I think the AI should have greater restrictions on their visual ability. Radar, IR, that is uniform across all, but naked sight is something that is hard to do both in reality and in the sim and yet the AI seem to have a 100% success rate.
Just because you can notice something in your FOV doesn’t mean you will, or that you will in X seconds, so there should be a method of making things more or less likely to be noticed by AI. Different pilots have different eyesight and levels of acuity.
A plane in front of you, over the horizon? Highly visible. Below the horizon? Less so. To your 10 or 2 oclock below? Much less so. Behind 3-9? Unlikely.
I prefer BVR combat because it’s as close to equal as you get. As soon as it’s WVR the T800’s come at you…
My 2 cents is I disagree with the idea of charging for maps. That, IMO, fractures the player community the most. Maybe instead build in a surcharge to the platform modules to pay for map development. Maybe even open up the map dev as community sponsored.
Yes, that does make sense…except for the people who are SP only, perhaps with metered data caps, who don’t want to DL the many GBs a map takes that they will never use, along with the future GBs needed for patching it.
It can’t be a lose-lose situation or else the sim developers should just give it up and make mobile games.
The people who may complain about the map downloads because of space or data caps need to A) upgrade their systems, B) Get better internet, or C) move on to another game. If they are looking for a smaller footprint flight sim for single player that doesn’t require updates or hardware upgrades then SF2 is a frozen-in-time sim girlfriend waiting for them with open arms. A sim not -ironically abandoned by a dev for mobile games.
If you want to enjoy the hobby of skiing you need to buy boots, skis, bindings, winter wear and a mode of transportation that gets all of that to the ski area before you even pay the admission fee. Unsurprisingly if you want to enjoy your hobby you have to invest in it.
Any devs that build a business plan around the group complaining about the hardware requirements should try dry cleaning instead.
I’m hoping that when Hormuz is released (??), that may draw more interest than NTTR has. Having flown there in real life and been involved with a Flag exercise, I love using it as a battleground. That same sentiment isnt shared with much of the community. I dont know if it’s an age thing or what. Gripes are that NTTR is sterile. It’s not a true battle space. It’s expensive.
Using our imaginations and coming up with Flag like missions has not been an issue. I’d prefer more life on the map, but it’s still a blank “sandbox” to build on. How to overcome the general penny pinching buyer is another story. They’ll fork over $50-60 for an aircraft, but not the same for an environment to fly it in beyond the free Caucasus.
So the current splinter, might change with the next map. Or it may grow. Personally, I wish I’d have waited on buying Normandy. It isnt what I’d hoped for and could do. WWII era specific, not being the issue.
The current map situation is a bit unfortunate. NTTR was advertised as a great place for training. But because it is an extra paid map, all official training missions will always be in the Caucasus that everybody has access to. I understand the history and circumstances why the situation is as it is, but from an outside view, a free Nevada and paid Caucasus theater would make more sense.
I have been highly skeptical on Nevada myself but I have grown to really like the map. Mainly because it looks fantastic even in VR. The map draws most of its appeal from interesting topography and textures. As such it looks great even with reduced graphics settings. Normandy on the other hand draws its appeal from objects (primary vegetation). Once you turn down settings like object draw range and shadows to get acceptable VR performance, Normandy actually starts to look pretty bland and average.
Still, being interested in historical and “plausible-historical” war scenarios, I am really looking forward to new maps. But for now Nevada is the best option in DCS in my opinion and I make use of it as good as possible.
I honestly believe its purely due to having two installs that makes it sterile.
Having two installs, one comes with a free map, the other comes with a paid map. If you are hard on disk space, don’t want to download the entire game again (connection issues), can’t be bothered with remapping controls (even though at the moment you can copy across), and are frugal with your money or just getting into dcs.
Why on gods earth would you install 2.0?
Its got nothing to do with the Nevada map, its all to do with a very large clunky and seperate install.
What concerns me most about the DLC maps is their odd use of space.
NTTR originally was awkward to make missions with because all of the major airfields were clustered in the center of the map. This was satisfactorily fixed with the NTTR expansion. Airfields like Tonopah, Lincoln and Laughlin added much greater flexibility for mission makers and allowed for more natural, if unlikely scenarios.
