Afghanistan Statement | Syria and Normandy Development Progress | AH-64D Outpost Campaign

[Graphics]

 

 

25 October 2024
 

Dear Fighter Pilots, Partners and Friends, 

Last week, we launched the pre-order for the DCS: Iraq map and this sparked many questions and concerns about the DCS: Afghanistan map. Primarily, why is Eagle Dynamics working on an Iraq map with so much work to do on the Afghanistan map? The Iraq and Afghanistan maps are being developed by separate map teams in different countries. The development of one does not affect progress on the other. As such, the Iraq map has in no way slowed down development of the Afghanistan map. Furthermore, map development has no impact on the development of other DCS aspects such as the Core and individual modules. In fact, each month you can find an extensive list of improvements and fixes to the Core and modules in our changelogs.

The next big update to the Southwest portion and the Eastern region has been delayed due to developing a new approach that will improve this and all maps; we believe it will be worth it. After the initial release of the Afghanistan map, we have been carefully reviewing all feedback, and we’ll be incorporating this into the map as well.

Also based on your feedback, we want to emphasise again that both maps can be purchased as a single purchase, just as all DCS maps. The individual regions are simply an option for those that want just a particular region or who wish to purchase bite sized areas for a reduced amount. As important, regardless of how you purchase a map, it will always be multiplayer compatible.

Ugra Media is pleased to announce impressive enhancements to the DCS: Syria map set for the next update. Included are new airfields, and new destructible models for original objects. Additionally, the Normandy 2.0 map has also received substantial optimisation, more new airfields, improvements to existing points of interest, and new ones such as the Palace of Versaille. Please read the details below. 

Get ready for the upcoming AH-64D Outpost Campaign by Stone Sky! This new campaign will immerse you in 15 exciting and authentic missions with more than 200 pages of documentation. Stay tuned!

Thank you for your passion and support.

Yours sincerely, 

Eagle Dynamics

 

 

Syria

Development Progress

In collaboration with Ugra Media, we are delighted to share a significant update coming soon to the DCS: Syria map. 

Airfields and optimisation
New strategic locations including Ben Gurion, Hatzor, Palmashim, and Tel Nof have been added, and you’ll soon be able to add them to your missions. Improvements have been made to small objects models to optimise the rendering efficiency.  

Enhancements and additions 

• The Airbus A300 and An-26 map objects have been upgraded. 
• The minimum texture resolution of ground surfaces and objects has been enhanced, resulting in sharper and more detailed visuals. 
• New helipads are now available at several military bases.
• The scenery at the refinery of south Palmachim has been improved with more detail.
• New terminal models and the iconic control tower have been added to Ben Gurion.
• Airbus A300 and An-26 map objects are now included as part of the airfield scenes of Deir ez-Zor, Latakia, Marj Ruhayyil, Nejrab, Beirut, Damascus, Tabqa, Ben Gurion.
• New destruction models for Points of Interest like: Bank of Cyprus, Beirut SkyGate, Limassol KEAN Factory, Paphos Terminal, Sheraton Adana Hotel, Dam Ataturk, Dam Tishrin, and Ben Gurion terminal.

Bug fixes

• Resolved issues in Akrotiri and Paphos airfields.
• Fixed terrain scene bugs at various bases.
• Corrected errors in terrain and vector data and common scenes.
• Fixed collision issues with helipads on the Bank of Cyprus and Sheraton Adana Hotel.
• Corrected licence plates on cars and inscriptions on buildings.

 

Normandy 2.0

Development Progress

Impressive updates are also coming to the DCS: Normandy 2.0 map, here is a preview of what you can look forward to in the upcoming update. 

Optimisation
Ugra Media has optimised the building models and structures  to improve overall performance. The bridge scene near the Palace of Westminster has been enhanced with greater detail. Additionally, the model of the Notre-Dame de Paris has been improved. 

New airfields
Eastchurch, Headcorn, and Hawkinge airfields have been added and are perfect to enrich your mission planning. 

New historical sites
To enhance the historical authenticity of the terrain, new historical sites such as the Basilica Sacré Coeur, Palace of Versailles, and Hampton Court Palace have been added. Additionally, high flags at forts and major cities will be available. 

Bug fixes

• Fixed bugs in airfields with the same call signs. 
• Fixed bugs in terrain, vector data and common scenes.

We truly appreciate your support and can’t wait to hear your feedback on these updates!

