Torso

To be honest, it doesn't sound like you have really read what the issues are. Nothing you said addresses the problems with the night environment. A light in a pitch black world still projects light. The main issue is that in DCS, lights do not project light. At least not in anything close to what is realistic. I suggest you take a look at aerial photos or videos of what it looks like to fly over a city/town/oilrig/boat...car..or simply anything that has a light on it and then compare that to DCS and then say it is all good. I am fairly confident if you are honest, you will see the kinda big issue here. Lights should be visible for miles..not meters. In addition to the actual physical object lights, moon lighting and just normal night ambient lighting needs to be overhauled. No way is it close to being accurate or even really functional currently.

Oh and as for the A-10 lights..no, still fubar'd.

Sadly I feel you may have hit the nail on the head. While some things it can do well, others seem completely out of it's realm of abilities such as night time and other weather/env circumstances which it should have been created with the ability to do as well from it's inception. However it appears it simply is incapable of achieving a decent, let alone a high quality, env effects for anything other than day lit hours in the world env. Hopefully ED can get there one day. But to do so, I think it is gonna take a major update/upgrade/overhaul to their engine to give it abilities it currently is just not capable of. Ones it needs to be able to do and should have been part of it's design mandate when it was being created. Seems no one thought users might want to fly in 'off hours' or non-golden hour sunlight moments. Not sure how that was not considered. I really hope one day to be able to look back on a post such as this and say to myself, "I was wrong, they nailed it finally!"

I can't tell you how much I agree with every point and note you've made Cake. I have been chasing this seemingly lost cause for ages. Made threads, posted pics, screenshot..etc. Nothing ever came from them. I at this point think that the engine that ED has created is just not capable of achieving anything close to XP11 and possibly just any kind of a decent night env. Which is real sad if so. GA/CA or MIL aircraft focus, the world environment needs to be able to decently create the atmosphere being called upon. I hope I am wrong. It just doesn't seem so from what has been stated so far. We might be looking at close to the best DCS can achieve. I keep my fingers crossed though. It's free to do. Oh and Cake, I did buy XP11 just for it's usable night env. It is amazing and there are mods that make it look even better than out of the box. Wishing the ED team luck with this hole in their game. I hope with some focus it can be filled and have an env they can stand up against the others out there in the genre. There should be someone on this full time. I can't imagine the same guy/gal who handle environment also be one coding weapons systems and ac/fm code....right? I mean who isn't looking forward to trying to land on a carriers pitching deck at night in crappy weather in your newly acquired Hornet once they start showing up in our hangars. We need the correct env to be able to do that! I mean how can you call the ball when you cannot even see it because it does not render and is visible at a usable distance :)

They have been improved.... very little at best. I just got done doing a series of night flight tests and the lights unless within a few hundred meters go way way way too dim into a faded pee color that is just not bright enough at all. Even after the mentioned tweaks to them. It is as if there is an invisible fog between you and the lights always and past that and out at around a few nm the lights go awol pretty much completely due to this 'fog'. And even prior to that none have the focused sharp pointed brightness lights have when you see the actual light source and not the ambient light it casts on the surroundings. If you go 4-10mn above Vegas the lights are non-existent at least in VR, maybe the race track lights can be made out a little at best and the same for a large building on the strip or two and when I check the monitor image they cannot be made out either.But no way does it look like it should still. It seems the terrible ground lights that DCS has had for years, you know, the halo ball lights, are a big part of the issue. At distance the muted halo is what is being used as the ground light and not the actual 'bulb' of the light and that is what can be seen for miles. Not the muted halo that DCS ends up using for lights. It is starting to appear that the engine itself was just not designed with night lighting in mind or considered when being developed and is just limited as a result.

As someone who has flown over airports before at night several times, and has airports close by locally, no, this is not how it is supposed to look. Nothing at night currently looks how it should look. At least compared to the real world. I mean, the literal black hole that is circled in 2nd set of pics that has RW written next to it. That is supposed to be an airport at night. It looks like the entrance to the abyss. I mean the space is completely void of lights...completely. :huh:

Can someone explain why the night lighting fixes were not included in this update when it was claimed weeks ago they were fixed internally already and just waiting to be deployed? I know the mem leak issues are ongoing and still being worked on, but more than one ED staff member said the night lighting fixes were done, not ongoing. So why did we not get them in this update? Were they included and just for some reason not included in the fix list? I am dl'ing the update now but so far seems like they are not included from all accounts. So why not ED?

