1967 adaptation???

[bmbpdk]

On 6/16/2023 at 10:10 AM, OnReTech said:

Hello OnReTech.

I assume that when you decided to make a map like the Sinai for a game like DCS World, you surely did some deep research in the area and the "activities" there, especially in the 60´s and the 70´s?
And surely you did some research in the airfields/airports and the possible HVT´s in the area?
Am i right?

[OnReTech]

On 6/22/2023 at 10:04 PM, bmbpdk said:

Hello OnReTech.

I assume that when you decided to make a map like the Sinai for a game like DCS World, you surely did some deep research in the area and the "activities" there, especially in the 60´s and the 70´s?
And surely you did some research in the airfields/airports and the possible HVT´s in the area?
Am i right?

Yes you are right. But we faced the difficulty of finding information and photo references of the 60-80s, but the search continues...

[bmbpdk]

3 hours ago, OnReTech said:

Yes you are right. But we faced the difficulty of finding information and photo references of the 60-80s, but the search continues...

I can highly recommend amazon for some excellent books on the subject, they have maps, names, dates, units etc.
Also just Google "Sinai war 60 70 80" and you will get thousands of documents, literature, maps etc.
And lastly, go to academia dot edu for literally thousands of documents and PDF on the several wars, geopolitics and infrastructure in the area.

I hope that helps and the best to your team and the project.

[irisono]

There is no doubt that OnReTech has delivered a technically very good map here, but...There is a large DCS community that is interested in historical simulation. These folks like to create historically accurate flight missions. And as we can see from the very numerous threads, posts and video clips dealing with this topic, this community seems to be big.

From the first day of publication of the Sinai map, I created many missions that actually took place in the Suez Crisis, 6-day War, Attrition or Yom Kippur/Oct. War. To put it mildly, I am disappointed in what this Sinai map is offering in this regard and to put it bluntly, it wasn't the plane or assets sets that were the problem. There are enough alternatives with mods, place holders etc. to get around this. Rather, it's the immense urban areas, huge industrial plants, highways, large, super-modern cities, oversized air bases and all the vehicles that are wrong. All this does not fit into the period 1956-1973 in which these conflicts took place. It kills all the immersion.

In fact, DCS maps do not cover the major conflicts of the jet aviation era. The only exception being the Normandy/Channel map that covers the time of propeller-driven aircraft. It's a pity that the new Sinai map has not remedy this deficiency. An opportunity was missed here to cover conflicts that were so important for the development of military aviation. But maybe a Vietnam map 1960-1980 will come soon and improve the situation regarding aviation history.

[Logan54]

Some pics of old and modern Sinai

[Nodak]

Even if you had every detail accurate to an absolute degree, it will never play out in a historical way, because we're no longer connected and we will never make historically correct or connected decisions, the theater ops tempo and mentality is gone forever. 

It's a fools errand to waste the effort on what will never be again, close is good enough.  What percentage of the player base can discern it anyway, so why waste a whole bunch time and effort?  If it's easy to do and references abound go for it, it may look more historic but the game will still play out exactly the same in the end, one of those deals where your never going to really arrive where you imagined you wanted, as the clock ticks we're getting even further away. 

History doesn't play out in a game or simulation, too many variables missing in these simple and limited worlds, and than there's the human factor.   Its not a realistic expectation, not a healthy one for this industry either.  War never plays out the same twice, it's a human thing adapt, change up, or die.  But simulations and games tend to play out very similar, it's all just programing with the same limitations, your inputs are definitely limited, pretty much the same for every game. 

Its easy to hop from one sim to another without much in the way of challenge once you've built up game experience.  Not so much hopping a different war, time, and battlefield in the real world, it'd make your head spin changing those up, doubt that experience can ever be captured, certainly not captured as anything but bits and fragments for history.  You can live and experience it yourself, but it will never play out in a game, don't waste valuable effort trying, what games can do good is extend and pretend with illusion.  Do you have a good environment to create and design your own tactics and strategies to beat the machine within the parameters we're handed, that's as realistic and worthy a goal and as close to war as we're ever getting inside a PC.      

