All DCS Terrains Are Now Installed on Every Server

TL;DR

Every NimbusPulse DCS server now has all terrains installed and ready to use. You no longer need to select terrains while creating a server, stay within a terrain limit, or stop your server to change the installed terrains later.

Upload your mission, select it in the Control Panel, and start it. All terrains are already installed.

Selective terrain installation is gone

Previously, you chose which terrains to install when creating a server. If your mission rotation changed later, you had to return to the Infrastructure page, stop the server, and replace the installed terrains before the new mission could run.

That workflow added an unnecessary decision during setup and made changing a mission rotation more disruptive than it needed to be. It could also prevent an uploaded mission from running simply because its terrain was not installed on the server.

We have removed that system completely. Every server now includes all terrains from its first launch. This applies to all currently rented servers and every new server you create.

A simpler server setup

Removing terrain selection makes server creation shorter and more predictable. The terrain step has been removed, and every new server has all terrains installed.

This also reduces server creation time. Previously, creating a server took around 120 seconds with only Caucasus selected. Adding more or larger terrains increased it further. Now, server creation takes around 30 seconds with all terrains installed.

There is no terrain selection step and no terrain limit to consider. All terrains are included in every plan at no additional cost, and servers are typically ready in under 30 seconds.

Switch missions without managing maps

The biggest improvement appears when your squadron changes what it wants to fly.

You can move from a Caucasus training mission to a Syria campaign, a Marianas event, or any other mission using a terrain without changing the server’s infrastructure first. The Missions page no longer disables a mission because its map is missing, and there is no terrain installation process waiting between you and the next sortie.

This is especially useful for communities that rotate campaigns, run one-off events, or keep a varied mission library on the same server.

How all terrains can still be installed quickly

DCS terrains are large, so copying a complete terrain installation into every individual server would waste storage and slow down provisioning.

Our new infrastructure uses an overlay filesystem to share the DCS terrain files between servers while keeping each server’s own files and changes isolated. Performance and ease of use are our top priorities. That is why terrain data previously had to be installed separately for every server, alternatives such as network shares are not suitable for this use case. The new approach mounts the overlay filesystem directly into your server’s filesystem, providing native NVMe performance.

The result is the best of both approaches: all terrains are ready from the start, while server creation remains fast.

Nothing to configure

This change applies automatically. You do not need to reinstall your server, enable a setting, or choose a new plan.

Just upload a .miz file from the Missions page or through the file manager, add it to your mission list, and start flying. NimbusPulse now handles the terrain installation entirely in the background.

All terrains, on every server, from the first launch.

Special thanks

Special thanks to Tobias from TGFB for bringing this idea up again. His suggestion prompted me to revisit terrain management and find a better solution.