opinion Afghanistan user feedback

[Nealius]

Crowd-sourcing info here, but after 1+hr flights in the Viper on Afghanistan, has anyone come across a really weird crosswind when landing at Kandahar 23? 

With mission wind set 100° (TO not FROM) 2kts, the DED wind page read a wind that shifted 270~330 up to 9 knots as I was descending on glideslope on runway 23, but I can't reproduce it in short test missions. That wind wasn't there when I took off. It's really weird. Has anyone else experienced the same? 

Edited August 6, 2024 by Nealius

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

That wind wasn't there when I took off.

Wake turbulence from some Herc?

[Nealius]

26 minutes ago, draconus said:

Wake turbulence from some Herc?

Maybe if it was a ghost. No AI traffic. Whatever it is, it's probably going to be as elusive as that old A-10 pitching on final bug. 

[Ramsay]

6 hours ago, Nealius said:

... has anyone come across a really weird crosswind when landing at Kandahar 23?

Not specifically at Kandahar.

6 hours ago, Nealius said:

With mission wind set 100° (TO not FROM) 2kts, the DED wind page read a wind that shifted 270~330 up to 9 knots as I was descending on glideslope on runway 23, but I can't reproduce it in short test missions.

Have you accounted for DCS's 3 wind "layers" that start at 0 ft MSL and auto fill an increased wind speed for 1600 ft MSL ?

A-10C measured wind speed and direction from the above example

When making missions for the Kiowa, I found I was getting higher than expected (2 knot) crosswinds due to Afghanistan's higher (~3,000ft) airfield elevations and needed to adjust the wind values I'd grown accustom to using for the Caucasus, etc.

Perhaps that is what you are seeing or a significant contributing factor ?

Here is a link to the DCS Wind Speed/Direction spreadsheet I used.

 

Edited August 6, 2024 by Ramsay

[Nealius]

33, 1600, and 6600 were all at 2kts (using the decoupling mod for 1600 winds to not double), 26000 was 7kts.

9kts shouldn't have even been possible given the highest value was 7kts, and with Kandahar at 3500 it should have been well within the 2kts between 33 and 6600.

[Ironhand]

8 hours ago, Nealius said:

…(using the decoupling mod for 1600 winds to not double)…

Last I knew, the decoupling mod did not actually decouple the winds in the flight, only on the static weather tab. It looked decoupled until you flew the mission and discovered that it wasn’t. Has that changed?

Edited August 6, 2024 by Ironhand
Clarity

[Zimmerdylan]

 "It's true - you paid a discount rate for an unfinished product, and that's exactly what you got."

 There was a time that I would have had no problems with your response. But seeing that I have several unfinished modules of more than 5 or 6 years........Well. ED has a reputation. It's well earned. I don't see why this terrain will improve much over time. ED sometimes doesn't finish it's products.  

[Nealius]

10 hours ago, Ironhand said:

It looked decoupled until you flew the mission and discovered that it wasn’t. Has that changed?

It's still decoupled in-mission as well. Last night I flew in/out of Kandahar with winds set 2kts across the board and the Viper DED never showed higher than 3kts between 3400ft and FL200. 

 

[EvMstein]

Allow me to be blunt, but I think ED should consider remaking the Afghanistan terrain entirely, as the current art direction is quite disappointing. If they continue on this path, we'll be stuck with a terrain that feels outdated, reminiscent of the 2010s for another decade!

[Nealius]

Anyone else found the Kandahar Heliport to be an absolute stutterfest? The rest of the airfield is fine, but as soon as I move the camera over the heliport the frames are unstable and it stutters like hell.

[Gierasimov]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

Anyone else found the Kandahar Heliport to be an absolute stutterfest? The rest of the airfield is fine, but as soon as I move the camera over the heliport the frames are unstable and it stutters like hell.

Nope, works absolutely fine on my gaming rig as well as on the Precision 5570 laptop

[Nealius]

Strange. I'm getting horrible stutters on a 4070Ti Super with 16GB VRAM.....but only at Kandahar heliport and sometimes Karintot.