[irisono]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Nodak:

Even if you had every detail accurate to an absolute degree, it will never play out in a historical way, because we're no longer connected and we will never make historically correct or connected decisions, the theater ops tempo and mentality is gone forever. 

It's a fools errand to waste the effort on what will never be again, close is good enough.  What percentage of the player base can discern it anyway, so why waste a whole bunch time and effort?  If it's easy to do and references abound go for it, it may look more historic but the game will still play out exactly the same in the end, one of those deals where your never going to really arrive where you imagined you wanted, as the clock ticks we're getting even further away. 

History doesn't play out in a game or simulation, too many variables missing in these simple and limited worlds, and than there's the human factor.   Its not a realistic expectation, not a healthy one for this industry either.  War never plays out the same twice, it's a human thing adapt, change up, or die.  But simulations and games tend to play out very similar, it's all just programing with the same limitations, your inputs are definitely limited, pretty much the same for every game. 

Its easy to hop from one sim to another without much in the way of challenge once you've built up game experience.  Not so much hopping a different war, time, and battlefield in the real world, it'd make your head spin changing those up, doubt that experience can ever be captured, certainly not captured as anything but bits and fragments for history.  You can live and experience it yourself, but it will never play out in a game, don't waste valuable effort trying, what games can do good is extend and pretend with illusion.  Do you have a good environment to create and design your own tactics and strategies to beat the machine within the parameters we're handed, that's as realistic and worthy a goal and as close to war as we're ever getting inside a PC.      

Pretty confusing. I'm sorry but I can't understand the message here. The purpose of a simulation is to reproduce a process or an event (or for me a historical event) as realistically as possible. Every factor contributing to high reality, such as protagonists, the spirit of that era, place and time etc. is crucial. As we begin to compromise these factors, we move more and more towards fantasy worlds or arcade games. DCS is committed to providing the most realistic flight simulation available on the market, as they themselves claim. That's why I, and I believe most DCS users, use this simulator. If realism hadn't mattered to me, I would have chosen an arcade simulator.

My apologies for deviating from the main topic "1967 adaptation? "

[Nodak]

Well if you ever served or crewed real world than your well aware it is nothing but fantasy and a game, and that's all it will ever be.  Your on a wild goose chase to obtain unobtanium, reality itself let alone history can't be duplicated in a hardware box no matter how hard you wish it, or the effort and energy you can waste trying. 

Nothing against good smoke and mirrors, but you should recognize that's what your dealing with, especially known to those building it, and aware of the marketing risks one takes attempting to sell it off as something other than a fun and complex game.

I know some want to think they're fighter pilots and biting an actual chuck out of some war, but your not, nor will you ever be, not even close for $79.99.

[Logan54]

6 минут назад, Nodak сказал:

I know some want to think they're fighter pilots and biting an actual chuck out of some war, but your not, nor will you ever be, not even close for $79.99.

Man, speak for yourself. A lot of ppl in dcs are former mil pilots. So if they prefer to buy map with history, its not mean that they took part in war over Sinai. It`s mean they respect this era and want to touch it. Nothing more. If you ready to spend your money for arcade map, this is your right. But respect ppl who think another. Thnx.

[Art-J]

There's nothing "arcade" or wrong about modelling any region as it looks today rather than how it looked 50 years ago. Easier for any dev to get reference data. If OneReTech figured they only had time and resources sufficient for modern Sinai then that's that.

The map was never advertized as historic version of the region. Maybe they'll make such version someday, but until then this whole thread belongs in the wishlist section really.

[Logan54]

2 часа назад, Art-J сказал:

There's nothing "arcade" or wrong about modelling any region as it looks today

I mean a bit another. A lot of objects too modern for immersion in the cold war era. Map is okay, but seems to me ED and devs should to think not only about profit from sales. But looking thrue user`s feedback. I hope to fly some day early Sinay on MiG-15/17/19/21/F-4/ or other cold war stuff with no colored trucks and waterpools and another modern stuff like 1 ssandard helipads and modern oil plants.

