Hello and welcome to Steel Beasts, the tank sim that lets you experience the M1 and Leopard up close in your own scenarios.
The tutorials included with Steel Beasts were designed to teach you how to use this simulation in a step-by-step fashion. Each tutorial will introduce a few new commands, features or concepts that you'll need to know. Although the tutorials should be completed in order, if you want to drive your tank around as soon as possible, you can play the driving tutorials first, and then come back to the gunnery tutorials later.
Game play in Steel Beasts is centered around the individual mission, which consists of three phases: PLANNING, EXECUTION and DEBRIEFING. Right now, you're in the planning phase, where you can read the briefing (what you're reading now), study the corresponding map, and create a battle plan (although you can't create a battle plan in this particular tutorial).
Set the DISPLAY control (to the right) to TERRAIN to view the map. Pan the map using the arrow keys, the small global map to the lower right hand corner, or by holding down the spacebar while left clicking and dragging.
Set the DISPLAY to LOS to view the line-of-sight map. Left clicking on the LOS map will show regions that cannot be seen (shaded dark) and those that can be seen (white or pink) from the point you clicked. Pink indicates points at which your tank would be fully exposed (danger), whereas white indicates points at which only your turret is exposed (safer). Pressing F1 will allow you to view the 3D world from the LOS point. Press Escape or F5 to return to the map screen.
Some useful hot keys to know before you hit the START button are:
F5 - Switch to map screen (what you're in now).
F1 - Switch to main view. (F2, F3, F4 switch to other views, if they exist.)
F12 - Accelerate time (If no enemies are present).
Pause - Pause the simulation.
Escape - Quit mission.
You can also execute these commands through toolbar menus in all non-map screens. (Move your mouse to the top of the screen to make the toolbar appear.)
After you've won, lost or aborted the mission, you'll start the debriefing phase, which records the major events of the mission and shows some basic statistics.
This first tutorial mission, although rather artificial, will give you a taste of simulated combat from an observer's point of view. Although you'll only be able to watch, you can change your viewing direction by using the joystick, the arrow keys, or by left clicking in the view window and then moving the mouse. You can also toggle the magnification by pressing joystick button 4 or the N key. Now hit the START button!
