When did Caucasus became this large?

[Rudel_chw]

I admit that I haven't edited missions set in Caucasus for quite a while, but today I started working on some old missions and noticed that the map is very much larger than what I remembered, and with lots of NDBs on areas that used to be empty:

 

 

Is my memory failing, or did ED made a quiet update of this Map?

[okopanja]

That is so for a longer time. Btw Crimea is wasteland. One more thing you can not land there.

I remember Su-27(vector graphics) and lock on when this region was pretty detailed.

Also for your info reference point x=0 y=0 for this map is on Crimea.

So Caucasus was probably meant to be Black See Map

[Ironhand]

42 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

I admit that I haven't edited missions set in Caucasus for quite a while, but today I started working on some old missions and noticed that the map is very much larger than what I remembered, and with lots of NDBs on areas that used to be empty:

 

 

Is my memory failing, or did ED made a quiet update of this Map?

It’s been that size for quite awhile…from the start, I think. I don’t recall the NDBs in western Ukraine, though.

You can still see the locations of the old airbases in the Crimea portion of the map. I tried landing on the location of an old runway several months ago just to see if I could. It didn’t go well. I was hoping that, perhaps, they might still be useable.

[okopanja]

4 minutes ago, Ironhand said:

It didn’t go well.

Basically you get exploded the moment your wheels touch the surface.

I wonder if map formats are still compatibile.

Edited June 28, 2022 by okopanja

[Rudel_chw]

Thank you all for your input ... it was a shock for me to see so many NDBs .. didnt remember any of them, tough its been several years since I last looked at the map in detail.  I wish ED would revamp this map by adding detail to the now empty areas  ... but it is very unlikely being a free Map 

[okopanja]

I think that thing hot pulled down due to sensitive political relations back then.

Nowdays chances are likely even worse.

[Ironhand]

1 hour ago, okopanja said:

I think that thing hot pulled down due to sensitive political relations back then.

Nowdays chances are likely even worse.

The original Su-27 Flanker title featured the Crimean Peninsula and was published by SSI. I don’t recall if Ubisoft was responsible for publishing it in the West. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Flanker 2 followed in 1999 and Ubisoft was the publisher in the West at that point. Flanker 2’s map was also the Crimea.

Relations between ED and Ubisoft became strained either before or after publication of LOMAC. LOMAC’s map was the Crimea and NW Caucasus, IIRC.  After that the relationship between Ubisoft and ED broke. Ubisoft would not relinquish rights to the Caucasus map for Flaming Cliffs 2. So the Crimea was dropped and the Caucasus portion of the map was extended south to include Georgia. And that’s been the default map since. At least that’s the history as I remember it and the reason ED will not/cannot do a Crimea map.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Ironhand

[okopanja]

Thanks for clarification, I missed some 14-15 years. I only started playing DCS in 2021 and I always asumed the reason to remove Crimea was politics.

 

[Ironhand]

Assuming I’m remembering correctly, it was a legal dispute over who owned rights to the map and Ubisoft had a bigger war chest than ED for the fight. That said, I certainly wouldn’t mind if some enterprising map makers did the Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus…Lithuania…Poland…Slovakia…Hungary…Romania……..and…

Edited June 28, 2022 by Ironhand

[okopanja]

Adding it now, would be kind of distasteful. SA on the other side looks to be cooled enough down to be used.

[Ironhand]

56 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Adding it now, would be kind of distasteful…

Distasteful to whom? This entire region is going to be in simmering conflict for years to come. Perfect map material. But we’re getting sidetracked. I shouldn’t have added to my above post.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Ironhand

[Rudel_chw]

6 minutes ago, Ironhand said:

Distasteful to whom?

 

+1 .. it's not like the Gulf map or Syria have not seen their fair share of warfare .. of course then it was the US the one involved, so it doesnt count 

[okopanja]

40 minutes ago, Ironhand said:

Distasteful to whom?

Simply put to those people living there and being directly affected. You asked and I answered and now lets leave it at that.

Edited June 28, 2022 by okopanja

[Silver_Dragon]

ED has talked, they dont go to add nothing about Krimea, Ukrania or some caucasus zones. That turn on a "political Problem" from some years ago, and the actual "Russian Ukranian" war has a hell.

[Ironhand]

1 hour ago, okopanja said:

...now lets leave it at that

Sounds like a plan.

[Bananabrai]

Well, there is still a pretty brutal civil war in Syria, it is just not very present any more in media. And it was on media while Syria map was developed.
Otherwise for me it is ok to leave Crimea as it is now in the game. I would like to explore it and see it, as I never played Flanker and only tried LOMAC once.
But I am fine with not having it, if some are not ok with the political restrains.

Apart from that, I am playing DCS since the first iteration of flaming cliffs (was it 1.16 or something?), in other words roughly 2007, without a gap.

The map has not been always like this. I don't remember the year, but the very eastern part was added later, including Vaziani, both Tiblisi airports, Beslan and the other NE russian base. So it has been expanded. I think with that expansion also came an expansion towards the west, but just as very basic terrain and having the entire black sea (as I remember a time where the black sea was cut of at the west end somewhere).
With this I also remember all the NDBs were added.

[okopanja]

If you open mission editor and use Customize->Set Position, by default you will get coordinates in X/Z expressed in meters. Setting it to the (0,0) will set you on the Crimea, just 20km north/east of Simferopol. Likely this was the geo-reference point from the very beginning, since I doubt they would move it together with all of the scenery objects.

Also, in Ka-50, ABRIS briefly sets its location precisely at this point (this caused me a great level of frustration, since it was not visible with naked eye).

