Island Lighting

[Micr0]

Flying tonight and something finally occurred to me: As you can see from the screenshots, the island is reflecting light as though the deck is illuminating it. Yes, the flood lights on the island should illuminate the deck, but not the island. This only occurs for the island itself, and not for the antenna towers. The towers appear much more realistic as they are dark. It might add to the immersion to eliminate this lighted island effect. 

 

[draconus]

There is a room for improvement but the internetz pics show the island is also illuminated. Do you have RL pics that show otherwise?

[Micr0]

Hi, Draconus. So, I'm a bit confused about what your asking. But just a bit of logic would leave someone to ask where the light that is illuminating the walls of the island is coming from. For example, if you are standing outside at night in the darkness, and you shine a flashlight out in front of you.... your body will not illuminate. This is exactly why the flood lights of the island do not illuminate the island itself. As the lighting stands right now, it appears as though there are spotlights on the deck being shone at the island. I assure you there are no spotlights on the deck.

[Minsky]

2 hours ago, Micr0 said:

I assure you there are no spotlights on the deck.

Except there are.

[Ghostrider142]

6 hours ago, Minsky said:

Except there are.

He said deck, not tower, this is a picture of the tower.

[draconus]

@Micr0 IRL there's light scattering. We're not directing the laser at the cosmic space here.

[Micr0]

Draconus, I've been on the deck at night and seen it from behind the boat. Both of those pictures are open-shutter for a few seconds. Hence the moon looks like the sun. It's dark, and i promise the island isn't illuminated. I can't provide a picture of something at night that is that dark. When you take into account all the "ziplip " ops to conceal the carrier... an illuminated tower doesn't make much sense. Heck, they made us turn off our nav lights when on deck for a reason.

 

[Jackjack171]

I agree that the DCS carriers' Island lights are incorrect. Definitely better than pre-Super Carrier though!  Just a quick note, the light pattern used for launches are not the same for recoveries at night. I imagine it might be difficult for ED to simulate this. When the launch concludes, the Air Boss or Mini (can't remember which) will call to his sailors to rig the lights. We had a cheat sheet for it as it was kind of complex. Also, the rotating beacons are missing. Should be a (working) set forward of the island, amidships and aft.

[Micr0]

I did a slight mod to make it a bit more realistic to what is seen in reality. I took the FCLP Box Lights, along with the FLOLS and attached them to the carrier in the ME. I don't call the ship so they wont turn on the ships lights. Its not perfect. The dim flood flights used during normal ops are not there. No drop-down lights, no nav lights on the ship, and the box lights are a bit smaller than the real deck. But this is pretty darn close. The video starts out at 10 miles behind the ship when, on a clear night, you can start to make out the landing area. The box lights are indeed a little dot bobbing in the distance, like they really do.

 

[Minsky]

@Micr0, what are you asking for exactly?

That they should remove the island backlit?

Or that they should make the carrier dark by default?

The former is "correct as is", although it might look exaggerated in DCS due to its poor lighting system. There are many different types of lights mounted up there, and some of them illuminate the island either directly or indirectly (by light scattering).

I can agree with you on the latter. While in reality the carrier doesn't have to be concealed 100% of the time, virtually all missions we fly in DCS are combat missions, so it would be tactically sound to make most of the lights off by default and on when needed (via scripts / triggers / etc.)

But maybe leave this for after we get the plane directors? So people other than the hardcore players could actually use the module at night.

Edited April 18, 2024 by Minsky

[draconus]

3 hours ago, Minsky said:

it would be more tactically sound to make most of the lights disabled by default and enabled when needed (via scripts / triggers / etc.)

Are you aware of this trigger? @Micr0 ?

3 hours ago, Minsky said:

So people other than the hardcore players could actually use the module at night.

Are you suggesting the deck flood lights actually help anyone trap? It's TACAN, ICLS and maybe ACLS operation at night mainly.

[Minsky]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Are you aware of this trigger?

Aware, although not intimately familiar. The suggestion was to reverse the current logic and make the carrier dark by default.

1 hour ago, draconus said:

Are you suggesting the deck flood lights actually help anyone trap?

I was talking about taxiing (hence the mention of the plane directors).

[Micr0]

Draconus, Yeah, that is a handy trigger, but it still doesn't drown out those pesky flood lights during the recovery setting. Like you said originally, there is room for improvement.

 

Minsky, I'm actually not "asking" for anything. This was just an idea to improve the immersion. The challenge of night carrier operations is how dark it actually is. Just taxiing around the deck can be terrifying. Personally, I like to make it as challenging as possible to re-live the glory days.

[Jackjack171]

3 hours ago, Micr0 said:

Draconus, Yeah, that is a handy trigger, but it still doesn't drown out those pesky flood lights during the recovery setting. Like you said originally, there is room for improvement.

 

Minsky, I'm actually not "asking" for anything. This was just an idea to improve the immersion. The challenge of night carrier operations is how dark it actually is. Just taxiing around the deck can be terrifying. Personally, I like to make it as challenging as possible to re-live the glory days.

You'd be surprised at how many do not like a challenge! 

Looking at the DCS picture, the deck would still be illuminated without the unnatural backlighting. Overall, it appears to be an overdone light effect. I hope they fix this someday. I was a yellow shirt for 20 years. You cannot see the hull number at night...unless you look really hard and squint. And you can barely see the island from the bow. The shadows and lighting sometimes drown a lot out. The further up the bow you go, the darker it gets. I had to lift my googles to put a bird on CAT 1 or 2. But I'm preaching to the choir here!

[Micr0]

JackJack, when were you in?

Yeah, it's really not possible to describe to someone how dark it is. I miss the adrenaline. Like the guy says in the vid below, "I don't think you know what dark truly is....."

 

 

[Jackjack171]

6 hours ago, Micr0 said:

JackJack, when were you in?

Yeah, it's really not possible to describe to someone how dark it is. I miss the adrenaline. Like the guy says in the vid below, "I don't think you know what dark truly is....."

 

 

I served from 1997 to 2018, how about yourself? Yes, it is hard to get others to understand some things. No stars and no moon sometimes. I do think that the small boys in DCS are a little too bright at night.

[Micr0]

I was in only from 2000-03. I made to the RAG and then went and jacked up my back. Medicaled out before I got to have all the fun. Hence I live vicariously through dcs 

[draconus]

On 4/19/2024 at 7:23 PM, Micr0 said:

 

LOL, they used DCS footage at 2:24-3:00.

[Micr0]

That was me being a little silly when i edited down the video. Good catch.

[Flappie]

Let's use videos taken from the deck, because as @Micr0 underlined, photographers "cheat" with longer exposure. Videos don't cheat as much.

Here's some footage from CVN-69 and CVN-70 (Nimitz class):

CVN-78 here (Ford class):

Back to the Nimitz class with CVN-72:

According to these videos, this photo does not cheat:

Here's a last one from CVN-76 (Nimitz class), with what looks like a longer exposition, but it's very useful to locate the spotlights:

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A few observations:

• In most videos, the lower part of the island appears to be lit in yellow. This light comes from spotlights pointing downward. These spotlights are never lit in DCS.
• In all videos, the middle part of the island stays dark (they don't seem to use the top yellow lights very often). In DCS, the blue/teal lights are always turned off, while the top yellow lights are always turned on.
• In the last video, many lights are off. I assume it's a wartime configuration. In DCS, there's no such thing.