Flying at Night !!! Can't see jack

[Longshot 10]

I like the aspect of flying.

During the day t is ok but at night... how is that supposed to work ???

Even with NVG's you can see jack s**** and the only way to orientate yourself is the height meter?? No horizon, no radar no other instruments???

Is there an addon or a patch??

[D_O_A 10]

I haven't had any problems like that mate, try turning your brightness/contrast up?

[bravo 6 0]

Have you tried these:

Night Vision Goggles

GDTMod_HDR

It might help you ;)

[Eagle911 10]

Hmmm... maybe because it's dark and night vision isn't instant perfect vision?

Now if you're talking about view distance related problems then thats on your computer

[Longshot 10]

Ok, if it is a brightness/contrast problem..... I will try it later... but I doubt it, as I already have the blooming effects from light coloured objects during the day...

What I mean, that during night time I am not even sure if I am flying straight or not as I don't have an artificial horizon to orientate myself on..... I am just wondering how am I supposed to do a ground attack run, when I can't even see anything.......

Could it be that I have the vanilla version and this NVG mod improves it??

[kevbaz 0]

im pretty sure in the cockpit view ther are working horizons..

[joey 10]

Post screenshot of what you see. Its not hard for me. Its pretty much the same thing as day, except GREEN.

The horizon is easy to see because the sky is full of stars. so pretty much...the horizon is at the point where the stars begin. Also you have your hud and cockpit which gives you your orentation. I never even use that i can see just fine.

[Jimmah 10]

Actually I've had this just riding in choppers at night. Sometimes the NVG's adjust the brightness all the way down, as if there's a bright light source where there isn't any. This mainly happens in the Blackhawk, I also occasionally get a permanent flash from one of the door guns, not even flashing, just a continuous flame. Sometimes I get both issues, which makes the NVG stuff almost make sense.

[jw custom 56]

Ok, if it is a brightness/contrast problem..... I will try it later... but I doubt it, as I already have the blooming effects from light coloured objects during the day...

it??

Try turning off Postprocess effects in your video settings and see if that helps.

[Longshot 10]

@JW Custom

Thanks, that makes more sense than turning my brightness up.... as said... I already have blomming problems during the day.

I will try later and report back.

[MechanicalElk 10]

Actually I've had this just riding in choppers at night. Sometimes the NVG's adjust the brightness all the way down, as if there's a bright light source where there isn't any. This mainly happens in the Blackhawk, I also occasionally get a permanent flash from one of the door guns, not even flashing, just a continuous flame. Sometimes I get both issues, which makes the NVG stuff almost make sense.

The permanent flash shows up for me often after loading a savegame. Seems to affect only static and mounted machine guns.

[BLSmith2112 0]

Um.... You cant fly a c130 with night vision, period. They work for 5 seconds and then green out.

They only work in 3rd person.

[Guest]

lol, look up some real videos of NV in action.

You will notice its no where near as bright or perfect as in arma 2, its actually very dull and dark, and only allows you to see basic enemy movement.

[BeerHunter 0]

Night flying is IFR (instrument flying - hence the separate rating on you license) so you depend heavily on your artificial horizon ,altimeter and compass , NVG just make it a bit easier but it should NEVER be like daylight VFR flying.

[bigduksixx 15]

Night flying is IFR (instrument flying - hence the separate rating on you license) so you depend heavily on your artificial horizon ,altimeter and compass , NVG just make it a bit easier but it should NEVER be like daylight VFR flying.

Well, I don't know where your live, but in the UK you can fly at night without a IFR rating. The night rating course in a minimum of 5 hours IIRC.

[50.cal 10]

Night flying is IFR (instrument flying - hence the separate rating on you license) so you depend heavily on your artificial horizon ,altimeter and compass , NVG just make it a bit easier but it should NEVER be like daylight VFR flying.

What about night VFR then? Ask chopper pilots. 90% of them are VFR only.

No there's a problem with the game. You can't see a thing in a clear night with or without nvg. I guess it's related to an overdone HDR effect.

[sakura_chan 9]

I had this problem too, basically what happens is the instrument panel lights are soooo bright that they ruin the level of the NVG. The easiest solution is to look up a bit until you can't see the cockpit lights. This is how I fly the JSF and the Hurk.

