Complaints about the Prokhorovka Map

[DetCord12B]

Much was touted as to the terrain for tank operations but what I'm seeing with regards to the map is pretty bad. It's ugly to be honest.

 

Instead of providing higher quality vegetation we're given the exact same low-res vmaps, the same low-qual grass sprites, overall low foliage density, and bad ground coverage textures. To make matters worse the object render distance is the same as it is on the air-side; This is how the engine draws terrain around you the player and it does it quite poorly and at a very low circular render range. Which I would guess is probably 150-200m around your vehicle. You might think your tank is well concealed in a dense grassy/wooded area but you're really not. These vegetation components do not extend to your MP opponent within their FoV. All they'll see is a tank in the open, highlighted, and concealed by nothing.

 

Screenshots : No zoom, default pan at 1440p, within tank mission area.

 

Even at a 1000m the ground textures look like something akin to FS2000.

 

Foliage render distance and low-res grass sprites. Also note the barren terrain on the hillside easily within player view.

 

Extremely low-resolution terrain textures within player view.

 

Now this wouldn't be a big deal if you're flying above it. Down on the ground however, where the action takes place, it all looks quite awful. I don't know if it's an issue of an engine being ill suited to this type of game-play (AFV warfare) aspect or what. I will say that this is well, well below my expectations for what the map was described to be.

 

EDIT - It should also be noted that when in MP lowering all of your terrain settings cause all of the enemy vehicles to really standout.

[Semor76]

Indeed, this looks not so good....to say it best.

 

The game engine shows clearly his age here. Remember, basicly this engine is from 2009 (IIRC) and its long time outdated for 2019 in therms of graphics quality and capacity.

 

 

[Ehret]

I remember how badly the Kuban map looked at places... especially cliffs. Those faults are gone now - the Devs continuously if unpredictably tweak the stuff. I recall that Stalingrad map got a huge change too which made fields patterns much more organic and non-repeatable. Seen the river/lake ice lately how they changed? I'm sure it won't be any different here.

[FTC_Riksen]

That is extremely worrisome indeed Detcord. If you are playing ground battles and the vegetation cannot conceal you then you have a big issue in our hands. Tank warfare is about ambush as much as it is head-on charges. I hope this can be looked at soon ...

[56RAF_Roblex]

Similar to the ongoing problem they had (have?) in CLoD where people would get down amongst the trees to escape an attacker but players had an option to turn off all trees so you might be putting yourself at risk of hitting a hidden object for no reason.

[VBF-12_Pequod]

Maybe that's too harsh, Detcord. Tank Crew it's still a bit unripe, butI'm sure it's gonna be the best coop tank warfare experience ever.

Sherman is finally here! Let's enjoy and remember: the best is yet to come.

[THERION]

4 hours ago, DetCord12B said:

Much was touted as to the terrain for tank operations but what I'm seeing with regards to the map is pretty bad. It's ugly to be honest.

 

Instead of providing higher quality vegetation we're given the exact same low-res vmaps, the same low-qual grass sprites, overall low foliage density, and bad ground coverage textures. To make matters worse the object render distance is the same as it is on the air-side; This is how the engine draws terrain around you the player and it does it quite poorly and at a very low circular render range. Which I would guess is probably 150-200m around your vehicle. You might think your tank is well concealed in a dense grassy/wooded area but you're really not. These vegetation components do not extend to your MP opponent within their FoV. All they'll see is a tank in the open, highlighted, and concealed by nothing.

 

I'm with you, Detcord, and you are right, although I wouldn't describe it as sever as you. The problem with this map is, although originally designed for tank battles, this whole

TC module is integrated in the IL-2 environment and thus this map will / shall be accessible to all others in MP. And here starts the problem:

 

- If you drive a tank on this map (the actually intended purpose of this map finally!), you won't encounter any (sever) performance issues, so this map might have some more

  detail as you described it quite well. With my system, which is by far not the best and newest, I do have a constant 60 FPS on ULTRA and no stutter at all.

 

- Now, if you want to join MP with a plane on this map, well here you will (or at least I did) encounter some sever performance issues, especially when flying low (below 500m).

  In some regions like the Belgorod city, which by the way isn't that beautiful and detailed compared to some other cities (outskirts of Moscow f.ex.), the performance issues is

  dramatic and it's almost unplayable! It's not only a stutter fest, it turns out to be a slide show - and yes, I went from ULTRA to HIGH, but with barely no difference.

 

So, to me the new map is some kind of compromise at the moment - they would better keep this map reserved for TC only. But, of course, this is only my opinion.

