Vietnam Map

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

2 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

And we fly 1980s cold war missions with 2007 F16s.

 

We? Who's 'we?' You speaking French?

[Mike Force Team]

@BIGNEWY, I am disappointed in ED.  I am disappointed to read that no Viet Nam Map is planned.  How about creating a Southeast Asia map that includes Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia?

[LanceCriminal86]

Why expect one when we have 2 existing Korea modules that have been around a long time, yet no Korea map?

[Mike Force Team]

@LanceCriminal86, I agree with you.  For a really, really, really long time, countless virtual pilots have asked for a North/South Korea map.  ED, disappointingly, continues to say, "No."  

[LanceCriminal86]

Just now, Mike Force Team said:

@LanceCriminal86, I agree with you.  For a really, really, really long time, countless virtual pilots have asked for a North/South Korea map.  ED, disappointingly, continues to say, "No."  

Rather they simply haven't said anything. And apparently since roadmaps are not a thing they are doing we have no idea if one is ever planned at this point.

 

I don't know if this is a Field of Dreams scenario or the opposite. "Build it and they will come". One might say build a Vietnam map and the developers of VN aircraft will come. Alternately, some might say build the Vietnam aircraft and the map would come. But sadly I don't know if one can put any stock in either of those.

[BIGNEWY]

3 minutes ago, Mike Force Team said:

@LanceCriminal86, I agree with you.  For a really, really, really long time, countless virtual pilots have asked for a North/South Korea map.  ED, disappointingly, continues to say, "No."  

 

If you keep making all these wish list threads and expecting the wishes to be granted you are going to be disappointed 

We have limited resources and an already busy schedule, that is the reality of development.  

[LanceCriminal86]

8 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

 

If you keep making all these wish list threads and expecting the wishes to be granted you are going to be disappointed 

We have limited resources and an already busy schedule, that is the reality of development.  

I could understand this response if this was the first time its been asked, but Korea has been requested for years, same with Vietnam, and the MiG-15 and F-86 have been longstanding modules.

[BIGNEWY]

57 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

I could understand this response if this was the first time its been asked, but Korea has been requested for years, same with Vietnam, and the MiG-15 and F-86 have been longstanding modules.

Granted great ideas for terrains, that does not change the fact we already have a very busy schedule. 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

2 hours ago, Mike Force Team said:

@BIGNEWY, I am disappointed in ED.  I am disappointed to read that no Viet Nam Map is planned.  How about creating a Southeast Asia map that includes Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia?

I wasn't aware that BIGNEWY was the literal installation wizard.

BIGNEWY, conjour me up an F-89J Scorpion with Genie rockets. I want to see how much of a disaster I can make that be on pubbie servers.

[Bossco82]

I worked on a couple of Vietnam style maps for older series flight sims. I can tell you getting the density correct is a proper pig. 

The closest we have is a fusion of the caucuses and Syria. I think something ideal would be a North Vietnam map. From Thanh Hoa to Thai Nguyen and then possibly from Ubon/Udorn over to Yankee Station. Obviously including Hanoi and Haiphong including the NE part of the trail. 

If anyone attempted a project I would happily join in if I could get familiar with the software tools required.

[upyr1]

I'm not surprised to see Eagle doesn't have a Vietnam map planned yet. In order for Vietnam map ED would need to build a jungle where trees have a damage model but won't melt our cpus. Eagle needs to work on vulkan and getting multicore going. While they do that I would like to see some more pacific islands for WW II and Vietnam era assets once we have a workable jungle then I want Vietnam

Edited January 27, 2022 by upyr1

[Tengu]

I'd love this map, but I think we need to temper our hopes with some realism about our collective computing power and map-makers' time.  Do we really think ED hasn't seen the 470K posts clamoring for Vietnam?  Do we really imagine that if such a map was quick to make and easy on our graphics cards, that ED would hold back simply out of malice or the failure of imagination that this map might be a money maker.  Come on, guys.

Any Vietnam map worth making would be huge.  And if you want F-4E / F-105 bases, you need Thailand which is separated from North Vietnam by a third country, Laos.

TLDR

For context, see my comparison to existing maps in the Middle East.  You can probably quibble over my definitions of the existing map edges; I made this before Cyprus.  But it doesn't change that Vietnam is bigger than most people realize and certainly bigger than today's maps.  Off the bat, you have to drop 90% of South Vietnam.

.

So I toyed around with Google maps to just see what a "minimum" Vietnam Map might look like.  I encourage anyone to check / correct my work, but this is what I came up - a 600km x 800km box.  I believe this is broadly equivalent, probably a bit larger than the Cyprus-Syria map.  (Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)  I believe South Atlantic will be larger, but then that also has a lot of the... Atlantic.