 

AH-64D OUTPOST

Campaign by StoneSky

In the complex geopolitical landscape, Syria is a strategic interest for Russia and the United States. Beyond being terrorism hotspot, Syria has become a stage for the rivalry between global powers, each pursuing their strategic interests and shaping international relations.

The campaign features 15 meticulously crafted missions based on real events. You will participate in deployments at Incirlik Air Base, King Hussein Air Base in Jordan, and  strategic locations in northern Syria like the well-known cement plant and the formidable Tal Saman base. Engage in battles for the Tishrin Dam and the city of Tishrin; and take part in the intense fights for Manbij, Tabqa, and the legendary city of Raqqa. These missions will showcase the full might of CJTF–OIR joint combat operations.

Key Features:

• 15 missions based on real events.
• JTAC and FAC operations, Medevac missions, and special assignments.
• Interaction with U.S. Air Force UAVs, A-10, F/A-18, and B-1Bs.
• Over 2,500 radio dialogues.
• More than 200 pages of documentation and kneeboard.

You can look forward to this campaign in an upcoming DCS update!

Thank you again for your passion and support, 

Yours sincerely,

 

[hannibal]

wow.. normandy updates? 

im supposed to have a friend visit my place soon to try the motion platform, i look forward to giving my friend a full fidelity motion | wind | simshaker haptics | VR a tour of france with @Polychop Simulations SA342 gazelle, and hopefully with upcoming update!

Edited Friday at 03:07 PM by hannibal

[Miro]

As for Syria, this is how it should look like, instead of arguing who has what terrain and what airports are on a given map, the creators should add (ED too) common airports that are already on other sceneries. Before we get a round earth, 10 years will pass and all current maps will be outdated. Good job Ugra!

 

[PLUTON]

wow nice update, I can't wait to be there
thanks ED your work is appreciated by me and I think a lot
BRAVOOOO

[Beirut]

Defintely getting our money's worth with the Syria map. 

[Red_Dragon]

 

Please, ED. Look at the color of the water in the river Seine. Do you see the bottom in at least one photo in real life near Eiffel Tower? And the second thing. Please compare the color of the trees. The team has made fantastic progress working on this map. Ugra Media did a fantastic job..  they continue to do a lot of necessary and important things for this map and the community. I appreciate it. But still, I hope there will be improvements the trees's rendering and water, at least on this map.

Edited Friday at 03:51 PM by Red_Dragon

[Roy35150]

Go on the Devs.

Fantastic news all round.

Greetz from eire...

[NIAGARA MOHAWK]

 That Normandy map is a Great map for sure , and getting even Better ,  sounds and looks Great = Thanks . +++++++.

[OldFlyer]

Loving the Syria updates!

[Boosterdog]

"The next big update to the Southwest portion and the Eastern region has been delayed due to developing a new approach that will improve this and all maps; we believe it will be worth it. After the initial release of the Afghanistan map, we have been carefully reviewing all feedback, and we’ll be incorporating this into the map as well".

Here's hoping that "new approach" goes some way towards restoring some faith in those of us currently not very enamoured with the map. 

 

19 minutes ago, bies said:

Thanks for your work, i like the maps improvements, this screen looks close to photorealistic. Quality WW2 era postcard.

...whilst Im sure bies is joshing....just for those who skip read....that IS a photograph of modern Paris....... 

[Lau]

It is great to finally have some news on the WW2 front, thanks Ugra.

Looking forward to warbirds and WW2 asset pack news from ED as well as and more importantly, for the badly needed change logs with important development updates and bug fixes, they have been reported for a long time. ED stated that the WW2 Dev Team is small, that you are aware that things are slow on that front, that we need to be patient, that this is what early access means. I personally purchased these products in the line of the F/A-18C, building on the reputation of the A10C, my understanding was at that moment that every ED product that I would decide to purchase would be developed in a similar fashion. I therefore do not understand how ED can ask WW2 fans to be patient when there is hardly any news or progress on that front. Yes, nobody forced me to purchase, I simply did it on the basis of trust.

I can read on the WW2 side of the forum that all the WW2 hard core fans that frequently use these products and report bugs are not happy about the abandon state, please ED show us good will by giving the needed resources for the dedicated dev team to start removing things from the to do list, our planes are taking dust in the hangars and it's a petty because they are very good looking, please do it also for Ugra as an incentive to their work so Normandy 2.0 becomes as popular as the Syria map within the community, so other WW2 maps can be developed or simply for the Normandy 2.0 map to be expanded avoiding problems like the one that was discussed at length by the proximity of the Ugra Normandy 2.0 and the ED Channel Map.

