A UK centric DCS map

[Bob dimitri]

I feel as though a DCS map including the entirety of the UK and Ireland would be enjoyable enough to justify it's creation. With the upcoming DCS: Eurofighter it would be good to have a modern map featuring one of the Typhoons primary users. Also, due to the UK's proximity to Russia the map would be good for 'What if' scenarios to do with a future (or cold war era) air war. Also, if ED feels so inclined they could include other areas like the north of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Or alternatively Sweden, Norway and Denmark. 
This would be undeniably the most diverse and possibly even the largest map for DCS, providing mountainous regions in the Scottish highlands as well as urban areas like London, Birmingham and Edinburgh. 
I hope that this idea some how makes it's way to ED as it is an idea that I (and hopefully others) would love to see.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Bob dimitri

[Furiz]

Lmao, Proximity to Russia... Sry, had to, sry

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

GIUK gap is a nice idea, but it seems to be too big an area to cover.

[Danny_P]

We are probably a long way off ever seeing a map anywhere near that scale.. We can dream I guess. I think even just the entirety of the UK is not feasible at the moment. 

[Qiou87]

Well, we are getting the Falkland Islands from Razbam probably some time next year, so you are getting part of what you wish for (Islands that belong to the UK).

As to the real UK though, not before a very long time. The scale, urban density... not to mention you need another piece of land to make for interesting scenarios (Norwegian or Swedish coast, and/or Iceland).

 

@VFGiPJP: The GIUK gap idea is more enticing to me, but needs at least a few years of DCS core improvements (naval damage model, naval warfare, submarine warfare, additional NATO and RUS naval assets) to make it a viable place for "Cold war gone hot" scenarios. And it could be probably too big, though depending how you define the GIUK gap and draw the borders of the map  there isn't that much landmass and urban density to speak of.

[Richard Dastardly]

The RAF has been in the Baltic for years along with a lot of other folk - the Baltic seems ideal for a map.

[Dragon1-1]

I'd rather see an European location, so to speak.  The 80s Germany, complete with the Berlin Wall, would be quite interesting. That's where most of the action would've been in a late Cold War WW3.

[LooseSeal]

Good god, my PC can barely cope with little Damascus as it is - London or Birmingham alone would set it on fire.

 

Not really sure what conflict would be taking place there either? Unless ED plans on developing an RUC Tangi module, then I don't see the point

 

Unfortunately, I think a certain civilian flight sim's use of cloud-based terrain technology (which is heavily subsidised by its massive tech giant owner) has created a false sense of what is possible for a regularly-funded developer like ED.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

@Qiou87it saw quite many actions during WW2 at GIUK gap but given the current plane set, there ain’t much to do there.

[Bob dimitri]

On 9/13/2021 at 5:36 PM, Furiz said:

Lmao, Proximity to Russia... Sry, had to, sry

British planes often have to intercept Russian bombers trying to get into UK airspace. 

[Furiz]

40 minutes ago, Bob dimitri said:

British planes often have to intercept Russian bombers trying to get into UK airspace. 

 

So what does that have to do with his statement that GB is close to Russia?

[Mogster]

I like the idea of a Northern UK, Scandi, Iceland map. It’d be something totally different.

 

Red Storm Scandi invasion scenarios with the EF  Plenty of water for USN carrier ops.

[LooseSeal]

1 hour ago, Bob dimitri said:

British planes often have to intercept Russian bombers trying to get into UK airspace. 

 

Yes, but there's the small matter of Norway, Sweden, Finland and numerous other northern countries between Russia and the UK. Not to mention the rather large North Sea. The two countries are not close - strategic bombers just tend to have enormous ranges.

[Rick50]

Isle of Man to St Petersburg is about 2200km, as the crow flies. South coast of England, to the north coast of Norway, is about the same, 2200km. 

 

Most DCS maps measure (roughly, as none are exactly the same in size, detail, object number density), something around 500x500km. That is 250,000 square kilometers of terrain data for a dev to make, for DCS to handle in multiplayer, for your stonkin' gamer rig to chug through at very high framerates.  

 

Now... quick calculation says that your proposed map, which just only barely has any Russia at all, since I capped it at St Petersburg, results in  4,840,000 square kilometers of terrain data.

 

That is more than 19 times larger than your average DCS map of today. Consider too that expectations in details, for the terrain textures, the terrain elevation resolution (how many data points show the shape of the ground), and the increasing number of objects placed on maps (houses, custom buildings, single trees and millions of trees, lamp posts, airports, unique landmarks) is increasing dramatically... I mean, compare these things between say the old Caucasus map and the newer Syria map... or the newest Mariannas map where the  high detail is confined to a few very tiny islands.

