Duck21

I've given up hope that Ugra will ever fix this massive error. We've told them ever since they showed the first previews that Germany does not look like this. They never acknowledged the issue even once. The topic has come up again and again, only to be met with silence. So thank you for your efforts with this new topic, appreciated!

I don't understand your comment What's so strange about wanting to simulate a conflict in which the US was not one of the fighting parties? There were plenty of American jets involved, so that's why we can simulate that war and need some Iranian bases for it.

Ugra has been told exactly that many times back when the first previews started being shown. Unfortunately they have never commented on this issue and instead built the entire map like this.

It's not just the grass. During development people made several comments about the dirt/mud patches placed all over their airfields, pointing out that this is not correct for Germany. Ugra hasn't even replied to those. So it's more a case of ignoring customer feedback in general. I mean changing things doesn't bring them any money, and since there's no competition, I guess they can just leave things like they are now. It's a shame, but what can we do, it's not like we can buy a Central Europe map from someone else.

Completely agree with this. If the current textures are supposed to represent Summer season, then I don't want to see spring! So yes the green colours used are generally oversaturated, too bright and intense. To make this look like Germany in Summer, grass and trees need to have a darker shade of green and less yellow tint. To me this is the only real flaw of the new map and is so apparent I'm surprised that this was not raised more during development. It just doesn't look like Germany with this oversaturated green everywhere. Tone that down and it will look amazing. Well said! If the green gets darkened and desaturated and the brown mud textures get desaturated as well, then it will look just fine. The situation we have now all around airfields with this stark contrast between bright green and mud coloured parts just doesn't look like German soil. It does not look like dry grass at all and things look rather synthetic right now. But if the greens get toned down and the mud gets desaturated, it will help making the map look like Germany. It doesn't need much really, hope Ugra will fix it!

The Hamburg airport previews show it perfectly, again, there's just way too many dirt patches all around. This is supposed to be northern European grassland, not Siberian tundra! You continue to build all these nice looking airports but all of them with the wrong type of ground textures. It's just not what Germany looks like. I don't want to be a pain in the butt, just thinking that when you build it all like this, in the end you'll say "sorry we can't change that now, too much work", and that would be a real shame.

I agree basically, clutter should not be placed where it's completely unrealistic. However, SOME material needs to be placed in useful locations, for the simple reason that in DCS no one brings that stuff out dynamically when operating on an airbase. And with zero clutter around parking stands it would then look unrealistically clean and boring. So I'd vote for having a bit of material placed in realistic locations, stuff that an imaginary ground crew would use to service aircraft for the mission. Then remove the rest that serves no purpose or is in an unrealistic location.

It's wonderful to see all these previews of Germany in DCS, can't wait! There's only one thing that I hope can be changed for release, and I know it has been talked about in other posts as well; Looking at all the airport previews you seem to have modelled ALL aprons, ALL taxiways and ALL runways to be sidelined by a strip of dirt before the grass starts. This just doesn't look right. Of course I'm aware that such spots and strips of dirt/dry grass exist, it's not that I want to see them all gone. But please change your airports so that the brown doesn't appear on the sides of EVERY apron, taxiway and runway. Thanks!

I agree, those types of helipads one can usually find on off-shore oil platforms, or maybe on occasion on a roof-top helipad. But these raised platforms on the map do not make sense if the helipads are located on large paved surfaces.

It has always been this way, 3 separate places to log in

Personally I wish for as much realism as possible, and that means I'd love to have the cockpit seen in NATO-converted examples. That way I get English labels and some NATO standard instruments, mixed with very few Russian labels, which will be easy to learn if needed. So since this NATO cockpit exists, it would be a shame if they simply took a Russian Air Force cockpit and translate all labels to English. Why do an unrealistic English cockpit if a realistic English one exists in reality!

I agree there needs to be at least one Iranian airbase in one of the detailed areas! Of course that's not enough to simulate in-depth scenarios from the Iran-Iraq war, but at least it gives you SOME possibilities to simulate Iranian defence scenarios or something like that. If performance is an issue, by all means leave out Doha International for example.