[samba_liten]

Does anyone have any sources on the actual locations of the Egyptian SAM batteries in 1973? Also looking for similar information for the Syrian batteries, incidentally.

[Harlikwin]

On 11/4/2023 at 4:32 AM, samba_liten said:

Does anyone have any sources on the actual locations of the Egyptian SAM batteries in 1973? Also looking for similar information for the Syrian batteries, incidentally.

 

So I posted this resource for SAM sites, and any other associated modeling. Sat images from the 1970's, so it should generally cover fixed sites there.

 

Honestly the best historical map for this would be circa ~1970. I'm sure there is a ton of declassified Corona imagery of the area due to the fact you had 2 wars there 67/73 in very short order so while not quite "google" maps ease of access, the actual imagery does exist to pretty good levels of resolution (6 foot resolution). 

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/usgs-eros-archive-declassified-data-declassified-satellite-imagery-1

And aside from doing the airbases, you'd basically just be deleting most of the cities on the map and maybe adding farms, as the were like 1/5 the size or something like that in terms of population. 

Yuup... Here are some "large" area photos, there a ton more in more detailed resolution too. Like 37 pages worth with IDK how many images per page 50? 
null

[Ebphoto]

On 6/14/2023 at 5:15 AM, QuiGon said:

I'm a bit surprised by this decision, as Sharm el-Sheikh is probably the most famous location on the Sinai peninsula, which this map is about. And it's not just important because it's a large vacation ressort nowadays, but also because of it's military past (and present) :

 

 

Interesting saying a Map is “About” a region. It’s not about the region and the history. Its a geographical place, a map, it’s up to us the DCS players to make the about part in my opinion or content creators who make campaigns and mission to make the about part. I think ALL the maps in DCS are this way. They just present the player with a geographic location with as much as detail the developer wants or can do with their budget that included cities with airports and bases etc.. Then we, through the ME make a mission “About” what we want either historical or made up things we want to fly. I don’t think we should look to the developers of the Maps to do this or these maps are going to cost a LOT more than they do. Especially if they need to make different versions for different time periods because you would have to include the assets for the time period as well. That is a lot of work for a $50-$60 map.

[Ebphoto]

On 7/16/2023 at 7:20 AM, Logan54 said:

I mean a bit another. A lot of objects too modern for immersion in the cold war era. Map is okay, but seems to me ED and devs should to think not only about profit from sales. But looking thrue user`s feedback. I hope to fly some day early Sinay on MiG-15/17/19/21/F-4/ or other cold war stuff with no colored trucks and waterpools and another modern stuff like 1 ssandard helipads and modern oil plants.

Go watch one of Glowing Sidewinders missions he recreated for a video on the Six Day war. He seemed to recreate it very well with the same map that we have. When your up at 6,000 feet or higher and flying a wartime mission your not going to spend much time looking at the color of the trucks and cars or that a building looks too modern. You’re going to be focused on the mission and not getting shot down. I think several content creators have done this on the DCS maps. I can’t remember the persons name or YouTube channel but he did nothing but recreate 50’s, 60’s -70’s missions before we even had the Sinai map and did a great job and most people would never know he wasn’t over Egypt except for us DCS players. Go check out some of those videos, do a search and especially GS Sinai missions he created. It proves this map works for that time period as it is.

[Ebphoto]

On 12/22/2023 at 4:11 PM, Harlikwin said:

 

So I posted this resource for SAM sites, and any other associated modeling. Sat images from the 1970's, so it should generally cover fixed sites there.

 

Honestly the best historical map for this would be circa ~1970. I'm sure there is a ton of declassified Corona imagery of the area due to the fact you had 2 wars there 67/73 in very short order so while not quite "google" maps ease of access, the actual imagery does exist to pretty good levels of resolution (6 foot resolution). 

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/eros/science/usgs-eros-archive-declassified-data-declassified-satellite-imagery-1

And aside from doing the airbases, you'd basically just be deleting most of the cities on the map and maybe adding farms, as the were like 1/5 the size or something like that in terms of population. 