We need to get back on a road map and for development progress to be part of our daily dose of WW2 news, no more news letters without a little update on the WW2 front however small it is.

Yes, I can fly other modules in the mean time, but not everyone is that lucky, some users only have the Mossie, others only the Spitfire and are simply not using DCS while waiting for things to be fixed and the products to be developed enough. At the moment night flying and for that matter IMC flying is compromised with the broken artificial horizons, it’s been like that for over a decade, one cannot call this “patience”.

Thanks,

 

PS : small typo corrections

Edited Friday at 06:11 PM by Lau

[bies]

22 minutes ago, Boosterdog said:

"The next big update to the Southwest portion and the Eastern region has been delayed due to developing a new approach that will improve this and all maps; we believe it will be worth it. After the initial release of the Afghanistan map, we have been carefully reviewing all feedback, and we’ll be incorporating this into the map as well".

Here's hoping that "new approach" goes some way towards restoring some faith in those of us currently not very enamoured with the map. 

 

...whilst Im sure bies is joshing....just for those who skip read....that IS a photograph of modern Paris....... 

Hahaha, you've overestimated me, i didn't joshing. I'll delete my previous post not to confuse other guys (or maybe myself

[ilikepie]

33 minutes ago, Lau said:

It is great to finally have some news on the WW2 front, thanks Ugra.

Looking forward to warbirds and WW2 asset pack news from ED as well as and more importantly, for the badly needed change logs with important development updates and bug fixes, they have been reported for a long time. ED stated that the WW2 Dev Team is small, that you are aware that things are slow on that front, that we need to be patient, that this is what early access means. I personally purchased these products in the line of the F/A-18C, building on the reputation of the A10C, my understanding was at that moment that every ED product that I would decide to purchase would be developed in a similar fashion. I therefore do not understand how ED can ask WW2 fans to be patient when there is hardly any news or progress on that front. Yes, nobody forced me to purchase, I simply did it on the basis of trust.

I can read on the WW2 side of the forum that all the WW2 hard core fans that frequently use these products and report bugs are not happy about the abandon state, please ED show us good will by giving the needed resources for the dedicated dev team to start removing things from the to do list, our planes are taking dust in the hangars and it's a petty because they are very good looking, please do it also for Ugra as an incentive to their work so Normandy 2.0 becomes as popular as the Syria map within the community, so other WW2 maps can be developed or simply for the Normandy 2.0 map to be expanded avoiding problems like the one that was discussed at length by the proximity of the Ugra Normandy 2.0 and the ED Channel Map.

We need to get back on a road map and for development progress to be part of our daily dose of WW2 news, no more news letters without a little update on the WW2 front however small it is.

Yes, I can fly other modules in the mean time, but not everyone is that lucky, some users only have the Mossie, others only the Spitfire and are simply not using DCS while waiting for things to be fixed and the products to be developed enough. At the moment night flying and for that matter IMC flying is compromised with the broken artificial horizons, it’s been like that for over a decade, one cannot call this “patience”.

Thanks,

 

PS : small typo corrections

 

this is the crux of the matter IMO. getting things to work optimally would help ED with more support and less passion from the user base

[The_GhostRider]

So why can't two teams work on a single map and complete it quicker. Surly there are easy divisions of labor in such a project. Art, terrain, models, coding that can be subdivided among multiple teams.  

[Boosterdog]

10 minutes ago, The_GhostRider said:

So why can't two teams work on a single map and complete it quicker. Surly there are easy divisions of labor in such a project. Art, terrain, models, coding that can be subdivided among multiple teams.  

irrevocable musical differences perhaps.....

Seems ED is set up in project cells rather than depts.  As has been said elsewhere 3 women cannot produce a baby in 3 months but they can produce 3 babies in 9.  

 

[NineLine]

55 minutes ago, The_GhostRider said:

So why can't two teams work on a single map and complete it quicker. Surly there are easy divisions of labor in such a project. Art, terrain, models, coding that can be subdivided among multiple teams.  

