Night/ Low visibility missions? What's the point?

[BaD CrC]

I quite don't understand the point of having night missions or missions with very low ceiling and visibility.

Unless I missed some features in the manual, it seems that the NVG is absolutely useless for night combat as the HUD and other cockpit screens are unreadable with it, no matter the brightness settings. Same when flying in bad weather conditions.

Additionaly, the Shkval display doesn't have any IR capability and so, it is not possible to lock a target at night.

This doesn't seem to be a problem for enemy flak though. :cry:

Obviously, the Ka 50 is not a night bird, so why do we have some night missions in this sim?

[EvilBivol-1]

I find the visibility acceptable if I tune the lights and brightness settings carefully. This includes turning off *all* cockpit lights, turning down the ABRIS brightness, tuning down the HUD brightness and turning up the NVG gain.

 

In general though, night missions should be built around artificial illumination ("candle bombs") provided by AI aircraft, assuming the target area is established.

[Nate--IRL--]

I agree, the night mission in the first campaign was very atmospheric, and very well put together. Tuning the light sources in the cockpit and NVGs is essential to night flying.

 

Nate

[Shepski]

You don't have to lock a target with the Shkval to fire a Vikhr or the cannon at night.

 

Night missions are entirely plausible and a good challenge.

[Reticuli]

I wonder how detailed ED's info on the dynamic range of the shkval at night actually is. That's pretty difficult information to translate between aviation people and computer programmers, especially when we're dealing with contrast curves and optics...neither of which has anything to do with aviation or programming. It's certainly possible in practice the tv sensor at night might actually give better light amplifying capability than is represented in the sim. Increasing the resolution and using a CRT for that when you're flying might improve things for you. The former, however, is going to lower fps unless you use a dedicated video card for that monitor.

 

When I fly at night, I turn off the standard pit lighting. I turn on the NVG cockpit lighting. When I'm going to be using the no-cockpit view, I just turn the brightness on the TV sensor down a little and the contrast all the way up. I leave the ARBIS at its default.

 

If I'm going to be in the cockpit, I turn the brightness on both the TV sensor and ARBIS way down since the NVG will amplify their light. The HUD at night I always turn to the yellowish night mode and turn down a bit. With all this, the cockpit looks just as readable at night as it does in the day, just monochrome.

 

You can adjust the NVG brightness, but while turning it down usually helps the cockpit a little, you lose some contrast ability on the outside if it's really dark. So if the pit is still too bright, turn the purple NVG lighting and the HUD down more. If there's a lot of external light and the goggles are getting bad banding and way too much grain, that's when I turn those down a little, too...or switch the NVG off completely when parachute flares are present in the battlespace.

 

Be really, really patient when flying. Use hover when necessary. And realize you may or may not be able to lock onto things. That doesn't mean you can't shoot them, though. In the worst cases, just switch to manual boresight mode and use gun or rockets.

[geogob]

I like it. Just like in real life, military operations are not always conducted in ideal conditions.

 

Flying with NVG is really easy. You have to set the lights correctly. Search the forums, we already had a few threads on this subject.

[Shepski]

Ground stabilize the Shkval and the Vikhr will to fly to that spot if in range.

 

The cannon works the same way... no need to have a lock and autotrack.

[Ragtag]

I have no problems getting a lock on targets at night. Tuff missions but it just makes me feel even more victorius :)

[815TooCooL]

I want more night missions!! :D

[Peyoteros]

I love night missions and the snow storm, and low cloud cover and the fog all at once and a lot of it. As less I can see the more exiting I get, the more challenge the bigger satisfaction... Tuning NVG sensitivity and lights in the cockpit (HUD, ABRIS) is essential, so, set it up before you take off.

 

Uploaded setup screen just in case you're missing some controls.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Peyoteros

[BaD CrC]

Thanks for you guys feedback. I'll try again to play with the brightness settings and see if it improves NVG vision. For the gauges illumination, I understand you are turning everything off, but are you using the blue lighting?

[Peyoteros]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, depends on the mission ...

[ericinexile]

I tried one of the campaign missions that have the player take out two artillery batteries. The targets were supposed to be illuminated by a Su25t AFAC. The spot he dropped phosphorus on wasn't quite over target so that was a bust. But instead of giving up we just waited, directed the shkval over the muzzle flashes and sure enough, you could make out the outline just well enough to feed it a vikhr. So the Ka50 may not be an ideal night combat helo, but in a pinch its not completely worthless. Too bad you can't direct AI AFACs to drop a bomb at a time.

