Tank simulation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A tank simulation is a computer-aided simulation of the properties and functions of motorized armored vehicles in a battlefield environment . For this purpose, elements of a be driving simulation with those of a first-person or third-person shooter combined into a war simulation, and the essential attributes weapons , armor modeled and ground-based movement of armored combat vehicles.

Game objective

The aim of the game is always the violent solution to an armed conflict in a land war . The conflict is resolved by inserting ammunition into a target and thereby destroying it. Tank simulations are somewhat more precise, computer programs with a graphical user interface , the primary aim of which is to use an armed vehicle to destroy other vehicles controlled by the computer or by opposing players, or to reduce their combat capabilities to such an extent that they are no longer able to continue the fight. The goal of the game remains static for the duration of a mission.

Game world

The three-dimensional game world is usually limited in the shape of a cuboid , downwards by the topology and on the outer surfaces by impassability or game abort , in order to prevent leaving the game world. Each tank model has a position, orientation and speed within the Euclidean space of the game world and is accelerated, decelerated or rotated if necessary . The weapon system has a horizontal and vertical alignment depending on its pivot point on the vehicle and limited by the permissible swivel range . The simulated armored fighting vehicles are designed as textured volume models and move on the ground. The topology, vegetation, development, traction and weather are mostly based on actual (e.g. Citadel company in World War II) and forecast (e.g. Fulda Gap and North German Lowlands during the Cold War) tank battles of equivalent combat units. Since large-caliber firearms or guns are always ranged weapons that require an open field of fire and a large field of vision , mostly open land dominates the simulated terrain. The luminance is dependent on the year and the time of day, provided that no image intensifiers or thermal imaging cameras are simulated.

Challenge

The challenge of a tank simulation lies in the simultaneous spatial orientation and reconnaissance in the area , the vehicle control from the point of view of the commander or driver and the target finding and fighting with the weapon system by the gunner using cover and movement, in summary the coordination of fire and movement of motorized land forces in a military confrontation. The player experiences a permanent threatening situation, which is usually accompanied by time stress and requires an overview, concentration and quick reactions. All game participants and bots carry out their actions simultaneously, i.e. in real time, which means that the threat situation changes permanently.

application

Tank simulators were originally developed to train tank crews. For the shooting training of commanders and gunmen, the Bundeswehr operates, among other things, the training shooting simulator of the tank troops (ASPT) and the training device combat simulator tank troops (AGPT) .

With the spread of game consoles , home computers and personal computers from the 1980s onwards, programs were also developed which primarily serve entertainment purposes and are computer games. In 1980, the arcade game Battlezone from Atari revolutionized the graphic display with a three-dimensional vector graphic shown from the first person perspective . The monochrome polygons were transparent, but created a three-dimensional impression of the landscape and vehicles. Based on the arcade console, the United States Army commissioned the manufacturer Atari to develop a military version for the training of tank crews under the name Bradley Trainer , of which two consoles were manufactured. The United States Military Academy at West Point purchased 1,040 copies of the Steel Beasts game from Shrapnel Games in 2000 for training purposes.

While a simulation for educational purposes is characterized by a high degree of reality, in a casual game the gameplay and the balancing (including matchmaking in online games) are decisive factors in game development.

simulation

The player takes over the control of a mobile war device, which is maneuvered through missions that are completed in time and space until the given goal is reached. The simulated combat vehicles mainly include battle tanks , tank destroyers , self-propelled guns , tank artillery , armored personnel carriers , wheeled armored vehicles and anti-aircraft tanks , which differ greatly in terms of play and thus offer additional depth of play . The following properties and functions are usually simulated:

and, depending on the simulation depth,

After the opposing armed forces have been cleared up, they must be brought within (firing) range of their own weapons system, for which at least one faction has to move towards the other. Movements of one's own have the advantage of initiative , as the faction that is active determines the time and place of the fight, but the disadvantage of increased exposure to an enemy (who is in cover) (see also: campers ).

The player must familiarize himself with the technological characteristics of the military equipment and the weapons in order to be able to use them effectively and with knowledge of their effects.

Bot behavior

For the credibility of the simulation and an intensive immersion , the (behavior) modeling of computer-generated non-player characters (NPC) is of crucial importance. The complexity of their behavior ranges from stationary NPCs to bots to " agent-based models " that react to the player according to the situation and adapt their fighting technique to the player. In the course of increasing networking and the success of mass multiplayer online community games , the ratio of computer-generated characters to real players is steadily decreasing.

User interface

The perspective of the vehicle simulation is aligned with the human view. There are three common perspectives:

In casual games that are easy to play, the player takes the commandant's perspective and observes the three-dimensional environment through the character's weapon system, while in sophisticated simulations the outside world is shown from inside the tank through the viewing slits, a periscope or monitors.