Edited June 29, 2022 by okopanja

[Ironhand]

6 hours ago, Bananabrai said:

…I don't remember the year, but the very eastern part was added later, including Vaziani, both Tiblisi airports, Beslan and the other NE russian base…

That would have been with the release of FC2 back in 2010(?). Not sure about the rest, though.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Flaming Cliffs 2 extended the Caucasus map south to Batumi. Wasn’t it Black Shark 2 that pushed it east to Tbilisi?

Edited June 29, 2022 by Ironhand

[Bananabrai]

20 hours ago, Ironhand said:

That would have been with the release of FC2 back in 2010(?). Not sure about the rest, though.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Flaming Cliffs 2 extended the Caucasus map south to Batumi. Wasn’t it Black Shark 2 that pushed it east to Tbilisi?

 

I think you are right, some time around BS2 should be when Tiblisi and Vaziani were introduced, FC2 didn't have those from the start.

Well anyway, I just wanted to say that it has not always been like that. It was expanded.

15 hours ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

I honestly think a reworked Caucasus map would have a ton of potential. Because let's be honest the current map is very old and uses a ton of LOMAC/Flamin Cliffs era assets still. If Ugra could add Cyprus and expand their map to the east so can ED if they really wanted to. But I guess it doesn't pay off given this is a free map.

 

And it has also been graphically improved at some point some 5 years ago I think. Can't remember exaclty, but it was around the time just after many skin packs for the map were released by the modding community.
I guess ED then said at some point "we should rework the terrain at least up to the modders skin pack standart".
Of course back then it was not even up to the state of the NTTR, but I remember we have been told that ED wants to focus on other payed maps and finally on a different free map, which we have now in form of the Marianas.

And there will still be some work to do, as we get a WW2 version of that. So I suspect there will be no more focus on Caucasus for a long time or for ever.
I would even say, they will probably rework the NTTR rather than reworking the Caucasus, as it also shows age and there is money to earn with a rework.

Other than that, I heard an interview a year or so ago, that the ultimate goal for ED is to have a World map, but that might be at least 10 years or a lot more in the future.
So there might me no focus in maps at all from some point on, or have them as "high res patches" on a MSFS style satellite based world map, but that's just my personal speculation now (and kinda wish).

Only thing I am hoping for in terms of for example Caucasus, but currently ED is not showing any signs of this, they could make a community competition to the modders and have them rework it and release the best proposal. I think this could only boost moral of the modding community, the A-4E shows that people really can and want to produce some good stuff that stays free.

Really hoping ED is open to some of these suggestions/wishes and is reading topics like this, I think people have great ideas.

[Dragon1-1]

Let's leave Caucasus as is, people can't uninstall it and new map technology tends to lead to ballooning of map disk size, which is all the more problematic since the sim practically needs to be installed on an SSD. I passed on the South Atlantic because my SSD is full, and I won't be able to truly go into WWII until I get a new one. It's fine when it's DLC, since you can always uninstall and reinstall them, but let's not grow the core more than we have to. 

Also, Caucasus, being an old map, performs well even on otherwise outdated systems. This is not to be overlooked in the age of bloated GPU prices (they're slowly starting down, but still). Marianas look much better, but I explicitly arguing against forcing people to download it, since it takes up lot of space and many can't run it very well, anyway. Even without Crimea (on top of Ubisoft and politics, the old map tech couldn't handle it even if they wanted to bring it back), it's a fine map for what it's currently used for, and it occupies an important niche.

[draconus]

30 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Even without Crimea (on top of Ubisoft and politics, the old map tech couldn't handle it even if they wanted to bring it back), it's a fine map for what it's currently used for, and it occupies an important niche.

It's not technical problem and DCS definitely will not hold development because of your lack of disk space.

[Dragon1-1]

It is a technical problem. Don't take Syria or Marianas as counterexamples, because they were developed using the new map technology. It's the same reason PG isn't planned to be expanded - it has all it can have right now. So is Nevada. There were severe size restrictions on detailed area size back when the new map tech wasn't a thing, and ED sacrificed Crimea to make more of Georgia. They said so themselves multiple times. It is not possible to expand the old maps any further.

It doesn't need to hold development, just avoid growing a map that's inseparable part of DCS core. That's all, and coincidently, that's what ED is planning. No expansion or overhaul to Caucasus is planned, at least not one that'd push up its size. I'm not the only one limited by HD space, and for WWII-only players it'd be useless bloat.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[CarbonFox]

A larger Black Sea map would be interesting and it's unfortunate to me that we will likely never see Crimea as well as Southern Ukraine ever become useable terrain as it was in LOMAC.

[Therran]

On 6/29/2022 at 1:36 AM, Silver_Dragon said:

ED has talked, they dont go to add nothing about Krimea, Ukrania or some caucasus zones. That turn on a "political Problem" from some years ago, and the actual "Russian Ukranian" war has a hell.

I assume that includes the chechen part of the map (If it was ever an option)? Regarding political sensitive conflicts, it shouldnt be more controversial than the Syria or Gulf Map. - But what do I know..

[Dragon1-1]

I think the problem is that the Caucasus was made in the old map tech, and that tech has some limitations. They had to get rid of Crimea to include Tbilisi. It's the same reason why NTTR isn't going to get extended, and why Normandy is getting remade, as opposed to extending the old one. 

A full Black Sea map would be great, but it would require the new map tech, and in practice, that means a new map, made practically from scratch, just like Normandy 2.0. IMO, politics wouldn't be that much of a problem since it'd be the area as it was in mid-2000s, so without the Kerch bridge or any controversial developments.