Trying to get into Tank Simming

I've been an avid flight simmer for awhile and I want to try to get into tank simming now. I was wondering if anyone could give me some recommendation on what I should try. I don't enjoy any turn based planning like I know Steel Armor has.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Modern and best.... Steel Beasts Pro PE

WW2... if you can still get them somwhere... Steel Fury and/or WW2 Tank Battles

Action... World of Tanks

Unfortunately tank sims, or even games are rare... ArmA2 can give you tank "action" also.

gl

I'm willing to play anything that's good to be honest. Steel Beasts looks promising if it wasn't for $125! Haha I'll look for Steel Fury.

Track down a copy of Steel Best Gold (http://www.amazon.com/Steel-Beasts-Gold-Pc/dp/B000065SQG), or the old venerable M1 Tank Platoon II. Steel Beast is more realistic, but M1TPII is not far behind. Good ebaying will get you a copy for under $20 of either of them, and you can get them from Amazon direct if you want to avoid the hassle. An in box copy of M1TPII has a great spiral bound manual, and Steel Beast has a great series of manuals and info docs included in the install.

-Jenrick

If you want a World War II tank sim, Steel Fury is great !!

It is realistic and you get a lot of action. It has NO turn based planning.

You can buy it at gamersgate, for example:

http://www.gamersgate.com/

Moreover, a lot of new tanks and missions have been added in several mods. You can get them here:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/238/1/Graviteam_Sims.html

and here:

http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0

I really like that tank sim.


Txema

Hey there,

For WWII, Red Orchestra: Ostfront has a detailed and fun tank component to it and it's on sale now for $5! http://store.steampowered.com/app/1200/ . The Mare Nostrum and Darkest Hour mods (available for free once you have the basic game) add much to the tanking experience of the basic game depending on whether you want early war tanks or more detailed late war tanking.

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

I would (strongly) add on to Magnum and kramer's endorsement of Steel Beasts Pro. For now, it is $100. Or you could think of it as just a little more than $99.99 You mentioned that you are an avid flight simmer. SBP is essentially the armor sim world's Falcon 4. Simply the finest ever made. And it, like BMS and Free Falcon in the F4 world, keeps getting new features and updates but unlike Falcon or Jane's or most (all?) of the classic sims, it is the developer that keeps improving SBP.

The cost - Skyrim costs about $60. Lots of new, premium games and sims cost around $50. The current price for SBP is equivalent roughly to two A level new game releases, maybe three if you are lucky or find a sale. Before you make up your mind and reject this superb sim after seeing the price the first time, consider that it will live on your hard drive more or less forever. It isn't a play once, twice, maybe play for a month or two and then let it fade away. Like the best flight sims, you will find its huge and growing stock of missions, its many different fully player capable armor fighting vehicles (M-1 Leopards, Challenger, M-72, and many others) engaging you more and more as time goes by. Multiplayer is a blast - solid as a rock. After a year or two, many other games will have come and gone on your drive, and only the truly great ones keep you engaged. How much value and TSS (time spent simming!!) do you really get from the dollars spent?

From that perspective, which ones are actually expensive? Which ones have the best cost/benefit ratio?

PS If you do buy SBP and end up not wanting it after a while, there is a pretty avid market in re-selling it at a high percentage of the original price - unlike used games.

Armored is no different from fly guy. Find the classics cheap and work your way up. What is true in flight is also true in ground sims. The difference is that line of sight is blocked in vertical vs energy payment for vertical. XY and guns are the same. Think about it

If you want to go head to head with dozens of other tankers from a first person perspective you should take a look at Battleground Europe. It is a combined arms simulation so you will more often be killed by infantry or a 500lb bomb but that's the way it really was.

It is a true first person simulation. There is no jumping out and going third person like World of Tanks. This to me makes it a heart pounding, sweat soaking experience and not bumper cars with guns like WOT is. This is a real tankers experience with real physics. In WOT they run around shooting at each other at point blank range. To me it's just silly. In Battleground Europe you normally engage at 500 meters or farther if you're lucky. Don't get me wrong you can very easily surprise or be surprised in the cities and towns and get into a point blank who shoots first situation but it does not happen that often.

