Addition of 'Pyrenees' map to [Enduring Confrontation] Air Simulator Battles

[CorporalApollo]

I would like to propose the addition of the ‘Pyrenees’ map into the [Enduring Confrontation] Air Simulator battles game mode.

About Pyrenees

Pyrenees for EC

‘Pyrenees’ is a mountainous area located in the Principality of Andorra, it consists of immense green valleys, mountain lakes and castles. It’s already in the game and present in other game modes such as ‘Air Realistic Battles’ in the form of [Operations], but it’s currently not available in the [Enduring Confrontation] format of the Air Simulator Battles game-mode. Given its dynamic scenery and strategic layout, I believe Pyrenees has the highest potential of becoming the best [Enduring Confrontation] map for Air Sim.

Pyrenees size is in line with our other large maps in EC at around 128x128km.

I can highly suggest anyone reading this to hop into a custom game on [Operation] Pyrenees and check out what the map has to offer.

8 Aerial Photos of Pyrenees

Overlooking center of the map from the West

Overlooking Southern Mountainrange

Western Valleys

Northern Mountain Villages And Valleys

Flying through Valleys

Map Layout

Topography & Map Design

The Pyrenees map consists of two massive mountain ranges spanning parallel across the entire map. These mountain ranges offer protection to the airfields of both teams, as well as offering safer passage to all the close-air-support enjoyers through the immense and deep valleys running through the mountains and into the center of the map where ground targets reside.
This terrain cover is absolutely essential in the current top-tier environment whereas on flatter maps, the newer jets are usually able to detect and track the slower ground attackers right off the runway.

Air superiority fighters also benefit from terrain masking, with each side protected by a large mountain range near their spawn areas. This allows players to effectively defend their area of the map, and opens up opportunities to flank into favourable positions without feeling ‘pinned down’ immediately after takeoff, unlike on flatter maps where enemies can detect you across the map as soon as you take off.

In the illustration above, I’ve depicted my vision of how the Pyrenees map could be adapted to the [Enduring Confrontation] format.

• Both the northern and southern regions offer several potential locations for airfields.
• A network of roads runs through the valleys, spanning the entire map and intersecting with key ground battle areas near the center.
• There is also several potential base locations scattered around the mountains for the bomber enjoyers.

Opportunities for new objectives

Since [EC] Rocky Canyon’s addition 2 years ago, we’ve seen lots of new additions to the game, this includes new assets, aircraft and ground vehicles that could make for some refreshening new objectives. A few examples:

• A ground radar station with the P-37 Radar with KAMAZ-4310 trucks that were recently experimented on in RB as targets. This would give us an incentive to bring our larger guided weaponry such as the PGM2000’s to wipe out an objective of this caliber. Currently, anything larger than a Maverick is complete overkill for most targets and leaves a gap in utility for our bunker-busters.
  
  
• Refreshed bomber groups including aircraft such as SU-24 for red team and F-111 for blue team
  
• Rearming bases: RB has received airfields they can rearm at without protection, this could translate into Enduring Confrontations through road-bases similar to the ones used by Sweden.
  

Pyrenees Mountain & Valley Heat Map

A Much Needed Facelift For EC

Evolving Gameplay

Air Simulator [Enduring Confrontation] hasn’t had a new map in two years, with the last being ‘Rocky Canyon’ in 2022. Since then, gameplay has evolved, especially at top-tier, with newer jets featuring advanced avionics and weaponry, increasing radar detection and engagement ranges. This has led to greater dependancy of terrain cover for all aircraft, especially when it comes to Strike Aircraft like the Su-25 and A-10C .

Because of this, most of the existing [Enduring Confrontation] maps are rarely ever used in top-tier. Instead, players tend to rotate the same 1-2 maps that are offering somewhat decent cover, the best example of this being Afghanistan.

Despite offering lots of terrain cover, Afghanistan isn’t perfect, the mountainous areas are limited to the Northern region and the sides of the map. It’s also unbalanced in that Blue team spawns with much greater terrain shielding and at an elevated altitude. Pyrenees solves all of these concerns and more.

Summary

Bulletpoints

• Strategic Terrain: The map’s large mountain ranges provide crucial natural cover for airfields and flanking opportunities, which is lacking in current flatter maps.

• Balanced Map Design: Offers fair and strategic positioning for both teams ensuring balanced gameplay. Also addressing problems with existing maps where players are too easily detected after takeoff, providing safer passage and tactical options.

