SP3 Online. Ancestor of SPWaW.

[SP4EVER]

Anyone remember Steel Panthers 3: Online?

It was suplied with the Campaign disk add-on for Steel Panthers 3. Steel Panthers 3 itself was a DOS game, but the online part was for Windows. It is basicaly the same as SPWaW minus the singleplayer Campaigns. It even has Mech.exe file. So this is interesting because SPWaW is derived from this Windows Online only version of SP3.

Here's a small quote from the readme file of SP3 online:

STEEL PANTHERS III CAMPAIGN DISK/ ONLINE GAME:

Notes for Steel Panthers Online:
The online game is a complete game in itself, installable only from Windows 95. The install will require approximately 48 Meg on your hard drive. Scenarios: included in the online game are the 40 scenarios from the original Steel III disk [scenarios 1-40] the 35 new scenarios created for the Steel III campaign disk [scenarios 60-94], and plus eight scenarios converted from the first 40 to three and four player versions [scenarios 45-52]. To install the online game and these scenarios, place the CD into your drive, and follow the instructions for the Windows 95 install.

[SP4EVER]

Lately I have been playing around with SP3 online. It does work on my XP machine although it runs wery fast. The scrolling is way too quick. So I use CPUGrabber to slow down my computer enough for it to be playable.

Unlike SPWaW there is no option to slow down the scroll speed in the game options menu. As seen in the next screenshot. Notice also the lack of opfire confirm.

[SP4EVER]

SP3 online runs at 640x480 resolution. SPWaW increased the resolution to 800x600. SP3 online is not limited to WW2. It has a timeline covering the years 1939-1999. So for example Vietnam battles are possible.

An interesting possibility would be to modify SP3online to make use of better graphics (SHP editing) and maybe change the scale of the game back to Platoon / Company level. This should be possble with the old mobhack oob editor program.

The problem is that some type of slowdown utility is needed to run the game since it runs too fast on modern machines...

SP3 online is playable with a CPU slowdown program on my XP rig. Though I have no idea how it works on more modern computers. One could imagine it works as well as SPWaW since the two share much code together.

The internet game offers two options of play. An old MPlayer.com service and standard TCP/IP play. I have not tested the TCP/IP play yet, but I imagine it is the same as in SPWaW and should work. The MPlayer.com service used to provide a more advanced online community for setting up games but it is long gone. Mplayer was shut down sometime in year 2000.

One huge advantage IMHO is the online play. I do not like PBEM games. They are just too slow for me. SPWAW gives the option to play online WW2 games, but for more modern battles there is only SP3online. The SPMBT games do not have online game possibility sadly.

[SP4EVER]

So interesting historicaly I think. Also might be still playable today. Although by todays standards SP3online is quite outdated and lacks alot of the improvements made in SPWaW and the Camo Workshops games. Graphics leave alot to be desired too and would benefit from some modding. It does potentialy offer the online play option for post WW2 battles though.

[Alby]

I played that game online for many years....thru the old mplayer forum...

[SP4EVER]

Thats cool!

I wonder why there is so little info about SP3online available on the net?

Just FYI: SP3online runs nicely with the d3d windower program. You need to point it to Mech.exe and fill in the command line argument "direct" (without the quotes) in the command line box. This will force SP3 online to start without trying to load the Mplayer.com service. I found a resolution setting of 1280x960 looks decent on my 1680 x 1050 resolution LCD display.

[Alby]

I hated the 'scale' of sp3 though...[:(]