DCS World 2.0 and New Maps Discussion Thread

[Witchking]

I think Nevada is a smaller terrain mesh just as a good training ground. But... as ED said, they are actively working on other maps as well...the hold up is basically EDGE.

[sobek]

Not sure if this has been asked before or not but here goes. Once EDGE is released does ED plan to re-do the Georgian theater in EDGE quality?

 

The last we heard about that was that georgia would not be remade to utilize EDGE, IIRC.

[badger66]

I not overexcited at the thought of flying over a baren desert at all .

 

Id much prefer a European theatre , with flat lands , hills and valleys , coasts and trees and plains and lakes ..... Ive been in a desert , both the Sahara and Negev and I know what its like !!! No great excitement bombing a Bedoin round tent village on my book , and as for colors ..... pick your choice of sand .

 

But possibily things will change .

Edited March 13, 2013 by badger66

[mjeh]

I not overexcited at the thought of flying over a baren desert at all .

 

Id much prefer a European theatre , with flat lands , hills and valleys , coasts and trees and plains and lakes ..... Ive been in a desert , both the Sahara and Negev and I know what its like !!! No great excitement bombing a Bedoin round tent village on my book , and as for colors ..... pick your choice of sand .

 

But possibily things will change .

 

Not the most interesting landscape I'm sure, but if you want to set up afghan or iraqi scenarios then I believe the nevada terrain is perfect with lots of desert and the sierra nevada range

[badger66]

And with Iraqi and Afganistan scenarios , what A2A resistance does one realisticaly expect ?

 

This landscape is purely for A2G scenarios .

[Speed]

Why remake Georgia, which everyone is sick of, if they could just make a whole new combat theater instead? That would seem the more logical course to me, unless large portions are reusable... which they might be.

[mjeh]

Why remake Georgia, which everyone is sick of, if they could just make a whole new combat theater instead? That would seem the more logical course to me, unless large portions are reusable... which they might be.

 

If it's signifficantly less work than making a whole new theatre, then why not? It is a huge theatre with large variations in terrain types, not to mention the caucasus mountains are stunningly beautiful IRL (the point being they could be ingame aswell with better textures and higher terrain mesh resolution).

 

But of course, if a caucasus facelift takes even close to as much work as making a whole new theatre then I completely agree.

[104th_Cobra]

And with Iraqi and Afganistan scenarios , what A2A resistance does one realisticaly expect ?

 

This landscape is purely for A2G scenarios .

 

If we will have an Afghanistan theater I want this equipment on the insurgents side. The Armored Camel.

 

[sorcer3r]

And with Iraqi and Afganistan scenarios , what A2A resistance does one realisticaly expect ?

 

This landscape is purely for A2G scenarios .

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Air_Force :smartass:

[GGTharos]

Because what mjeh said. Not only this, but expansion of this terrain into Turkey, Iran and various other surrounding territories would make for one heck of a theatre of operations - you can draw your own borders as well, with fuctional countries if you wish for your own scenarios. The whole idea is to have a very long and very wide TOO. If you can't fly 1000nm from one edge to the other, it's just not enough. IMHO :D

 

Why remake Georgia, which everyone is sick of, if they could just make a whole new combat theater instead? That would seem the more logical course to me, unless large portions are reusable... which they might be.

[Eddie]

If you can't fly 1000nm from one edge to the other, it's just not enough. IMHO :D

 

Hear, hear!

 

After spending 3 hours just trying to find a way to fit a "combat radius" flight for the Hog into the current theatre, we damn sure need some bigger ones. The current theatre is actually a pretty good area IMO, it just needs to be bigger. A lot bigger.

 

Of course, I'm not saying Korea, Western Europe, Arabian peninsula wouldn't be awesome. I'll take them all.

Edited March 13, 2013 by Eddie

[SkateZilla]

or:

[GGTharos]

Agreed. One of my solutions was to dispense with TO/Landing to simulate a longer mission, come in from the sea with tanker support, and set up CAP's etc (We do air to air in F-15's). But, it is a workaround, a hack, if you will, to force tanker usage and dispensing with TO/Landing isn't always desireable.

 

One can also just take a very circuitous route, which can be annoying.

[159th_Viper]

First step should be to return the Crimea to operational status.

[Eddie]

Yep, that and add at least the northern coastal area of Turkey and the associated airfields would be a nice start.

 

Having the southern Ukraine and Northern Turkey would greatly increase the number of possible scenarios.

