4.11: 'Changes To darkness of night'
 

In the 4.11 Guide, under 'Other small Changes & Improvements', it lists 'Changes to darkness of night'.

I was wondering if the IL-2 community is aware that with 4.11, we have lost approximately 2 hours of daylight in a 24 hour day? As a mission builder, I work with the FMB a lot and have noticed a dramatic change.

I am finding that I have to re-edit my 4.10 early morning and early evening missions. These are sunrise and sunset missions that (in 4.10) still had plenty of daylight left for ground attack and dogfighting.

In 4.11, these same missions now basically start in the dark or near-dark and must have their starting times changed in order to make them playable.

Just as a small example, I have attached 4 screenshots. From left to right, the first 2 shots are from 4.10 (6am and 6pm, respectively). Generally, these used to be the earliest/latest I would start a mission, as there was still enough daylight to see what you were doing.

The next 2 shots are from 4.11 (6am and 6pm, respectively). As you can see, it is near-dark in both shots...much darker than the 4.10 screens.

All of the shots were from the exact same mission on the Solomon's 1944 map. The only difference is the game version I tested them on.

I put a lot of effort into the starting time of my missions, as the lighting can have a dramatic effect on several aspects of gameplay.

Personally, I love the 4.11 patch, but this one particular change has made a dramatic effect (unfortunately, a negative one) on many of my missions (I have a lot).

I suspect that as 4.11 gets more playtime from the community, this issue will become more apparent to a larger number of players.

I was just wondering why this change to the darkness was made and was there any thought given to the problems it may inflict on legacy missions and campaigns?

Aviar

I have posted an observation like this in 4.11 debuging thread. Seems like 4.11 messed with previous 4.10 weather and time changes.

I had the same experience in my Finland campaign, pitchblack night instead of a nice colo:confused:ured nightfall sky

This is already reported, time of day changes in v4.11 and clouds bugs in the debugging sticky.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...2&postcount=56

Thanks Alpha. As you have probably found out by now, it's not just some maps that are affected by the shortened daylight hours. It seems the basic 24-hour cycle has been changed.

Basically, early morning brightness comes later (compared to 4.10) and early evening darkness comes earlier (compared to 4.10). This can lead to gameplay issues for certain legacy missions/campaigns.

The 'black' clouds is also a new issue in 4.11.

Aviar

I think it has something to do with the mission date, in winter sun goes up later and goes down earlier, in summer sun goes up earlier and goes down later.
IMO it is better this way because in 4.10 you got at 2 am in the east dark night and in the west it looks like short after sunset.
sry for my bad english.

We all know that. I'm talking about comparing the same mission, same date, same map on both 4.10 and 4.11.

Aviar

Well missions are now looking strange as we lost the sunset and sunrise, nice red orange yellow effect, replaced with green sunset/sunrise and mission lighting timing is way off for what we had in v4.10.

Night colours are looking very weird .......................:confused:

Does anyone remember the server on hyperlobby back around the AEP period that ran a lakeside dogfight map at midnight in a thunderstorm ? For some reason it was always popular :D

Aviar, thanks for your feedback. We will look at this again.