New user just saying "Hello"

Greetings.

I've been pining for a good Armour sim for a while (but doing nothing about it) and stumbled onto Steel Beasts over the weekend. Bought a 30-day license (after some initial troubles with the eSim website) to try things out, ran through the gunnery tutorials for M1A1 and Challenger 2 that was enough to hook me. Order for the full license fired in later that same morning.

Off to the range to practise my gunnery a bit more to try to raise my pathetic showing. Interesting that I seem to perform much better in the Challenger 2 than I do in either of the M1 variants.

Looks like I've got a long, slow road ahead on this sim.

Welcome to the sim and the community!

Challenger 2 gunnery gets a bit more challenging (excuse the pun) when you try using HESH against movers.

Entirely up to you of course but can I suggest you complete all the tutorials (not just gunnery) on a given vehicle (or in your case on both) before you move onto other vehicles.

Even within a "family" (say M1A1 (HA) compared to M1A2 SEP) there are differences that can cause confusion / frustration if you work on a one size fits all type approach.

Following that though, by all means work on that gunnery score as it impacts on how well your AI controlled vehicles shoot (since you can't be in every gunner's seat all the time).

Here is a good reference but the mother-load is at the dedicated site:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/index.php

There is also a Canadian based virtual unit (1 CAD) that I presume offers time zone friendly meetings and like most VU's they welcome new players and will do their best to make you feel at home.

Of course feel free to drop me a line too if you like.

Thanks very much for the advice and information. Much appreciated.

I have, indeed, already discovered just how hard it is (for me, anyway) to hit movers with HESH in the Challenger 2. But I'm even worse in the M1A1 (and abysmal in the M1A2 SEP)!

I agree completely on your advice to specialise in a single vehicle to get started. Just did the gunnery in both hulls to see which one suited me better (although as a Canadian, I suppose I should be loyal to the Leo 1)

I've already registered at the official site but have been lurking so far. Thanks for the pointer to 1 CAD. I hadn't found them yet but I'll search them out now.

Welcome to your new addiction. Tons of stuff in this sim, and great community.

A common mistake made with the M1 gunnery is you have a to press insert for Sabot
And Delete for heat.in the gunners position.

Acknowledged. I do remember to do that most of the time. But it just seemed to change my shots from falling short to going long.

(Did I mention that I currently... suck?)

LoL I have been playing SB for years I still cant hit #%&*$#.
Try one of the leo-2 variants the A5 is nearest to what Canada is equipped with.
there similar fire controls to the M1 but some prefer the Leo fire control.
In the M1 make sure you dump your lead after every shoot

Pretty sure its in the tutorial(s) on gunnery but the routing to get into is:

1. Dump lead (as already mentioned).

2. Index for the right ammunition nature (also as mentioned).

3. Lase.

4. Fire.

Back to "1" as required.

Everybody "sucks" to begin with - that's what the range is for.

Welcome IronCroptop,

If you want to learn a lot in a short time, join multiplayer games.
In the first time it can be hard, but you learn more.
I play steelbeasts since 7 years and every session I learn something, it never ends.

Join Operation Variable IV, Rolling Thunder and Long Night of Tanks or the TGIF game.

cheers

Duke

Are the online events pretty new player friendly? My biggest worry is being a hinderance to other people's fun.

Usually.

TGIF is basically a collection of whoever is there on the "night" (US time).

Just turn up about 15 mins before start and tell people you are a new person and you'll get a minor role, so you can watch and learn,maybe a vehicle in someone else's platoon. You won't be dumped in as a Platoon or Company commander straight away.

The other three are slightly more planned affairs with staff lists so you nominate for the role you'd like to fill and you "self select" the level of difficulty you want.

Basically tell people that you are new and you'll get a role to suit.

Then as you get more comfortable / proficient you can asked for harder / more challenging roles.