 

Cheerio

 

[Danziger]

??‍♂️ I like it. It looks nice. It's fun to drive around and destroy things. If people are expecting some kind of latest FPS type graphics I'm not surprised they're disappointed. This is a flight game first and foremost.

These guys have done a great job with the resources they have imo.

[[_FLAPS_]RogoRogo]

Truly typed OP.

Especially "ULQ 2.0" is something that hopefully gets adressed. When a game offers PvA interaction (which included players playing with each other against other players and the enviroment) the mechanics, controls, assets, behavior (especially behavior) and the rules of the playfield have to be sound - ultrasound (pun intended).
Lower settings and "deforestation" have to be countered by 2d sprites or other available solutions.
Otherwise there is no way to counter "exploitation" by those who favor "the win" over an actual experience (not like there are not enough industry examples for that - especially in products by those twins who almost achieved the demise of Oleg Maddox' "old" 1C).

But this product has a certain potential consumer-base - and the engine, the netcode, the absence of levelstreaming already task much of servers and clients while not being able to truly handle "enough" entities for AA, moving assets, combined arms.... (yet?)
1C/777 basically has to play catchup with a workload of almost a decade with limited ressources (I hope for them that they win over the RoF community into FC.. purely for business reasons).
But they are trying.. and while immediate "sinking" of destructible enviroment blocks may look outdated.. it shows that they keep on making the most of what they have at the time.

So to ring a positive note as well - assorted musings:

• derailing a train by ramming had really satisfactory asset behavior (you can ram the tenders.. the derailing looks plausible.. you cannot ram the locomotive)
• surfaces changed tank behavior even more credible 
• different trail animation and dustups on different surfaces
• windspeed and direction influenced the behavior of the exhaust-cloud.. as did varying engine load (but not the dustcloud animations.. which are still the unified default ones)

 

P.S. Please 1C.. get rid of the FPS-aimpoint decision for TC.. go back to aiming the gun.. not the aimpoint!

Edited March 20, 2019 by =RFBS=RogoRogo
a plea

[THERION]

26 minutes ago, Danziger said:

??‍♂️ I like it. It looks nice. It's fun to drive around and destroy things. If people are expecting some kind of latest FPS type graphics I'm not surprised they're disappointed. This is a flight game first and foremost.

These guys have done a great job with the resources they have imo.

 

Well, I didn't say I don't like it. As far as you move around in a tank and shoot whatever you want, all is fine and dandy. As I stated in my post for a tank battle map it is

good and acceptable.

 

But - did you take a plane and try to fly over it? F. ex. over Belgorod city? Altitude ~100 - 200 m? To me, absolutely unplayable for the moment when sitting in a plane.

Maybe you are blessed with a more powerful system compared to mine and you do not have any performance issues? Well, then congratulations.

[Juri_JS]

The map really needs some additional objects for the more detailed area around the town of Prokhorovka to make it look less sterile. For example:
- scattered trees
- bushes
- fences
- haystacks on fields
- telegraph poles
- sunflower fields

 

We also need some additional objects that can be placed by mission designers, for example different kinds of field fortifications, barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles, etc.

 

On a positive note -  I really like the more detailed terrain model. Now we can finally use hull-down positions.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Juri_JS

[CanadaOne]

I thought some of the terrain colours were a bit... unrefined. But I also found a lot in the map that was very nice.

 

I'm sure it will get a touch up.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

 Agree with @Juri_JS for example raods and it's  sides  look so sterile - without any features, no difference in terrain height near roads, one can say they look like taped to ground with lager adhesive tape. This 16 times denser details don't not show up from above on roads for sure.  Plus roads in horizontal view  are shimmering (zigzagging) towards horizon. I really hope for improvements ,I know it's not easy but it could be better to sell better IMHO. Personal I need to be pleased almost the same by simulation and visualisation , call it  immersion to have fun and I  don't like to put blind eye to one or another. This new TC map  overall is great step towards something new and better , I have faith for the team. For example if new FC map would have only 2d texture  as in 2009 (no 3d trenches , no 3d shells holes) of the mud I will be disappointed.

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by 307_Tomcat

[Veteran66]

a good option is when the Missions Designer can put objects like Bushes, Fields and Trees in the Region he need for Panzer combat, so the most part of the card is relieved.

 

So please Devs give us plants Objects (in old IL2 Sturmovik we hed some Trees

[69th_chuter]

To be fair, I recall only three improvements advertised for the tank map. 

 

1)  Some improved modeling and texturing of buildings in the tank battle area.

2)  Destructible buildings.