 

The recently released DCS Channel map features England... a tiny postage stamp of 40,000 square kilometres. Now I'm not criticising, it's good and has a lot of details, but compare the area size to the maps mentioned above?

 

I myself want something similar, basically the Nordic countries and a corner of Russia (think the EF2000 terrain map!), and would welcome the addition of the UK if it were practical. I do believe it will be practical in future... (maybe 5 years from now?) but it's not practical today.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Rick50

[Bagpipe]

I think some of you are blowing the suggestion out of proportion a little.

It's his third post on the forums ffs, try be a little more civil.

 

Cool idea though, i would love to fly the mach loop in DCS for starters

 

Realistically though, if you were wanting to depict a russian attack op i guess you would be best to only model from Perth northwards and towards the gap. That would only leave mostly Sea and a couple of islands with radar sites but you could simulate russian carrier ops i guess but as others have said it wouldn't be much fun without better naval simulation going on down there.

 

Apart from anything it is way to politically charged to ever be considered i would reckon

 

 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Bagpipe

[Rick50]

 

I personally love this map suggestion, and indeed most map ideas that people put forward. Honestly I'd love for DCS to have the whole world modeled as some civilian flight sims feature.  It's just that at the moment there seems to be some practical limits for maps in DCS, and no one really knows when those limits might change or even disappear (possible with a major game engine change maybe?). 

 

The main reason I respond this way, is so that there is understanding of why such large maps aren't appearing yet. If I'm harsh, well, that was not my intention, and I'm not dismissing the idea, just proposing that we might have to wait a little while!

 

This topic link give a bit of an idea of DCS map sizes... they are not all the same, some are MUCH larger than others but feature much less detail and have some "empty" areas too:

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Rick50

[Bagpipe]

2 hours ago, Rick50 said:

 

...If I'm harsh, well, that was not my intention,...

 

No sweat, it's difficult to convey expression through text on a forum often so these things happen

[DaWu]

Uk map similar pointless as Nevada. We need iraq and afghanistan maps

[Tippis]

4 minutes ago, DaWu said:

Uk map similar pointless as Nevada. We need iraq and afghanistan maps

We really don't. That kind of terrain and those kinds of conflicts are easily covered by the maps we already have. The UK may not be the best option (mainly for reasons of simple size and geometry as previously described), but something else in a similar vein would provide far more, and much needed, variety.

 

The Falklands map offers some promise of relief from the monotony of the mountainous desert map, the half-flat, half-mountainous desert and sea map, and the sparsely green mountain-and-sea desert map. But more diversification can only ever be a good thing at this point.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

This is why I was reluctant to get the NTTR after PG, until very recently I change my mind. Syria is great but there is still too much sand (do not start that Star Wars joke, please). Marinas is a nice change, I would say GIUK or a North Sea map, as suggested above, would be a great change. Before anyone says living in the UK flying in the UK, I have reservations about the choices made over The Channel map but I fly no Warbirds, so what do I know?

[DaWu]

6 hours ago, Tippis said:

We really don't. That kind of terrain and those kinds of conflicts are easily covered by the maps we already have. The UK may not be the best option (mainly for reasons of simple size and geometry as previously described), but something else in a similar vein would provide far more, and much needed, variety.

 

The Falklands map offers some promise of relief from the monotony of the mountainous desert map, the half-flat, half-mountainous desert and sea map, and the sparsely green mountain-and-sea desert map. But more diversification can only ever be a good thing at this point.

if you want a change then fly FS2020. I prefer realism and the last war over UK was when? Ww2

[Northstar98]

I like the idea, but personally, I'd prefer the GIUK gap, including Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Jan Mayen, the southern tip of Greenland and at least the Shetland Islands.

While we have a fair bit of land area, it's mostly going to be mesh and textures, none of the islands have a huge object density, and it's only really Reykjavik-Keflavik that would be more populated with objects, though nowhere near to the same degree as other cities that we have though.

The map would lend itself well to recreating Cold War scenarios, and there's plenty of inspiration from Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, there are however a few things missing to really flesh a map like this out.

The main concern would be land-based REDFOR (though SF2:NA managed fine).

Just having a map of the UK though would probably be a poor choice, it would only really be useful for sight-seeing in and of itself.

Spoiler

• Core improvements to the naval environment, there's really too much to be said here.
• Kh-22NA for the Tu-22M3.
• A transition to a spherical coordinate system and maps that are shaped such that they fit on the surface of a sphere.
• Plenty of missing assets, for each player in the region.

At a stretch, I'd try and include the major Scottish airbases (RAF Lossiemouth (maritime strike), Kinloss (maritime patrol) and Leuchars ((where I used to live) interception/QRA) but this adds quite a bit of land area (and while it's not hugely populated, the terrain is pretty complex).

