Fix the TPC Layer: Match DCS Terrain to the Reference Map Used in Mission Editor and F10 View

graveyard4DCS · Friday at 01:40 PM

Dear ED Team,

First of all, thank you for your continued work on providing new theaters.

I’d like to raise a terrain-related issue that affects all maps in DCS and has a critical impact on mission planning and visual navigation:

DCS currently displays Tactical Pilotage Charts (TPCs) as the base map layer in the Mission Editor and F10 view—but the actual in-game terrain does not reflect the contents of this chart.

This is not a minor discrepancy. Entire features visible on the TPC—towns, roads, airfields, railways, dams, power lines, smokestacks, vertical obstructions—are completely missing from the terrain. This breaks both immersion and function for players who expect the TPC to be an authoritative reference, as it is in real-world aviation.

This is the key point: DCS is explicitly showing the TPC as a reference map, which implies that what you see is what you get. But that is not true in practice. Pilots and mission creators plan based on that chart, only to find that key features simply do not exist in-game.

We are not concerned if some features exist in-game and aren’t on the TPC chart.
The concern is the opposite: if a feature is shown on the TPC, it must exist in-game.

Examples of missing TPC features:

Towns (even large ones) shown on the chart, but no buildings or textures in-game.
Roads and railways that appear on the chart, but do not exist in the terrain mesh.
Dams, bridges, smokestacks, or power lines visible on the TPC but entirely absent from the map.

These are not minor decorative details—they are tactical elements for low-level visual navigation, mission timing and leg planning, target area identification and IP selection, and obstacle avoidance.

What we’re asking:

We understand this is not a trivial fix. But we ask for a long-term, map-by-map effort to bring terrain data up to par with the TPC reference layer already used in the Mission Editor and F10 view.

Specifically:

If a feature is shown on the TPC, include it in the terrain.
Start with key navigational aids and obstacles: roads, towns, power lines, railways, airfields, vertical obstructions.

This would greatly improve realism, usability, and trust in the mission planning tools provided within DCS.

Why this matters:

You chose to display the TPC chart as the reference map in both mission planning and live operations (F10).
That choice is excellent—but only if the game world matches it.
As it stands, the chart becomes misleading, which hurts gameplay and immersion.

We’re not asking here for new assets or visual upgrades—we’re asking for basic terrain consistency with the chart DCS already uses.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Examples:

Eagle Dynamics - Old Map - NTTR