Any editing script or trick to turn on airport lights at night?

[Frag]

Hi guys,

 

I like to fly aircraft at night. But something bugs me out. It seems (and correct me if I m wrong) that the runway light will only turn on if you talk to the airport ATC.

 

I don't like the ATC in DCS, too many frustrating bugs so I tend not to use it.

 

So let's say that I have scripting to do my own ATC, how would you turn ON the runway light? I doubt that you can turn on the runway light with LUA scripting ...but maybe there is a trick ... like spawning a AI chopper with an order to land or something.

 

If you guys have a trick let me know ... I am REALLY interested to see.

[Frag]

mmmm the more I play DCS, the more I think that night flying is really rare around here. Tons of stuff goes really wrong with the airports, the lighting and ATC. To my surprise there are not a lot of workaround for the night flyers :(

[Cake]

We've been complaining about night lighting for some time.

 

It has been improved over the last year. However, it is still not good enough.

 

There are some cool effects where aircraft lights (e.g., strobes) light up the terrain near them, but overall they still cannot be directly observed from realistic distances (we are talking many miles under clear conditions). The good news is I think the night lighting has been improving since it went south wit deferred shading.

 

The important parts of airports themselves are still too dim (e.g., runway and taxiway lighting) up close and where is the rotating beacon? It ought to be really simple to model this from a distance.

 

PG map has decent looking airports at night, but the lights vanish above a certain altitude while the lights of the surrounding city are still clearly visible. The airports end up looking like greyed out areas with no lights at all.

 

I think one of the problems is DCS has a tendency to visually prioritize eye candy over substance, because videos and screen shots sell sims. The result is a beautiful city, but the airports and airplanes are invisible in conditions where they should clearly be seen.

 

At night there is much less to see, unless you count celestial objects, so why can't we have the sim prioritize displaying what is important over what is just background and still get good performance?

[Cake]

I am hoping when they redo the communications that an option is added for pilot controlled lighting and in the case of an open ATC, the ability to request the runway lights be adjusted or the approach lights turned on.

[Frag]

In the meantime they should always turn on airport light at night so we could use those...

[BoneDust]

In the meantime they should always turn on airport light at night so we could use those...

 

Agreed :thumbup:

[Grimes]

To each their own.

 

[Cake]

Another option would just be to leave the lights on 24/7 until something more sophisticated gets done. They shouldn't adversely affect day time ops. Lights should also be on for certain weather conditions.

[Delta99]

Another option would just be to leave the lights on 24/7 until something more sophisticated gets done. They shouldn't adversely affect day time ops. Lights should also be on for certain weather conditions.

 

There is no way to do this either!!

[Mouse_99]

I would like a simple trigger that on approach to a certain distance, the lights would automatically turn on - for friendlies.