• Fills the EC Map Gap : Enduring Confrontation hasn’t had a new map in two years, and Pyrenees would offer much-needed variety.

• Opportunities for new assets : Many new assets have been added to the game since [EC] Rocky Canyon’s addition 2 years ago, Pyrenees could be a great opportunity to explore new and fresh objectives that would fit our current weaponry and capabilities better. An example being a ground radar station utilising the P-37 Radar.

Thank you @Hi_Im_GHerbo and @pouletbidule for assisting with capturing photos for the post

[Would you like to see this in-game?]

• Yes
• No

[Flying1Scotsman]

+1, YES we need this

[Hi_Im_GHerbo]

We absolutely need more maps in Simulator Battles. This one would be perfect.

[kitsune_qq]

Agree.
What about scale?
128x128?

[CorporalApollo]

Hello, I’ve measured the Pyrenees map in Operations to be in line with the other larger maps in EC at 128x128, this is also the scale I’d like to see it be added with (I’ll add this to the post). There is however a decent chunk of unused terrain outside the map border, so I would assume the devs could stretch it to at least 140x140, however I’m not exactly sure if 128x128 is a limit with the engine right now

[Thomas_Belgium]

currently the Height resolution map is constrained to the 128x128 limit yeah.

Great Idea by the way!

[Morvran]

Please… We need more Sim maps!

(and I see a map with some fun valleys to fly down)

[kitsune_qq]

Theres an custom game thats running modified synai, maybe i will check borders one day

[Exozet]

[CorporalApollo]

I added the map size and a section about opportunities for new objectives to the post :)

@CorporalApollo

Pyrenees size is in line with our other large maps in EC at around 128x128km.

@CorporalApollo

Opportunities for new objectives

[pouletbidule]

so sigma

[S3b5]

I actually have a bunch of minor complaints/pet peeves about the map that I’d like to see addressed if it were to ever be made into a sim map.

Here’s a rough outline of where the map in War Thunder is situated in real life.

I think the real world:map scale is pretty good, it’s almost 1:1 (and probably is 1:1, I just made a mistake in my cartography). So my issues aren’t scale related, just like minor grievances that I have with it lol

For starters,

There’s no names on anything! Personally, I think that maps are a lot cooler when they have names on locations in the map, like

Afghanistan

or

Vietnam

No real reason, or requirement, I just think they’re cool and make the map feel more realistic.

Additionally,

All of the little areas that you can tell were intentionally flattened to have a spot for an airfield. I personally think that these should be removed/reworked to better fit into the natural topography of the map. Some of these are particularly egregious, and make the map look really jagged and unreal.

For airports, should they want to model on the ground airports similar to Bagram Airbase or Kabul Airport on the Afghanistan map, there are a few airports close by.
Andorra–La Seu d’Urgell Airport is just south of Andorra and is well within the boundaries of the map. It is the only real commercial airport in a reasonable distance.
La Cerdanya Aerodrome is on the east side of the map just southwest of the Spanish exclave Llívia. It is also within the boundaries of the map currently. In real life it is a small GA airport.
Sainte-Leocadie Airport is just to the southeast of the Spanish exclave Llívia, and within the boundaries of the map. In real life it is a small military heliport with a recreational grass runway.
Mont-Louis - La Quillane Airport is on the far east side of the map, near the map border. In real life it is a small grass airfield for gliders.

While not the most… adequate… airfields for the planes we play in the game, their rough location can maybe inspire where to put airfields for simulator.
As well as that, dynaf (dynamic airfields) that are typically used for sim and RB can “conform” the terrain to my knowledge, at least to some degree, so probably don’t need stretches of flat land.

Those are kind of it.
I like accurate-to-life maps and I feel like recently the game has been somewhat moving away from those kinds of maps. Maybe if they put real place names down they can also add “cities” with some buildings and those could be “flashpoints” where we (the players) need to fight over.

Andorra la Vella, basically in the middle of the map. It’s currently not represented, but if added it could be a centerpiece of the map.

There is also a reddit post overlaying the real life map and the War Thunder map, which could be used as a reference.

Honestly if they do this maybe they should change the name of Pyrenees to Andorra, since the map would be centered around the micro-state.

[Chimpys]

map looks so cool with the cities. the mountains are really tall and valleys are hella deep so im lowkey worried about how ratty people might play it. or even worse how easy someone could run away and hide but its still a cool map and we need more sim maps.

