Some generic maps

[Stonehouse]

If people remember the dogfight maps from IL2 that is an analogue of what I am thinking of. A collection of representative maps which are simple with a few airfields, a few towns and strategic features that are not era specific and could be used to represent any battlefield from WW2 through to the latest period in DCS.

 

An example might be a desert map with a river delta with a port at the delta and a few small towns with non era specific buildings (eg no modern glass and steel towers) and some roads/tracks. This could represent North Africa for WW2 missions or somewhere in the Gulf of Aden/Arabian Sea or Libyan area coast for modern missions.

 

Something with a SE Asia feel could represent Burma/Malaya/Vietnam etc and cover multiple eras depending on the planes and objects inserted into the mission.

 

A few threads down someone mentioned an open sea map. Pretty obviously this also fits this scheme of representative maps usable for more than one era.

 

A largish number of people I know who are interested in WW2 flying won't transfer to DCS simply because the current terrain ruins their immersion. I believe they are representative of a lot of the guys flying Clod/IL2 still. Normandy will solve some of that but it seems a labour intensive process to produce a map like Normandy which seems to place a limit on how many maps will be produced in the near term. It also is an era specific map meaning the people flying modern aircraft won't find it fits their missions well.

 

Due to the sparseness of objects and generic nature of the "dogfight" maps it seems possible that these could be produced with less effort for the dev team doing the work and sell well as a DLC and also open up literally huge amounts of mission making opportunities for any era of aircraft found in DCS. The 3 example maps mentioned above by themselves would keep people happy for a long time and bring more people into DCS and make the waiting for the more elaborate real world maps easier.

[Stratos]

I agree 100% with you.

[QuiGon]

I prefer real maps, like caucasus and the upcoming maps, so I hope the devs will stick to that and don't put resources in generic maps.

[NeilWillis]

Generic maps, generic aircraft, generic nations...

 

Or, real maps, real aircraft, real, historically accurate nations and their inventories.

 

As for the terrain ruining people's concept of DCS World, just think how much they'd criticise inaccurate maps when they do materialize! You can't please all the people all the time, and DCS World has always striven for realism and accuracy, so why buck the trend for the sake of irrelevant mapping? It's a no-brainer isn't it?

[Aginor]

I would like both. I prefer real ones, but I can see the advantages of fictional maps as well.

I hope we will get a public map SDK some day, so we can have all kinds of maps and people can decide for themselves. :)

[Stratos]

Generic maps, generic aircraft, generic nations...

 

Or, real maps, real aircraft, real, historically accurate nations and their inventories.

 

As for the terrain ruining people's concept of DCS World, just think how much they'd criticise inaccurate maps when they do materialize! You can't please all the people all the time, and DCS World has always striven for realism and accuracy, so why buck the trend for the sake of irrelevant mapping? It's a no-brainer isn't it?

 

The generic maps are not irrelevant, in fact I see them as a necessity, seeing how many years are needed to develop a "realistic" map with proper "unique" buildings and monuments, and terrain features I can only see advantages in generic maps.

 

Apart from the desert example, create a jungle map, mostly flat with some hills, add a good amount of twisting rivers, several towns/hamlets and runways and put some airstrips here and there. Voilà a generic Central/South America map useable too as South East Asia as we. Perfectly suited for COIN warfare, for the Hawk, the C101, the L39 and the choppers. And good for the Tucano as well.

 

Done in far less time and avialable faster. I'm not saying we shouldn't get real terrains, but I'm pretty sure generic maps will have it's market too.

[Aginor]

I would probably not use them that much compared to "real" ones (especially in SP), but if there were fictional maps they could also have the advantage of being symmetric, and thus suitable for balanced online gameplay, which is what some people like and also the reason why such maps exist in other games.

[Fri13]

Real maps are like 100% required for a simulator. But 100% of the maps are not required to be real mps.

 

Meaning, we could very well have just a Caucasus, Nevada and then in future Fulda Cap area as real maps. Then bunch of WW2 era maps like there is coming one or two.