3)  Higher resolution terrain modeling (16x) across map.   No longer does one feel like they're driving across terrain made of big flat sheets of plywood. 

 

The rest of the models and textures are the same ... so the same old issues with those as has been noted.  I really hope a fix is found for the lack of distant vegetation, there used to be an option to turn all grass off and that at least leveled the gameplay.  There's nothing like being hull down and not being able to target an enemy without crawling out enough to see over the grass and yet the enemy sees you exposed without the grass around you in his sight.  Your concealment working against you.

[Danziger]

11 hours ago, chuter said:

To be fair, I recall only three improvements advertised for the tank map. 

 

1)  Some improved modeling and texturing of buildings in the tank battle area.

2)  Destructible buildings.

3)  Higher resolution terrain modeling (16x) across map.   No longer does one feel like they're driving across terrain made of big flat sheets of plywood. 

 

The rest of the models and textures are the same ... so the same old issues with those as has been noted.  I really hope a fix is found for the lack of distant vegetation, there used to be an option to turn all grass off and that at least leveled the gameplay.  There's nothing like being hull down and not being able to target an enemy without crawling out enough to see over the grass and yet the enemy sees you exposed without the grass around you in his sight.  Your concealment working against you.

Yes I was wondering exactly what was thought to be "touted" that hasn't been delivered. There are higher resolution textures for buildings. There are destructible buildings. There is higher resolution topography. Those things were promised and delivered. There was never any touting of improved vegetation, terrain textures, or rendering distances.

[Geleitzug]

2 hours ago, Danziger said:

Yes I was wondering exactly what was thought to be "touted" that hasn't been delivered. There are higher resolution textures for buildings. There are destructible buildings. There is higher resolution topography. Those things were promised and delivered. There was never any touting of improved vegetation, terrain textures, or rendering distances.

 

No - only partially at the moment since none of the larger buildings like houses made of stone etc. can be destroyed, neither by shooting nor by driving...

[PL_Andrev]

22 hours ago, Juri_JS said:

The map really needs some additional objects for the more detailed area around the town of Prokhorovka to make it look less sterile. For example:
- scattered trees
- bushes
- fences
- haystacks on fields
- telegraph poles
- sunflower fields

 

Not sure you're right...

 

Edited March 21, 2019 by PL_Andrev

[Geleitzug]

Exactly - when looking for picures of the Battle of Prokhorovka one can see that there were almost no trees or bushes, mostly grassland or grain fields... good for moving but bad for hiding

[unreasonable]

I agree: there would be some lines of trees and bushes and scrub in the gullies where the watercourses would be (dry in mid-summer?). In this kind of country you use ground rather than cover to create ambushes: ideally reverse slopes where you are hidden from view until the enemy appear nicely over a crest at close to your optimum range.

 

Someone posted an interview about Ribbentrop (the son) at the battle where he did something like that. 

 

From an overall realism view I think the map is pretty good based on the pictures I have seen: but combining air and ground playable units is presumably going to make it non-optimal for both.  I would have preferred the TC maps to be designed for ground units only, as I will only be using it for ground SP once some campaigns arrive. 

[Chief_Mouser]

One thing that I definitely like about the Prokhorovka map is that, in the main, the ROADS AREN'T LINED WITH TREES! Brilliant, and about time.

I think, though, that this might be why some players are seeing the roads as 'taped-on', but a small improvement in graphics detail drawing could fix this perhaps. Now that roads can be devoid of trees how about removing almost all roadside foliage from Stalingrad, Moscow and Kuban? Might be ok to leave them on for Bodenplatte though . No Il-2 46 steppe-type map for that!

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

42 minutes ago, 216th_Cat said:

One thing that I definitely like about the Prokhorovka map is that, in the main, the ROADS AREN'T LINED WITH TREES! Brilliant, and about time.

I think, though, that this might be why some players are seeing the roads as 'taped-on', but a small improvement in graphics detail drawing could fix this perhaps. Now that roads can be devoid of trees how about removing almost all roadside foliage from Stalingrad, Moscow and Kuban? Might be ok to leave them on for Bodenplatte though . No Il-2 46 steppe-type map for that!

I also don't like the trees on all roads as seen almost in all of them in Stalingrad map. But roads in Prokhorovka  look to sterile ( no roadside ditches or roadsides),please compare roads on  other maps. Plus with sharpen option they do aliasing as hell.

Edited March 21, 2019 by 307_Tomcat

[THERION]

I've got a question: Does anybody notice the blinking of the white rocks on the Prokhorovka map too? Is there anything I can change

in my graphic options? I've got these at the moment:

 

 

My system specs are shown in my signature (I know - not the greatest!). Thanks for the input.