[Longshot 10]

@Sakura Chan

That is exactly what I was talking about! I also had the feeling that the lights might be too bright! Is this

the improvement through your "Non-Blinding Sun Mod"????????

Edited July 22, 2009 by Longshot

[v11cu96 10]

Imho, like OFP its TOO dark at night in ArmaA 2. I mean its totally BLACK! Night time is never totally black even in the most remote location in the real world, BI seem to underestimate the power of the sun, even when the world isnt facing it.... Also has anyone seen the Moon recently?

Because of these, the human eye can adjust somewhat to darkness, we are not 100% blind without artifical light.

Everything should be VERY dark blue with limited visibility/ blackness towards the horizon.

At it is Night scenarios are unplayable without NV, you may as well switch your monitor off, ffs.

Try driving a car with out NV and you can see NOTHING out side of your head lamps glow, this is not how it works in real life unless the weather is extreamly bad.

And this is not diffcult to acheive in a 3D game engine either.

Thank god ArmA2 isnt set in WW2 (before they had NV.)

Edited July 22, 2009 by v11cu96

[Taurus 20]

Imho its TOO dark at night in this game. I mean its totally BLACK! Night time is never totally black even in the most remote location in the real world

I'm sorry, but where do you live?

In Sweden depending of season its so dark in "remote places" you wont see much at all.

And driving a car at night you only see whats in your head lamps, perhaps there should be more "ambient" light as most car lights have a wider light beam.

But, in wartime the lights on vehicles are covered so they should only display as little light as possible and horizontally as you see a vehicle with its light on from far away otherwise, also from the sky which is not very good in a wartime scenario.

BIS got the night darkness right IMHO, however AI sees you anyway which would be the most problematic issue with missions at night(IMHO), but that's another thread...

Unfortunately the cloud layer can not be set so it covers the sky, neither the "thickness" of them.

i.e. the clouds cover the sky with clouds which are 1km high which almost prevents the sun to shine through at all.

Then its pitch black!

Also IRL

In Arma even when you set the weather to be raining the moon shines through the clouds.

Dunno about the pacific rains which would have been featured in Arma but Arma 2 is in Europe and believe me, I've seen those rain clouds :)

Rain mostly come from "Cumulus" which can rise as high as 6000 meters at some locations on earth. Sorry went OT there...

Sakura_Chan

This has followed us from the ArmA days and will probably not be fixed in a near future :/

I have never used NVGs in an aircraft but I can not see that the instruments would blind the pilot as they do in ArmA.

Also modern fighter air crafts have a HUD, I do believe the A10 had it in ArmA. Haven't had time to check the Arma 2 A10 yet, but the JSF surly doesn't.

[v11cu96 10]

I say - for the sake of the campaign BI give us one of the following:

1) The Moon

2) Virtual Carrots.

3) A 'go to bed option' like GTA that fast forwards the game 8 hours -so we can ressume operations in the glorious day light.

I refer to My WW2 example, were night Ops non-existent in WW2?

No they werent, why? because they could see enough in the dark to know they weren't walking into tree....

[dejjvid 10]

Only part that is tricky with night flying is on Expert, since you have no 3rd person view. And those small filthy trees smash my tailrotor.

[50.cal 10]

You can dim instruments lights in all aircrafts certified for night operation.

It can takes up to 30 minutes for the human eyes to fully adapt to the darkness of the night and only few seconds to adapt to day light.

I remember while I was doing my night VFR qualification I had to scotch a piece of paper on the top of my backup torch lamp in order to use it. It's not like driving a car by night. The only lights you see come from your instruments the moon and the ground. Try to use a torch lamp without dimming it and you'll be completely blinded ;)

The in game nvg seems to over react to the proximity of low intensity light sources as well.

Edited July 22, 2009 by 50.cal

[wooly-back-jack 10]

don't forget to use your headlights too 'L' :p

[Vandrel 10]

Hate to say it but NVG's in game are fairly accurate. No moonlight=terrible time to use NVG's. Bight lights in the direct view of NVG's will dim the image, older versions we used to use wouldn't dim and would cause super white out mode that would blind you, the newer models we've received are much more friendly on this issue.