Normandy largely repeats this mistake. The map is configured for a post D-Day scenario somewhere between late June and September. The issue with that is that the map does not extend far enough south or east to properly encompass the most notable operation of that period: the Falaise Gap. With the exception of the initial moves in Operation Cobra and the British movements in Totalize, the majority of the action should be happening along and south of the current map border. Likewise the German aircraft that would theoretically be opposing this should be taking off from airfields to the south and east of that. As it is the map doesn’t have the space or area to make authentic missions for the period it’s intended to simulate. I
I understand that Normandy is not an in house ED product, and that there are almost certainly performance considerations at play here. Still, the choices made sort of make me scratch my head.
As much as I’m looking forward to Hormuz, I’m concerned some similar forces are at play here. The last images I saw seem to have the map centered around the UAE, Straits of Hormuz, and Bandar Abbas… and nothing else . Red is undercut because they have few viable airbases, and those can be easily struck by Blue. Blue conversely has about five missions worth of stuff to bomb before the map is destroyed. Any sort of Invasion of Iran is stilted because once Bandar Abbas is taken, you’ve essentially pushed to the edge of the map.
I’d argue the map needs to be extended as far west as the Bushehr, and as far north as Kerman (if not Isfahan). That would give the Blue the major coalition bases in Bahrain and Qatar, and strategic targets to strike in the Iranian hinterland. It would give Red the strategic depth to live more than four missions.
In fairness, we haven’t heard anything about the scope of Hormuz for some time.
I have zero quantitative data to back this up, but for some reason 2.0 “feels” a lot better to me, especially doing 3rd gen, visual Air-to-Air with the Tiger and Fishbed.
Not sure how to characterize it- I think the lighting, shadows, and textures make it easier to spot targets naturally. In the Caucases it sometimes feels like I’m looking for flat, dull smudges going fast across a landscape that’s primarily WW2 Soviet uniform olive in flat light.
That is a win-lose scenerio: Win for everyone getting the map, lose for those who complain about free things.
They can’t make everyone buy it but by making it a purchase decision it does fragment the community. That is a choice by ED, valid in that they do need to recoup the costs of the map but complicating multiplayer by fragmenting the community. That’s a win-lose scenario as well.
And since I am on a win-lose streak:
A win-lose scenario as well. Win: focused on a specific battle space; Lose: too focused on a specific battle space.
The maps are a little confusing from a mission development perspective in that they are focused on providing a view of a battle area that is narrow and doesn’t leave a lot of options. Example:
NTTR/Nevada: Blue space (south), Red space (north). The extension of the map allows for additional scenerios along the north half of the map that does lead to a l good east/west battle space;
Normandy: Blue space (north), Red space (south). There is a little room for expansion, dividing the French coastline east/west but there limitations. There is little depth to the south and north. Carriers make it a little different but at those ranges it’s going to be hard for two opposing carrier groups to survive for very long;
Georgia: Arguably the ‘best’ of the maps with respect to battle space. There are a lot of options that can allow two sides to take up a variety of geographic partitions. There are options in the centre and east 3+), options north/south along the coast (2+) and options north/south (3+) from Russia into Georgia. Although the map is ‘old’ it does provide good variety;
Well said. NTTR though today is much, much better in terms of the spacing and I’m actually liking it more as I poke around the mission editor and toy with ideas for missions.
Normandy, not so much. I look at the map and although it is beautiful, and I love the collideable trees etc., it’s hard to use it for anything other than WW2. Hope you are wrong on Straits of Hormuz and your statement “we haven’t heard anything for some time” bears fruit because that map really ought to be made in order to take advantage of the many histories there and wars fought between many sides other than US vs Iran.
I guess I’m the only one who was thinking of this in ED’s terms. It’s lose-lose for them.
Whatever they choose to do, they are going to get complaints. It will be from two different customer segments (SP-only/limited data caps or MP-centric players who may not want to buy all the maps) but they are going to hear it, directly or indirectly online, whichever path they choose.
ED can’t win. I don’t feel for either of those customer segments, their scenarios don’t apply to me as I’m neither space/bandwidth constrained or an MP-centric user, so whatever.