 

Cheers

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

1 minute ago, -IRRE-Therion said:

I've got a question: Does anybody notice the blinking of the white rocks on the Prokhorovka map too? Is there anything I can change

in my graphic options? I've got these at the moment:

 

 

My system specs are shown in my signature (I know - not the greatest!). Thanks for the input.

 

Cheers

Try turn off sharpen, if not then try high present.

[Danziger]

No this is just a part of the map for now. It happens no matter what settings I use.

[Juri_JS]

Regarding roads -

1 hour ago, 307_Tomcat said:

But roads in Prokhorovka  look to sterile ( no roadside ditches or roadsides),please compare roads on  other maps.

True. The map uses road textures that don't blend very well with the surrounding terrain. There's certainly some room for improvement. For comparison:

 

Prokhorovka:

 

Kuban

 

Moscow

 

Also a few bushes, single trees, signposts and telegraph poles along the roads would make a huge difference.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2019 by Juri_JS

[Chief_Mouser]

Yes they (white rocks) pop in and out for me as well. If they fix it perhaps they can tone down the brightness too - chalk that's been exposed to the elements for years really isn't that white.

Also, agree with Juri re drawing of roads on Prokhorovka - not organic enough. Don't agree with adding roadside clutter where there was none though.

Edited March 21, 2019 by 216th_Cat

[THERION]

47 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

Try turn off sharpen, if not then try high present.

 

Thanks for your suggestion - I tried both, but with no success. I also tried to get down to preset BALANCED. Still blinking of the white stone,

depending on the angle of view - and btw. still a stutter fest over "large" cities when flying over them at low altitude. Above 750 m stuttering

almost gone.

 

In tanks on the high resolution area with settings as displayed above, no stuttering so far. So for me, definitively a tanks ONLY map.

[Chief_Mouser]

4 minutes ago, -IRRE-Therion said:

 

Thanks for your suggestion - I tried both, but with no success. I also tried to get down to preset BALANCED. Still blinking of the white stone,

depending on the angle of view - and btw. still a stutter fest over "large" cities when flying over them at low altitude. Above 750 m stuttering

almost gone.

 

In tanks on the high resolution area with settings as displayed above, no stuttering so far. So for me, definitively a tanks ONLY map.

 

I don't have the stutter/low fps some problems that others have. Fps remains at or near monitor max of 60, but there is an occasional stutter drop to the 40s or so around Belgorod - and not necessarily when I'm looking directly at it either. Which is odd and would seem to indicate that the problem is something other than the buildings.

Edited March 21, 2019 by 216th_Cat

[THERION]

On 3/21/2019 at 4:48 PM, 216th_Cat said:

 

I don't have the stutter/low fps some problems that others have. Fps remains at or near monitor max of 60, but there is an occasional stutter drop to the 40s or so around Belgorod - and not necessarily when I'm looking directly at it either. Which is odd and would seem to indicate that the problem is something other than the buildings.

 

Exactly the same I observe - I almost have a steady 60 fps but stuttering over Belgorod and other cities like Prokhorovka (is more of a village to me). It must have something

to do with the "new" buildings, I can't imagine something else, because on other maps we have far more dense citiies with more different types of buildings - f.ex. outskirts

of Moscow - and there I have absolutely no stutter with my actual settings.

Edited April 11, 2019 by -IRRE-Therion

[Mac_Messer]

On 3/20/2019 at 10:03 PM, chuter said:

To be fair, I recall only three improvements advertised for the tank map. 

 

1)  Some improved modeling and texturing of buildings in the tank battle area.

2)  Destructible buildings.

3)  Higher resolution terrain modeling (16x) across map.   No longer does one feel like they're driving across terrain made of big flat sheets of plywood. 

 

The rest of the models and textures are the same ... so the same old issues with those as has been noted.  I really hope a fix is found for the lack of distant vegetation, there used to be an option to turn all grass off and that at least leveled the gameplay.  There's nothing like being hull down and not being able to target an enemy without crawling out enough to see over the grass and yet the enemy sees you exposed without the grass around you in his sight.  Your concealment working against you.

It can be a problem when you take into account weapons that require concealment such as PaKs and StuGs. They were historically very deadly too, so I guess the game should make it possible for tanks and anti tank stations to hide.  Other than that I guess I agree, provided that tanks themselves are modeled thouroughly in strict context of coordinating with airplanes.

 

Since the latest update I`ve checked all the tanks in active combat for the very first time. It was a very different experience from what I have had driving my 109, and pretty much got spooked every single time something fired at me. It`s downright frightening and it changed my view of the whole thing while observing it from 2000m in 1946 series.

