DCS Kola - A Mixed Bag
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
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This is a a review of the new Kola map for DCS World by Orbx Simulations.
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#dcsworld #dcskola #kolamap #dcsmapreview #eagledynamics
I understand this map is still in early access but it's a little perplexing why they put so much of their initial effort into the cities and ports instead of the airfields.
Indeed! Very strange.
Could be to make sure optimization is solid as they could get 🤷♂️ Cities always seem to be the biggest hit on frame so perhaps most of the time spent there. Airfields and such are likely a lot easier to update and build up in chunks during updates
Maybe Nick Grey needed something released fast to distract from the Razbam Elephant in the room?
Not sure about the reason, but i too think this was released earlier than planned. It is a weird mix of looks-good and looks-awful.
@@ysiadpir1423 I can't imagine Nick is pushing a 3rd party to shove something out of the door to distract from an issue that's being settled behind closed doors. Seems a little too conspiracy theory for me.
I think it's just more likely to be the growing pains of a developer who is diving into their first attempt at creating a map for DCS. Every developer will have varying levels of what they are comfortable with in terms of early release, with teams like Polychop pretty much wanting to avoid early access as much as possible.
"This map has so much potential" is the sentence that could sum up this map. I'm praying it won't turn into "this map HAD so much potential". I'm still hesitating to buy it as it is.
By the way, I guess you already read it, but I answered your topic about Tobii ET5 in DCS Forum. To make it short, ET5 is native 33Hz (overclock upscalable to 133Hz). So I think it might not be the right device for smooth panoramic footages that you want to make.
Oh thanks, I missed that! I actually returned it back. Messed around with it for a while and realised that trackIR still offered better more precise tracking, at least in my use case.
And yeah agreed regarding the map. I do think that DCS map tech also needs to be updated.
Needs more "crap and cracks". Spot on lol. Dirt, clutter, and the feeling of being used for everything from cities to airbases, but also forests.
And they dare to ask for that price and said it will increase when they adding more feature, they sell a map with full price and it's not even 30% complete.... There's also a chance that this map will just stop developed anytime in the future, since the person that working on this is the same person that working with Razbam...
As someone who is from northern norway, this map is a fucking dream come true, i agree a lot of things can be improved but i love it so far
Yeah, good potential for sure!
I’m honestly dissapointed with ORBX. I hoped they would be the ones raising the bar for maps like Heatblur does for aircraft modules, but this is a half-arsed product for the price they are demanding. This is literally an alpha release and should be a free demo trial.
I believe in ORBX honestly. The current state of the map, the high-fidelity parts, is absolutely amazing
Believe it or not, it's made by the same guys who did South Atlantic.
@@mro9466 No.....its not..
@@ziepex7009
It genuinely is, just under a different company.
Best DCS reviewer ever. I also have an impression that the map is too bright. IRL the trees are lower as they do not get that good sun to grow as high as some sothern areas and the feedback I heard from people who fly there says that the weather is often bad at those parts, low and tight cloud cover and the visability is quite low.
I don't own the map, but from all the videos I totally agree with your assesment. Low-level textures are strangely low-res, some edges with water are artifical and the building placement is really strange. Tarmac textures as you said... But the mountains - I wish Causasus looked like this instead of those rolling hills.
I'm curious how big the map will be on the drive when finished. Because 150GB is already crazy.
Yeah. If we get more detailed airfields and these kind of mountain peaks on the caucuses map then that would be perfect!
3:00 The buildings in the middle of nothing, without a driveway and without front and backyard, the absolutely boring grass texture 9:50 and unbelievably uniform tres are really immersive breaking.
Typical DCS map.
Great review i can absolutely agree with. One thing you did not mention (i was wondering haha): those candy colors everywhere. The bright green grass, those clean red and blue roofs, caribic greenish shallow water, generally everything looks factory new and shines bright, especially russian buildings... a lot of videos and streams i saw were either dusk or dawn because it dampens the colors and makes it look way better. Mid day Kola looks like a clean candy store, a plastic world, it really hurts. Think when they can get the textures redone (color and better quality, they look mushy and fuzzy), rather have fewer trees but correct type (they used speedtrees because performance) and generally get rid of those terrible baked in shadows, a lot of issues are addressed already.
The colors is the biggest deal breaker for me, these radioactive green splotches on the grass. I’m sorry, best area to fly in but this is just uncanny valley type stuff
Totally agree ! Even EF2000 back in 1995 had better colors :-D.Not mentioning the obvious repetitive patches of fields. I got great hopes regarding afghanistan map, whose tints seem much more realistic.
i too wish the surfaces had some texture and wear
7:40 in fact, many airports and airfields in Eastern/Central European countries have such semi-apartment holdings, especially as cargo offices locations. In my country Poland, such architectural setup is present i.e. at Wroclaw airport (WRO), so it’s very likely that similar solutions are common in far north, godforsaken Russian dump.