So let's do edge patrol.  Coming down the eastern edge, Blue Air could have the Navy and Marine jets flying from whatever carrier model you parked at Yankee Station or fly from Da Nang.  I placed the borders to include these two "bases".  Chu Lai was a major Marine A-4 base.  I believe Pleiku was more a SAR / FAC base.  But, you've got to put the border some place.  Other bases like Cam Ranh are way south.

Moving west along the southern edge, you leave Vietnam, cross Laos, and enter Thailand.  The map borders shown just include Ubon.  If you're thinking F-4s and F-105s, that primarily means Ubon, Korat, and Taklhi.  If you look really carefully, there's an unlabelled red dot for Korat at Nakhon Ratchasima.  And if you look to the left of the "T" in Thailand, that red dot is Takhli.  Col Olds and his 'stache were based at Ubon.

Moving up the western edge, you have Udorn.  This was mainly a recce base, but had F-4s for much of the war including 555th.  I'm guessing you could fly E models from here during the '72 Easter Offensive.  Stretching the map west to Udorn also nets us Dien Bien Phu for our French friends.

I'd argue this is an extremely heavy (graphically intensive) map.  Beyond the air bases, you'd need to model the urban areas of Hanoi, Haiphong and Hue.  Pretty much anything green corresponds with mountain ranges when you compare relief maps.  That white bit around Dien Bien Phu and Son La are also quite mountainous even if they appear white on this map.  If you're thinking Laos must be all mountains, well yeah...  Half this map by surface area is mountains and highlands.  There's also plenty of rain forest, bamboo, sawgrass and the like covering those mountains and valleys.  What's the ratio of trees to frame rate?

For multiplayer, I think there might have been an airstrip in Dong Hoi, due west of Yankee Station.  If you want air quake, maybe you make Khe Sanh and Dong Hoi your blue-red bases.  For "authentic" air missions, your blue and red bases are mainly 500-600km apart.  Haifa to Adana / Incirlik is around 470km for reference.  Even this "minimum" map to get you a little of everything is huge. 

Hopefully, ED gets there one day.  Day 1 purchase, right?  But to say we're disappointed in ED seems a bit much.

[MBot]

Thank you @Tengu, excellent overview. This should be the reference post for the subject.

[Nexus-6]

4 hours ago, Tengu said:

I'd love this map, but I think we need to temper our hopes with some realism about our collective computing power and map-makers' time.  Do we really think ED hasn't seen the 470K posts clamoring for Vietnam?  Do we really imagine that if such a map was quick to make and easy on our graphics cards, that ED would hold back simply out of malice or the failure of imagination that this map might be a money maker.  Come on, guys.

Any Vietnam map worth making would be huge.  And if you want F-4E / F-105 bases, you need Thailand which is separated from North Vietnam by a third country, Laos.

TLDR

For context, see my comparison to existing maps in the Middle East.  You can probably quibble over my definitions of the existing map edges; I made this before Cyprus.  But it doesn't change that Vietnam is bigger than most people realize and certainly bigger than today's maps.  Off the bat, you have to drop 90% of South Vietnam.

.

So I toyed around with Google maps to just see what a "minimum" Vietnam Map might look like.  I encourage anyone to check / correct my work, but this is what I came up - a 600km x 800km box.  I believe this is broadly equivalent, probably a bit larger than the Cyprus-Syria map.  (Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)  I believe South Atlantic will be larger, but then that also has a lot of the... Atlantic.

So let's do edge patrol.  Coming down the eastern edge, Blue Air could have the Navy and Marine jets flying from whatever carrier model you parked at Yankee Station or fly from Da Nang.  I placed the borders to include these two "bases".  Chu Lai was a major Marine A-4 base.  I believe Pleiku was more a SAR / FAC base.  But, you've got to put the border some place.  Other bases like Cam Ranh are way south.

Moving west along the southern edge, you leave Vietnam, cross Laos, and enter Thailand.  The map borders shown just include Ubon.  If you're thinking F-4s and F-105s, that primarily means Ubon, Korat, and Taklhi.  If you look really carefully, there's an unlabelled red dot for Korat at Nakhon Ratchasima.  And if you look to the left of the "T" in Thailand, that red dot is Takhli.  Col Olds and his 'stache were based at Ubon.

Moving up the western edge, you have Udorn.  This was mainly a recce base, but had F-4s for much of the war including 555th.  I'm guessing you could fly E models from here during the '72 Easter Offensive.  Stretching the map west to Udorn also nets us Dien Bien Phu for our French friends.