 

And then have a bunch of randomly generated generic maps that just looks realistic.

I would be far more happier to fly such maps that has 7-10 big random generated generic cities and then 20-30 smaller cities or towns. Lot of roads going around and highways to connect cities etc. Lots of random rivers, hills, slopes, ridges etc. And then actually even leave all the airfields away, let the mission designer to add them (as there is coming possibility for that).

 

That way we can have huge and very detailed generic maps, that can be made in few days with a well designed terrain tools.

 

And I mean the tools really should be something like the Cities XXL does have,

 

That is how to easily make the cities and towns in games that were designed to have the tools.

 

This is like with Bryce

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Or with Unity

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Just for the style.

 

When the game engine has tools to allow rapid automatic and random terrain generations, all kind terrains can be done quickly.

 

And there were even automatic tools for commercial use available from manufacturer SAAB like C3, that then Apple bought for their mapping. It was used for military mapping purposes.

 

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And with a such tools, realistic terrain is simple and efficient by the time, to be generated.

And with good tools, a normal terrain height information is available from many commercial sources, and then make a own tools that will detect the buildings and such from the satelite imagery and place a random 3D models top of them and blend the under texture from surroundings.

 

So would I take generic maps about deserts, mountains, forests etc? Definitely yes!

 

As I don't care so much about realism that the simulator needs to have a road signs in their exact real world locations with the exact real speed limits etc.

As long the terrain mesh is high, lots of bushes and trees that has been randomly generated and the basic infrastructure is correct like cities location, train routes, highways etc, then everything is OK for me.

[Stonehouse]

Don't get me wrong I like real maps of real places but they do tend to be more long winded to create and a 1940s map with that era's buildings etc does not easily translate to the 1980+s nor a modern era map to the 1940s. Just taxiing out to take off ruins the immersion if you are trying represent an era that the map doesn't.

 

So I was thinking that non era specific maps which could represent the more sparsely populated areas of the world that had not "kept up" with time could be used across multiple eras to give mission designers more scope. It also may generate some more cash for ED to further support the real maps. eg a 1940s Normandy will probably not be purchased by a person only interested in modern era jets and likely a modern Hormuz map might not be of interest to a person only interested in WW2 but representative maps that could be used for any era could interest both parties. Particularly if it became possible to name towns etc in the editor - which probably should be feasible I would think if map items had internal references to kept database operations correct and also "display names" which could be set by the mission builder. I was thinking that the representative maps would supplement the accurate ones not replace them and perhaps wrongly I assumed they would be quicker to develop. SDK would be perfect but realistically may not eventuate, just have to wait and see.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Stonehouse

[Aginor]

@Fri13:

An editor like the ones you mentioned would be a dream, but I don't expect something like that to be available soon. :(

 

And I think that's also the reason why many people are so emotional about the map topic: At the moment there are only like... three companies we know of that produce maps for DCSW. And many of the guys here would like them to do realistic maps with high priority. I agree with that. As soon as we have more map developers I would love to see fictional ones as well, with all the advantages y'all mentioned.

[Stratos]

Wondering how many of such generic maps we could have right now If ED allowed modders to model some of them. Desert, jungle, arctic...

 

 

Something like this, desert texutres, lots of sand, with couple of bases, some roads, some towns and villages, mountains in the south, and voilà, you can attack Libya from the sea or from "Italy", a new Egyptian-Libyan war, bomb DAESH, or Somalia...

 

In the same map, paint it lush, and we have SEA style map, Vietnam, Burma, West Africa...

 

Same map, euro style textures, and we can have something like the Balkans area.

 

Same map, tons of snow and we can have some northern parts of the globe, like Bering Straits or Iceland. So easy...

 

I'm not saying we shouldn't have real locations maps, BUT I'm sure such generic maps like the ones I'm requesting will give us something to play in a lot shorter time, and maybe even made by modders, not interefering in any way with real location map development.

Edited August 27, 2017 by Stratos