Well, 1st update in weeks and none of the fixes for night time that were claimed to already be done were included in it. Does that make much sense? So, the fixes were just left on the shelf apparently. When will WE actually see the fixes?

Henry is the main protagonist in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. A recently released game that is doing very well. No update this week really is unfortunate. Had hopes for some fixes to be deployed this week.

I have never seen ships lit up like you would expect them to be. They seem to operate in blackout mode as if lights do not exist for them. Which I am guessing they don't.

ED continues to use the terrible physical glow ball and cone halo effect on their lights. Hopefully they will abandon them soon. All lights in DCS need to be overhauled.

Per a Wags comment on a YT vid and supported by Sith on Hoggit it seems they are looking to address the night time lighting issues.....hopefully to improve and not just restore to previous functionality....which was in serious need of overhauling prior to 2.5 and it's newly introduced issues as it stood. If they can achieve close to the GA sim you are referencing achieves in their night lighting that is yet to be seen. But dangit I sure hope so. Be so nice if so. If they can do it why can't ED..ya know :)

Really great vid. Also shows clearly how ground lighting in 2.5 is pretty much non-existent currently. Throughout entire vid but at 1:00-1:15 it is like they just deleted them in 2.5 compared to 1.5. Really useful video. Thanks for it.

+1 These would be nice to see for sure.

You just keep spilling out the awesome work Rick. Looking forward to the air-battle tested dirty versions once ready.

+1000 Everything you said was spot on. Night lighting in DCS is my chosen cause to champion. I have tried to bring attention to it several times. I have had issues with it since day one through all iterations. And the issues are even worse now with VR, 2d doesn't suffer from some of it's issues..It is like only getting half the sim world potential with night being so poorly done. I truly hope they focus on this. The world could be so beautiful if done to the standard of the one I am guessing you are referencing. Imagine Vegas/cities/airports/carriers..etc lit up as they could be and should be versus what they are currently if no change is made what Dubai..etc will be when the new content is released. Someone at ED needs to champion a night lighting env overhaul and push for it internally. PS: Please add dithering to remove banding. :)

121GB here and there are a couple modules I do not own....hmm..but so far I am in the lead!

Thanks so much for these Rick. Grabbed em last night and got to check em out. Really gorgeous liveries. Will try to put my creative hat on and get some screenshots out. But real nice. Please keep makin them.

That pic looks like a shot from the series "Life After People". Is that an abandoned town or are those structures occupied with residents?

No sweat man. I also am known in my in-personal life for my kinda sarcastic/cynical/sardonic..ribbing sense of humor and thought mode so I do not doubt that comes off in the words I type but unfortunately hard to relay that tone in text, so a level of snark in my comments is common occurrence. Works for me in person :smilewink: Anyways, sorry for the bad night, leave it behind and recharge for the next!

You must not get out of this place much then. This place wouldn't even make the playoffs compared to some others. Trust me on that. :megalol: And yeah I know about beta's. I still see a few issues that are very surprising that they were not caught already internally. Again, I am sure in time those will be addressed. You can stand down now soldier. EDIT: Esac, I respect your view and what in the above you stated. I can see it through your filter. Again, I do know what it is like to test. I did it day in day out for weeks and months at a time for various titles in my early days. I am not mocking the work done. I pay by choice a fairly large amount of money to be part of the DCS beta program and I enjoy it look forward to continuing to being part of it. So, no matter what in the end I am on the same team and a pro DCS person. I sell to every person I can..trust me on that too. Sorry to rub ya wrong man.

That is really nice, the matte finish on the paint. That was one thing I noticed in most of the other skins that just looked off about them. The painted areas reflected like the metal was anodized the color and not painted. Kudos to you. And the metallic quality is amazing looking. Best I have seen by a decent margin. Would love to see that for several planes, even non-era appropriate. Just for fun..ya know ;) Question, would/could/does a "dirty" version exist or is possible? Some matte dirt/oils/grease streaks...you know..dirt? But you should be proud of what you've achieved there. Beautiful work. Looking forward to flying them.

Love this mod. Thanks so much for the work you all are doin to make this work for us all. Glad to hear an update is coming. Some good ideas by others as well to add and flesh it out further. Looking forward to the Cessna.

Oh I get that, just a couple of these you guess woulda been seen in earlier internal passes and caught. I know in time things will be addressed. Sorry, old tester background in me came out..lol :music_whistling:

Wow, just wow. Am I seeing this correctly? You have the aluminum reflected and the paint stripes matte/flat? If so, bravo, amazing. And these are available as of now? I will be F5ing the User Files page until my finger cramps if link not posted here.