I'd argue this is an extremely heavy (graphically intensive) map.  Beyond the air bases, you'd need to model the urban areas of Hanoi, Haiphong and Hue.  Pretty much anything green corresponds with mountain ranges when you compare relief maps.  That white bit around Dien Bien Phu and Son La are also quite mountainous even if they appear white on this map.  If you're thinking Laos must be all mountains, well yeah...  Half this map by surface area is mountains and highlands.  There's also plenty of rain forest, bamboo, sawgrass and the like covering those mountains and valleys.  What's the ratio of trees to frame rate?

For multiplayer, I think there might have been an airstrip in Dong Hoi, due west of Yankee Station.  If you want air quake, maybe you make Khe Sanh and Dong Hoi your blue-red bases.  For "authentic" air missions, your blue and red bases are mainly 500-600km apart.  Haifa to Adana / Incirlik is around 470km for reference.  Even this "minimum" map to get you a little of everything is huge. 

Hopefully, ED gets there one day.  Day 1 purchase, right?  But to say we're disappointed in ED seems a bit much.

Very well said.

[Manhorne]

Given the level of detail that is required and demanded for DCS and what it would take computing and software wise to run a detailed Vietnam map currently would be over taxing on most systems people have that are currently running DCS. That said it is not an impossible task given the future of gaming software and design. Just as it stands now its just unrealistic . And there is no point in making something that is not up to standards for DCS. I have the gut feeling that we will see something some day. It may even not be as far off as it seems.(hopefully before I am 70) . I am sure that there are many who have their gears turning and will some how make it happen when it is possible to do it. As has been stated it would be a money maker as the demand would be high and would make for some epic air battle campaigns on par with the WW2 but with jets.......

[Bremspropeller]

Does the map have to be strictly North-oriented? Canting the map-region maybe 10° CCW and going slightly south, you'd be able to include Chu Lai and maybe avoid China (incl. Hainan Island) altogether. Even though including Hainan would offer more Red Air scenarios.

[Gianky]

18 hours ago, Northstar98 said:

Only issue with Vietnam is that it will be a map that is densely populated with objects, as well as having lots of land area required. Think Marianas mixed with the Caucasus.

There's also still the lack of appropriate modules and assets (though, maybe being pedantic), beside earlier F-4s.

 

It'd even have to be bigger than Caucas, almost double its size, to have a complete SEA theater (dimensions are in NM and squared NM)

Edited January 27, 2022 by Gianky

[Japo32]

12 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Granted great ideas for terrains, that does not change the fact we already have a very busy schedule. 

I think that if the users could have access to the map sdk (not saying the planes one) we already could have a Korea and Vietnam map to use. Maybe not the perfect ones but at least a place to use these modules. 

I know ED would think that they would loose money because not selling those maps, but I think that still there is space for bussiness as these user free maps usually are not as good as a payware (usually). In my case, I would love to make a free map of Gibraltar Straight... for free, and later if I would learn working on that maybe make payware maps. Without that SDK I cannot do anything.

[Northstar98]

11 minutes ago, Gianky said:

It'd even have to be bigger than Caucas, almost double its size, to have a complete SEA theater (dimensions are in NM and squared NM)

I think we can chop a bit of the south and north of, but yes - I should've said the Caucasus entire land area and not just the detailed areas.

A fantastic post @Tengu, I wish all map proposals were like this

[Gianky]

52 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Does the map have to be strictly North-oriented? Canting the map-region maybe 10° CCW and going slightly south, you'd be able to include Chu Lai and maybe avoid China (incl. Hainan Island) altogether. Even though including Hainan would offer more Red Air scenarios.

Yeah, something like this would give us all the relevant land and sea areas cutting about a hundred thousand square NM... we could probably cut something more around the edges.

Great post @Tengu, didn't mean to steal the scene, I just posted before reading the whole thread!

[Bremspropeller]

18 minutes ago, Gianky said:

Yeah, something like this would give us all the relevant land and sea areas cutting about a hundred thousand square NM... we could probably cut something more around the edges.

I was thinking about Tengu's map-area suggestion. If canted maps are possible, I think he does have a real good idea there. It covers most of the relevant are.

[upyr1]

7 hours ago, Tengu said:

I'd love this map, but I think we need to temper our hopes with some realism about our collective computing power and map-makers' time.  Do we really think ED hasn't seen the 470K posts clamoring for Vietnam?  Do we really imagine that if such a map was quick to make and easy on our graphics cards, that ED would hold back simply out of malice or the failure of imagination that this map might be a money maker.  Come on, guys.

