Village and Airfield Lighting

[fiddlinjim]

I just flew an early night time flight and was disappointed in not seeing any lights at all, emanating from any town or village.   They were totally dark

which does not seem entirely realistic.   Also no lighting around the airfields making landing very difficult.

I realize these are war scenarios and  black outs would be in place but it would be nice to see some airfield  lighting, especially after receiving signaling flares that it is ok to land and some lighting from village windows.

[seafireliv]

Interesting. When I fly the game in BOS before the extra stuff there were lit fires signalling where to land on the runway. Haven`t had a night mission in Career so can`t say if they changed that.

 

As for no lights in villages or houses, I`m pretty sure they would`ve been warned by the State to have all lights out or hidden, and that would be *ALL* lights. Also, people aren`t entirely stupid, it`s war, a very deadly war so nobody in their right mind is going to have the light on or exposed in their houses where they might be bombed.

Edited June 11, 2018 by seafireliv

[-SF-Disarray]

Ya, towns and villages being blacked out is entirely reasonable. The electric grid would likely be blown all to hell and gone near the front lines and the bombing raids on any major industrial center would take out power generators and the transmission lines further back from the front lines; power plants being prime targets for bombing. And then there would be the government mandated blackouts, for obvious reasons. Blackouts at airfields makes sense for the same reason for night time blackouts anywhere else. Getting bombed sucks and a lot of the bombing happened at night as it was a lot harder to shoot down a bomber when you can't see it.

[Art-J]

Electric grid? What electric grid ?? I remember my mom recalling her first visit in strictly rural areas in Eastern Poland back in late '60s, shocked to discover that electricity was still not available in some small villages back then (again, late '60s!), people using oil lamps and candles. What do you expect from Russian villages in 1940s then?

Airfields, now that's another thing!

Edited June 11, 2018 by Art-J

[-SF-Disarray]

I'd imagine that some of the settlements around Stalingrad and Moscow would be electrified, at least in part, by the 40's. This isn't exactly Siberia we are talking about, but rather the area surrounding two of the biggest cities in a major power at the time.

[Wolfram-Harms]

There may be two aspects of the same thing: lighting here and there would sure add to the immersion.

But on the other hands, it would also eat resources.

The makers of a sim always have to keep an eye on that: what will the lower end of performance get?

That must be a tricky balancing thing with MANY things to keep in mind.

 

For more immersion, it would be cool though, if the airfield service barracks would have an open door

for example, where some warm dim light is pouring out on the grass, like a "welcome back".

[seafireliv]

If you want to see lights from houses at night you`re flying the wrong sim. Try something Flight sim X. This is world war 2 - even an exposed fire from a candle can be spotted at night and used as markers for enemy aircraft.

 

There are rare emergency cases where light was used as in the Pacific when US aircraft were crashing into the sea trying to find Carriers, but otherwise no,  there were harsh penalties in Britain for not covering lights or switching them off. Russia would be no different. And any that did insist on having lights exposed at night are dead.

 

It`s like watching girls talk who couldn`t care less for how it was in WW2, but just want pretty lights at night... Lets leave that to Battlefield V which pretends WW2 was a fun free-for-all and doesn`t respect war at all.