Normandy map hype discussion

[Jade_Monkey]

There are many things to be excited about the Battle of Normandy module, including the planes, new features (V1 launchers and rockets), more detailed land and naval units (radars, landing boats, destroyers), and of course the map itself. To me the star of the show is the map itself.

 

Map

Here is the PROPOSED version 2 (which was expanded from the initial proposal by going further south and losing some area to the East, such as Amiens and Dunkirk). The limits are not final and there were some hints that it might change a little in the final version.

 

There will be two variants, one pre-invasion and another one post-invasion, with the most obvious differences being the advanced landing grounds that were created immediately after D-Day.

I am not aware of whether different seasons for each map are planned but I would expect them to be included.

 

Airfields

There will be plenty of interesting airfields, especially in England, but also for the Germans such as Evreux and Abbeville.

I do hope that the team kept a close eye on the competition and observed how detailed some of the airfields can be, especially when it comes to ground textures and buildings.

 

Urban areas

One of my biggest expectations is the more detailed urban areas. The Rheinland map had a very clear delineation between country and city with little transition areas. I would love to see more intermediate zones as well as smaller hamlets or farms spread out throughout the country.

Although the full extent of my expectations would be hard to meet due to the large amount of resources required, I have been able to glean some small details from screenshots in DD that seem very promising.

Additionally, the work by the map team in the Velikie Luki Summer map was absolutely outstanding and I hope that there were lots of learnings that will carry over to the Normandy map.

 

I love the small little details such as the winding road leading to a fort:

 

Or the thinly populated outskirts in the left and upper-center of this shot:

 

There are also shots for the Flying Circus Vol 2 map in DD 289 that show a lot of attention to detail in the maps, including objects such as electric poles. I don’t expect that to be everywhere in Normandy but it would be a nice surprise.

 

What are you guys most excited about the map’s release?

Edited October 18, 2021 by Jade_Monkey

[sevenless]

1 hour ago, Jade_Monkey said:

What are you guys most excited about the map’s release?

 

You already mentioned a lot, however I still have 5 points that imho should be handled on the BoN map better than on the BoBP map and would largely increase the "feel" of the map(s).

 

1.) Small villages and farms sprinkled in between the larger towns to better represent european rural areas. Both BoBP and BoN.

2.) Double track railroads. The 40s were the hight time of railroads in europe. In BoBP we only have single tracks. Why?

3.) Marshalling yards, lots of them.

4.) Coniferous trees are sorely missing in BoBP. The Moscow map has them, why not the BoBP and BoN map?

5.) Realistic shore lines and river/canal embankments. Both BoBP and BoN

 

Looking forward to more details about the BoN map.

Edited October 18, 2021 by sevenless

[rowdyb00t]

   Hoping that we have the hedgerows, towns and farms. As for the shorelines and canals, I hope there is some depth to these. A lot of the rivers are level with the ground in previous maps. 
   I’m definitely excited for Normandy, I’m sure that it will be better than expected. Looking forward to the scripted campaigns that will be made by the talented community . I wonder if there will be craters all over different parts of the map. Especially Point du Hoc. 

[40plus]

Short grass where the grass should be short.

[percydanvers]

I'm excited for how versatile this setting is. Given many of the planes we have, scenario and campaign creators could potentially recreate moments ranging from 1942-1944 with a reasonable degree of historical accuracy. That will of course depend on seasons. I hope the "pre invasion" part of the career will extend back a good way as well. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

1 hour ago, 40plus said:

Short grass where the grass should be short.

 

One can only hope.

[NoelGallagher]

it looks like just another eastern front map to me so as bodenplatte map

il-2 needs to evolve 

it's 2021

that map looks decent for 2013 flight sim

 

although Velikie Luki Summer map was really good in terms of layout(textures and lighting still looks toooo much outdated even if we give the execuse of that it is flight sim)

it looks alive 

unlike other maps which looks copy and paste squares

although i appreciate their effort to keep the legendary title alive 

i can not help but to compare it to other title

i just tried free trial on channel map and some of them looks even better than UE4 engine based ww2 fps game

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[LukeFF]

55 minutes ago, percydanvers said:

I'm excited for how versatile this setting is. Given many of the planes we have, scenario and campaign creators could potentially recreate moments ranging from 1942-1944 with a reasonable degree of historical accuracy. That will of course depend on seasons. I hope the "pre invasion" part of the career will extend back a good way as well. 

 

The career is planned to start in April 1944. 

