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Tanker lighting effects for night refueling


Hellbat

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I added these video/screenshots to another thread regarding night refueling, but after searching a bit I couldn't find a general thread about this.  I'm pretty competent at refueling with any available light source (even the moon), but in conditions without external natural light sources, the only available reference is the directional indicators under the tanker.  I can approach the tanker quite well with the three lights on the back, but once these disappear it becomes difficult to gauge speed and attitude relative to the tanker.

The request would be to model the lighting on the tankers.  The video below shows a fully illuminated F16C.

 

Game (Open Beta 2.7.7.15038) with severely lacking external lighting:

Screen_211031_190310.png

This is what I see in the cockpit:

Screen_211031_190234.png

My theory is that better lighting under the tanker would provide additional lighting (even just the reflections) to the pilot to assist with night refueling.  I couldn't find any videos from a pilot's perspective and I am not a pilot so this is pure speculation on my part.

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I think one of the issues with lighting is that supposedly it's too resource intensive to have real light sources all over the place.

If that is the case then I think maybe we just need a few select lights to give the illusion of global illumination. Something like a variable brightness invisible illumination flare that hangs out on top of the player's plane, and only the player's. It can be turned on when on the ground at the airport or when under a tanker. Hopefully this would solve the issue with having many lights all over the map. It might look off in a few cases, but then again having no lighting already looks off.

Awaiting: DCS F-15C

Win 10 i5-9600KF 4.6 GHz 64 GB RAM RTX2080Ti 11GB -- Win 7 64 i5-6600K 3.6 GHz 32 GB RAM GTX970 4GB -- A-10C, F-5E, Su-27, F-15C, F-14B, F-16C missions in User Files

 

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I agree that modelling reflections/shadows of real light sources would get pretty intensive on the global scale, but I also don't think this is necessary.  I think the performance hit could be minimized by only modelling reflections on the aircraft which is currently tanking once contact has been requested.  I'm speculating here, but for such low-intensity lighting, surely it must be possible to only perform these calculations locally (in space) when necessary and to disable these calculations for units, which are 10+ km away.  But as you suggested, maybe an intermediate step could be some simplified light sources to at least assist the player in the short term, while a more realistic solution can be developed.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just posted about this in bugs forums because I am pretty good at AR unless there is zero illumination. Refueling with NVGs is not recommended due to the depth perception issue, but it’s a must in DCS because you can’t see anything without them. I’m real life I’ve been behind the tanker at night from the IP seat of a B-52 numerous times. The tanker is lit up and it’s easy to refuel without the NVGs. In fact I’ve never seen it done in my plane with NVGs because of the issues mentioned above. We often request the tankers to turn up or dim the lights based on preference. Most often it’s turn up. I think this is an issue that needs a fix soon because I like realism and many wars are fought at night and you have to get the gas no matter what time it is. I’ll also add it would be nice to have the aerodynamic sounds of the boom interfering with the airflow close the jet and the tanker plugging in. It’s too quiet in DCS. You can actually hear the boom passing over and then the doo doom as it plugs you. 


Edited by BomberEW
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