NEW Airfields and Textures! | DCS Kola September Update Overview

[@tim-3705]

How i feel about the kola map, is that the team is making huge amounds of progress. it is the biggest dcs map to date. And updates are rolling out quick. The afganistan map, is in almost a worse state and has not had any updates yet. To my opinion, Kola is an amazig map and i will be curiously awaiting any updates.

[@dcs_one]

The Kola map is very cool and big and is making better progress than Afghanistan

[@69columbus]

Just my opinion. The Afghanistan map, whilst obviously still in early access and requires a lot more work, is much better than the Kola map. All maps suffer from blurry textures when you leave populated centres, but the cities and towns in the Afghan map are the best in DCS currently. I can't wait to fly in and out of Kabul, and Bagram air base. Finally, Wag's recent sneakpeak of Baghdad showed an awesome sprawling city.

[@ArktikosAdventures]

Living in Bodø, I can confidently say that they are doing a good job. However, one of the first things I noticed was the size of the trees. They are too big. The trees here are, maybe, at the most, 5 or 10 meters tall. Most are just 5 or so meters and the rest are just bushes. That is a standard traight of the arctic. Once you cross the 66th paralell, the trees are tiny. The growing season is just too short for them to grow fast and large. Another thing is the military side of Bodø airport is pretty much decomisioned. During the landing in the videw, the runway (right side in the video landing) is being competley deconstructed now to make way for a new civilian airport terminal. Most of those shelters have been destroyed to make way for the new runway. I hope the airport is modified with the current changes. Anyway, I'm looking forward to what they have in store with future updates.

[@JingxuanZhou]

IIRC the dev said those small and accurate types of trees would cost too much performance.

[@dcs_one]

Yeah, they did try using more accurate trees but scraped it in favor of performance

[@ElHyperion]

Why can't they just use a simplified version of the small trees then?

[@rudyvinck1447]

For who thinks this map is bad, or a disaster.... you so wrong, the map is big with alot of potential, and with the last update, it's look very good, especially in vr, there is still alot of work to be done (more cities, road...) but Orbx progresses very fast. This map is definitely one of the most beautiful, way better than Afghanistan for sure.

[@sundog8775]

200% agree. For a pre-release map, the terrain and textures are great already. So far my only complaint is the size of the map on the hard drive, but I suppose that cant be helped much.

[@dcs_one]

Yeah, the hard drive space is a big bummer and I will be in need of a new SSD very soon

[@69columbus]

@rudyvinck1447 exactly what they said about the S Atlantic map, which is pretty much forgotten now. It's not enough for the map to be "pretty".... that thing is subjective. It has to be interesting and has some large urban areas to make feel alive. Both kola and the S Atlantic maps lack these essential features.

[@dcs_one]

@@69columbus yeah, fighting for a dead landscape feels pointless

[@69columbus]

Kola, like the S Atlantic map, needs alot of work to become more interesting. Now, if only Eagle Dynamics can redo the caucasus map to bring it up to modern standard. It could double as a Russia/Ukraine theatre, or even the Kosovo/Serbia/Nato campaign.

[@dcs_one]

They could, but they are probably leaving those ideas on the shelf for now

[@evansnyder8461]

So glad I avoided buying this disaster. It would be a nice change of pace of something for DCS could have at least a mildly reasonable release

[@riman8493]

Kiowa and Phantom both had pretty good releases. Agree on the state of Kola, though.

[@dcs_one]

Yeah Kiowa and Phantom were pretty good overall

[@attackdebris]

Looks like it still needs a fair bit of work before I purchase. To give the team credit the Severomorsk airfield is pretty accurate (google maps), the Russians obviously like their airfields messy.

[@dcs_one]

Fair enough. Russians do like it messy.

[@DCSHacks]

Is it me or does it look just like the Caucasus?

[@sundog8775]

It sure does not imo; looks much better

[@dcs_one]

From up high it looks better

[@DCSHacks]

I caveat This by saying I have a significant amount of Orbx scenery, Airports and Aircraft in MSFS.