 

We are so close, so close to the reality of multiplayer air to air vs air to ground combat! Tank Crew answers to what I have been saying about online wars since 2004 and that makes me respect devs` ambition into making eastern front a multi dimensional experience.

[SCG_judgedeath3]

I like the design and look, feels natural to me, large open terrain which russia is well known for.
The only drawback after trying it for the first time is its rare to see enemy tanks, each time I spawn and advance towards enemy flag/base one get bombed while on the way, gave up after 6 attempts. Okay as some say: can drive to the forest and trees and hide, but hey, we wont win the battle by hiding, we need to advance and take the base! And to get there one need to drive in the open as there is no trees or forests covering the whole way to those flags/bases.

Well if I play later when very few airplane players are awake then maybe I can get to see tank action but until then one will be bombed way before one ever see a tank.

[=GM=GJL2]

17 hours ago, -IRRE-Therion said:

 

Exactly the same I observe - I almost have a steady 60 fps but stuttering over Belgorod and other cities like Prokhorovka (is more of a village to me). It most have something

to do with the "new" buildings, I can't imagine something else, because on other maps we have far more dense citiies with more different types of buildings - f.ex. outskirts

of Moscow - and there I have absolutely no stutter with my actual settings.

I got the same experience as yours, low altitude over Belgorod city is a terrible performance killer, could eat your fps from 60 to 0... and having many areas with flickering trees and terrian，this map really needs further optimization and debugging.

[Retnek]

One night of multiplayer-flying and tanking on the new map. All in all it's ok, the landscape is smoother and offers a lot more options for tank battles. On my 4.4Ghz-I5 with a 1060-6GB-Nvidia FPS for that map are more or less 50% lower than stand-alone and at least 25% less than multiplayer - compared with the older maps. It's down to 60 FPS sometimes, but still ok to fly.

 

For a to-do-table:
 

- Forest-squares are badly flickering, really on/off for large areas, not just flickering

- Roads look generated like it was done in IL2-46

- That white stuff - rocks or snow?

Edited March 22, 2019 by Retnek

[RIVALDO]

39 minutes ago, Retnek said:

 

- That white stuff - rocks or snow?

Chalk mountains

[Chief_Mouser]

1 hour ago, Retnek said:

 

- That white stuff - rocks or snow?

 

Yes, as Rivaldo says, Cretaceous era Chalk, a type of soft limestone. That from around Belgorod is apparently edible - https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLS_enGB734GB734&q=edible+belgorod+chalk - not something that I ever tried with the White Cliffs around Dover!

Cheers.

[Panzerlang]

The presence of planes in the TC module means I'll not be buying it. I've already read enough of the griefing that goes on, never mind that however realistic it might be it can only detract from what should be a tank-v-tank only game. I doubt many will stick at MP after having their umpteenth tank bombed from under them by planes.

[BBarnes005]

20 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

The presence of planes in the TC module means I'll not be buying it. I've already read enough of the griefing that goes on, never mind that however realistic it might be it can only detract from what should be a tank-v-tank only game. I doubt many will stick at MP after having their umpteenth tank bombed from under them by planes.

There was always going to be planes in TC, didn't you read the product description, it's a module of IL-2 which is a flight simulator so of course there are going to be planes otherwise they wouldn't be adding anti-air vehicles. What needs happen is that there needs to be some kind of limit to how many planes that can be active in a match with tanks in it so tanks can have a chance to do their objectives.  

 

Although that's not saying I wouldn't mind a tank-only server for those who just want to play with tanks. 

Edited March 22, 2019 by BBarnes005

[unreasonable]

15 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

The presence of planes in the TC module means I'll not be buying it. I've already read enough of the griefing that goes on, never mind that however realistic it might be it can only detract from what should be a tank-v-tank only game. I doubt many will stick at MP after having their umpteenth tank bombed from under them by planes.

 

Whether there are planes in TC MP is entirely a matter for the server operators/mission designers.  I would not be surprised in the least if there are a few servers for TC that will not allow planes for exactly the reasons you describe.  Jason has recently described his team's expertise as vehicle simulation:  this is no longer a fight sim with tanks added on as an after thought.

 

So perhaps once the product has matured a bit and some servers are operating you will reconsider. The best simulation of ground combat will always be SP anyway, for the simple reason that people in MP are not shot for disobeying orders, unfortunately.

[busdriver]

10 hours ago, unreasonable said:

The best simulation of ground combat will always be SP anyway, for the simple reason that people in MP are not shot for disobeying orders, unfortunately.