Disappointed with the Normany Map :(

[CommandT]

Before I say anything I just want to say I'm a huge fan of DCS World on the whole. So much so that now in my break from real world flying (thanks to Covid-19) I have decided to build a rig specifically for DCS and nothing else after following all the developments of this sim for many years even if not playing it all that time. Now finally I get to enjoy it and I've bought a whole bunch of modules.

 

However, I have to say, there has been a few things I have been quite frankly disappointed about given it's 2020 outside and games like War Thunder are running fairly stunning realistic visual effects on computers with a 1/10th of the processing power required to run DCS.

 

Given as it's the free for all month I downloaded the Normany map to find what looks like a coastline made in 2001. In fact I think IL2 1946 series had far superior water shore - beech graphics compared to what we have here. On top of the fact that the "deep" water abruptly ends and turns into an awful looking, totally mis-colour matched beech that has super sharp edges with other parts which are a totally different colour and super flat and razer sharp edges.

 

I can understand that this might be the case on the Georgian map which was concieved in LOMAC times, but how did this ever pass quality control in today's world?? Basically the coastline is so awful and unrealistic looking that I can't justify buying this map or any WW2 birds to use with it. I really hope the new English Channel map is a huge improvment.

 

I don't want to hate on the developers' work. I mean the hedges and and towns look great, I'm just bewildered by how such great effort can be ruined by a terribly unrealistic coastline that looks like it belongs in a sim from the year 2000.

 

Although modules and all that are great, I seriously think ED needs to focus all of it's attention on a few key improvements for the overall sim which seriously lets it down such as these awful coastlines, pretty outdated clouds/ weather and Vulcan API optimization to have the sim run better for more people. Why is this not at the forefront of the to do list? :huh:

 

Once again, I am not trying to be unreasonable. I love the fact that this sim exists and clearly has a strong community. Can we just have a few key basic improvments to make the experience more enjoyable? It doesn't have to be some complex weather engine with 20 layers of clouds and tornadoes, nor does it need to be a beech that looks like it came straight out of Saving Private Ryan, but some basic improvements to make it all blend in and look a little nicer would really go a long way!

[BIGNEWY]

Hi

 

thanks for the feedback just a few points,

 

Normandy is a third party project (Ugra Media) and not an ED one. I would be interested to know your system spec and in game settings, maybe include some screenshots of what you are seeing.

 

I have to mention our forum rules, as we discourage comparison with other sims, it only leads to arguments here.

 

We (ED), are focusing on our modules and our core projects but it will take time, especially with the COVID-19 situation and many of us working from home.

 

Thanks for sticking with us, we hope the future will be full of new features :)

[wizav]

@OP

 

Digital Combat Simulator - as it's name says is not Flight Simulator where you are supposed to explore new areas etc.. it's Combat Simulator first and foremost. For many years I was FSX and XPLANE user, and I've spent money on scenery etc... This game is not that kind of game.

 

Eagle Dynamics from the first Flanker days wanted to create COMBAT SIMULATOR with focus on Combat realism, such thing demands a lot of time (bullets, rockets, explosions etc...) Other things like: Terrain scenery is less important but still given a descent amount of love.

 

My biggest complain on DCS would be if it would become Flight Simulator before COMBAT simulator.

[golani79]

Just went for a flight on Normandy and took a look at the beaches.

 

 

It looks quite ok for me - there are a few spots where you can see sudden changes in textures and therefore the polygon edges which to be true isn´t that beautiful but I think these might be bugs or there may be just too little detail for good vertex blending.

 

 

The water however looks fine from deep to shallow:

[MegOhm_SD]

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”

[Eldur]

The OP might be on Stable, so he doesn't have the updated Normandy map yet... the difference in visual and especially performance quality is massive.

[Cake]

@OP

 

Digital Combat Simulator - as it's name says is not Flight Simulator where you are supposed to explore new areas etc.. it's Combat Simulator first and foremost. For many years I was FSX and XPLANE user, and I've spent money on scenery etc... This game is not that kind of game.

 

Eagle Dynamics from the first Flanker days wanted to create COMBAT SIMULATOR with focus on Combat realism, such thing demands a lot of time (bullets, rockets, explosions etc...) Other things like: Terrain scenery is less important but still given a descent amount of love.

 

My biggest complain on DCS would be if it would become Flight Simulator before COMBAT simulator.

 

I 100% agree with you that terrain scenery is less important than other things.