[@shinysdcs1212]

The new textures look great. Some of the folks commenting seem to not own the map, haven't flown on it, or just be unfamilar with the area and what it looks like.

[@dcs_one]

Some parts look good, some not as good. Thats my opinion

[@KillerKev1961]

Just bought the terrain, I expect work will continue.

[@dcs_one]

It most definitely will!

[@Espere]

Their custom scenery objects always looked very nice. But the textures, everything that makes this a map still lacks in my opinion.

[@dcs_one]

I agree

[@simtaylor61]

Just a thought about the buildings, or lack thereof. Perhaps this might be intentional. IF they put all the buildings in for Jokkmok, lets say, and REDAIR flew in and bombed the strip, the next mission they'd all be back brand new. PERHAPS.......and this is just a thought......IF they left those INTENTIONALLY open, and you either populated the area with buildings from the ME, or perhaps made a template, 1) If a building was destroyed, it would STAY destroyed if you used the same make for another mission, and 2) It frees up system resources so it doesn't bog down the system for areas that the player won't actually see (if need be it can be poplulated later for campaign purposes). Just a wild guess, but that might be whats going on here. Build towns as required, as opposed to bogging the whole game down with building that can't be destroyed That being said, it would be nice if ED made it possible for combat engineering units to build airstrips (say prefab sections of runway and taxiway in the ME). There are lots of airstrips on the Norwegian side of the map that I remember from other games that just flat aren't there in this Kola map (Andoya springs to mind. The outline is there but nothing else as far as a strip goes). But I'm wondering if templates might be the way to go

[@davidbradley3227]

About building your own airstrips. In the mission editor you can used the trigger zone tool to outline a stretch of road you want to turn into a road base. Then, through the triggers tab/button you can have all trees, power poles and hazards removed through a simple removal script that are within that zone thus clearing it for safe landings. Kola is fun because of the trees you can use the same method to etch GIANT swear words or penises into the hill sides that everyone can enjoy

[@dcs_one]

I get it but I feel like I am either attacking or defending a forest, because there is a lack of life. You're not protecting your country but some fields

[@simtaylor61]

@@dcs_one understandable

[@ElHyperion]

I still can't decide what first map to buy. I'm growing tired of Caucasus, there's not much to do on Marianas, and despite loving Scandinavian nature the current state of Kola seems kinda underwhelming... Which map is the most complete and photorealistic?

[@dcs_one]

I would probably go for Syria or Sinai. Gives you a different conflict zone and enviorment and theres deserts, mountains, greenery and seas for naval operations. Persian gulf is also an option but I have never owned it so can’t really comment on it

[@tenevas666]

Salut ....tu pourrais me faire une photo pour me partager des courbes de ton Trackir Pro ? j'ai jamais trop su régler le mien

[@dcs_one]

I've actually recently picked up the Tobii Eye Tracker 5 so unfortunately I won't be able to share my curves.

[@rudlzavedno7279]

This map looks worse than the worst parts of Europe in MS FS2020. EagleDynamics it's about time DCS gets new modern engine.

[@dcs_one]

I am not sure if ED is at fault here. I think it might be an issue in how Orbx is applying their textures

[@delayed_control]

They removed the random commieblock next to the runway at Severomorsk 3 lol

[@dcs_one]

Haha, probably for the best

[@Tome4kkkk]

Dude, adjust your gamma :D

[@dcs_one]

Darker or brighter? :D

[@Tome4kkkk]

@@dcs_one If you go any brighter man your hairline is going to recess that very evenening :D

[@SteonCZ]

I believe that KOLA will be a great map one day.But it will probably take a long long time.

[@dcs_one]

It will. One day.

[@columbar5518]

omg, it looks really ugly! Lots of work have to be done... Those camouflage like textures reminds me old il2 sturmovik. Man, for 55 dollars, it is bad joke. My opinion is that this map was released too early.

[@dcs_one]

It needs work but I think it will get better

[@RicheUK]

Very disappointing

[@dcs_one]

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed too