Maps are all wrong making manual navigation and obstacle avoidance planning impossible.

[Neutrino]

I'm trying to practise manual navigation, pilotage and dead reckoning in the Caucasus. But it seems to me the maps are not remotely correct which is making the exercise most unsatisfying.

 

The moving map GPS display available in certain aircraft, and the high detail maps released by DCS display obstacles and points of interest using standard aeronautical chart symbology. These features include tall obstacles (typically smokestacks or antennas) of either 200ft plus, or 1000ft plus, and points of interest such as oil wells, quarries and mines etc.

 

The correct placement of these objects is essential to any effective manual navigation, and in the case of obstacles also to flight safety planning. However what's shown on the map, and what's displayed in the world bear no relation to each other whatsoever. Obstacles and points of interest shown on the map are not present in the world, and those in the world are not on the map.

 

Why is this?

 

As a military sim accurate maps are fundamental to any kind of realistic mission planning. Pilots are expected to be able to be able to navigate effectively and complete their missions or at least return to base safely without electronic navigation aids.

 

If it's genuinely the case that the maps are just all wrong it seems like it shouldn't be that difficult a job to fix. Just remove the antennas, oil wells and whatnot from their existing locations in the world and then place them at the positions shown on the map. Or instead update the map, depending on what DCS is using as the source of truth.

[fudabidu]

Caucasus at its core is about 17 years old by now. There was an update 3 years ago, but it was still based on the old terrain and therefor still isn't accurate at all. I asked about this, because it looks ridiculous in some areas, but ED stated they had no plans to update the terrain any time soon. This was in December 2019 and this is what the thread looks today:

The first plane to use the new moving map was the A-10C. The map looks realistic, but it never corresponded to the actual terrain. ED obviously knew this even before releasing the module and yet here we are almost 10 years later still talking about it.

To fix this ED would either need to update Caucasus to match the map, or re-draw the entire map to match the terrain. That's actually quiet some work and probably "not on our to-do list right now". That's how it goes with many long lasting issues.

[Fri13]

8 minutes ago, fudabidu said:

Caucasus at its core is about 17 years old by now. There was an update 3 years ago, but it was still based on the old terrain and therefor still isn't accurate at all. I asked about this, because it looks ridiculous in some areas, but ED stated they had no plans to update the terrain any time soon. This was in December 2019 and this is what the thread looks today:

 

First, Attachment/link can't be shown "because you do not have permission to see it".

Secondly, I believe that when they did the Caucasus modernization in 2018 it did receive some changes to roads, towns and terrain heights but likely mainly because doubled terrain elevation mesh/resolution.

 

It was a great upgrade that brought the speedtree technology, new lighting and much better terrain. But as you say the map is based to old data. One could think that using OpenStreetMap data could allow easy building placement and roads and such locations as well imported from it. But it would require SDK to accept such data imports (and it would speed up radically the development as you need to just supervise the process than start adding all by yourself).

 

8 minutes ago, fudabidu said:

The first plane to use the new moving map was the A-10C. The map looks realistic, but it never corresponded to the actual terrain. ED obviously knew this even before releasing the module and yet here we are almost 10 years later still talking about it.

To fix this ED would either need to update Caucasus to match the map, or re-draw the entire map to match the terrain. That's actually quiet some work and probably "not on our to-do list right now". That's how it goes with many long lasting issues.

 

I think that Caucasus falls back to "old code base" an similar challenges. ED is working with a new terrain engine (TE) that hopefully would open up new possibilities in the future.