Servus Ark,



Like Gibsonm wrote, join and say you are a new player.

cheers

Duke

Ark, you may want to show up a little earlier than 15 minutes, if only to get any port forwarding issues sorted out. That could make you miss a game. People will gladly help you. There are also different VUs that will help out new guys, UKA which plays every sunday at 3pm EST and the American VU also that Gibbo mentioned is active at around that time.

I would say, pick one vehicle and complete all the tutorial missions for that vehicle. Best choice to start is either M1A1, Leo2A4, or Leo2A5. The Leo2A5 seems like the most commonly used vehicle in the Friday night online game, with the possible exception of the M1A2(SEP), but there are no tutorials yet for the latter.

The tutorials will give you the grounding you need to participate with reasonable efficiency in the online games. As long as you have a grasp of the basics of vehicle operation in general and the map interface (F5 view), you'll be fine. Asking questions about intermediate or advanced aspects of the sim are no problem during the online sessions, IMHO. But if one is constantly asking questions about basic features, it could be problematic -- not because people are unwilling to help, but because they tend to be very busy managing their own units.

If you want someone to help walk you through some of the more basic aspects, I'm sure you can find volunteers to do so at another time over teamspeak (and perhaps even setting up a "private" online session).

Don't worry about being tactically proficient for the online sessions, though. Definitely not a prerequisite.

Ark, IronCroptop,

If either of you guys want some "one on one" time, drop me a line and we can see what we can arrange.

I'd invite you to one of our VU gatherings but I think the meeting time works out to be 3 a.m. or so East Coast US time.

Welcome aboard guys. The community is generally very welcoming of new players in the multiplayer environment because we all appreciate it's the quickest route to proficiency. Also, having a vibrant multiplayer community is in all our interests as it's truly a case of "the more the merrier". Having said that, it definitely pays to understand the basic movement, commanding and gunnery controls so that you can actually go where you're needed and shoot at the bad guys when you need to, so a little bit of time invested offline up front may be worthwhile. Personally, I spent about seven months learning the sim offline before joining a multiplayer session and I sucked the first time - so that may not have been the best approach. Things just happen faster and you have to follow voice instructions from more "senior" players over TeamSpeak (as a new player you will generally have a junior callsign in a platoon / troop that a more experienced player commands). It's disorienting in a multiplayer environment intially but once you get used to it, you'll crave multiplayer time more than offline play (when the global community gets together for a cooperative multiplayer battle or campaign, it rocks!). As Duke911 says, this sim is so realistic and nuanced that you'll probably never stop learning. I look forward to seeing you online some time.

Gibsonm, Panzer_Leader,

Thanks (again) for the tips, guidance, and invitations to join multiplayer sessions. My wife and I have a big vacation coming up an the end of next week so I'm just marking time until then by running through the tutorials (I've done all of the gunnery lessons and all but one of the driving lessons for the Leo 2A5) and am just about to dip my foot into the TC tutorials. That and some quality time on the gunnery range -- my gunner's score remains stubbornly stuck at 69 :P -- should see me through to the end of the vacation. Then I'll be leaping into the various multiplayer evenings with both feet.

Which reminds me that I'd better go get Teamspeak 3 installed and dig up that article on which ports to open on my firewall/router. I'm sure I saw a sticky post about that somewhere...

Here's the info on port forwarding: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showthread.php?t=7739

Note that these days, the portforward site has incredibly detailed info for each router and game combo - you don't need to buy their product, just use the info in their website after closing their purchase offer screen.

Thanks, Mark!

Strangely enough, with my job, wife and 2 kids, 3am Eastern is probably a good time for me. Lol

So far, I haven't found an US VUs that fit in my schedule. I usually play from about 930pm to about 2-3 am PST on weekends.

In VUs, are newer players usually assigned scout vehicles, tanks, or something else? Good to know ahead of time so one can practice. Also, what's the age range? Nothing against young folks, but I'm 36 with kids and whatnot so I don't want to be a burden if I have to dart out to clean up kid hurl. Lmao Obviously not a common occurance, but as a parent I've learned to expect the unepected.