Yuup... Here are some "large" area photos, there a ton more in more detailed resolution too. Like 37 pages worth with IDK how many images per page 50? 
null

That’s great! Thank you for posting this! I haven’t checked it out yet but if it has all that info about SAM site placement etc it would help quite a bit!

As far as your other statement I totally agree. I think the airfields are the main thing and other than location, they’re semi easy to put assts and aircraft to mimic a time frame you’re looking for. Like I said, you’re not going to be looking at the color of vehicles or a truck or if a building looks modern or not if you up at altitude. Things like a SAM site would make a difference in where it is and what it is but the rest, unless your flying choppers won’t matter very much or at least I don’t think it should. The example of Growling Sidewinders video is a perfect example that you can fly this area in those time frames and to expect the map developer to create different time periods is crazy and unrealistic for the price we pay. Heck that might actually be a business someone could do, depending on the copyright and legal stuff. But someone could take these maps and change them to a specific time period and sell it? Who knows?. Not my thing but I’m sure somebody out there would do it. Personally I don’t think theres enough money in it for the work thats needed. Any way, thanks for this info. I’m very curious to see what it has.

[Logan54]

8 часов назад, Ebphoto сказал:

That’s great! Thank you for posting this! I haven’t checked it out yet but if it has all that info about SAM site placement etc it would help quite a bit!

As far as your other statement I totally agree. I think the airfields are the main thing and other than location, they’re semi easy to put assts and aircraft to mimic a time frame you’re looking for. Like I said, you’re not going to be looking at the color of vehicles or a truck or if a building looks modern or not if you up at altitude. Things like a SAM site would make a difference in where it is and what it is but the rest, unless your flying choppers won’t matter very much or at least I don’t think it should. The example of Growling Sidewinders video is a perfect example that you can fly this area in those time frames and to expect the map developer to create different time periods is crazy and unrealistic for the price we pay. Heck that might actually be a business someone could do, depending on the copyright and legal stuff. But someone could take these maps and change them to a specific time period and sell it? Who knows?. Not my thing but I’m sure somebody out there would do it. Personally I don’t think theres enough money in it for the work thats needed. Any way, thanks for this info. I’m very curious to see what it has.

Are you developer of Sinai map? If no, why you say its unrealistic? If you are right then you not need Vietnam, Cola, Marianas and South Atlantic maps, only thing you need is free Caucasus, because you not need details on big altitude. But this thread not about how to fly Vietnam on Caucasus. Its about message from community to developers. Thanks.

[Ebphoto]

On 4/30/2024 at 5:11 AM, Logan54 said:

On 4/29/2024 at 8:50 PM, Ebphoto said:

Expand  

Are you developer of Sinai map? If no, why you say its unrealistic? If you are right then you not need Vietnam

No I’m not a developer I just disagree and think you’re being unrealistic with your expectations.  You expect a lot for a $70 map.  If a developer had to put in all the different time frames you want it would cost a lot more because of the time it would take for the research and details required. Like I stated, go check out Growling Sidewinders videos on this map and how he recreated the Six Day War. Looks pretty good and proves you don’t need what you asking for. Here’s a link to one of them for you….  

 

[Logan54]

5 часов назад, Ebphoto сказал:

No I’m not a developer I just disagree and think you’re being unrealistic with your expectations.  You expect a lot for a $70 map.  If a developer had to put in all the different time frames you want it would cost a lot more because of the time it would take for the research and details required. Like I stated, go check out Growling Sidewinders videos on this map and how he recreated the Six Day War. Looks pretty good and proves you don’t need what you asking for. Here’s a link to one of them for you….  

If you not see difference between pictures I uploaded and current map, this is not my problem. You send this video as example of what? Everyone can add some Fish beds and Phantoms with loaded liveries. This not add any immersion, because this is object, but I m talking about background. Is background at this video similar to photos of Sinai 1967? If it was true, I would never create this thread. In this thread I ask devs, not users. Thank you for trying help. Really no need in this.