Any way to make your gals emit light on night missions?

[rezaf]

I only just started playing the mod and my main gripe so far is the night missions. They're almost unplayable to me.
I see a pitch black screen with the occasional hint of a dark grey thing that I might be imagining or not. When there's an enemy ship, thankfully THAT is illuminated, so I can see a darn thing.
In some missions, where a ship crashed for example, there's no such salvation. I run across a map on which I can't see a single feature. Did I just climb a hill? Or jump down a cliff? Are there trees or buldings? I have no idea. I click somewhere in the dark, my gal moves a bit, if I get the enemy spotted indicator I try to find the tile that will cause the crosshair to glow and then blindly shoot there.
That's no fun at all.
Anything I can do to tweak this?

Thanks!

[Solarius Scorch]

Unfortunately, it's a limitation of the engine.

Using OXCE code, Dioxine set the light around your gals to be low enough to not count as illuminating for the enemies, yet how enough to actually give you some visual data. It's probably the best that he could do.

What you can do however, is:
1) Use a light source. Throw a flare or a Molotov, or just hold a torch (but you'll be sitting duck).
2) Use the Alt key. Its main function is to show enemy facing, but it also works well as a general enemy indicator.

[Dioxine]

You need light sources, that's how it works now. But on the flip side, the gals can spot non-aided enemies in the dark before they spot them.

[rezaf]

What's the reasoning behind it all? Don't for get I just started playing.
I THINK I read in one of the research projects that you're supposed to spot enemies early - is that it?
Well, as it is I can HARDLY spot my own gals. :-p

I'd not care about being visible to the enemies - most annoying are when you shoot down a very small or small civilian craft and have to hunt down it's crew in the nighttime, but the most efficient weapon by a HUGE margin early on seems to be the bow (it can shoot to the stars and back), and this requires to have your offhand free.

And how can we have engine limitations in an open source project where you can technically just change everything. :-pp
 Make some overlay with bright colored "borders" around trees, people and stuff...
Well, I guess that's a bit much to ask - I do hope someone eventually implements something like this in OpenXCom though.

Very well, I was hoping I'd just overlooked a game option or something - thanks a bunch for your replies guys.

[Dioxine]

can technically just change everything.

Technically being the key word. Who? How? When? For What? Are the questions. Who's gonna gut the engine? And I'm just a humble modder.

[rezaf]

Easy Dioxine, note that I wanted to deflect the who from you straight away with the part about it being too much to ask.

As for the "for what", night missions are really borderline unplayable. Couldn't an option be added to have lights on the skybus and skycar at least? IIRC the Skyranger worked just like that, no?

[Solarius Scorch]

Couldn't an option be added to have lights on the skybus and skycar at least? IIRC the Skyranger worked just like that, no?

Yes, it is an option, but many people would be pissed. Some people prefer the lights, some prefer cover of darkness.
Anyway, if you're not afraid of enemies spotting you, you can just use a light source. Which is how humanity usually deals with darkness.

[rezaf]

How can people be pissed by something that's an option?
Ah well, good old fanboyism I guess. That's fine and all. At the very least it's understandable you don't add something just for one random dork.
Since this is such a fundamendal issue with the mod, I'd have expected a more ambivalent opinion on the issue, but it is how it is. 
Guess it's time for one of 'em "deal with it" gifs.

[ohartenstein23]

It's not so much fanboyism as the fact that with the current engine, in previous versions of the mod not turning off the lights at night meant your gals were leaving the craft to die to reaction fire from Dioxine knows what, or to be picked off as beacons saying 'shoot me!' The current implementation is an improvement over what it was, making it easier to leverage that 3 tile advantage in night vision.  I also like this version on a 'fanboy' level in that it's a much better simulation of night operations than many other games I've played.

The simple options for not worrying about terrain at night is to wait to attack a target until you know you'll reach it during the day, using incendiary munitions, or bringing light sources with you.

[Solarius Scorch]

Also, what do you mean "an option"? Like a switch in the options menu?

Firstly, it would require writing specific code for this. Secondly, you can't have everything optional, because you'd drown in thousands of options in the menu.

[ivandogovich]

Its interesting that you chime in on this rezaf even though you just started playing.  

This is a very recent development designed to make night fight a bit more tactical.  I think its a cool new twist for sure, due to the fact that I'm not lit up when the enemy wasn't.

Some options for new night fighting tactics.
If you stock your vessel with electro-flares, they will light it up by just being in the inventory.  There are new light generating items in the mod, torches and maglites too.  If you are concerned about bow shots, just drop it on the ground when read to shoot.  This takes 2 TUs, and is very cheap.  Later on, advance armor come with powerful light sources that you can switch on and off.  (this makes them great for soaking up reaction fire).

There is an option in the game to always play in Daylight conditions, you could enable that too, if you are not satisfied with these alternatives to night fighting.

[rezaf]

Ah, I didn't know it used to be different - hence my reaction.
You guys must'nt forget that I didn't get to witness the old ways of "step out and be shot".
Though I think in the late 0.9x versions of vanilla OpenXCom it used to be like that as well. 

@Solaris: Yeah, I was thinking: You can toggle this option. And one could make "everyting" optional, though it's of course always worth some consideration.

The problem with the current approach is you can't see your own gals, where your ship is, where which terrain is etc.
Honestly, I don't care whether it's more "realistic", it's a PITA to play with.
I see you say that the game currently is coded in a way that emitting light on the UI also means enemies can see that light, which maybe can be changed, but in the here and now, this is a problem and Dioxine tried to work around this in the manner we see in the mod. Fair enough, I guess.
I found that NVidia Control Center allows me to overwrite gamma correction, maybe this will at least allow me to see SOMETHING.

[niculinux]

It' a radical different approach, the game is meant to be harder than the vanilla one. And in the end let's we not forget: "Suffering awaits. And boobs" (cit. Dioxine)

[rezaf]

For the record again, I was not "complaining" about the difficulty of the game, I was complaining about having to play in the dark, quite literally.
I played on today and have by now finished close to a dozen of these missions. I just click on random spots on the map until the enemy indicator appears and then try to shoot at the glowing crosshair. If I get an indicator that the shot can't be made, I move a few steps in a random direction and try again. Eventually, it works and I kill the enemy.

By now I have encountered some of the heavier enemies where bow and arrow outlive their usefulness, but it's jarring how difficult it is to go back to firearms. They're just SO short ranged and inaccurate in comparison. Something doesn't feel right about that.

But that's a different topic. Maybe I'll post an impression thread eventually, but I wanna play on some more.

A few missions ago I also researched fire arrows, which help. It forces me to equip some of my archers with hunting bows, but you can illuminate the area a bit quite easily this way.

[Dioxine]

For the record again, I was not "complaining" about the difficulty of the game, I was complaining about having to play in the dark, quite literally.

Then don't attack at night-time. Problem solved. Many people avoid night missions, and it's not that hard to pull off most of the time.

EDIT:
Very early game alone provides 5 separate sources of light:
- torches
- maglite
- molotovs
- flaming arrows
- i-Phones

I COULD add a 'console' item spawning with the ship, that'd enable light when turned on, but I couldn't make it immovable, so there is little point.