 

Smokin' Hole

[Chillspider]

I like it. Just like in real life, military operations are not always conducted in ideal conditions.

 

Flying with NVG is really easy. You have to set the lights correctly. Search the forums, we already had a few threads on this subject.

 

 

it works ok in low light but seems like as soon as it gets pitch black its pointless. I understand its not always ideal conditions but when its that dark they can just send out some other aircraft than take a risk on something that is not designed to work at night.

[haigotron]

without wanting to hijack this thread, i realized that the shkval screen will display brighter or dimmer, depending on how zoomed in you are (the pilot's view, not the shkval zoom)...

 

it happend in the 2nd night mission of the first campaign, by gradually zooming out, the shkval showed an illuminated target, but if i zoomed out completely, the shkval would turn dark adn it would be hard again to see anything...

 

yes, the illumination drop was done, so i assume the bright instance is the correct one?

[Kurtz]

I understand you are turning everything off, but are you using the blue lighting?

 

I am as having a completly dark pit is quite useless. Try turning the blue(blacklight I think) lighting on then dim it down with the knob on the lower rear right side panel.

 

You can see reasonably well during night missions as long as you dim instruments and turn up NVG gain.

 

I still miss flying by night using a bit from EECH1/2 and will be very happy once the Apache comes to DCS.

 

For those new to heli combat heres a short after dark video I made from some EECH2 clips-

 

Link- http://files.filefront.com/EECH2+Into+the+Night/;10546898;/fileinfo.html

 

Having night vision missions in DCS is real plus in my view. I'd also like to see more recon orientated missions in this game which i miss as well from previous heli sims. Being able to fly your heli to target using the terrain without being detected, lasing a target for a strike, and getting out again without engaging the enemy is a real challenge.

[Boberro]

I played at night, few days ago. And I must say this - it is freakin' awesome! So nice atmosphere, night is night now. I flew near mountains and rivers, lakes with moon shining, so cool!

[ZaltysZ]

One thing looks strange to me. Aren't bright things like CRT supposed to flood NVGs? Currently undimmed CRT looks very bright, which is bad only if you want to use it, but that light doesn't interfere seeing other things. Shouldn't there be some glow?

[AlphaOneSix]

One thing looks strange to me. Aren't bright things like CRT supposed to flood NVGs? Currently undimmed CRT looks very bright, which is bad only if you want to use it, but that light doesn't interfere seeing other things. Shouldn't there be some glow?

 

Yeah, there should be glare. Also, you woudn't be able to read any of the gauges through the NVG's. Still, this is the best represenatation of NVG's in a flight sim to date.

[miguez]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no, depends on the mission ...

 

Offtopic, but Peyoteros "Location" on his profile deserved mention, you cracked me up!

[Chibawang]

Yeah, there should be glare. Also, you woudn't be able to read any of the gauges through the NVG's. Still, this is the best represenatation of NVG's in a flight sim to date.

 

It's also the best NVG representation I've ever seen in a game, period. I always get really annoyed by game developers throwing in a green tint, upping the gamma and adding noise and calling it nightvision. I was really impressed by the Shark's NVG's; very immersive.

[BaD CrC]

Hi all,

 

I have to totally aggree on this statement. Although I started this thread by complaining about NVG being useless, I must apologize as I missed some important brightness control features in the cockpit, most important of it being the gain control knob of the NVG, hidden behind the cyclic and as such totally ignored by me. :doh: (I did read the whole manual but my brain is getting old).

So I realised that NVG starts initially with maximum gain set, making ABRIS, HUD and TV screen unreadable. Once the different lightings and gain controls correctly set, it's an absolute pleasure to fly by night or bad weather and the atmosphere in the cockpit is absolutely fantastic.

 

Yes, this is definitively the best NVG rendering ever in a sim.

[Peyoteros]

:smilewink:

[ZaltysZ]

You needn't! Topic's title is about combat missions at night/low visibility. With or without NVG such missions on Ka-50 are impossible in real life - lack of FLIR or FCR, sorry! This chopper can be only redeployed from one airfield to another at night.

 

Well, there are such things as CABs :D

[DTWD]

Rokosowsky,

 

Don't turn this thread into an argument as well please.