DCS Newsletter discussion 6th January 2023 - 2023 and beyond | DCS core

[BIGNEWY]

4 minutes ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

This sounds fascinating, but also does leave me a little puzzled.

Could you please elaborate a little more on that, regarding the "independent operation"? Does that mean there will be separate installs, or will campaign/mission creators have to pick whether or not to build their content with spheric or legacy  maps? How will that work with MP servers?

So, for example, if I play Raven One, will it load "flat PG", whereas if I start  a hypothetical Raven One Part 3 mission that was made for "spherical PG", it will simply load that (spherical) map?

Also, other than a proper "historic" context (like WWII or Vietnam), what would be the appeal to keep using contemporary "legacy" maps (Syria, upcoming Sinai and Kola) over the new spherical maps?

Or does Spherical Earth Map quite literally mean "Earth" (as in the complete globe, similar to the other, civilian sim we shall not name)?

I understand of course  if it's still too early in the development process to really answer these question.

 

Spherical Earth will be separate from our regional terrain DLC. 

[Blackdavis12]

I think this is great news about the increased focus on the DCS World Engine , but don't lose focus on other points such as:

-AI can see you through the clouds and shoot at you. (air combat)

-Optimize the general damage model like on ships. This can really disappoint with low damage with a Harpoon Missile.

[Hive]

Awesome newsletter! Thanks!

ED, could you tell a little more about DLSS and VR, please? Will they work together?

[Jayhawk1971]

This newsletter and the video have left me very excited and optimistic for DCS in 2023. Really looking forward to what the year will bring. 

Thanks. 

[corbu1]

Thanks ED!

very detailed Newsletter starting 2023 with what is planned for the future.

 

[Northstar98]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Spherical Earth will be separate from our regional terrain DLC. 

In the future, are there any plans to have DLC terrains that are made for the spherical Earth? Allowing for instance, historical maps with spherical geometry. This way you could maybe have a more low-resolution base map (with aerdromes in perhaps the correct layout but only using generic objects and with the majority of areas being handled by landclass and autogen) and then have certain improved areas covered by DLC terrains made for it (perhaps saving on storage space, without needing to stream).

Alternatively, are there any plans for new terrains to use spherical geometry, even if they're just completely standalone terrains separate from the whole planet?

Edited January 6, 2023 by Northstar98

[Gunfreak]

However there is one thing I not seeing in this road map.

Proper splash damage, as is bombs, rockets and even auto cannons and heavy machine guns do too little damage against soft targets.

This was something I would have thought would come out with the Apache, given it's nice fancy cannon and use of rockets. But almost year after Apache release, bombs, rockets, and guns are still very ineffective against light soft targets like infantry.

[Cab]

Anyone ask about native support for OpenXR yet?

[nickos86]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

Spherical Earth will be separate from our regional terrain DLC. 

Hi,

Can you elaborate on the "why?". What's the advantage/disadvantage of flat/spherical environment?  What are the challenges? Why not make every map use the "spherical earth"? 

Also, what do you mean by "Because this map will be based on current day..."? 

Sorry, can you just explain the context a bit? Not sure I understand what are you trying to achieve. 

Thanks!

[Glide]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

Spherical Earth will be separate from our regional terrain DLC. 

I'm going to park my AH-64D in my driveway.

[MadKreator]

43 minutes ago, nickos86 said:

Hi,

Can you elaborate on the "why?". What's the advantage/disadvantage of flat/spherical environment?  What are the challenges? Why not make every map use the "spherical earth"? 

Also, what do you mean by "Because this map will be based on current day..."? 

Sorry, can you just explain the context a bit? Not sure I understand what are you trying to achieve. 

Thanks!

I too am curious of the whole spherical earth/ map thing. Why is that so important for DCS? Just for realism? Should it affect weapons/ radars/ navigation/ communications? Would a casual like myself really care/ notice one way out the other? Or is it just because the earth is round and so should the game modeled accordingly?  Probably a topic for another thread but a quick enlightenment wouldn’t be so bad. 

-I’m not necessarily talking about a whole earth “map”, I understand that model. But for a standalone map.

