Moon phases are not synced with real life - discussion and solutions

[lev 21]

Hey guys,

 

This is a known issue and I've found multiple feedback tickets extending back to Arma 2 that complain about the moon phases being out of sync with the real life one.

 

Why is this important?  Can't I just set the date to find the phase that I want?  

 

Yes at face value, this is a very minor problem.  However, the existence of this problem in the first place is something about BI development practices that I wish to discuss.  Myself and many others love the Arma series and BI's dedication to simulation and detail.  BI has recently taken on a mentality of "if we're gonna add something to the game, it needs to be done right" which is a mentality I greatly approve of.  Few things annoy a user more than when a feature that has been advertised does not work as it should.  It is far less annoying for me to be completely missing a feature than to find a broken one.  From a development standpoint, if the resources are being put in to develop a feature than at least it should be done correctly otherwise the payout is even worse than if those resources were not committed at all.  

 

When it comes to the moon phases, it is great that BI wishes to allow realistic moon phases and implemented this feature of moon phases being tied to calendar date.  However, now that the phases and dates are incorrectly synced, you end with with a feature that does not serve its initial purpose that took more effort to build than simply allowing users to specify the phase.  We as users end up having to work around this function now instead of being able to rely on it.  Both parties here are inconvenienced by the shoddy attention to detail when this feature was first developed.  One example is mission makers who are trying to make historically accurate recreations.  Now they are forced to either pick the right date with incorrect lighting for their mission or pick the wrong date and take means to hide that from the user.  So while the bug seems innocuous at first glance, it has larger downstream issues for all mission makers including the BI devs themselves.  I implore the devs to take a look at this issue again and attempt to resolve it for the benefit of all mission creators down the road.

 

If it is too much work to properly sync the moon phase due to backward compatibility issues regarding existing missions, then at least provide a means to set the moon phase manually to override the default incorrect one (a command I suspect is available for setting the moon phase for the sync in the first place).

[thecanadianvending 24]

Does BI focus on small details? I have never seen this to be the case in any of the ARMA games

[KoalaDSK 122]

As far as I can remember, Operation Flashpoint had accurate simulated moon phases and I was amazed as I discovered that small realistic detail.

And don't forget about the small trees if you manually set the date to/play the game on December 24th ;)

[andersson 285]

Does BI focus on small details? I have never seen this to be the case in any of the ARMA games

Plenty of examples. Moving trigger fingers, ai for butterflies and other small insects, moon phases, water tides and more. Small nice details that makes the game more alive.

[Greenfist 1863]

Here's the official word:

They are not completely realistic. Some time ago we considered fixing it, but decided against it because it would affect already published night scenarios.

 

, water tides and more.

There aren't tides in vanilla Arma 3, right?

[Variable 322]

Well, already published missions are getting broken all over the place due to multiple changes BIS did, like night lighting, bad link to static objects, the burst issue and more. I don't see a reason why this issue should be different. With enough notice, people can tweak their existing scenarios. Night missions probably need to anyway given the horrific night lighting that was introduced in Apex.

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

The "visual upgrade" destroyed 100% of the maps and all non-NVG night missions so I don't buy the "They are not completely realistic. Some time ago we considered fixing it, but decided against it because it would affect already published night scenarios." argument.

[R3vo 2654]

The "visual upgrade" destroyed 100% of the maps and all non-NVG night missions so I don't buy the "They are not completely realistic. Some time ago we considered fixing it, but decided against it because it would affect already published night scenarios." argument.

 

Was about to say exactly that! Not to mention they changed the brightness of chemlights, which also broke tons of missions which relied on those.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Plenty of examples. Moving trigger fingers, ai for butterflies and other small insects, moon phases, water tides and more. Small nice details that makes the game more alive.

 

There's no AI for butterflies and insects, they're just particle effects.

Moon phases are off date as stated in the OP and water tides aren't a thing.

 

Cheers

[andersson 285]

Ok. I live in the past I see. It used to be a thing..

[Wiki 1558]

Even in OFP, they put attention to stars.

Wheb we had to escape.from the russian camp, we had to use the stars to find our position and the US camp.

(Which I didn't: much more easy to steal the Hind as soon as you disembark from it lol)

[Variable 322]

Stars still work though. Note that in Tanoa they are different since it's on the Southern Hemisphere.