[REPORTED]Time of Day - Looks different between v1.216 and OB v1.51 Upd 2

[MadDog-IC]

Not sure if a bug, but I have seen at least a couple of mission I have converted from dcsw 1.216 to OB 1.51 upd 2 where the lighting of the time of day at mission start is different.

 

ie.

 

Mission Starts at 08:18 on the 27th of October 2011:

 

 

• In dcsw 1.216 the sun is above the horizon at mission start
  
• In dcsw 1.51 the sun is below the horizon and mission in darkness
  

Regards, Ian.

Su-33 - Sea Dragon - 06.miz

Edited November 25, 2015 by BIGNEWY

[Grimes]

Its changed from 1.2.16 to 1.5, not just this patch. There is already a bug report filed on it since the sunrise/sunset times are way off in 1.5.

[Ramsay]

Any update on this annoying bug ?

 

Missions with a dawn or sunset take off/landing or adversely affected by fading daylight; have to be opened in the editor and time shifted to fly them as the author intended.

 

-----------------

 

I created a 23rd of January mission with a 17:15 start using DAWS weather in 1.5.2.

 

Time of Day still looks very wrong (way to light for a late winter's day.

 

Looking at the mission in Tacview - shows the flight start as UTC 12:15 which looks about right for what's observed in game but implies DCS 1.5.2 is using local time = UTC/GMT +5 hours

 

 

However -

 

• 
  
• Georgia = UTC/GMT +4 hours = 16:15
  
• Krasnodar = UTC/GMT + 3 hours = 15:15
  

and IIRC DCS 1.2 used UTC/GMT +4 hours and IRL Krasnodar times were 'fudged' by adding an hour.

 

Edit: DCS 1.2 used UTC/GMT +4 hours - Confirmed by track and acmi of TNN3_6_7day_Autumn.miz flown 2015-09-06, (DCS 16:00 local = Tacview UTC 12:00)

 

Note: Whilst waiting for a fix, I tried adjusting utmzone and WinterTimeDelta in Bazar\Terrian\MapCoords.lua but didn't see a change in DCS's UTC offset as reported by Tacview.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Ramsay
Confirm DCS 1.2 used UTC/GMT +4 hours

[Ramsay]

It seems 1.5.2 incorrectly adds an hour to local time in winter.

 

Daylight saving would have added an hour in summer (prior to 2006) but Georgia = UTC/GMT +4 hour, all year ATM http://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/georgia/tbilisi

 

If previous versions of DCS used daylight saving, past scenarios might be out by -1 hr UTC in summer and +1 hr UTC in winter.

 

-------------------------------

 

I did a bit more testing with TNN3_6_7day_Autumn.miz in DCS 1.5.2 and was surprised to see

 

• 
  
• DCS 16:00 Local = Tacview UTC 12:00 for September 21st
  

So changed the month to January 21st in the ME

 

• 
  
• sure enough DCS 16:00 Local = Tacview UTC 11:00
  

changing the month back to September reverted the error.

 

Edit:

Adjusting utmzone in Bazar\Terrian\MapCoords.lua and MapCoordsUTC.lua adjusts the position of the sun

 

Georgia UTM Zone = 38T

 

1.5.2 default utmzone = 36, Mission Start = 17:15 22/1/2012 (Note the wrong date in F2 view ?)

 

utmzone = 38, Mission Start = 17:15 22/1/2012

 

 

but breaks tacview 1.4.1 co-ordinate export - shifting the player east

 

 

 

No doubt Tacview will need to evolve with the merge of DCS 1.5/2.0

 

 

From TacviewExportDCS.lua

-- Find Global Position On Earth to Optimize file size
local CameraPosition=LoGetCameraPosition();
local CameraTranslation=CameraPosition.p;
local CameraCoordinates=LoLoCoordinatesToGeoCoordinates(CameraTranslation.x,CameraTranslation.z);
self.LatitudeOffset=CameraCoordinates.latitude-5; -- Optimize file size
self.LongitudeOffset=CameraCoordinates.longitude-5;
-- Declarations
if MissionDate then
-- Time Zone Calculation
local LocalRefTime;
if math.abs(CameraCoordinates.longitude+115)<10 then
-- Crimea Time Zone: Winter(UTC-8) Summer(DST=UTC-7)
-- -7 hours time shift calculation (assume summer Nevada time shift)
LocalRefTime=os.time{year=2011,month=6,day=1,hour=12-7};
else
-- Georgia Time Zone: Winter(UTC+3) Summer(DST=UTC+4)
-- +4 hours time shift calculation (assume summer Georgia time shift)
-- Includes the error of +1 hour in DCS sun position calculation
LocalRefTime=os.time{year=2011,month=6,day=1,hour=12+4+1};
end
local UTCRefTime=os.time{year=2011,month=6,day=1,hour=12};
local TimeShift=LocalRefTime-UTCRefTime;
-- Need to manually apply DST bias because nothing is simple with LUA
local CurrentDate=os.date("*t",now);
local IsDst;
if CurrentDate and CurrentDate.isdst==true then
IsDst=true;
else
IsDst=false;
end
-- Convert Local Time to UTC Time
local LocalMissionTime=os.time{year=MissionDate.Year,month=MissionDate.Month,day=MissionDate.Day,hour=24,isdst=false};-- IsDst};
local UTCMissionTime=LocalMissionTime-TimeShift+LoGetMissionStartTime();
local MissionTimeTable=os.date("*t",UTCMissionTime);
self.AcmiFile:Write("MissionTime="..string.format("%04u-%02u-%02uT%02u:%02u:%02uZ",MissionTimeTable.year,MissionTimeTable.month,MissionTimeTable.day,MissionTimeTable.hour,MissionTimeTable.min,MissionTimeTable.sec).."\n");
end

 

My feedback using it as a source of DCS's internal UTC time should be therefore treated with caution.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Ramsay
Found utczone changes time of day but break tacview co-ordinates