Well I can't speak for other VUs but for BG ANZAC its usually a cycle of activities in a given month, roughly along these lines (but with flexibility built in):

1st Thursday: Training we teach/revise skills

2nd Thursday: "TEWT" (Tactical Exercise Without Troops) People asked to come up with a solution to a tactical problem and then we see how the plan goes.

3rd Thursday: "H2H" (Head to Head) quasi competitive with the group splitting roughly in half and fighting a scenario.

4th Thursday: Multi-player, group all on one side, pitting the humans against the AI.

5th Thursday (if there is one): "Member's Choice" (whatever people want to do).

I usual post a prompt on the Tuesday prior to find out who is coming and what they'd like to cover so that the first part of the meeting isn't thrashing out what they want to do.

People go where they are comfortable.

Scout vehicles aren't always a soft option (lots of sneaking around in "weak" vehicles trying to detect the enemy without dying in the process).

So if you have done the M1 tutorials we wont put you in an ASLAV to do scouting or give you command of a Mech Inf platoon. Having said that people are encouraged to expand their skill set to become well rounded, rather than just always commanding a vehicle type.

If you are commanding a tank in a Troop (Australian / Commonwealth name for a US Tank Platoon equivalent) then the more senior person in the Troop will guide the newer less experienced guys.

Also we use the pause / resume feature to stop the action, discuss it, and keep people on track, rather than play for 90 mins and then try and tell you what you did wrong in the first 15 minutes.

Some of the guys have kids and of course "domestic bliss" comes first. Having said that do your children often throw up at 3am?

I suspect though you'd need to ensure that you have good headsets and the PC is away from sleeping areas - again suspect your life expectancy wont be improved by waking the kids at 3am or playing the audio through some 7.1 speaker setup on your PC.

A couple of the other members post here too so maybe they'll chime in with their experiences (so it doesn't sound too much like a sales pitch).

And of course there are others who are members of different VUs.

Servus Ark,

You are 36, married, two kids, lol. In my community the average age is 37.
I think the situation in the other communites is the same.

But if you have kids, you can train the next generation.
My son (3,5) loves it to drive with the cars and the motorbike or to fly a NH-90 or Blackhawk.

cheers

Duke

To get a feel for the online Friday night game, check out the videos of some recent TGIF sessions uploaded by one of the participants (Rotar): Rotar's YouTube page

N.B. that the Friday night game is more informal (i.e., informal radio procedures; loose command hierarchy; real-world doctrine generally not employed; relatively brief planning phases, etc.) than the multiplayer missions conducted by some of the VUs. For an example of some of the more structured MP sessions, have a look at the videos posted from the United Operations VU: UO videos

Also, SB veteran "Cobrabase" has uploaded dozens of videos from his single-player sessions: Cobrabase's YouTube page

He gives the user interface a good workout, so it's helpful in gaining familiarity with the numerous tools at your disposal, as well as some of the AI drawbacks, etc. A number of other SB users have uploaded their own videos, but Cobrabase's is the most extensive collection, as far as I know

Or the "Brave Rifles" series co-ordinated by Zipuli:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6C95BB70225FE48C

Yes, the "Brave Rifles" videos are just fantastic.

Wow, love the videos. Been watching them as study material.

Well you'd better sign up for "Rolling Thunder: Operation Rising Bear" and "Long Night of Tanks (191800Zjul14)" then.

Both will consist of four missions played back to back (you don't have to attend all of them).

There will be a poll up on the Steel Beasts site in the next day of so asking for people to select their preferred date for "Rolling Thunder: Operation Rising Bear". PzBtl 911's Long Night of Tanks is locked in for 19 July.

Both will start from 1800 GMT.

Both will offer you campaign ribbons to add to your signature block and give you some "been there, done that" cred.

Sleep is for the dead!