Well, the two teams have a vast distance between them for starters. Also, you can't always have more than what is required on one aspect of a project, it won't make it faster it will make the risk of repeated work or stepping on toes. Throwing more money or more people isn't always the answer. I hope the upcoming development report on Afghanistan will help explain this more as well. Thanks. 

[exhausted]

1 hour ago, The_GhostRider said:

So why can't two teams work on a single map and complete it quicker. Surly there are easy divisions of labor in such a project. Art, terrain, models, coding that can be subdivided among multiple teams.  

Leaving so much in a permanent beta state allows more units to be sold with fewer obstacles and burdens. Two teams working on different items allows the ED store to sell new maps quicker. Some people love it, some people see it differently. Can't really have a wrong opinion here. But yea, I didn't buy the Afghanistan map for several reasons and I am wondering what Iraq will look like when it's finally unwrapped. 

[The_GhostRider]

33 minutes ago, NineLine said:

Well, the two teams have a vast distance between them for starters. Also, you can't always have more than what is required on one aspect of a project, it won't make it faster it will make the risk of repeated work or stepping on toes. Throwing more money or more people isn't always the answer. I hope the upcoming development report on Afghanistan will help explain this more as well. Thanks. 

I work with multiple development teams across the globe, Poland, India and the US all working on different parts of a rather large application codebase and while there are occasions where issues crop up, they are few and far between and usually an opportunity for process improvement. 

[NineLine]

29 minutes ago, exhausted said:

Leaving so much in a permanent beta state allows more units to be sold with fewer obstacles and burdens. Two teams working on different items allows the ED store to sell new maps quicker. Some people love it, some people see it differently. Can't really have a wrong opinion here. But yea, I didn't buy the Afghanistan map for several reasons and I am wondering what Iraq will look like when it's finally unwrapped. 

Nothing is being left in permanent beta.

29 minutes ago, The_GhostRider said:

I work with multiple development teams across the globe, Poland, India and the US all working on different parts of a rather large application codebase and while there are occasions where issues crop up, they are few and far between and usually an opportunity for process improvement. 

That may work for you and whatever software you are working on, and it does work for us on other aspects of DCS, but for maps, the team is the right size and working as we do is the preferred way. Adding more people won't make them go faster. 

[Gunfreak]

Quote

The next big update to the Southwest portion and the Eastern region has been delayed due to developing a new approach that will improve this and all maps; we believe it will be worth it. After the initial release of the Afghanistan map, we have been carefully reviewing all feedback,

Somewhat enigmatic. But promising.

[YoYo]

18 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

Somewhat enigmatic. But promising.

It's possible it's the improved performance, but I think that was included in the DCS engine rather than the map itself (part of last patches for DCS), but I could be wrong.

[Gunfreak]

Just now, YoYo said:

It's possible it's the improved performance, but I think that was included in the DCS engine rather than the map itself (part of last patches for DCS), but I could be wrong.

I hope it's either or.

Improved low level textures. 

Improved blending of low level textures and the hand made assets.

[YoYo]

14 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

I hope it's either or.

Improved low level textures. 

Improved blending of low level textures and the hand made assets.

Quote

this and all maps

Only this rather indicates changes also on other maps if I understand it correctly. There could be more information so as not to speculate :). We'll see.

[Mainstay]

Well I hope the next Afghanistan patch/update makes the ridiculous grass popping go away. I mean it feels like a freaking bad LSD trip where i am Alice in wonderland riding in the Apache with the White rabbit in the gunner seat flying over poppy fields…. 

The grass and other stuff grow like mushrooms 10 meters in front of you.

Seriously disappointed with this… I don’t have an expensive computer and everything on max in the graphical settings to be welcomed by 90’s game texture rendering technology 

 

Edited Friday at 10:29 PM by Mainstay

[rob10]

5 minutes ago, Lionel Mandrake said:

Don't expect anything resembling common sense from ED here, everyone including ED know that more people working on a map would make it go faster (a map for goodness sake, it's so easy to divide up geographically and spread the work around). They simply won't do it because as someone else said it allows them to pump out more EA content.

Wow, just wow.  How do you know more people = done faster?  If they're optimizing objects that are used all across the map there are only a limited number of people that can work on any given thing without being in each others way.  If it's hand placing specific objects in specific places on the map maybe there is an advantage to more people, but I doubt there's a lot of that going on currently.  Same with a "... rather large application codebase...".  There are likely lots of different semi-independent systems within that application.  There probably aren't that many in a DCS map.