The best way is to team up with two other guys. You can have one player drive and the other be commander and gunner. The third should be a infantry type to keep sappers off you and to scout. Your tank makes lots of noise and there are plenty of enemy tank killers who just love to run after the sound of your engine to end you mission. Your infantry scout can both warn you of their locations as well as shoot the sapper/bazooka/rifle grenadier before he gets you. The tank crew can take care of the other tanks but without infantry support you will not last long.


Tanks include Tigers, PZIV, Stugs, PZIII, 232, PZII, Stuarts, Shermans, Wolverines, Matildas, Crusaders, Churchills, Char, Somua, Renault and a dozen others I can't remember at this time. The game rotates from 1940 - 1944 or so with the equipment becoming available as the current campaign progresses so everyone starts out with the early machines and everyone graduates to the heavy hitters. There is no paying extra for bigger tanks etc. Another plus for this game in MHO.

There is a rumor that they are adding possible kind of arena area where tankers can go at it unmolested by planes and sappers. The disadvantage to me is that it will allow 3rd person views and that kills it for me. But to each his own.

it's not like a college entrance exam. if you want to play something, go ahead and try it. if you can't figure it out on intuition alone, read the manuals and study the control in the options menu.

Wow, really surprised no one mentioned Panzer Elite. Still one of the finest tank sims with a grand campaign from the beginning to the end. Excellent ballistics and as much realism as you want. Huge battlefields, entire squad control - you tell them where to go and what to do when they get there, varying missions, good lord I love this sim....

Every kind of piece of equipment, infantry, artillery strikes, and your p[rogress in one battle determines the next. Almost like a Tank RPG as you progress through the war. You're men die, some are wounded, and they get better everytime they walk away from battle alive.

May be tough to find a copy of Panzer Elite, but if you do, it will need to be modded to bring it up to Panzer Elite 3. You'll need to mod it with the PEDG patch, which can be found here:

http://pedg.yuku.com/



And this is the Panzer Elite- Ostpak (mod version for east front war)




Still fire this game up at least once a week.

Steel Beast is not worth $100. You are better off playing WWIIONLINE for 17.99 a month.

Bite your tongue good sir.....you know not what you're talking about ....my opinion, whatever that counts for(bit of tongue in cheek).

I suspect you're kidding, as the support, realism, accuracy and engine are fantastic, indeed. It seems topically expensive, but it's well worth the cost, despite the only real flaw is no sort of campaign engine. However, there are plenty of ingenious scenario designers that have linked several single scenarios into a campaign of sorts. Not to mention, the design team is continually updating with some of the most current IFV's, tanks and APC's, that are playable, not to mention the wealth of AI vehicles to ues as targets and comrades in arms.

I have owned Stell Beast for more than 6 years and nothing comes close to support, accuracy or re-playability.

Just my unbiased opinion.

Anyway, may not be in everyone's price range or level of detail, as it's no World of Tanks simplicity, but it is certainly a true study sim and mil grade specific to boot.

Matt

he's got to be joking... comparing SB Pro PE to WoT.

because if he wasn't, he would be the first person I know to think SB wasn't worth the price since release.

Yeah know prior to this thread I was sorta on the fence about getting SBP:PE, as I'm not a huge armor simmer. After reading this thread and being inspired to do some research I think I'm going to have to pick it up. Heck I'm playing my copy of SB:G from years ago, I think it's upgrade time.

-Jenrick

SB Pro looks like it was made by amateurs, now iPanzer 44, that's a complete sim that SB Pro can only hope to be...

http://www.combatsim.com/memb123/archive/htm/htm_arc3/ipanz-rev.htm

Repeating jenrick, I also recommend a used copy of Microprose M1 Tank Platoon 2 if you can get your hands on one. Notice the word "used", because some sites sell a new (whatever that means) copy at more than US$110. Would someone assassinate me if I confess that I got mine by asking my friend nicely for it (apparently he got hooked at his brand new Steel Beast too much to think twice )?
I don't know about its realism value, but I do know that it's very addicting. All those movies about the M1A2 tank (intro included) alone would worth the $100 for a tanksim fanatic, I guess. And the manual is also a good read.
Oddly, I couldn't run it in Windows XP SP3, but it runs well on Windows 7 64bit, instead. Although with somewhat distorted, but still navigable, main menu. Oh, and use joystick to aim the gun instead of mouse; it's a whole lot easier that way.
My only complaint so far is that it doesn't have a driver's station where you can drive the tank from.