[mjeh]

If we get carrier ops with the F/A-18C then that is an even stronger argument to facelift the caucasus (and include northern shores of turkey, crimea and southern ukraine as mentioned above), with the black sea and all

[Pyroflash]

Considering there's no carrier ops in the Nevada desert (unless there are carriers on Lake Tahoe now? :D ) and DCS F-18 is on the way, I would hope Caucasus gets a facelift.

 

Since we have no way of knowing what EDGE quality actually means at this point, nor how much work is involved in making a map of such quality (consider the sheer size of the caucasus theatre), it really is hard to say anything meaningful on the subject.

 

A complete remake sounds unlikely to me due to the amount of work needed, but if they manage to put in a higher resolution terrain mesh (prettier mountains and hills), some nice new terrain textures, new forest model and maybe even fix the mismatch between road- and elevation mesh (notice how you sometimes drive under the road?), then that alone would do wonders.

 

The current map isn't actually all that big. I've done longer cross countries within some states than exist between airports in DCS. Without knowing exactly how large the Nevada map is, I would guess that it includes all of Nevada, plus some of California, Arizona, and Utah. It might also contain some of Oregon and Idaho as well, but I wouldn't put any of my own money on that. At any rate, even the flight between two airports, (Las Vegas and Denio Junction vs. Batumi and Krasnodar) is virtually 75% longer within the confines of Nevada vs. that of the currently depicted Black Sea area.

 

I would not, however, recommend landing any military aircraft at Denio Junction. Except the MiG-29C. Perhaps it could do it. The runway is made of dirt there. A little over 4,000' of dirt. Maybe the A-10C could have fun moving mud when it rains.

[IonicRipper]

If we get carrier ops with the F/A-18C then that is an even stronger argument to facelift the caucasus (and include northern shores of turkey, crimea and southern ukraine as mentioned above), with the black sea and all

 

That would be so awesome

[SkateZilla]

I know a fwe people that used to do very detailed maps for ThirdWire's SF2 Series... that wouldnt mind coming to DCS once edge and the SDK are done.

[mjeh]

The current map isn't actually all that big. I've done longer cross countries within some states than exist between airports in DCS. Without knowing exactly how large the Nevada map is, I would guess that it includes all of Nevada, plus some of California, Arizona, and Utah. It might also contain some of Oregon and Idaho as well, but I wouldn't put any of my own money on that. At any rate, even the flight between two airports, (Las Vegas and Denio Junction vs. Batumi and Krasnodar) is virtually 75% longer within the confines of Nevada vs. that of the currently depicted Black Sea area.

 

Anapa <-> Vaziani is nearly twice as long as Batumi <-> Krasnodar, unless I'm really bad at measuring in the ME? :) But yes, depending on how much area around Nevada (if any) is included, it seems the Nevada theatre will be roughly comparable in geographical size to the current Caucasus theatre

[cichlidfan]

Where was anything said to indicate that the Nevada map included as much as the whole state in the first place?

[monotwix]

In the National Geographic TV program?

[Weta43]

irst step should be to return the Crimea to operational status.

Or even just one airbase in the Crimea, and one in Tukey (Sinop - not that much around it even in real life..)

[mjeh]

Where was anything said to indicate that the Nevada map included as much as the whole state in the first place?

 

Absolutely nowhere, we're (I'm) obviously just speculating at this point.

 

The state of Nevada in and of itself is as far as I can see roughly the same size as the current DCS theatre of operations (maybe a little smaller), and I think it would make sense to include parts of the surrounding national parks in Arizona, California, Oregon and Utah. After all, these are huge, diverse and beautiful landscapes with high recognition value (Grand Canyon!!!) and little/ no urban areas = I assume not as fiddly and time consuming to recreate.

 

Judging from some of the interviews Mr Wagner has recently done, a large part of the reason for doing EDGE is that the current TFCSE simply couldn't handle a map of Nevada's size. Although in the context I believe Wagner was talking about the number of objects (Vegas, baby!), IIRC it was also said that EDGE will handle maps that are geographically larger.

 

So yeah, maybe Nevada won't encompass the entire state. Or maybe it will even include some of the surrounding terrain, which is from what I've seen some of the most distinct and beautiful terrain in the US. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed for the latter, but either way I'm stoked about the new engine and I'm stoked about getting a new playground :)

[Rogue Trooper]

As a noob to DCS I am tryiing to find information about EDGE and this seems to be the thread to ask some simple questions:-

Will Nevada have to be bought to get Edge?

Will Edge also update the current map (my preference)?

Will I have to wait much longer before I get the EDGE?