make night sky more realistic, including milky way

[nir]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add reasonably realistic night sky and milky way. 

I am new to DCS and find it quite awesome and beautiful in VR.

However, I was flying a night mission at 34,000 AGL in the incredible raven one fury campaign and the DCS night sky was completely immersion breaking!

You got the clouds, the sea, and the moon, all perfect and intoxicating in VR, and then the night sky is totally lame.

I guess if you are located in Moscow or another big city, with extreme light pollution, it is maybe possible that you have no idea what I am talking about, maybe you have never actually seen more than 50 faint stars above your head at once, but there are actually stars up there and they should look glorious from high altitude. look it up.

I am aware people are complaining about this for a long time, and I find it quite puzzling you have not fixed it yet.

PLEASE HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT IN 2025 THE AWESOME DCS WORLD HAS SUCH LAME INEXCUSABLE NIGHT SKY ?!?

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Not just the sky, but city glow is also completely absent. There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to lighting at night.

[Kang]

In my opinion the most important change to night lighting concern twilight hours. Right now DCS has a distinct point at which it 'officially becomes night' and the cockpit lighting goes from one set of affairs to the other in the blink of an eye.

[Archangel44]

The glow of city lights, realistic stars, nebula, the galactic center, aka "Milky Way" and possible meteor showers ( Falling Stars ) would be very cool.

[nir]

35 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Not just the sky, but city glow is also completely absent. There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to lighting at night.

That's right, at night cities should make the surrounding sky glow and the bottom of clouds above it visible

[upyr1]

yes there are stars in the southern sky and I want to see them. It would be awesome to have a historically correct night sky  

 

[Dangerzone]

I'm not saying that the night sky doesn't have room for improvements, but I've flown plenty of hours at night across remote areas, and I can attest that I've never seen a sky like the on in the OP's post. 

Moonless nights tend to be black - and it can be difficult at times to determine if the dot on the horizon is a lone farmhouse, or a star in the sky. Full moon nights are different, give a clear horizon, and surprisingly a lot to see as well on the ground (tree's structures, etc). But the OP image is a long exposure capture, that takes in a lot more eye than the human eye see's - and bringing something like that into DCS would be in the lines of being more unrealistic than closer to realism. 

Yes - stars can be more visible at the higher altitudes, but still nothing like a long exposure photograph. 

Saying that - a very rare occasional meteor/shooting star would be kinda cool, and I agree with the city light glow. Not sure though how much extra processing this would add to DCS - and if some - I'd be happy for it to wait until Vulkan is done.

[buceador]

I lived in Malawi for 4 years and often would see the milky way on a night flight, however as @Dangerzone says the OP pic is an extended exposure photo but I imagine he's using it to illustrate a point.

[OmasRachE]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb Kang:

In my opinion the most important change to night lighting concern twilight hours. Right now DCS has a distinct point at which it 'officially becomes night' and the cockpit lighting goes from one set of affairs to the other in the blink of an eye.

I´m a little confused, cause I expierenced quite the opposite. When I flew Rise of the Persion Lion there was a mission where you start from the carrier at pitch black night and fly towards the iranien coast into the sunrise. The lighting was quite stunning and the orange glow above the coastal mountains felt very immersive. Another thing I remember was some weeks ago were we stayed on our practice server quite long and got to perform an ILS approach at Nellis after refueling. The lighting went very smooth and I had to adjust the HUD brightness in little steps to addopt. So I don´t understand what you mean.

[Kang]

2 hours ago, OmasRachE said:

I´m a little confused, cause I expierenced quite the opposite. When I flew Rise of the Persion Lion there was a mission where you start from the carrier at pitch black night and fly towards the iranien coast into the sunrise. The lighting was quite stunning and the orange glow above the coastal mountains felt very immersive. Another thing I remember was some weeks ago were we stayed on our practice server quite long and got to perform an ILS approach at Nellis after refueling. The lighting went very smooth and I had to adjust the HUD brightness in little steps to addopt. So I don´t understand what you mean.

Perhaps you have found some sweet spot in the settings there, but let me elaborate:

The lighting outside is doing quite alright overall, I'd say. My gripe is entirely with the cockpit lighting, which, upon reaching a certain point of the twilight will suddenly jump in their brightness quite considerably to give a 'blinding at night' impression if not adjusted. It might be possible to circumnavigate that problem by adjusting brightnesses proactively, but I particularly dislike this odd mechanic.

[OmasRachE]

Mmh, didn´t notice that. Will have a closer look next time.

[nir]

6 hours ago, buceador said:

I lived in Malawi for 4 years and often would see the milky way on a night flight, however as @Dangerzone says the OP pic is an extended exposure photo but I imagine he's using it to illustrate a point.

Right, to illustrate a point. However according to Claude night sky at 35,000 agl looks brighter than from any remote pristine location on earth. Also I suppose if ED addresses this issue they should make is so the visibility of the milky way and the night sky depend on altitude and light pollution in the area.