Thanks for this detailed and honest review. This map is promising, but it needs a lot of work !
Yeah indeed!
you got me laughing so much as you mentioned the fields 😂 I am a farmer irl and one thing that bugs me is the fields in video games. I get it, most of guys just see the fields but for me … just a little detail that catches my eye 😁
Haha!
I do think I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I think it's a very interesting and beautiful area, and if it gets updated frequently it'll be a great map. I just hope the community supports it. I've seen some images posted on certain sites by the community that make it out to be way worse than it is.
Of course more airbases, towns, etc need to be added, but as you said the cities that are there are done quite well (with in my opinion a good variety of buildings). The mountains and forested areas also look quite good. Those areas look far beyond anything you'd ever see in our Caucasus. My main issue with the map is the large areas of unforested land that they need to somehow make look good at low altitude. Caucasus, Syria, etc use a handful of handmade textures that look quite good up close, but get very repetitive and often don't look that great at altitude either. Syria can get away with this, but I'm not sure that technique would work well for the terrain Kola has. Maybe their solution is going to be to just simply crank up the resolution of certain areas.
They did also show off a while ago some airbase pictures that looked very good with weathered textures. I'm not sure why those don't exist in game yet, but hopefully they're added.
Yep, agreed with everything. They can’t make it higher res atm apparently due to texture file size limitations and apparently are working with ED to improve this.
Really agree with your review. The cities look like actual cities and not just random clumps of generic buildings like we have in the other maps. At higher altitudes, the map looks incredible, almost lifelike at times. I think it is a really promising first map for DCS from Orbx and I am looking forward to the updates and the next Orbx map.
Thanks. Trying to watch as many first-impression videos before I probably buy. (South Atlantic on day 1 was so sad 😔..but better now).
This has been the most informative Kola video.
Looks like Kola was released early and needs more time in the oven. Reshade won't even help..lol. Maybe some of the talented DCS modders can whip up some better trees and textures?
I LOVE Bartheks Caucasus re-done !
Yes we need Barthek to redo the Kola map now 😆
Thanks for your review, very informative, I will wait
No problem, thanks for the comment 👌
The shadows aren't painted on actually, I thought so as well initially, but if you set time to summer and let the sun do a lap around at high time warp, you can see that those textures are actually parallax mapped - the issue is that they've abused it too much where there should have just been a better terrain mesh resolution, so at less than say 10kft altitude the illusion provided by parallax mapping just breaks down. Other maps only use parallax mapping for high altitude detail, down low they rely on mesh resolution, normal shading and various techniques like microtextures, clutter etc. to make the ground believable.
Whatever the shortcomings this map has an artwork, it is a great map for actually playing out scenarios. It has a huge amount of land area, with interesting contours and lots of chances for terrain masking for helos/CAS pilots. It has enough airfields for an E vs W land based missions and of course it has geat potential for attacks from the sea. If this map doesn't get support from the user base, we will be missing a great opportunity.
As someone who knows next to nothing about DCS, I have to say it’s really quite sad to see what’s happened to Orbx. From my point of view in MSFS, the quality (and quality control, for that matter) of the products they release are almost unrecognizable from what I remember them publishing back in the FSX days. While there are a few golden age Devs that have risen to the occasion with this new era of simulation, it feels like far more have opted for laziness.
I have to agree. I got their GB central pack for msfs and it's pretty bad. I optimised and low quality. So bad that I didn't even bother buying the south edition. Got their one airfield and although it looks good, it's also heavy on the fps. Oh well, next time I'll know to buy from other devs and this kola map I'll definitely skip too
Ah...Karelia! I've been through there several times.
Not buying it yet. Just going to wait until they work on it some more and watch progress. For Orbx first map in DCS it's "okay" but I really hope they take the feedback and implement the level of detail that would really make the map great
100% agree!
Coniferous - cone bearing seed plants
Carnivorous- meat eating
Carniferous - meat eating pine trees.
Ha! Yes. Exactly…
I'm excited for the map, but I'll definitely hold off on it for a bit, especially with the F-4 being two weeks away now.
Finally having a home to fly the Viggen (Please, someone add a Gripen, even if it's just AI) and the Finnish Hornets off of road bases, it's got such incredible potential.
Also, great points on the Russian airbases. They definitely have a rougher look than a lot of the cleaner Western European airports from what I've seen in various maps. I definitely get the lack of all of the clutter you sometimes see in terms of containers and random stuff around the airbase, but the runway and taxiway textures look entirely too new and clean. It would be huge to see them develop some real Russian airbase textures for this thing. I don't know if it's just a time of day thing or what, but it seems like a lot of the textures just seem very...bright? I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it. Everything looks very brightly colored and clean.
