Night missions lighting problems

[Vakrug]

After a lot of research about unit visibility during night missions I found several important info:

• During night missions units have reduced visibility.
• When a unit is lit by a light source it is visible like during a day.
• There is no such thing as "brightly lit" or "slightly lit". Either a unit is visible like at night or like at day.
• In a base game aliens (player's only opponent) at night see as good as at day, so it was irrelevant for a player to hide his units in darkness.
• In this mode, however, putting your agents in dark areas is a matter of life and death.
• Game does pretty much everything to prevent player to know with certainty if a specific tile is considered to be lit or not.
• According to this article https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Night_Missions there is a "cosmetic" lighting. That is it looks like a light, but it is not.

The big question is: is there a way to know with certainty if a specific tile is lit or not?
More specific question is about Dragonfly craft. It has light sources that produce very strange asymmetric shadow with some parts being slightly lighter then others. Agents stationed beneath the Dragonfly often are targeted by enemies even from afar with no obvious spotters near by. I know, enemy soldiers are capable to shoot at places where they saw player's agents even few turns earlier, so maybe this is not due to agents are actually standing at light, but who knows?

[krautbernd]

This has nothing to do with XCF, but concerns core gameplay functionality. As such you might better off posting this in the OXCE subforum.

[Vakrug]

This is directly related to XCF, because it is XCF which made lighting important. Base game clearly preferred cosmetic over functionality. So, may be there is another mod that helps with lighting? Something like night vision toggle by space or scroll lock.

[Yankes]

This is directly related to XCF, because it is XCF which made lighting important. Base game clearly preferred cosmetic over functionality. So, may be there is another mod that helps with lighting? Something like night vision toggle by space or scroll lock.

Engine determine this and if engine will not expose this to mods then mod can't do any thing to solve it, this is why krautbernd correctly point you to OXCE subforum.

For problem at hand, script can detect this, and make unit lot darken when invisible, and more bright when visible.

[tarkalak]

After a lot of research about unit visibility during night missions I found several important info:

• During night missions units have reduced visibility.
• When a unit is lit by a light source it is visible like during a day.
• There is no such thing as "brightly lit" or "slightly lit". Either a unit is visible like at night or like at day.
• In a base game aliens (player's only opponent) at night see as good as at day, so it was irrelevant for a player to hide his units in darkness.
• In this mode, however, putting your agents in dark areas is a matter of life and death.
• Game does pretty much everything to prevent player to know with certainty if a specific tile is considered to be lit or not.
• According to this article https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Night_Missions there is a "cosmetic" lighting. That is it looks like a light, but it is not.

The big question is: is there a way to know with certainty if a specific tile is lit or not?
More specific question is about Dragonfly craft. It has light sources that produce very strange asymmetric shadow with some parts being slightly lighter then others. Agents stationed beneath the Dragonfly often are targeted by enemies even from afar with no obvious spotters near by. I know, enemy soldiers are capable to shoot at places where they saw player's agents even few turns earlier, so maybe this is not due to agents are actually standing at light, but who knows?

There is no cosmetic lighting as a separate type. Lighting from all sources in a tile sums up and if it is above a certain threshold you are seen as if it is day. If lighting is below that threshold the hex is still lit a bit, but units in it are not seen as if day.

I don't think that XComFiles can actually do anything to tell you if a unit is lit enough or not. It is an issue for the OXCE forum. There are other mods that use Night Combat like XCF, I think Piratez for example.

It is hard to figure out which one is from what for a non-modder point of view.

Engine determine this and if engine will not expose this to mods then mod can't do any thing to solve it, this is why krautbernd correctly point you to OXCE subforum.

For problem at hand, script can detect this, and make unit lot darken when invisible, and more bright when visible.

Or we can see a different color arrow when pressing Alt. Lighter or darker soldiers is prone to errors.

[Vakrug]

Engine determine this and if engine will not expose this to mods then mod can't do any thing to solve it,

Oh, fantastic! Not only lighting level is obscured from player, but also from program! A was not wrong when I said, that game does everything to hide the truth.

Lighting from all sources in a tile sums up and if it is above a certain threshold you are seen as if it is day.

I really hope this is not how it works. Words "sums up" suggests that 1 soldier in darkness is fine, but 4 soldiers standing together combine their "personal lighting" and become visible. No, my experience shows this is not happening.

It is an issue for the OXCE forum. There are other mods that use Night Combat like XCF, I think Piratez for example.

Considering that that these mods exists for many years, and this issue with lighting is still present, I don't think something will changed in the future. But really strange that this discussion hasn't occurred earlier (I checked forum).

For problem at hand, script can detect this, and make unit lot darken when invisible, and more bright when visible.
Or we can see a different color arrow when pressing Alt. Lighter or darker soldiers is prone to errors.

Both solutions are bad. Player need to know about tile lighting before moving an agent in.

In any case, thanks for replys.

[tarkalak]

Personal lighting in the XCom FIles is very weak, so it would be hard to notice if it makes you visible when ON. You can turn it off with "L" just in case.

I think that there was discussion about it some time ago, but I don't remember where.

[Yankes]

Oh, fantastic! Not only lighting level is obscured from player, but also from program! A was not wrong when I said, that game does everything to hide the truth.

No? And how from "program"??
Beside this was more theoretical answer WHY problems like this should be asked in OXCE forums as it define what things are available.

And if you read my post fully you will know that all this data IS available to mod to use as script expose this value. This mean nothing is hidden.

[Vakrug]

You can turn it off with "L" just in case.

This "L" shortcut proved to be very useful. When personal lighting is off it is very easy do detect if agent is standing in complete darkness or not.
The question about agent's visibility in near darkness level still is open though.