Edited August 12, 2024 by Nealius

[WirtsLegs]

overall impressions on the map so far:

Pros:

• map is huge, lots of space to setup longer missions
• the higher detail textures for the most part look pretty good
• map looks great from up high

Cons:

• Down low anywhere without a high res texture looks terrible, very muddy zoomed in sat imagery, can literally see the square pixels in some places
• places where high res meets low res look especially bad as they meet at a razor sharp line
• many of the roads and waterways have height issues (roads with mile high veritcal canyon walls on either side for example), and some major roads are missing rendering some areas impossible to reach by road
• some layout issues where two tiles of high res meet in a way they shouldnt, creates visible 'lines' through some areas
• the DCS standard everything burns is especially strange on this map as you drop a mk82 and stone/mud walls start burning
• the mountains are for lack of a better term ugly when even somewhat low, look like extruded playdoh with no texture or roughness, I get that some is a general DCS limit with no overhangs and vertical surfaces not texturing well but look at Sinai for how to make them look decent anyway

Overall impressions:

Map is generally pretty bad in its current state, however there are some areas that do look decent and can work well for some content already. Some of the biggest issues are likely also the easiest to solve and by doing that the map will go from 2/10 to 7/10 easily.

The map is also unfortunately severely limited by the DCS core in that for it to really work well we need ground AI improvements, especially Infantry as the current behaviour just doesnt work. Additionally we need some ANA, Insurgent, and civilian units that fit the area.

Finally another DCS limitation of map scenery not rotating in all 3 axis is especially apparent in the map anywhere where scenery structures or vehicles are placed on the steeper slopes.

Easy Wins:

Some easier wins (maybe not in amount of time but in complexity) would be to...

• generate a set of medium res textures to take the place of the satellite imagery when down low, idea being these can be pretty plain but should blend better into the proper high res areas and get rid of the blocky pixel-looking splotches and hide the buildings baked into that satellite imagery
• Do a manual pass on the larger high res areas and fix some of the major alignment issues
• make vehicles kick up dust on the dirt roads

Long term though for this map to really shine we need to see some core game improvements, like fixing the above-mentioned scenery issues, improving ground AI, at the very least fix some of the more glaring bugs like the infantry chicken run, and add more relevant assets to the game

Edited August 12, 2024 by WirtsLegs

[skywalker22]

13 hours ago, WirtsLegs said:

overall impressions on the map so far:

Pros:

• map is huge, lots of space to setup longer missions
• the higher detail textures for the most part look pretty good
• map looks great from up high

Cons:

• Down low anywhere without a high res texture looks terrible, very muddy zoomed in sat imagery, can literally see the square pixels in some places
• places where high res meets low res look especially bad as they meet at a razor sharp line
• many of the roads and waterways have height issues (roads with mile high veritcal canyon walls on either side for example), and some major roads are missing rendering some areas impossible to reach by road
• some layout issues where two tiles of high res meet in a way they shouldnt, creates visible 'lines' through some areas
• the DCS standard everything burns is especially strange on this map as you drop a mk82 and stone/mud walls start burning
• the mountains are for lack of a better term ugly when even somewhat low, look like extruded playdoh with no texture or roughness, I get that some is a general DCS limit with no overhangs and vertical surfaces not texturing well but look at Sinai for how to make them look decent anyway

Overall impressions:

Map is generally pretty bad in its current state, however there are some areas that do look decent and can work well for some content already. Some of the biggest issues are likely also the easiest to solve and by doing that the map will go from 2/10 to 7/10 easily.

The map is also unfortunately severely limited by the DCS core in that for it to really work well we need ground AI improvements, especially Infantry as the current behaviour just doesnt work. Additionally we need some ANA, Insurgent, and civilian units that fit the area.

Finally another DCS limitation of map scenery not rotating in all 3 axis is especially apparent in the map anywhere where scenery structures or vehicles are placed on the steeper slopes.

Easy Wins:

Some easier wins (maybe not in amount of time but in complexity) would be to...

• generate a set of medium res textures to take the place of the satellite imagery when down low, idea being these can be pretty plain but should blend better into the proper high res areas and get rid of the blocky pixel-looking splotches and hide the buildings baked into that satellite imagery
• Do a manual pass on the larger high res areas and fix some of the major alignment issues
• make vehicles kick up dust on the dirt roads

Long term though for this map to really shine we need to see some core game improvements, like fixing the above-mentioned scenery issues, improving ground AI, at the very least fix some of the more glaring bugs like the infantry chicken run, and add more relevant assets to the game

 

It's EA. Wait for the final product to judge it properly.