Any Vietnam map worth making would be huge.  And if you want F-4E / F-105 bases, you need Thailand which is separated from North Vietnam by a third country, Laos.

TLDR

For context, see my comparison to existing maps in the Middle East.  You can probably quibble over my definitions of the existing map edges; I made this before Cyprus.  But it doesn't change that Vietnam is bigger than most people realize and certainly bigger than today's maps.  Off the bat, you have to drop 90% of South Vietnam.

.

So I toyed around with Google maps to just see what a "minimum" Vietnam Map might look like.  I encourage anyone to check / correct my work, but this is what I came up - a 600km x 800km box.  I believe this is broadly equivalent, probably a bit larger than the Cyprus-Syria map.  (Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)  I believe South Atlantic will be larger, but then that also has a lot of the... Atlantic.

So let's do edge patrol.  Coming down the eastern edge, Blue Air could have the Navy and Marine jets flying from whatever carrier model you parked at Yankee Station or fly from Da Nang.  I placed the borders to include these two "bases".  Chu Lai was a major Marine A-4 base.  I believe Pleiku was more a SAR / FAC base.  But, you've got to put the border some place.  Other bases like Cam Ranh are way south.

Moving west along the southern edge, you leave Vietnam, cross Laos, and enter Thailand.  The map borders shown just include Ubon.  If you're thinking F-4s and F-105s, that primarily means Ubon, Korat, and Taklhi.  If you look really carefully, there's an unlabelled red dot for Korat at Nakhon Ratchasima.  And if you look to the left of the "T" in Thailand, that red dot is Takhli.  Col Olds and his 'stache were based at Ubon.

Moving up the western edge, you have Udorn.  This was mainly a recce base, but had F-4s for much of the war including 555th.  I'm guessing you could fly E models from here during the '72 Easter Offensive.  Stretching the map west to Udorn also nets us Dien Bien Phu for our French friends.

I'd argue this is an extremely heavy (graphically intensive) map.  Beyond the air bases, you'd need to model the urban areas of Hanoi, Haiphong and Hue.  Pretty much anything green corresponds with mountain ranges when you compare relief maps.  That white bit around Dien Bien Phu and Son La are also quite mountainous even if they appear white on this map.  If you're thinking Laos must be all mountains, well yeah...  Half this map by surface area is mountains and highlands.  There's also plenty of rain forest, bamboo, sawgrass and the like covering those mountains and valleys.  What's the ratio of trees to frame rate?

For multiplayer, I think there might have been an airstrip in Dong Hoi, due west of Yankee Station.  If you want air quake, maybe you make Khe Sanh and Dong Hoi your blue-red bases.  For "authentic" air missions, your blue and red bases are mainly 500-600km apart.  Haifa to Adana / Incirlik is around 470km for reference.  Even this "minimum" map to get you a little of everything is huge. 

Hopefully, ED gets there one day.  Day 1 purchase, right?  But to say we're disappointed in ED seems a bit much.

Huge and filled with jungle---the problem isn't Eagle's resources but our computer resrouces. I had to upgrade my computer becuse of the Marianas. This will make my CPU melt. The two main Thai bases were Takli and Ubon as I keep saying I want a Vietnam map but Eagle needs to do some prep work. 

[Gambit21]

3 hours ago, Gianky said:

Yeah, something like this would give us all the relevant land and sea areas cutting about a hundred thousand square NM... we could probably cut something more around the edges.

Great post @Tengu, didn't mean to steal the scene, I just posted before reading the whole thread!

 

My concern is ocean area for carrier ops - need more space.

I can't imagine that ED is going to ignore a Vietnam map. They've said they want to go to Vietnam already a few years ago, so I'm just going to sit back and wait...patiently...sort of.

I think Tengu's map idea is more plausible in any case.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Gambit21

[Gianky]

2 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

My concern is ocean area for carrier ops - need more space.

 

From what I understand, the ocen is not a problem, since it should be very light on the hardware and can be extended indefitely (again, that's just my understanding of how the terrains work in DCS)

[upyr1]

1 hour ago, Gambit21 said:

 

My concern is ocean area for carrier ops - need more space.

I can't imagine that ED is going to ignore a Vietnam map. They've said they want to go to Vietnam already a few years ago, so I'm just going to sit back and wait...patiently...sort of.

I think Tengu's map idea is more plausible in any case.

 

I think one of the reasons for the Marianas and the move to the Pacific with World War II was to work on rending the jungle. In the meantime I expect to see some cold war gone hot map coming out and more 1960s assets.