Yep exactly!
They really need to make a kola part 2 with karelia, gulf of finland.
They also need to update/add all sorts of NATO/USSR assets otherwise adding maps is useless
Yep agree!
I saw that this is actually the developers from South Atlantic map. Under the umbrella of Orbx as the publisher. So it seems its just the same guys again. Which shows as there are similarities
Yeah that says a lot!
Agreed with the conclustion it just sounds like it's in alpha and they are charging done prices for it.
Completely agree and maybe it is your setup but the colors look also completely oversaturated but that's the least of the problems!
Something is off here, just very strange and surprises me a lot, considering that the map was made by Orbx, one of the best scenery developers for FSX then and now for MSFS who is and was known for their absolute love of detail which is nearly unsurpassed in quality and especially quantity!
Weird!
Bodø looks good, allthough missing som key buildings, but the roads and parking around them look about right, so expect them to be added.
You are the 1st person ive heard that seems to dislike the South Atlantic map as much as i do. I actually moved it to my SSD. it's not worth the space on my M.2. It was a waste of money.
Yeah I seldom use it.
Also CommandT!!!!! you mention there only being 1 road base. You are in fact wrong. South of Jokkmokk there is a Bas 90 roadbase. Its not marked but it is currently on the map. and it is MILESSSS better than the one in Finland.
Thank you for pointing this out! I will check it out as soon as I can!
I think because the map is in early access that we need to give authors some leeway. Provide constructive feedback and lets hope they will fix things. But im still glad that we have another green map and in Europe scandinavia where west meets east. In lot of ways i was reminiscing of the EF2000 from DID in the 1990s.
who need bases vor viggen :D a long nice road is all i need ♥ thanks 4 the video
👍👍
No more buying until razbam issue resolved. Make mudhen great again
Are they still not updating their modules?
@@CommandT unfortunately no and no announcement has been made yet
From what I've been told, the engine and the API DCS is built on is so old its next to impossible to make a green map look natural. This is all supposed to be fixed this year with the Vulkan update.
But i don't really believe it. To do this kind of compleat upgrade would be massive. So all the new maps and modules would need to basically be building 2 at once. Why spend years developing Afghanistan and Kola just to completely rewrite it with a new engine. Its not like going from Direct x9 to direct x11. Dcs is built on something called EDGE. Its a game engine ed built itself whay back in the 2011.
Yeah, fair point. Might need a new game engine. But the trees need a massive overhaul
It would be OK if the pricing was right, lets say 23 bucks when still in early access, but $55.99 ($69.99) for the map that needs A LOT of work and performance optimisation is just shameless cash grab imho. Hell, the whole MS FS2024 game will probably cost less on the day of release than this unfinished map.
Very true!
Love this map and the fallen angels 1987 server is a grade a
The map looks like teletubby land.
Watching the video the map looks terrible 😞. But in my opinion it is not, it is early access and it is not bad at all. It is not finished, but you can enjoy it and take advantage of a small discount. If they fix some textures and put more populations in the current void, it may be the best DCS map.
The details that are missing are for optimisation purposes... That will be 55$ thank you. Next!
From my "slide photo" time, it looks too much "Velvia"
The same guys that made the South Atlantic map made this one...
Oh that explains a lot!
Excellent video thanks
Thanks! :D
Strange that Kirkenes Airport ENKR is not present..just few km from the russian border. Its civilian but would be a shorter flighttime to targets in Russia
There’s lots of airports missing! Maybe with time they will add all of it
It’s got so much potential, and looks pretty fantastic from high up, but it just doesn’t hold up up close.
And at its premium price, there’s just no way I can justify it. Very disappointing, especially since it’s Orbx’s debut map.
Great in-depth review though!
Now I know why we kept seeing Bodo and none of the Russian bases.
Also I think the runways are way too flat. They need to try to curve these runways more to be closer to reality
Interesting… I found the runways to have very significant elevation changes which do look pretty real.
a wise man once said, i buy a product not its future
Very true!
Heard this map was around 150 gb, is this true?
Yep
South Atlantic 2.0
Please don't encourage map makers to add vehicles etc to airfields etc. Those things are fixed forever. Keep that stuff for mission makers so they can be added as appropriate.
Some degree of basic airfield stuff like random containers, carts, ladders ect ect has to be there. We can’t add those in the ME. I’m not telling them to populate the airfields with active aircraft and vehicles
omg this is so generic looking..if they just did the tarmak right and put generic dcs kamaz trucks it would be a lot better..they need to ask dayz creators how to recreate that soviet airbase vibe :D
Sweden, by far, is the biggest disappointment
Yep :( There is no Sweden lol
To be fair, they said that in EA the focus is on other areas first. But yeah, I wish they had at least one decent swedish road base included...