Edited January 6, 2023 by MadKreator

[Talisman_VR]

Human Animations

Starting with new AH-64D pilots in 2022, this work will continue into 2023 to include new infantry and more pilots with more life-like models and animations. Priority pilot models first include the F/A-18C and F-16C pilots.

Very much hope that "new infantry" means I will be able to look back and see the infantry in the back of my Huey helicopter and see them embark and disembark.

Also hope that more life-like pilot models means that my Huey co-pilot will talk to me and call out contacts, etc, just like the rear seat AI for the Tomcat.

Happy landings,

Talisman

Edited January 6, 2023 by Talisman_VR

[twistking]

12 minutes ago, MadKreator said:

I too am curious of the whole spherical earth/ map thing. Why is that so important for DCS? Just for realism? Should it affect weapons/ radars/ navigation/ communications? Would a casual like myself really care/ notice one way out the other? Or is it just because the earth is round and so should the game modeled accordingly?  Probably a topic for another thread but a quick enlightenment wouldn’t be so bad.

Well, a spherical map would be more realistic of course. Some things are easy to "fake" like radar horizon, radio comms etc. but i'd guess especially visual aspects are more complex. For example the horizon on a cloudy day (especially with a low sun), or where aircraft visually appear on the horizon. It's just the proper thing to do in a realistic simulator game. I don't think a casual flyers will notice it without knowing what to look for, but it will properly also make life easier for the devs, because they won't have to constantly "correct" the simulation to make it appear as if the game world was spherical.

I think the biggest motivator for ED to go spherical though, is to offer a flying experience where you can access the whole globe eventually. You could not do this on a flat model (well, you could, but this would not be scientifically correct ). Honestly i feel that for a combat focused simulator the seperate maps are "good enough", but it's also clear that a whole globe offers many new possibilities...

Edited January 6, 2023 by twistking

[MadKreator]

5 minutes ago, twistking said:

Well, s spherical map would be more realistic of course. Some things are easy to "fake" like radar horizon, radio comms etc. but i'd guess especially visual aspects are more complex. For example a sunset on a  cloudy day, or where aircraft visually appear on the horizon. It's just the proper thing to do in a realistic simulator game. I don't think a casual flyer will notice it without knowing what to look for, but it will proper also make life easier for the devs, because they won't have to constantly "correct" the simulation to make it appear as if the game world was spherical.

I think the biggest motivator for ED to go spherical is to offer a flying experience where you can access teh whole globe eventually. You could not do this on a flat model (well, you could, but this would not be scientifically correct )

Good enough …. Wait , you mean the earth isn’t flat?  J/k.. not going there

[Northstar98]

5 hours ago, nickos86 said:

Hi,

Can you elaborate on the "why?". What's the advantage/disadvantage of flat/spherical environment?

Pros and Cons of Flat Earth map:

Pros:

• Simpler, especially in terms of physics and calculations (vectors of forces such as weight act in a uniform direction, as opposed to radially; no coriolis force etc).

Cons:

• The big problem with flat Earth maps is that they will inevitably cause distortion compared to real life, regardless of the projection method used. It's usually considerably more problematic at larger distances and as latitudes approach the poles:
  • For far distances, some routes either become much longer than they should be (typically involving large 180° arcs) or are flat out impossible. As an example, let's setup a mission where I have a long-duration flight from the north-central United States to say, the Kola Peninsula (or vice versa). IRL the quickest route would be to head north-east, flying over basically the North Pole and then head south east (replace east for west for the Kola -> US route), instead of heading directly east/west over the Atlantic. However, on a flat map, with cartesian lines of lattitude and longitude (like they are now), this route would be far longer and it would would have to be a large 180° turn. If I instead go for a polar cartesian system, now I can fly over the North Pole, but now distances and areas south of the equator are far larger than they should be and flying over the South Pole is now impossible. These are only 2 projection methods, but every single one of them is going to have a major breaking issue in at least some locations.
  • Close to the poles, terrain separated by large distances may need to be rotated so as to be properly aligned with respect to the meridians. This isn't so much a problem on a polar coordinate system, but on a cartesian one (like we have), this will mean that land will be misaligned compared to RL.
• Navigation:
  • Great circle routes don't work properly (to name an example where this is a problem, IRL the Phantom's navigation computer computes for great circles beyond certain distances (120 km IIRC). If it were to do this in DCS on its current flat maps, all this would do is make your route take longer - while the smallest distance between 2 points on a sphere is a great circle, that doesn't apply to flat Earth maps).
  • True north doesn't really exist (you may notice that true north in DCS don't follow meridians, especially noticeable on say, the South Atlantic).
• LOS at low-altitudes won't be accurate (for instance, the very tops of ships should be the first thing to appear and then as you get closer more will be seen) this might seem trivial, but it's quite important for anything at very low altitudes. On a related note workarounds need to be employed for the radar horizon and radio LOS.

 

5 hours ago, nickos86 said:

What are the challenges? Why not make every map use the "spherical earth"?

Kate mentioned in the Discord that current theatres use flat Earth geometry and it's technically infeasible to convert them to use spherical geometry.

Though I'm hoping that any unnanounced future maps will be built using spherical geometry, even if it doesn't overwrite the areas they cover

5 hours ago, nickos86 said:

Also, what do you mean by "Because this map will be based on current day..."? 

The map will be built from information from the present day. This makes sense because finding historical GIS data and textures suitable for the whole planet is almost certainly going to be infeasible without having different locations at different times.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Northstar98
trying to format this a bit better

[Dragon1-1]

It's likely not possible to make a solid world map for WWII era or even Vietnam. Before widespread satellite mapping, some locations were simply never imaged, because there wasn't anything interesting there. I'd imagine you could make a swatch of the globe containing only the areas which are documented, but that's more or less what the maps are for. Already, historical research for WWII maps is difficult at times, nobody is going to bother documenting how exactly a given village looked in WWII era, and some places were completely destroyed. I only hope that we'll get an option to adjust the year on the world map in some small range, because we have no 2020s era hardware (most wars today are not fought with F-22s and Su-57s, but the old hardware that does fight gets upgraded, too), and some landmarks went up or down between mid-2000s and today.

That said, I hope we get spherical Earth updates for WWII maps. Low altitude LOS and horizon effects would come in handy even when taking into account smaller distances of WWII missions.

[Gunfreak]

Given how the world map looks in other sims. My guess is there will for a very long time be a need for handmade well crafted maps too.

 

[peachmonkey]

It is an excellent roadmap and it is excellently ambitious.

[SickSidewinder9]

Looking forward to hearing "beer cans down and locked" when at the catapult.

[5ephir0th]

That's a great newsletter ED, very detailed, i expect 2023 its the year of the DCS core revamp

[MAXsenna]

I hope for the future that the current maps can be ported to the spherical mode in the future.
I wonder how they will handle the data though, stream it like that other SIM?

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[cordite]

It can be done without streaming.

[Gasman6]

I think these are all very smart moves to keep DCS competitive into 2023 and beyond. There is often a murmur of competition coming to light, usually involving flashy cinematics of a whole, spherical Earth, and combined arms capabilities. Yet they never come to fruition, because it turns out the engine is designed for high-powered defense contracted simulators, or some other silly reason. Eventually, however, one of these products will come to market and give DCS a run for its money. This kind of forward thinking and future proofing by Eagle Dynamics proves this company is being driven in the right direction, by the right people; and will remain relevant in the coming decades.

 

Thank you, Eagle Dynamics, each and every one of you, for all of your hard work. Keep it coming. 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Gasman6

[Phantom453]

Awesome update, packed full of detail!!  Thank you.

While we all enjoy new aircraft coming down the pipeline, its these substantial changes to the core engine (often years in the making) that will ultimately make the most profound impact to DCS going forward, specifically in terms of new player attraction/ participation and overall player enjoyment.

Kudos to ED for pouring this much time, effort & resources into core functionality.

Edited January 7, 2023 by Phantom453

[tomcat_driver]

Terrific news despite the terrifying 2023 in the making.