[Mathll]

Of course this map needs to be played in a simulator, besides all the new maps should be playable in simulation

[CorporalApollo]

Nice post! Brought up some stuff I hadn’t thought of like city names not being on the map. There are tons of nice towns in the valleys, would be cool to see them displayed better.
The ‘flat areas’ are definitely not as bad as they look on the minimap in my opinion, in game they blend in with the colours and don’t stand out that much. Aside from maybe 2 of them, they wouldn’t be noticeable for anyone who didn’t know they were there. They could also be used as ground battle locations. dynaf airfields does somewhat conform to the ground, but they still need relatively flat ground below them to work, can’t just put them anywhere

Anyways I really think this map would be a breath of fresh air and it has by far the most potential out of all the large Operation maps. We already have ~15 flat maps in EC, only 1 with proper mountains and ~2-3 with decent terrain. From a gameplay perspective I think it’s perfect and gives much needed variety.

[kitsune_qq]

BTW
i have recorded some videos of my one hour journey to end of map

Spoiler

additional(unused) space is like 30-40km, for synai and only downwards

[pouletbidule]

pookie

[S3b5]

That is a good point about the flat areas actually, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But it seems to me that much of the conflict should center around the flat area in the middle that follows the valley. Since the other areas are impassible for tanks (and most other vehicles to be honest) the fighting would take place around the valley center and/or the towns in it.

Using the picture from my other post, I made this.

• Red lines would be the main axis of advance that would likely be repeated every game, due to the constricting terrain.
• Yellow is terrain that is, realistically, impassable to ground vehicles. Mostly the mountain peaks.
• Orange to Andorra la Vella is like a “side objective” that doesn’t really follow the main axis of advance, however it is important because that city is the capital of Andorra.
• Purple are minor axis of advance that are mostly along very tight canyons/valleys, and so those would probably be limited to a few vehicles or like road convoys.
• The small bits of blue are marking off tunnels that the roads take under the mountains.

It skirts the southern border of Andorra but does go through the Spanish exclave I previously mentioned.
But, since in game some of the areas are taken up by “airfield terrain” that is built into the map, there can’t really be “cities” (towns really) there because of the flat ground.
But, the flat ground like you mentioned would be good for static ground battles, however that is kind of the reason I marked the “axis of advance,” which is where any ground battles should be focused. In my opinion, that area is already flat enough for ground vehicles, such that the other flattened areas probably don’t need to be there.

Honestly more than anything the random flat areas where there should be stuff just bothers me lol

Additionally, I think a map like this can get away with like 2-3 bases per side instead of 6. They might have to face east/west to not mess with terrain too much. Anyone who is trying to get to the bases needs to go over the mountains, where radar will pick them up; or through the valley, where other people are going to be flying.
There could also be static AA emplacements on the top of the mountains that flash when firing at an enemy that tries to pass by; but they should have incredibly low accuracy. If you’ve played Ace Combat 4, the mission Northern Eye is kind of the vibe I’m going with for these emplacements.

[warthogboy09]

Wasn’t it advertised as going to be an EC map in its Dev Blog?

[CorporalApollo]

@S3b5

But it seems to me that much of the conflict should center around the flat area in the middle that follows the valley. Since the other areas are impassible for tanks (and most other vehicles to be honest) the fighting would take place around the valley center and/or the towns in it.

Yep, I’ve heard that convoys replenish and drive to ground battles, but I’ve almost never seen it happen so I’m not sure if it’s a requirement since convoys can also spawn without any ground battle present.

I’m actually working on making a custom mission for Pyrenees and have spent a ton of time flying around looking for good base spots, and scouting out road-bases. I think there’s 2 large ‘main’ areas where ground battles could spawn, with roads passing through.

These marked in the red circle/triangle

Those 3-4 valleys on the left are super scenic and definitely wide enough (one of them is located by that castle picture in my original post)
I love your idea of having a battle in Andorra la Vella

@S3b5

Additionally, I think a map like this can get away with like 2-3 bases per side instead of 6.

Yeah sure, bases don’t need as much flat terrain, and can likely fit in a lot of the valleys around the map like Afghanistan, but there’s plenty of good spots near the center too

@S3b5

There could also be static AA emplacements on the top of the mountains that flash when firing at an enemy that tries to pass by; but they should have incredibly low accuracy. If you’ve played Ace Combat 4, the mission Northern Eye is kind of the vibe I’m going with for these emplacements.

I love this! This is actually how I plan on using AA for my custom mission