 

Also note as well that quite a few of these airfields will not look like how they did pre-1944. But yes, even with that concession, it should be possible to create pre-1944 missions. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by LukeFF

[Juri_JS]

Unfortunately I have to agree with NoelGallagher. I know the Normandy screenshots are still wip, but it looks like the devs are repeating some of the mistakes of the Rhineland map. For example for the road and railwaytrack textures it's too obvious that they are just overlayed over the terrain textures. The Velikie Luki map does this much better and uses additional textures to simulate the grass verge along the roads, which gives the map a much more natural look.

[percydanvers]

57 minutes ago, NoelGallagher said:

it looks like just another eastern front map to me so as bodenplatte map

il-2 needs to evolve 

it's 2021

that map looks decent for 2013 flight sim

 

although Velikie Luki Summer map was really good in terms of layout(textures and lighting still looks toooo much outdated even if we give the execuse of that it is flight sim)

it looks alive 

unlike other maps which looks copy and paste squares

although i appreciate their effort to keep the legendary title alive 

i can not help but to compare it to other title

i just tried free trial on channel map and some of them looks even better than UE4 engine based ww2 fps game

 

 

 

Hard to enjoy the pretty scenery when half the features in my plane are bugged.

[Missionbug]

For me the map area itself is what folks will be drawn to, must be one of the most fought over areas we have so far because it covers the entire war.

 

To be honest I doubt visually it will be much better than what we already have with Bodenplatte due to the size of area, this will be a campaign makers mecca

as far as the available battles that can be covered even though in most instances it will be fought with later war aircraft.

 

And for me there is a little bit of home, maybe the southern part of our little island, nonetheless, skipping across the Channel should be interesting.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[357th_KW]

Hopefully we get more than just spring/summer.  Having all four seasons available on Rhineland is really nice for people making SP or MP missions.  I think a lot of folks have high hopes of creating 1941-43 Channel Front missions with this map, so more variety would be awesome.

[Oyster_KAI]

If the BON and Rhineland maps can match the level of Velikie Luki, I will be confident in everything.
And trees, grass and water surface all need to be updated.
Some modders have actually done some great work.

I want to say goodbye to the "Rotating trees".

[Stonehouse]

If the map is going to cover more than just the invasion period the airfields will have to be able to morph according to time of scenario. Most of the airfields near the channel were vigorously closed by the Germans (slit trenches across runways, removal of runways type thing or even more drastic) so they could not be captured and used by the Allies plus quite a few had been bombed to an extent they weren't usable by June 44. Going to need to represent real LGs too for the post invasion period and they were nothing like permanent airfields with hangars and dispersals etc. 

[Pict]

1 hour ago, Oyster_KAI said:

I want to say goodbye to the "Rotating trees".

 

...and say hello to tunbling frame rates?

 

Everything we have on the screen is a trade off.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

5 minutes ago, Pict said:

 

...and say hello to tunbling frame rates?

 

Everything we have on the screen is a trade off.

I have planty frames to drop and I don't have uber PC , ultra,  3440x1440 and most times 120fps plus. 

[Pict]

11 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

I have planty frames to drop and I don't have uber PC , ultra,  3440x1440 and most times 120fps plus. 

 

That's nice for you. But it's not just made for people who have plenty of frames to drop.

 

Personally if I had 120 fps plus, I would sooner have a larger air battle than worry about something like spinning trees. But I do well to get 60 fps, some people only get 30 fps.

 

 

Not everyone has a fast rig and IL2 is made to cater for that. Like I said there is always a trade off. If they up the grafics to exclude people running 30 fps at the moment, they loose a big chunck of their market and player base, which in turn affect development and will then be felt by people with faster rigs.

 

It's a hard thing to get right and I personally feel that they are doing a great job.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

I don't like how small cities especially on Stalingrad map are represented.  From above and some distance they look oddly,  you can see mostly the green trees not the urban  futures.  They almost look like separated park islands. Beside VL map I never enjoyed looking or admiring the ground futures of the earth below.  Sad truth in 2021 .

4 minutes ago, Pict said:

 

That's nice for you. But it's not just made for people who have plenty of frames to drop.

 

Personally if I had 120 fps plus, I would sooner have a larger air battle than worry about something like spinning trees. But I do well to get 60 fps, some people only get 30 fps.

 

 

Not everyone has a fast rig and IL2 is made to cater for that. Like I said there is always a trade off. If they up the grafics to exclude people running 30 fps at the moment, they loose a big chunck of their market and player base, which in turn affect development and will then be felt by people with faster rigs.

 

It's a hard thing to get right and I personally feel that they are doing a great job.

The steam average PC at 60 fps dropping to 45 , this game could look much better and I don't mind personally the spinning trees.  Using better textures,  adding unique futures,  not the repeating  patterns and some artistic passion is enough to make maps look more natural and nice without subtracting frames. 

[Pict]

43 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

The steam average PC at 60 fps dropping to 45

 

What does this mean?