 

However, I think even DCS sometimes places too much emphasis on eye candy. It’s doesn’t matter how cool things look if you can’t spot a bogey at realistic distances day/night/whenever.

 

I guess I don’t agree that you can lack in the flight sim part though. If DCS doesn’t cut it as a flight sim, then it cannot succeed as a combat sim. Accurate simulation of everything about how DCS units (aircraft, missiles, bombs, rockets, projectiles) are handled is essential to realistic aerial combat.

[CommandT]

The OP might be on Stable, so he doesn't have the updated Normandy map yet... the difference in visual and especially performance quality is massive.

 

True, I am on 2.5.5. I never really understood whether downloading the beta version is worth it?

[BIGNEWY]

True, I am on 2.5.5. I never really understood whether downloading the beta version is worth it?

 

If you have room you can run both, they are separate installs.

 

Or wait, we hope to update the stable version as soon as we are happy with 2.5.6

 

hopefully you will see the difference :thumbup:

[QuiGon]

True, I am on 2.5.5. I never really understood whether downloading the beta version is worth it?

It is in this case (as it is in many other cases). ;)

[CommandT]

If you have room you can run both, they are separate installs.

 

Or wait, we hope to update the stable version as soon as we are happy with 2.5.6

 

hopefully you will see the difference :thumbup:

 

I'm sorry if I come across like a total retard, but is the 2.5.6 version the same as "DCS World 2.5 Open Beta"? I'm downloading that now from the main DCS website. I didn't see "2.5.6" actually written anywhere so assume it must be that?

 

Cheers anyway. I never realised you can run both at the same time. Very curious to see what 2.5.6 is like when it finishes downloading.

 

Cheers!

[CommandT]

Also, do the current modules that you have installed and mapped to your controls automotically transfer to 2.5.6? If not it will be a right PITA to program everything again!

[Fri13]

What comes to looks, I must acknowledge that the default weather setting is boring and flat ugly, just like in reality a noon sun is a ugly.

 

But what I wish that ED would do, is to make like dozen different official weather settings and day time values to be loaded in the missions, like using the various settings they have used in their trailers and screenshots etc as those simply are beautiful ones.

 

I have been happy with 2.5.6 by the visuals, completely added a new level of lighting visuals, but again to great something truly amazing one needs to know more about how to set weather/date and it can be confusing.

[Holton181]

Also, do the current modules that you have installed and mapped to your controls automotically transfer to 2.5.6? If not it will be a right PITA to program everything again!

I don't think so. It might work just to copy the controls lua files in Saved Games over to same location but Beta, but if something changed controler wise you might get problems. What you can do, and save space at the same time is to update your stable 2.5.5 to 2.5.6. If you are not happy with the 2.5.6, you then downgrade it as easily back to 2.5.5.

Follow these instructions:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=114030

Second post contains DCS versions to use.

 

If you go through with this, now when you already have both versions installed, preform the 2.5.5-2.5.6 update before uninstalling the standalone Beta. That way the updater just grabs the files from that install instead of downloading everything again.

[Northstar98]

wizav said:

@OP

 

Digital Combat Simulator - as it's name says is not Flight Simulator where you are supposed to explore new areas etc.. it's Combat Simulator first and foremost. For many years I was FSX and XPLANE user, and I've spent money on scenery etc... This game is not that kind of game.

 

Eagle Dynamics from the first Flanker days wanted to create COMBAT SIMULATOR with focus on Combat realism, such thing demands a lot of time (bullets, rockets, explosions etc...) Other things like: Terrain scenery is less important but still given a descent amount of love.

 

My biggest complain on DCS would be if it would become Flight Simulator before COMBAT simulator.

Disagree, DCS is superior at being a flight simulator than at being a combat simulator, and it certainly simulates flight a heck of a lot better than FSX, especially when it comes to helicopters. The thing is your last sentence represents DCS as it stands - flight dynamics modelling are universally one of the most fleshed out aspects of DCS in comparison to much of combat aspects.

And for said combat aspects, there's a few things that are quite crude, or otherwise diverging from reality. Some are arguably quite minor, some not so minor and some can't be done due to problems with getting publicly available documentation.

