan, you need to consider both. This will lead to a number of questions to which you must develop an answer:

1. Iterative question for every level of command (task force, task force components, individual platoons (and, by extension, also individual vehicles)
   WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?
   Typical answers are to take terrain, or to defend terrain, or to gather intelligence, or to support someone else who is tasked with one of these three options.
2. What are my assets?
   - type of equipment
   - logistical state
3. HOW AM I GOING TO ACCOMPLISH THIS?
   In other words, who needs to be where, and (often overlooked) when?
4. What are the environmental variables that influence your mission - terrain, time of day, weather?
5. What's the enemy's best option to disrupt your plan? How can you prevent that from happening?
6. For every platoon, and every battle position, you always need to have an answer ready for
   - Where am I supposed to be, when?
   - What am I supposed to do there?
   - How do I get there?
   - How do I get out of the position, if forced to do so?

By developing answers to each of these questions you will eventually develop a solution for the given task. Tactics is only in parts an "art" that needs talent. It is also a craft that can be learned through sufficient practice, and you will learn faster if you analyze what you are actually supposed to do. The annihilation of enemy forces should, in good missions, be a mission goal only in rare exceptions to the rule. Usually it is a means to accomplish a certain goal, e.g. to take certain key terrain that enables you to control an area - that is, to deny the enemy access to that area, or at least to make it costly and dangerous to try and win back control over it, or to force him to keep a low profile.

If you don't know where the enemy is and what his intent is, chances are your mission is to find out exactly that. If you aren't given useful information and your mission is not to gather intelligence, consider the not-so-remote possibility that you're dealing with a rather #%&*$# scenario.
If you have an idea about the enemy's disposition, strength and intent, you can usually derive answers to the questions above.
To come up with useful answers, you must know the capabilities and limitations of your own equipment, and that of the enemy.

I'm sorry if this is a bit disorganized, but there's a reason that armies spend three years to build a 2nd Lt ... who is then only qualified to continue his learning in practice. Still, tactics is neither witchcraft nor rocket science, but rather something in between.



In order to learn, you must use the AAR phase in SB Pro to find out for every point in the mission

1. What was the situation, and what did I THINK that the situation was?
2. How could I have known better, aside from 20/20 hindsight?
3. What worked out as planned?
4. WHat failed?
   Why?
5. What would I do again?
6. What would I do differently?

Truthful and thorough answers to these questions will lead to insight. Insight, if applied to future action, will lead to experience. You may never truly "master" SB Pro to the point that you will always win every scenario on the first try. Arguably, if a player ever came to that stage, we would have failed. But pursuing that path of constant learning will set you on course to understand the nature of combined arms combat tactics. You don't have to be the ultimate Zen master of tactics as long as you're the best apprentice in the field.

The 2D map perhaps does not give you the information you want.
You can "cheat" with camera view and check it out before you actually play the mission.
Or view it from the players view, unbuttoned TC using the bino.
Good tool is the LOS.
You can use triggers, so some units will not move out till you actually give the command (activating the trigger).
You can use "Embark if" command with routes and plan also delays if you want to.
Make more then one plan in the planning phase. They can be saved in the latest version and see wich you like best.
The SB wiki/forum has some great info about how to for planning phases ect.
If you are playing single player missions, do not add too many units. Its already hard to command a view of your own platoons.
Bigger, more complex missions are best played in co-op IMO.
Most (>70%) of the time I play single player missions as TC. TC has better view of the actual battefield.
The more you actually play it, that is using the planning phase and AAR too, the more you learn how to play it succesfully.

To your first question:

The map shows BP brackets on most of your units, meaning they have tactics applied (stay, maybe?) These are probably the units that are not moving at mission start.

You need to either remove the assigned tactic that's holding them in place, or give their route an embark-if condition.

Just a tip ... if you want all those units to embark at the same time, I predict some traffic jam headaches with those overlapping routes.

copy... good info. thx.

Also - I know, user manuals are for losers - If you have to read only one chapter of the user manual, make it chapter eight. Every player of Steel Beasts Pro PE must understand the "rules" of low level "AI" - the core of the behavior of computer-controlled units - in order to know what to expect from them. I'm talking about implicit embark conditions, and the behavior for the different battleposition behaviors, and that they depend on having an unconditioned (retreat) route leading away from them. Otherwise units will default to "hold" orders and defend to the last man, and to the last bullet. That will usually lead to higher losses than necessary.

Looking at the map, I wonder what you are actually trying to accomplish. What was your initial idea to spread out your forces over a frontage of more than five kilometers? How are the units supposed to support each other?
It seems like you assigned one very weak force to reconnoiter your southern flank, a smaller holding force to the center, and a large force up north for a flanking maneuver. That is in itself not a bad idea, but the execution may be lacking. Coordination is everything. If you want to use the hills to mask your movement - again, a good idea as long as you have at least one or two observation posts to keep an eye on what the enemy is doing while you bring your (hopefully) undetected units into position. But don't move your holding force into position too early. That will only lead to the enemy calling for artillery fire in the best case, or launch an assault on those central positions before your northern "hammer" is ready to blunt such an attack. Ideally there are no more than maybe two or three minutes before the central force occupies its positions and starts to attack the defenders with long range fire before your heavy force breaks into the open.
For that you need to define a hidden assembly area for the holding force and an embark condition to make them move forward only if the northern group is three to four minutes short of its initial attack positions.

If the central forces are Bradleys with TOW missiles, make sure that their positions aren't located on hill slopes that prevent the usage of those missiles. They need to be nearly level, which is difficult on hill slopes. And make sure with the LOS tool that the target area can actually seen by the Bradleys. That means, use the LOS tool to click a point in the target area and then check where the edge of dead space is. That's where your positions can be placed. Of that edge zone, pick the locations that promise level ground. This will quickly narrow down your options. (This is why it is important to keep the limitations of each system in mind). Use Defend tactics and have retreat routes prepared.

Yes... Ssnake... that was basically my idea... I know basic tactics but not detailed or complicated tactics... sent out a couple recon units, split the force into 2... a fire base and a flanking force... but i understand your points... thx.

I have heard there is a bug in the latest version where some vehicles do not embark on a route without a player in the vehicle. Someone said on TS one night that it was going to be fixed in a future patch.
As a side note, if there ever is a patch, i hope they fix whatever they did to break the 3D preview in the map editor.

Jack

We didn't "break" it by changing anything. It's something that always was there but which was only recently discovered, probably because people have more and more programs running in the background with multicore CPUs, and because our maps are growing in size and complexity.

The problem is that the terrain preview uses a function call which, for some weird reason, requires 150 MByte of unfragmented (contiguous) RAM. The more programs you open, the more documents you open and close, the more your RAM will fragment very much like a harddisk after years of use without and defragmentation runs. The function is one that is part of a 3rd party software package, so we can't "just fix it". We need to replace this function call with something that does the same, just without this stupid limitation.

That can't be done on a short notice because of possible, unintended consequences; a change must be thoroughly tested - and which would delay the patch release a lot. Instead we made a change that will hopefully let this bug occur more rarely by utilizing existing RAM better, but it's still lurking in the shadows.