Price for this half finish map is a joke absoluty joke
Как вычислить русскоговорящего человека даже если он хорошо говорит на английском ? Всё очень просто он будет правильно выговаривать русские названия на русский лад :)
The vegetation ans textured need to be improved a lot
Yeah, or replaced fully
It looks lazy in so many areas. I'm holding off till it improves and is worth my money.
Bodo (that according to this guy (ruclips.net/video/zY-3fy1bEpU/видео.htmlsi=9F6hFpy91oA2BVGi) is pronounced Boo-dAh) is the new Batumi!
Ha! I’ll keep that in mind!
Imho this map looks like a dog poop :/.
👋Hi, I prefer more FPS than a lot of static objects. If you need it - maybe you dont know, you can add everything from DCS what you want in Mission Editor (static bombers, fighters, equipment, people etc). The map have to meet the quality of look and performance and must be a compromise. Don't expect what's in MSFS here, that's not what this map is for (we are in Combat flight sim). Did you fly also in Muliplayer? Performance is really bad and you want to have more objects? No :(. The rest is ok, I agree.
No, sorry. This not exactly the case. I did not say that active aircraft should be there… I said a bunch of low polygon Tu-22s that are in storage. Just like we have old wrecks of L-39s and different MiGs scattered around Syrian bases. Also at least some equipment has to be on the map - we do not have all the little bits and bobs in the mission editor. I agree that a compromise is needed, but some basic airfield details need to be there - just like at Nellis on the NTTR.
6:00 Sorry, this I do not agree with, and I absolutely hate when maps do this, it's an abhorrent idea to add scenery aircraft to airfields in ANY flight sim, every spot where there's an aircraft on the map should just be a SPAWN POINT, and it should be EXCLUSIVELY up to the mission designer on how those spots are utilized. No low poly aircraft models please, especially right next to a taxiway. Cluttering parking spots with scenery objects hinders the base's usability. There should be next to NOTHING on the tarmac, any scenery clutter should be placed outside of it in order not to hinder the usability of the airbase. The purpose of DCS isn't to just make screenshots in, it's a multiplayer game, and it is simulating warfare, it's not _just_ a flight sim like MSFS. Do not even give them these kinds of ideas, I can totally expect them to dump statics in worst possible spots hindering usability of the airbase if they listen. Leave populating the base with aircraft to the players.
“I think this seems really unfinished”
Ya man, it’s called early access… Which I don’t believe you mentioned once in this video.
RUclipsrs are way too quick to dunk on products for likes and clicks.
IMHO, this map is an order of magnitude better than Caucuses, even in its incomplete state.
You’re the only person I’ve heard say it’s better than the caucuses.
I don’t care if it’s early access or not. I mentioned time and time again that I know they will keep working on making it better (implying that it’s not finished). I paid money for it and I’m reviewing it as I see it.
its crazy to me that a free caucasus mod looks better than a 70euro dlc
Yep. Very very true.
yee, but whats the most concering is the time span between these 2 maps, its 15 yrs.
@@MitjaBonca i wonder how much of it is just the early access release or dcs engine limitations
I bought Kola and my first impressions were identical to yours. I basically agree with every single point that was brought up in this overview. I really love the terrain and location but In my opinion this map needs a tremendous amount of work. I'm still perplexed that this passed E.D's quality control process and was even allowed to be released in it's current state, and I say that with respect because they are one of my favorite development studios. I'm fine with early access but the problem is even the areas that are supposed to be high detail still look kind of trash in my opinion. IDK I just hope Orbx can turn this thing into something pretty awesome but overall I'm very disappointed.
Indeed! 🤞🤞🤞
The circle at rovaniemi airport is a truck tire testing facility
Ha, very interesting! Thanks for that!
Very disappointing. Yet another half finished, cartoonish, lego brick map for DCS. No, thanks. It's 2024 and they can't even do proper forests...
Yeah the forests are a big disappointment for sure 😞
This is incredibly disappointing. I was so excited for this map for some late Cold War scenarios. How are the airbases so low detail? Buildings with no paths or roads to them, are you serious? Random unfitting props and static objects?
And £70?? Wild. And they’re saying it’s going to get more expensive as they add more to it? Actually ridiculous.
Maybe once they get all the airbases to the standard of that Finnish airbase shown in the video AND at a sale price, I’d buy it.
I haven’t even bought the map and I still feel insulted.
Very disappointed with the current state of the map.
Too expensive… too few airfields… too many poor textures… too similar to caucuses… too cartoonish cities… too much promised in the future with so little deliver first release.
Low adoption in the community means almost no multiplayer servers.
Overall disappointing. Waiting for Iraq.
Kola is better by far!