Combat vehicles

The simulated tank combat vehicles are based almost exclusively on real models, their geometric modeling and texturing as well as their behavior in the game: speed, maneuverability, armor protection and armament, ammunition and fire frequency. The first battle tanks , which were not originally used for infantry support, were used in combat from the 1940s. In connection with the placement of the game plot in a historical framework, the tank simulations suggest a historical, individual war experience that is also advertised as such by the software distributors.

player

Traditional fighting games such as first-person shooters are mainly developed for young users, the speed of action is high and requires quick reactions, while tanks are comparatively slow and easy to control. In addition, tanks are as pawn universally and internationally understandable. According to Victor Kislyi, the chief executive officer of the Belarusian game developer Wargaming.net , the "vast majority, 95 to 98 percent of our players, are male." The players of World of Tanks , the market leader in multiplayer tank games , are "rather over 30 "years old, and are characterized as follows:" They are fathers, they used to be hardcore players, they now have a family, a job, less time. You come home from work and then want to blow up a few more things in the hour before going to bed. ”The game requires“ not as good reflexes as in online first person shooters ”and“ deliberately runs a little slower off, you have a little more time to think about where you want to steer your tank and what tactics you are pursuing. "

criticism

Despite the imitation of the human field of vision when operating the respective military equipment, people are almost never present as historical actors in the driving simulations, visually and narrative: In the missions, the narration is to be equated with the solution to the tasks. The concentration on the technical aspects of warfare displaces the human component of killing, the game world is perceived as a pure stimulus-reaction sequence and freed from ethics and morals. The simulation of historical armored vehicles is the representation of an almost completely mechanized warfare, the focus of which is the operation of machines, whose complex requirements for technical controllability represent the actual incentive to play. In tank simulations, machines duel almost exclusively; the (framework) plot is reduced to a simply structured set of rules (or a structure tree).

indexing

The first tank game Battlezone for the Atari 2600 game console, published in 1977, was indexed on December 19, 1984 by the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People (BPjM). The youth welfare office requesting the indexing accused Battlezone of a “clear portrayal of the glorification or neglect of war ” and that the game was “to be equated with paramilitary training”. The Federal Inspectorate argued that "for shooting down and destroying the enemy, the player will be rewarded with points, war events are presented as romantic adventures". The reasoning also states that the computer game has "properties that increase aggression and lead to physical tension, anger, aggressiveness, agility in thinking, difficulty concentrating and headaches in young people". Young people were assumed to use the tank simulation “to avoid problems in the real world and to suppress them. And because the player has several lives, he is accused of an illusory world that cannot be reconciled with reality. ”It was only 13 years later, on December 31, 1997, that Battlezone was removed from the index.

software

Tank simulations and games can be broken down into

distinguish.

year Surname Manufacturer mode platform
1974 tank Kee Games PvE Arcade game
1980 Battlezone Atari PvE Arcade
1985 Battle City Namco PvE Arcade (VS. System), Famicom , Sharp X1 , FM-77, Game Boy , Virtual Console
1986 Abrams Battle Tank Dynamix PvE MS-DOS , Sega Mega Drive
1988 Steel Thunder Accolade PvE C64 , DOS, Apple II
1989 Sherman M4 Loriciels PvE Amiga , Amstrad CPC , Atari ST , DOS
1989 M1 tank platoon MPS Labs PvE Commodore Amiga , Atari ST, DOS, PC-98
1990 Battle Command Realtime Games Software Ltd. PvE Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum
1992 BZFlag Tim Riker PvP Windows, Linux , OS X , BSD , Solaris
1994 Armored Fist NovaLogic PvE DOS
1996 Terra - Battle for the Outlands Kaon Interactive MMOG Windows
1997 Armored Fist 2 NovaLogic PvE DOS
1997 iM1A2 Abrams Interactive Magic PvE Windows 95
1999 Panzer Elite Wings simulations PvP Windows 98
1999 Armored Fist 3 NovaLogic PvP Windows 95
1999 Recoil Zipper Interactive PvP Windows 95
1999 Gulf War: Operation Desert Hammer 3DO  PvP Windows 95
1999 Panzer front ASCII Corporation PvE Dreamcast , PlayStation
2000 Steel Beasts Pro eSim Games MMOG Windows XP
2006 T-72: Balkans on Fire! IDDK / Crazy House PvP Windows XP
2006 Panzer Elite Action Zootfly MMOG Windows XP
2010 World of Tanks Wargaming.net PvP (15v15) Windows, Xbox 360 , Xbox One , PlayStation 4
2012 War Thunder Gaijin Entertainment PvP (20v20) Windows XP, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4
2013 Iron Force Chillingo PvP iOS , Android
2014 World of Tanks Blitz Wargaming.net PvP (7v7) iOS, Android
2016 Armored Warfare Obsidian Entertainment MMOG Windows

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James J. Nutaro: Building Software for Simulation: Theory and Algorithms, with Applications in C ++ . John Wiley & Sons , Hoboken, NJ 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-41469-9 , pp. 360 (English).
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  8. ^ A b Christian Holtorf: Escape !: Computer games as a cultural technique . Böhlau Verlag , Cologne / Weimar 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-01706-4 , p. 294 .
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  11. ↑ Oliver Haake: World of Tanks: "If we break into the era of modern tanks, it will be a new game" - Wargaming boss Victor Kislyi on WoT. In: Buffed . August 12, 2012, accessed January 18, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Konrad Lischka : Free game tycoon Victor Kislyi: "Our tanks are Tamagotchis for fathers". In: Spiegel Online . June 8, 2012, accessed January 18, 2016 .
  13. ↑ a b Steffen Bender: Virtual Memory: Wars of the 20th Century in Computer Games . Transcript Verlag , 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-2186-0 , pp. 264 .
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  15. ↑ Markku Eskelinen: The Gaming Situation. In: Game Studies. Volume 1, Issue July 1 , 2001, accessed September 15, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Battlezone . In: feind-bild.net .
  17. ^ A b Thomas Schmitz: Computer games only for adults. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . April 12, 2015, accessed January 18, 2016 .
  18. ↑ Federal Testing Office for Writings Harmful to Young Persons : Decision No. 3432 of December 13, 1984, published in the Federal Gazette No. 238 of December 19, 1984. (PDF; 360 kB) In: Spiegel Online . December 13, 1984. Retrieved January 18, 2016 .
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