 

Apart from that I'm sure you right and I'm also sure the developer is putting lots of time and effort into getting more immersion for less hardware resources, trhe new clouds look to a case in point.

 

The spinning trees are an example of such inovation, where a 2d object shaded the right way and set to revolve to face the player, gives the illusion of 3d. To make all trees 3d would have a huge impact on frame rate. My point was this and would anyone really want to make that trade off? I wouldn't.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

@Pict

I meant that average PC can handle game as it's now and will because most assets don't change it's impact on performance only how they look , pixels numbers would be the same , more static objects would also have not that big impact to notice,  current GPUs can draw much more  triangles without sweat. What hogs current missions is the AI and how mission logic works under hood,  not the graphics and objects. 

 

BTW spinning trees are not the innovations,  they are like that since 2009.  I don't mind using 2d to make things run smoothly  if they do not degrade overall look of the detailed 3d objects. I don't complain about trees and it's tech they are fine. 

 

My complaints are artistic kind , lack of detail or quality do to the resources , time spent  or human resources maybe. 

 

More detailed and good looking map would have minimal impact to performance  without AI , fly on empty map , you can have almost 200fps , run scripted missions on that map you can drop fps to 80 or less. Conclusion ,you can have much more detailed maps and same drops as with current ones. 

[Asgar]

15 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

it looks like just another eastern front map to me so as bodenplatte map

So you’ve never been to Europe or Russia I take it?

[Pict]

21 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

I meant that average PC can handle game as it's now and will because

 

Yes, but it's not about "the average PC"...whatever that is, according to steam or whoever.

 

It's about the minimum specs required to run the game as provided by the developer. When they increase detail, they are fairly well tied to having a product that still functions with the minimum specs they sold it on.

 

I must add to that, that I am amazed at what a good job they have done over the years of continualy improving the product and at the same time actualy getting it to run better on lower spec machines that it did originaly.

 

Sure some people don't think anything of running at 60 or 100 or more fps, but it is a very big deal of many. And the developer while fully aware of that, takes it into account.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Pict

[kendo]

15 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

it looks like just another eastern front map to me so as bodenplatte map

il-2 needs to evolve 

it's 2021

that map looks decent for 2013 flight sim

 

although Velikie Luki Summer map was really good in terms of layout(textures and lighting still looks toooo much outdated even if we give the execuse of that it is flight sim)

it looks alive 

unlike other maps which looks copy and paste squares

although i appreciate their effort to keep the legendary title alive 

i can not help but to compare it to other title

i just tried free trial on channel map and some of them looks even better than UE4 engine based ww2 fps game

 

 

There is always a trade-off though. I would also like more detail, etc, etc on the maps, but my (admittedly ageing and due for replacement soon) PC can not even run the DCS Channel map with just one aircraft at reasonable frames. And totally forget about the recent Marianas map too.

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by kendo

[[F.Circus]FrangibleCover]

Because I am a gigantic nerd I'm actually really excited about the very northern edge of the map proposal including the main British test flying base at Farnborough. Finally, when I grab a new aircraft and take it for a spin, I can do so from a historically appropriate location!

[longjap]

I'm excited, but not for the map details. Apart from the lack of terrain features which makes a world less copy paste and more believable, one element bugs me the most and it's the light at the horizon. It's too dark:

 

 

It should be much brighter IMO:

 

If they can get the lighting closer to real life, this will make up for the lack of detail in the maps. The new clouds are a step in the right direction, and I hope it comes with a more believable horizon.

 

To get these huge maps right with enough detail to not be feeling empty with such a small team is nearly impossible so I don't have high hopes Normandy will be signifantly ahead of Bodenplatte in that regard. The only way I see it doable is by making use of procedural generation in between the custom made airfields.

 

[NoelGallagher]

7 hours ago, Asgar said:

So you’ve never been to Europe or Russia I take it?

i wonder how many of people here actually fly over the europe and russia 

did you?

and you don't have to have a experience to fly over the country to know how it looks 

this is 2021 you have satellite image....

you guys are too old.....

 

and regarding performance i have r3600 gtx1650 super with 12gb ram

and i havn't notice not a lot of frame difference between il-2 and DCS(channel map) in medium setting 

approximately 15fps drop in DCS 

and BON is planned to be released in 2022

and the computer hardware evolve faster than we think

at the time of it's release most of the poeples computer also got upgraded

oh my man come fuckin on

let's be honest over here can we?

it's fuckin 2022 and it has the looks of something i've seen in 2007 game

it'll only sell to il-2 hardcore fans 

i know il-2 has it's onw advantage over DCS 

such as multiplayer function ,single player playability, careear mode 

but c'mon let's admit that graphic(ground textures,lighting) needs to be updated 

Edited October 19, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

If the map is going to cover more than just the invasion period the airfields will have to be able to morph according to time of scenario. Most of the airfields near the channel were vigorously closed by the Germans (slit trenches across runways, removal of runways type thing or even more drastic) so they could not be captured and used by the Allies plus quite a few had been bombed to an extent they weren't usable by June 44. Going to need to represent real LGs too for the post invasion period and they were nothing like permanent airfields with hangars and dispersals etc. 

