Forum > Steel Beasts Pro
The End Of Steel Beasts
Rinix:
This has been in my head for a while, ever since Bohemia Interactive made a detailed CV9040 for VBS. But I was forced to confront it last night when I watched the new videos for TitanVanguard. It was a new product, that already had a good portion of Steel Beasts’ vehicle library. Here are the vehicles I noticed in the videos:
* 2S1
* ZSU-23-4
* BMP-1
* BMD-2
* Several Leopard 2A5 variants
* 2 variants of the Leopard 2A6, with and without RPG screens
* M113AS4
* Bushmaster
* Some ASCOD variant, maybe the Pizarro with no ERA
* Ural 4320
* ASLAV-25
* AH-64
* Tiger ARH
* NH90
* CH-47D
* Mi-24VAnd that’s not counting the vehicles in TitanVanguard that Steel Beasts doesn’t have, such as the BTR-80A. Or the entire categories of vehicles that are in TitanVanguard that aren’t in Steel Beasts, such as fighters and ships. You might say that TitanVanguard isn’t Steel Beasts-level of armored warfare simulation. You’re right. But if TitanIM could achieve so much already, a Steel Beasts-level of armored warfare simulation is perfectly achievable by TitanVanguard. The same can be said for TitanVanguard’s potential to fully match Steel Beasts’ vehicle library.
Military simulations are expanding in scale and scope. VBS is pushing its limits, with VBS Blue IG rendering the entire planet. TitanVanguard is rendering the entire planet. Both simulators are expanding to include many platforms. Meanwhile, Ssnake only discovered earlier this year that his clients want maps bigger than 100km x 100km. Steel Beasts remains stuck in a tiny corner of the simulation world, with mostly its armored warfare simulation. Meanwhile, the rest of the simulation world is pushing to physical scales that Steel Beasts can’t handle.
And eSim Games doesn’t seem to want to make the slightest progress forward anymore. It wasn’t always that way. Long ago, eSim Games made the difficult transition from DirectX 7 in SB1 to DirectX 8.1 in Steel Beasts Pro, and the transition to DirectX 9 was described by Ssnake as “much easier”. They managed that with 2 programmers who were doing double duty. But now, with 6 dedicated lead and regular programmers available, suddenly making those leaps again seems impossible, as transitioning to DirectX 11 is now described as a “major task”. Ssnake vetoes VR, the same technology that is sweeping the simulation world. Dejawolf is crying about the difficulty of having dismounts bailing out, a difficulty that isn’t an issue at all for other games with tanks, such as Combat Mission (
), Graviteam Tactics (which has only 3 programmers to eSim Games’ 6 programmers, and only 4 3D artists to eSim Games’ 11), Tank Warfare (see comments about Graviteam Tactics), and Steel Armor: Blaze of War (see comments about Graviteam Tactics).
There’s no “can do” attitude anymore at eSim Games. And they’re being enabled by the community. When BondVillian points out that dejawolf is making unnecessary difficulty, Gibson quickly starts making more unnecessary difficulty to cover dejawolf.
I am forced to ask the question: How much longer will it be before eSim Games’ military clients:
* Decide that they’ve outgrown Steel Beasts,
* Get tired of requiring interconnections between different simulations when they can use one simulator,
* And redirect their customization contract money into improving the armored warfare simulation of VBS and TitanVanguard?The answer is: Not much longer. There is nothing that Steel Beasts brings that Bohemia Interactive or TitanIM can’t replicate if they put their minds to it. eSim Games has remained viable simply because they’ve gotten lucky, and no one has bothered to eat their lunch yet. Sadly, I know just how Ssnake will respond to this warning: https://books.google.com/books?id=vWBwU5gLo60C&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91#v=onepage&q&f=false
We’re facing the end of Steel Beasts. It won’t come immediately, but it’s already in sight.
Beef:
I tend to agree with you Rinix. History is replete with examples of people and organizations becoming obsolete after failing to adapt to this ever-changing world. There is a saying I heard once that has stuck with me all these years.
"Change is a dragon. You can ignore it, which is futile. You can fight it, in which case you will lose. Or you can ride it."
When Marine Corps General C.C. Krulak became Commandant of the Marine Corps he formed the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. From that came a series of exercise named Sea Dragon. General Krulak said the Marine Corps was going to learn to ride the dragon...
eSim's "game engine" (software) is in my opinion quickly becoming obsolete in comparison to the likes of TitanVanguard.
Asid:
Interesting post Rinix.
The Graviteam and Battlefront teams are actually smaller than you listed. If I remember correctly, some of the esims team came from the community. From a modding background.
You said quite rightly that combining SB with another product can be labour/time intensive as well as costly. The newer products offer everything in one package. That is a big bonus.
The smaller SB maps are ideal for what SB was created for. A crew trainer. Esims are choking on the fact that the maps will be bigger. They think the end user will not be able to stomach the increase in data storage. This is crazy. Most people are used to larger file sizes. If someone has a slow connection then give them a disk option. It's not rocket science. :teach :book
You would NOT be able to have a discussion like this on the "official forum" :fight
As for the community....All I will say is :eek
Rinix:
--- Quote from: Asid on December 05, 2017, 02:07:18 PM ---Interesting post Rinix.
The Graviteam and Battlefront teams are actually smaller than you listed. If I remember correctly, some of the esims team came from the community. From a modding background.
--- End quote ---
They're smaller than listed in the game credits?
--- Quote ---You said quite rightly that combining SB with another product can be labour/time intensive as well as costly. The newer products offer everything in one package. That is a big bonus.
The smaller SB maps are ideal for what SB was created for. A crew trainer. Esims are choking on the fact that the maps will be bigger. They think the end user will not be able to stomach the increase in data storage. This is crazy. Most people are used to larger file sizes. If someone has a slow connection then give them a disk option. It's not rocket science. :teach :book
--- End quote ---
Ssnake himself says that Steel Beasts was intended for platoon and company-level training:
But the new simulations give room to grow by rendering the entire planet, while Steel Beasts remains with its tiny corner. They also give a variety of platforms, while Steel Beasts remains mostly stuck with armor.
--- Quote ---You would NOT be able to have a discussion like this on the "official forum" :fight
As for the community....All I will say is :eek
--- End quote ---
No kidding.
Meanwhile, dejawolf makes more unnecessary difficulty: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=226#comment-177087
--- Quote from: dejawolf ---no, that wouldn't work. for the tanks you would HAVE to add blankframes since they are not present on those models, otherwise the crew would spawn at the center of the vehicle and likely get stuck.
--- End quote ---
This is another example of the "no can do" attitude at eSim Games. They can't be bothered to implement a variation of the same thing that they do for every personnel carrier they add. And Ssnake reveals that dejawolf is in trouble: http://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/4546-steel-beasts-content-wish-list/?page=226#comment-177095
--- Quote from: Ssnake ---May I remind those working for eSim that technical details like these are not to be discussed publicly. There's that NDA clause in your contract that you may want to read again.
--- End quote ---
Asid:
Battlefront has I think 1 full time programmer. Graviteam has 5 team members but at least 2 are not full time.
SB does have quite a bit of abstraction.
There are other sims out there. With energy and vision.
SB is what it is. It could have been so much more. It is not bad. I still like it :thumbsup
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page