Here is my first impression. Took off from Bodo and made a tour around Vestfjord.The scenery is of course spectacular as I could already witness IRL (and will soon visit again). The details at low level are still very rough and the textures feel very mushy and washed out. It has almost a Lock On-esque feeling to it. Now granted a lot of this is probably due to my VR potato settings and apparently the era is also not one of the high-detail focus areas yet. Things started to look considerably better above 5’000 ft.
The color palette feels weird somehow. Everything is so brightly green. I have traveled the north quite a bit and I am not really feeling it here. Granted I mostly travel at late summer/autumn though.
I think the biggest problem are the trees and forests though. This has never been a strong point of DCS and here it shows. The tree species look out of place, the colors are weird and the forests lack density (while being extremely performance hungry). And at lower graphics settings vegetation looks quite awful in general, being lit weirdly when lacking self shadowing with trees sticking out like sore thumbs. So far DCS could mostly get away with it thanks to the desert maps. Here this is going to be a problem. I think there is probably a good reason why there is no Vietnam map in DCS and it will probably not be feasible anytime soon.
Performance in VR was good (normal).
Overall a bit disappointing. I have the feeling this was probably rushed out way too soon, even for early access. I am still remaining optimistic that the map will eventually mature.
Thanks for that. I’ve tried to sit through 2/3+ hours of online play ‘reviews’ and, well…you saved me some time. I may wait on this one for a little while.
The area around Murmansk is definitely the most detailed. A Few screenshots. Take off from Bodo then north to Lakselv. Free camera with shots from Murmansk area. Date is 21.06., Mission starts at midnight but has been running for maybe 5hours by now:
Weird there’s no instant action or single missions for the map. Not sure I’ve ever seen that before, figured at least a few ‘free flights’ would have come with it.
Performance in 2D is quite good. Around 90-120fps down low in the high detail areas. VR can drop to around 30fps on a 3080TI though. VRAM is the most limiting factor here…
This reminds me of the Mariana’s map release some yrs ago….Very Dense Vegetation…Tons of Cool Custom 3D Objects…and of course on initial first flights bad FPS and terrible micro stutters.
But after adjusting my settings a bit I’m finding my FPS improving
…And I remember how after ED Optimized The Mariana’s map how much better my PC handled all the Custom Scenery….I think Kola is a incredibly detailed map and has the potential to be a phenomenal area to fly and build missions but I think it would benefit greatly from some more optimization.
The submarine bases near Murmansk are a pretty big disappointment. They look awful. Granted I don’t run the highest graphics settings, but they are not terribly low either. I does look a little bit like Lock On, right?
I am surprised that not more effort was put into this area even for early access. I mean everyone will want to check out Polyarny Fjord from Hunt for Red October.
Also all the fjords with the submarine bases are not deep enough to place any subs or ships (the subs in the screenshots above are scenery/statics). How did Orbx miss that?
Those scenes were shot in Alaska, If memory serves
I feel that discussions on how a module/map is in early access quickly boils down to how you define early.
One thing though, people expecting OrbX MSFS quality should consider that this is their first DCS offering.
The map is absolutely flyable and good missions can be flown on it already. But it’s obviously not finished.
Really tempted to get it in the hopes that it will get improvements in the near future…I say as I look at the scab left by the South Atlantic map and the yen is so weak the EA price is still worth about 90eur in buying power…is it just me or has DCS EA gotten more expensive for less in the past four years?
So apparently the developer that made SA is also the lead developer on Kola. Had I known this upfront I wouldn’t have purchased it. SA has been one of my most disappointing DCS purchases. And now that I know the same developer made Kola that explains my disappointment with that map also.
From the credits.txt file for the Kola map:
Technical Lead / 3D Modeller / Texture Artist / Technical Artist
Clarke Wardle “Specter”
Technical Lead & Technical Artist & 2D/3D Artist
Huh. I actually like my SA map. It’s pretty and interesting. It just lacks “content” ie, I have to roll my own in the mission editor if I want to fly in it.
Getting a @Reflected and an @Baltic_Dragon campaign included made this a no-brainer to me.
On a tangent, is there a way to make missions show up in the Instant Action menu for a map? It wouldn’t be much work making those, and I use that a lot for the sort of short flights I usually have time for.
That’s fair. The map is far from finished but there’s a lot of potential and I actually like what I see so far. After some warnings I got through the grapevine I expected far worse. I’m just happy to have something other than desert or mediterranean landscapes. Flying in perpetual darkness and twighlight is gonna be a whole new experience as well and I finally have a reason to get into the Viggen and properly learn to fly and fight in the damn thing. Such a cool airplane!
So I built a simple scramble scenario out of Bodø for blue fighters and put that as an instant action and it works beautifully.
If I get some time imma make a little bomb-Murmansk run as well and add those in.
If you want 'em ill zip it up and put it up on ED files. If I manage to figure out of to make it keep folder structures when zipping up, which shouldn’t be too hard, it should be a simple drop in.
No doubt, the map looks pretty good at medium-high attitudes and low lighting conditions. Very similar to the SA map.
I personally was hoping for a little bit better low altitude detail then what we got. No rock formations, basic shorelines with low detail, low res textures, low detail in the urban environments and wrong type of trees for the region are some of my complaints.
I know its EA and hopefully some of those things will be improved. I do like it better than the SA map simply because the region is more relevant and believable for building high-intensity combat type missions.
Syria remains the undisputed DCS map king in my opinion. Sinai could become very good if the pending update delivers good results. I know they’re working on adding a lot of POI’s and additional airfields.