 

Yes, when I was doing the research for this map, I tried to stay away from airfields which had long been abandoned by the Germans by the spring of 1944. Otherwise, one could end up with a HUGE number of forward airfields constructed by the Germans as they advanced across France in 1940. As such, most of the German airfields you'll probably end up seeing are the more permanent ones like Saint-Andre, Abbeville, Villacoublay, etc.

Edited October 19, 2021 by LukeFF

[BlitzPig_EL]

6 minutes ago, NoelGallagher said:

i wonder how many of people here actually fly over the europe and russia 

did you?

and you don't have to have a experience to fly over the country to know how it looks 

this is 2021 you have satellite image....

you guys are too old.....

 

You realize that satellite images will be of the world as it is now, not the world in the early/mid 1940s?

[NoelGallagher]

3 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

 

You realize that satellite images will be of the world as it is now, not the world in the early/mid 1940s?

lol

so you think the trees and grass has less texture quality back in 1940 in reality?

wow we are really living in simulation aren't we? 

NASA secretly updated the earth grass,tree textures when?

Edited October 19, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[sevenless]

22 hours ago, Juri_JS said:

Unfortunately I have to agree with NoelGallagher. I know the Normandy screenshots are still wip, but it looks like the devs are repeating some of the mistakes of the Rhineland map. For example for the road and railwaytrack textures it's too obvious that they are just overlayed over the terrain textures. The Velikie Luki map does this much better and uses additional textures to simulate the grass verge along the roads, which gives the map a much more natural look.

 

Yep that is true. There are a lot of unnecessary left outs in the BOBP map. Comparing that to Velikie Luki makes it even more glaring. As for BoN I think the Channel map of DCS is the quasi standard for NWE maps. Let´s see what they can come up with for the BoN map.

[BlitzPig_EL]

15 minutes ago, NoelGallagher said:

lol

so you think the trees and grass has less texture quality back in 1940 in reality?

wow we are really living in simulation aren't we? 

NASA secretly updated the earth grass,tree textures when?

 

You really are an idiot.

Edited October 19, 2021 by BlitzPig_EL

[PatrickAWlson]

Going to do something, hopefully back to1941.  Do not and never have cared about perfect historical accuracy.  I have what I have and will do my best with it to give a feel for rodeos, early US raids, etc .  If every plane is not represented, every unit is not quite right, this plane is used because I don't have that one, this airfield is used because I don't have that one, so be it.  You're still going to be able to fly a Spitfire Mk V across the channel and meet FW190 A3son the other side.

 

[6./ZG26_Custard]

I just want to bomb my fish and chip shop in a 410.

[Jeronimo83]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Going to do something, hopefully back to1941.  Do not and never have cared about perfect historical accuracy.  I have what I have and will do my best with it to give a feel for rodeos, early US raids, etc .  If every plane is not represented, every unit is not quite right, this plane is used because I don't have that one, this airfield is used because I don't have that one, so be it.  You're still going to be able to fly a Spitfire Mk V across the channel and meet FW190 A3son the other side.

 

Hear hear!

[Megalax]

Mosquito to fly but no Amiens to raid? This sim is completely unflyable now.

[Guest deleted@134347]

I would love for the devs to make the cities a bit more colorful. Currently, in VR, from the distance they look like cold uninviting gray-white "blobs". Up close they don't look any better, just a  black&white town with purple hue.

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, Megalax said:

Mosquito to fly but no Amiens to raid? This sim is completely unflyable now.

 

Oh FFS.

How many minutes of the entire war did the Amiens raid account for?

 

I’m tired of hearing about it. Much more important to have the Falaise Gap.

[Megalax]

At least

 

45 minutes

[Gambit21]

Just now, Megalax said:

At least

 

45 minutes

 

I get the fame/significance behind it etc.

 

In the end though it’s a single sortie against a building. There’s much more to do with the Mossie on this map.

[Mtnbiker1998]

On 10/18/2021 at 2:29 PM, percydanvers said:

 

Hard to enjoy the pretty scenery when half the features in my plane are bugged.

and good luck enjoying that scenery in VR.. it'll look far worse than IL-2 will on the same hardware. Pretty graphics mean nothing when your game is a dumpsterfire of optimization (among many other things.) IL-2 excells here.