Pitch-dark, moonless night, when?

[CoBlue]

PG latest OB. Gamma 2.1. Track attached.

 

When are we getting an RL pitch-dark, moonless night? Now you can see the ground, horizon, clouds & stars...not possible RL in pitch-dark nights. You can even see the ground, in the middle of nowhere, in the desert!

 

The lightning is still off & not tuned properly, if it's pitch-dark you can't see anything, no references. My 2.1 gamma is the lowest I can go, otherwise the cockpits gets to dark.

 

And please don't come with "change the in mission gamma to lower" argument, as this is not a solution to the problem. For several reasons.

1. It's not worthy of a flight-sim to fiddle the gamma setting during game-play.

2. Other players can "cheat" with this giving them visual advantage.

4. Other sims can manage this just fine.

5. ED is fixing the "core engine".

moonless.trk

Edited August 2, 2020 by CoBlue

[AeriaGloria]

I know you don’t want to change gamma, but everyone that talks about it here post 2.5.6 says 1.8 is the sweet spot

[draconus]

IRL the pitch-dark is rare or simply not happening at all outdoor. In the moonless night and no light pollution the stars are seen best actually and that alone will light up the ground and objects. To not see anything you'd have to be in the woods or full clouds cover far away from civilization.

[CoBlue]

IRL the pitch-dark is rare or simply not happening at all outdoor. In the moonless night and no light pollution the stars are seen best actually and that alone will light up the ground and objects. To not see anything you'd have to be in the woods or full clouds cover far away from civilization.

My RL flying says otherwise. Of course you can have pitch-black nights, at all altitudes. Cirrostratus, desert, ocean, etc etc etc. Seen plenty can't see s##t nights at low/mid/high level alts.

[Frederf]

I found one testing something else. Moon phases are ~28 days. The default date in ME is about 50% moon so I added 14 days and it was very black.

[QuiGon]

I found one testing something else. Moon phases are ~28 days. The default date in ME is about 50% moon so I added 14 days and it was very black.

This!

 

@OP: You just need to select a date with the moon phase being at or close to 0% moon. Then you can already have a piutch black night.

[Shadow KT]

DCS Moon Phases match real life. Don't know what this guy is about, everyone was complaining how nights in DCS were always pitch black, don't take into consideration eye adjustment, but you know.... you can't make everyone happy

[CoBlue]

Don't know what this guy is about

You can see clouds, ground etc on moonless nights in the middle of nowhere like oceans, deserts. That's not realistic.

[Ourorborus]

While it is true that complete darkness doesn't exist outside in real life, there is a definite difference between flying at night and walking at night. On any but the most overcast and moonless night far away from light polution, human eyes can adjust enought to walk around safely.

 

However even on a fairly bright night, the visual horizon is not particularly discernible in the cockpit. On a dark night the horizon is completely invisible. This is why Night VFR is an endorsement part way between VFR and IFR. NVFR navigate by reference to the ground but use the AI/AH instead the natural horizon. There are also several dangerous illusions created in night flight due to the lack of a visual horizon.

 

A good night effect is achievable in DCS but like everything lighting related the balance between inside/outside cockpit/ light sources/cockpit displays is screwy and appears to be different based on hardware.

[Shadow KT]

As I said, don't know what you are on about

 

Only in the dessert you can see a bit of the ground, but you gotta remember there still starts, if I put a thick cloud layer above me, get the same pitch black result. Over water it is the same, black on both sides, over forests as well.

 

Sandy, flat, empty deserts are perfect for star illumination

Edited August 26, 2020 by Shadow KT