Some examples:

• AI and AI flight models, the AI has gotten better recently, but some of their tactics are still quite crude and are typically poor in BFM situations. Meanwhile the FM of some AI aircraft borders on the ridiculous (like AI F-5E-3s managing to zoom climb to 60000 feet, while fully retaining pitch and roll authority)
• Missiles, missile guidance and missile flight dynamics - we are seeing very welcome improvements to some weapons, there are still some things to iron out.
• RADAR modelling - currently only a few aircraft have their RADARs use real-beam mapping, it's uncertain if other modules will ever get updated.
• Damage modelling - in terms of systems damage on aircraft it's not too bad (especially for aircraft like the F-14), but in terms of progressive structural damage it's crude and certainly inferior to for instance, IL-2 (which has superior structural damage modelling, and broken off parts retain their collision models). When it comes to ships and ground vehicles though, the damage modelling is incredibly crude and poor, sometimes resulting in weapon effectiveness being markedly reduced.
• Complete lack of EW, this is almost certainly down to the lack of publicly available documentation, but I'll leave it here - currently all jammers are basic noise jammers.

There are some other things, for instance anti-radiation missiles, which all home-in on the geometric centroid of vehicles, and not the actual emitter (antenna) itself, unlike reality. This becomes even worse with the crude damage model, particularly for ships. And currently the Phalanx CIWS is using the incorrect ammunition (AFAIK, on ships it has always used untraced APDS ammunition, contrasted with the HEI-T and API rounds from aircraft).

I'm not saying DCS is a bad combat simulator - it's probably the best available on consumer hardware all things considered, but to me at least, there's more shortcomings of it's combat simulator aspects, than its flight simulator aspects, which apart from maps and weather, far outclasses any flight simulator that I've played before it (such as FSX).

Anyway, back on topic...

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98
formatting, spelling

[BIGNEWY]

I'm sorry if I come across like a total retard, but is the 2.5.6 version the same as "DCS World 2.5 Open Beta"? I'm downloading that now from the main DCS website. I didn't see "2.5.6" actually written anywhere so assume it must be that?

 

Cheers anyway. I never realised you can run both at the same time. Very curious to see what 2.5.6 is like when it finishes downloading.

 

Cheers!

 

Yes sorry, 2.5.6 is the current open beta.

 

It will also create a new saved games location for your settings and controls, to save time once created you can copy your input folder from the stable version to the open beta.

 

thanks

[CommandT]

Ok, so I've tried Normandy in 2.5.6 and I'm not gonna lie... it's definitely a welcome improvement in all aspects compared to 2.5.5.

 

IMO the beeches are much better but overall still a bit crude in places. though I see enough improvments for me to definitely once again consider buying the map and some WW2 aircraft and the assets pack. So I applaud the developers for making these improvments.

 

That being said, I would still like to say I think the shoreline and beech textures or lack of in some areas are definitely behind current times. Though this is literally my only complaint about the entire map as I think in terms of everything else on it and how it is optimized it is actually really impressive.

 

Now if my concerns about the super outdated weather engine could be addressed I'll be a happy bunny.

 

 

As to the argument of - flight sim/ combat sim - everyone has different values though I would hazard a guess that most people like myself would never buy anything in this game/ sim if we didn't find it pretty/ shiny and in some cases breathtaking - because even in terms of combat it gives you immersion! Who wants to do ground attack with the most accurate systems modelling in the world on a flat lifeless surface with poor textures? I can tell you straight away - I'm out! Similarly, if I want to fly low-level to avoid radar coverage I want to see the trees, the grass, the objects like I would in real life... why... because it gives a sense of speed and realism and looks cool! So visuals are technically also an aspect of "combat".

 

But you know what, sometimes, and I'm sure I'm not the only one - I just wanna look outside and enjoy the scenery/ lighting and location! This is not a prcedural sim - it can be, but for most people it's that pretty/ shiny good looking picture that is important. So I think to say visuals don't matter so much coz it's a "combat" sim is just utter garbage.

[CommandT]

I don't think so. It might work just to copy the controls lua files in Saved Games over to same location but Beta, but if something changed controler wise you might get problems. What you can do, and save space at the same time is to update your stable 2.5.5 to 2.5.6. If you are not happy with the 2.5.6, you then downgrade it as easily back to 2.5.5.

Follow these instructions:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=114030

Second post contains DCS versions to use.

 

If you go through with this, now when you already have both versions installed, preform the 2.5.5-2.5.6 update before uninstalling the standalone Beta. That way the updater just grabs the files from that install instead of downloading everything again.

 

This did the trick, cheers!

[Holton181]

This did the trick, cheers!

Happy to help!