Flying at Night

[sd_flyer 6,093]

I'm personally not really impressed with MSFS night depiction. IRL you won't see runway lights or approach light until you get fairy close to runway and from the right direction. You won't see taxiway light until you almost touching wheels.

Given a good night VFR condition the first thing you spot is rotating beacon give or take 3-5+ miles out. Next you see PAPI or VASI again only you flying from the right direction (~3-4 miles), and finally approach lights (depending on type and intensity) 

In fact to spot mid to small airport at night is very challenging! I had students missing airport  as close as one miles out, or mistaking it with nearby shopping plaza light splash. Most of the roads at night are actually no lit, the only way you see them if the car driving with head lights on. More cars more chain of light along the road. Right now MSFS depict virtual street light everywhere which is a big immersion killer at least for me

 

Also at night IRL your body is more susceptible for hypoxia . Due you lack of oxygen your light perceive most of the light as very dim. So you won't see exactly things how your gopro! 

 

 

[virtualstuff 770]

7 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The stars were not that impressive in FSX and P3D. Certainly in the latter, they were visible with the Sun completely above the horizon. In addition, the range of "brightness" of the stars was very low, so identifying constellations was almost impossible. Another issue that I noticed was that all of the stars suddenly disappeared from view at the exact moment of sunrise, and only slowly started to reappear....one by one. Hardly what I would call realistic.

Indeed one of the weak points in FSX and P3D for that matter, actually the whole night environment 🤢

[F737MAX 5,738]

1 hour ago, virtualstuff said:

Indeed one of the weak points in FSX and P3D for that matter, actually the whole night environment 🤢

Paid so much money on different night light add-on products. Only one, towards the end of my time with P3D, wasn't performance-harming and it still wasn't (IMO) as good as MSFS is out of the box, which says a lot...

[Tuskin38 6,645]

11 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Agree very much. The decision to provide street lighting for every major road where none exists in real life was a bizarre one too.

 

It used to be worse, every road in the sim used to have lights.

One of the early sim updates changed it so the street lights depend on the population density. So there are less lights in sparsely populated areas then there were at launch.

And the sepia night texture used to appear a lot closer to the aircraft than it does now, and it looked terrible.

  

18 hours ago, RaptyrOne said:

It regressed since launch.

No it hasn't, it has improved.

Edited May 1 by Tuskin38

[DD_Arthur 1,105]

45 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

It used to be worse, every road in the sim used to have lights.

One of the early sim updates changed it so the street lights depend on the population density. So there are less lights in sparsely populated areas then there were at launch.

Forgive me but do you have a link to this update? 

If the street lights are linked to population density then something has obviously gone very wrong indeed. 
Every A road and motorway in the UK and Europe is lit at night.

This is completely and utterly  unrealistic and for me goes a long way to destroying the authenticity of the night environment.

[Tuskin38 6,645]

1 minute ago, DD_Arthur said:

Forgive me but do you have a link to this update? 

it was like 3 years ago, I don't remember which one it was.

[MOD71 175]

If you have Nvidia filters, try applying 'Details' at night. You can tweek the settings to your preference, but I found it certainly makes lights pop at night compared to default.  

[DD_Arthur 1,105]

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

it was like 3 years ago, I don't remember which one it was.

Yeah, fair enough. It must have been SU3 or SU4….

 I live in rural Southwest England. It’s still very dark at night….but not in MSFS.🙃
 

[s0cks 135]

It's the same in New Zealand, with some of the bigger roads getting full night lighting when they don't IRL. Tbh, that's got to be pretty hard to fix globally and make accurate, so I can let these things slide tbh.

[DD_Arthur 1,105]

30 minutes ago, s0cks said:

It's the same in New Zealand, with some of the bigger roads getting full night lighting when they don't IRL. Tbh, that's got to be pretty hard to fix globally and make accurate, so I can let these things slide tbh.

Possibly but since they did switch them on in one go it would seem possible they could switch them off too...

[ETOPS3_TTV 37]

Hello All,

I want to say I appreciate the feedback and comments. I was only focusing on the night sky. I think the city night light has come a long way since FSX and P3D. It’s not perfect but I appreciate the improvements. 
 

However, the night sky, stars, moon, and aircraft lights have not improved. The 2d map for stars are too big blurry and downright distracting. I play at 4K on a 42inch OLED and it just takes away the beauty of night flying. 
 

With that being said I still am amazed of where we were, and how far MS has evolved with MSFS. This is a minor grip overall. I am just surprised it’s not high on Asobo/MS list to improve. Lights and stars are what make night flying fun. 
 

Wish you all a wonderful week and Happy Flying. 
 

Cheers

[Langeveldt 293]

13 hours ago, Danthepilot77 said:

Does anyone else's night lights look blurry from a distance? They never look sharp to me unless I zoom in or up close.

That is a feature of the game, not a bug.