I agree with you, this is maybe the biggest immersion killer in all of Sinai. Do we know if the devs have actually acknowledged the issue and maybe even promised to look into it? I hope so too!

Agreed, can't possibly be UAE. But knowing there will be a Jordan airfield is fantastic, hope the other one is indeed Saudi as you suspect!

Oh please cut the drama. Despite the very poor communication by the developer, despite being WAY behind schedule, it is by definition NOT abandonware if we get so see progress reports. And we did. We know they did not walk away from it, thanks to a recent progress report. However, their communication is poor and for them not wanting to do more incremental updates is bad business practice. But at least we know they are still working on it.

I'm convinced that this map will be brilliant, in the future. Right now, without a single update since initial release, I would not recommend to get it yet. But once updates finally arrive, there's no stopping... clearly the developers are talented and determined. It's just that they seem to have a less than ideal understanding of what Early Access actually means. As has been said above, wait for the update.

Oh boy, how cool is that, had no idea these would smoke THAT much! Yes please, we need those in the game!

They could still use detailed trees around airfields, because who wants to land next to low-res blurbs of something. But the vast forests away from airfields can be static low-poly conifers as you are suggesting. I never liked Speedtrees to be honest, hope they come up with something better for detailed vegetation surrounding airfields, road strips and helipads. I think so far ED has gotten away with not providing decent trees since all the "sand maps" never had to show dense forests, and WW2 maps are less popular, so the outcry was never really big enough until now. I hope ED and ORBX team up and come up with a good solution that works well into the future.

Oh that's simple really; Companies discovered that it's far simpler (cheaper) for them to just have customers use Discord for support rather than operate a proper website and forums. So they gradually forced people to use Discord with no alternative available for customers. Combine that with a very small but loud minority that loves Discord and keeps pushing it, and here we are in 2024 where people get forced to use a platform they don't like, or even hate. Discord is a mess, it always has been.

Hope so too. The official ORBX forum doesn't cut it. It was made redundant when ORBX closed down many sections and asked everyone to send tickets instead, so most people left. So I really hope ORBX starts to engage with the community once again, liked they used to do in the past, but please here, where DCS happens.

Hi ED, I happily pre-ordered the full map instantly after receiving the news. I want to fly somewhere new, I want to experience your latest terrain tech, and well, want to support ED. So thank you for all that! But you saying that you're not planning any airfields of neighbouring countries is something that puzzles me. So you do model parts of neighbouring countries, but how are we supposed to fly into and out of Afghanistan without ANY airfields across the border? Why model these areas outside of Afghanistan in the first place if really only AI can make use of them? I know we can spawn in the air, but that is just kind of "meh"... I hope that at some point you will model at least one airfield of each country modelled, that would be fantastic.

Has there been any news from either ED or HB regarding this topic? I mean simulating a sophisticated failure system of a Phantom without the ability to land and capture the longfield cable is a bit... useless? And obviously it would also be fun to use the emergency cable on all other hook-equipped aircraft. ED already developed the required animation techniques for the Supercarrier, what's stopping them to use the same code and models for airfields? I know it's not a 1:1 replica on land, but still, the tech is there.

Nah not really. Your example is for a TEMPORARY installation. That's a completely different scenario. Yes places do exist with light installations raised on paved surfaces, but they are extremely rare and different to what Ugra shows on their airports.

Hi Ugra, I'm delighted to see this airbase coming to DCS, and in general more of Jordan! However, can you please clarify how this works out on the map? So you build this airbase, does that mean you've also built the cities of Amman and Tel Aviv? Because flying westbound from this airbase you'll soon cross Amman, and later on Tel Aviv to get to the Mediterranean Sea. Surely you won't have us fly over "nothing" for that entire distance?

With arrestor wires already being functional as part of the Super Carrier module, I hope it won't take too long for ED to port them over to the base game and enable them on runways. The Phantom with its wear & tear simulation certainly needs them for when things fail...