[WirtsLegs]

3 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

It's EA. Wait for the final product to judge it properly.

I am very aware it's EA, but there is nothing wrong with reviewing its current state both as a way to provide feedback to ED in what we like or don't like, and as a way to inform others that are considering buying into EA

 

Also I hate the attitude that some have of being EA makes all criticism moot/pointless.

[Darcaem]

19 hours ago, WirtsLegs said:

the DCS standard everything burns is especially strange on this map as you drop a mk82 and stone/mud walls start burning

I thought the same yesterday when some insurgent fired against my CH47F but hit the wall... and the wall was lit on fire. Incendiary bullets or something I guess

 

PS: dust for civil vehicules would look cool!

[BIGNEWY]

On 8/13/2024 at 1:48 PM, Darcaem said:

I thought the same yesterday when some insurgent fired against my CH47F but hit the wall... and the wall was lit on fire. Incendiary bullets or something I guess

 

PS: dust for civil vehicules would look cool!

Burning walls have been reported and will be fixed. 

[Hotdognz]

I like Afghanistan, it suits the modules I fly and in some parts down low and up high it looks great, but only in some parts, but after flying Sinai and Syria again I have to say im not a fan of the textures sets ED are using and much prefer the Saini look for textures and implementation. If ED are doing the same with Iraq I wont be buying it at all.

[toni]

question, just newbe with the new menu but..... why when joining some Afganistan mp server , click fly and only see the map or  the terrain from above ?

[Nealius]

Recent hotfixes added more trees to areas of the map; didn't see it mentioned in the changelogs. Any mission builders out there should double check your JTAC placement, as I had a couple whose LOS became interrupted by those new trees. 

Edited August 24, 2024 by Nealius

[aaronwhite]

On 8/6/2024 at 1:40 AM, Nealius said:

Maybe if it was a ghost. No AI traffic. Whatever it is, it's probably going to be as elusive as that old A-10 pitching on final bug. 

I think there was some bug in I think the FW-190 that only showed up after like...an hour or so of flying...

I could swear I remember reading I think Bignewy or NineLine talking about having to just fly the thing to try and confirm the bug, which sounded just absolutely miserable. 

[Nealius]

I haven't been able to reproduce the crosswind, but I have seen similarly odd wind speed and direction shifts on the same approach. It seems like it happens when the 33ft and 6600ft winds are set to the same direction. If you set them 180 off from each other the wind direction/speed is more consistent.

[Minsky]

3 hours ago, Nealius said:

Recent hotfixes added more trees to areas of the map; didn't see it mentioned in the changelogs.

I wonder how that would be possible? I'm taking snapshots after every update, and they haven't touched this folder since the release (bar the usual encryption refreshes).

[Nealius]

4 hours ago, Minsky said:

I wonder how that would be possible? I'm taking snapshots after every update, and they haven't touched this folder since the release (bar the usual encryption refreshes).

No idea. All I know is I had JTACs that I specifically had to adjust because trees were blocking their LOS when I first built the mission. I tested them all before the hotfixes, they all worked. I tested them after the hotfixes and they immediately called "no further tasking." Upon investigating in the ME, there was now a forest or orchard blocking their LOS that wasn't there during the pre-patch testing.

Here's one from my older mission build where trees seem to have been added. The JTAC had a clear LOS to that target when I placed the units. The orchard to the southeast of the target wasn't there before. The trees to the east were there, but they didn't extend so far southwest as to interfere with LOS.

In this one, I don't recall if the trees were there before, but I do recall playtesting this task and JTAC had no issues due to the 80+ft elevation over the target. Now for whatever reason these trees interfere with LOS, whereas before they did not.

Barring new trees sprouting up, the only other reason I can think of is some JTAC logic change where it's targeting a different unit than it was before. Especially in the first pic, there's a narrow LOS window to a couple units in the middle that they could have been targeting instead.

Edited August 24, 2024 by Nealius

[DaleRFU]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'd like to see more of the map objects available to the user to place as static objects, particularly the objects used at bases like bastian, kandahar, etc. These would be useful to mission builders.