We get it, you don't like SB Pro. I can tell your a funny guy though. Attack the people who make SB, based on how it looks. Then post links to games that look worse. You must be some kind of rocket scientist.

We all played, and enjoyed those old games. And you don't do them any service when you use them to levy attacks against SB Pro. If you've been here long enough to make "4684 Posts", then you know just as well as everyone else that members of the SB development team visit these forums often. And making posts like the one above is trolling for a fight.

And you will get it.

Tanksim.com has an extensive review of Steel Beasts Pro PE. Reading that review and some others, and trying it in my friend's PC I don't think it's bad enough to be "made by amateurs" (though I don't know how good it really is either, no "real" tank simmer that I am).
And I sure hope it isn't, because so many countries use the sim it was based on to train their tank crews!

I've read the iPanzer 44 review from the link given, and I think that TerribleTwo was only joking, because even there the reviewer beats this game pretty badly, at some points even comparing it in disadvantage against M1TP2.

Cheers

Well, maybe he was just joking lol. Too much internets from me, I guess I need a break.

You do.

I thought it was obvious what TT meant, considering the earlier comment someone made about World of Tanks.

SB Pro is simply the best tank sim for modern era that is available to civilians. And darn close to the military version. Anyone who wants a long lived modern era armor sim that will live on his hard drive for years - and keeps getting updated by the developer - won't regret that initial purchase price.

He is also right about Panzer Elite, for WWII it is still a strong selection to consider. Aldo who posted in this thread has made many terrific contributions to upgrading PE, as have several other modders. I believe it is still available over at GOG, with a ton of mods, for a very low price.

If you don't think that it's worth the price, then you don't like the best representation of contemporary armored combat. People who have interest in the subject matter, well, they've discovered this is the best there is and ever has been. I defy you or anyone to come up with one better on rational grounds.

Personally, I always just thought Panzer Elite was just meh. No ballistics model, ugly, low resolution graphics that look like a garish impressionist painting, and the most convoluted control scheme ever for a tank related game. It was the best there was in its class for WW2 combat, which isn't saying much given you had the turkey Panzer Commander and the even worse iPanzer '44 at the time.

Modern Tank Sim: Steel Beast Pro hands down. I hedged for years because of the price but made the plunge last year. After playing for awhile I really wondered what the heck I waited so long for Liked it so much I got the 2.6 upgrade. Mission and map editor also

WW2 Tank Sim: Hands down Steel Fury Kharkov 1942. Lots of free community added armor mods after release (many still to come) same for missions and campaign. Mission editor, map editor and ability to make new vehicles also.

Post WW2 to 1980's : To early to say just yet, but if Steel Armor Blaze of War turns out as modable at SFK42 it will be a winner for this catagory.

PE does not claim to the latest and or greatest, but it is still progressing after 11 years. It's $10 or less. It has a mission editor, a map editor, the ability to add new vehicles, the ablilty to modify the AI logic, and the ability to change the damage modeling.

It's a nice beginner tool for learning how to mod as well as tanking.

I would put the present capabilities of the engine on par with the original Combat Mission BO.

it even plays on Win98 systems, VooDoo Banshee video cards and less then 1 gig ram computers.

As for having convoluded control, the keyboard commands are no worse then Longbow2 or Falcon3.

The best tank sim out there at the moment is SB Pro PE. It is expensive but nothing is closer to the real world than SB is as far as I am aware. I have been playing it off and since it came out, and conservatively I have played many hundreds of hours in it. So if you look at it like that, the sim isn't that expensive, especially considering that there are some games out there that cost 50 dollars and you play it for only a few tens of hours at most. So in that way SB Pro PE can be a steal

Yapp, This must be a wah...and a good one too :-D

I never regret buying Steel Beasts Pro and I would buy it again. In terms of sim it is the Falcon 4.0 of tanks (no dynamic campaign - but has good editor for endless fun)