On 9/17/2021 at 8:38 AM, DaWu said:

if you want a change then fly FS2020.

What?

Is that going to be your answer to any new map that gets poposed? "Well if you want a map that's different to our current ones, fly MSFS2020".

On 9/17/2021 at 8:38 AM, DaWu said:

I prefer realism and the last war over UK was when? Ww2

So, exactly like the Marianas then?

Wonder when the last war was that was over the NTTR...

The SoH/PG map is post 2009 and completely misses the areas where Iran-Iraq War (1980 - 1988) the Gulf War (1991) and Iraq War (2003 - 2011) took place. There's only really the confrontation in the Persian Gulf, but we hardly have any assets to support them.

It's only really Syria where we have a more realistic map for actual conflicts, but we're again missing assets, plenty of them, our modules aren't the right era and the current coalition system just isn't fit for purpose on the map.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Northstar98

[Tippis]

2 hours ago, DaWu said:

if you want a change then fly FS2020. I prefer realism and the last war over UK was when? Ww2

The last war over UK was in the early 1980s. We're getting a map to cover that. Like with all maps, it will not be possible to realistically recreate that conflict.

 

If you want realism, then none of the modules we have can be used on any of the maps we have, save for a subset of FC3.¹ This would be doubly true for an Iraq map. For an Afghanistan map, a tiny handful of modules could be used, but they would have no opposition and it would be no conflict to speak of. So right back at you: if you want that complete lack of opposition, fly FS2020.

 

All conflicts created in DCS are and always will be imaginary — this is a good thing, by the way — and there are plenty of environments in which such conflicts can take place. This includes the no-opposition bombing of mud brick huts, if you're into that. Fighting over undulating hills with temperate forests, or jungles with jagged peaks, or brackish-water archipelagos leading to evergreen forests, or industrialised plains and mountain passes, or any of the myriad of other terrains the planet has to offer — almost all of which have seen conflict take place over them — is no less or more realistic than fighting over yet another mountainous desert with occasional greenery. They'd just be a whole lot more interesting than more of the same sand texture.

 

¹ There is exactly one exception: Normandy, which has a small subset of the right aircraft, a tiny set of decorations, and the right region for the right period for those planes and systems. However, it is also a region and period that saw very little in the way of a proper air war since one side had a 6:1 superiority in sorties, and even larger superiority in aircraft and pilots, and a catastrophically large superiority in pilot training. It's not quite as one-sided as mud-brick-hut bombing, but close.

[Sideburns]

On 9/13/2021 at 9:32 PM, VFGiPJP said:

GIUK gap is a nice idea, but it seems to be too big an area to cover.

 

I believe a GIUK map was mentioned very very early in the HB F14 plans, I think it would have worked quite well with the Viggen, F14 and also Sea Harrier modules intended. But to their credit HB did remove this prior to pre-orders (i.e. it was clear we were getting the carrier and F14 variants only) and a dominant part of the GIUK fighting, alongside defending the fleet and surface warfare, would be anti-submarine which of course is not currently well represented currently in DCS. Also suspect they came to the same conclusions w.r.t what the DCS engine could handle and that a GIUK was perhaps too much at the time.

 

Despite this, would really like the challenge of the North Sea's weather and sea states. There are some crazy stories from Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier book on getting the Sea Harrier operational in the North Sea and the adverse conditions they would fly in.

[Northstar98]

On 9/17/2021 at 12:13 PM, Sideburns said:

I believe a GIUK map was mentioned very very early in the HB F14 plans, I think it would have worked quite well with the Viggen, F14 and also Sea Harrier modules intended.

Did they? I thought it was the Baltic, which would make more sense for the Viggen.

But the GIUK gap would be the perfect map for Cold War gone hot with the F-14 (though both our current F-14s are mid 90s at the earliest, and late 90s-early 2000s with LANTIRN)

On 9/17/2021 at 12:13 PM, Sideburns said:

...and a dominant part of the GIUK fighting, alongside defending the fleet and surface warfare, would be anti-submarine which of course is not currently well represented currently in DCS.

That's certainly one way of putting it

Mind you the naval environment as a whole is pretty lacking, and that would probably need to change for such a map, as it is the Cold War naval map.

On 9/17/2021 at 12:13 PM, Sideburns said:

Despite this, would really like the challenge of the North Sea's weather and sea states. There are some crazy stories from Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier book on getting the Sea Harrier operational in the North Sea and the adverse conditions they would fly in.

Same, though the area is more to the south than the GIUK gap, though if we include the RAF airbases in Scotland and the Shetland Islands, then the map would at least reach into the North Sea, but not by much.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Northstar98
formatting