I created a night mission in which bombers are intercepted by fighters but the aircraft navigation lights on the wings go on automatically after dark. I doubt the bombers would have flown over an enemy city like that.

How do I turn them off?

A baffling question. Nobody seems to know!

You may rationalise, like I have, that since you cannot see the exhaust stack flare from an aircraft's engine at night, the nav lights are a game-play compromise

I thought it was a compromise for the fact you couldn't see the plane at night

The nav lights on aircraft at night are a real immersion killer(at least for me). IMO they completely ruin night missions. The search lights and the new fires could make for some cool night missions, but the nav lights shoot it all down. Why couldn't it be an option in the FMB like radio silence is? This is one old bug that I would love to see fixed in 3.04.

Here's what I've notcied so far.
Aircraft nav light policy seems te depend on several criterias :

- waypoint (especialy last waypoint before ground attack)
- hostile airplane in the vincinity
- enemy/friendly territory (not sure for this one)

The problem is that almost each airplane has a different behavior depending on the above criterias.
For example some of them turn lights off when an airthreat is in the vincinity, some others will keep lights on until they are hit by bandit fire, same goes for other criterias : it depends on the plane type if the criteria is taken in account and to what extent.

Hard to manage when mission building.

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Originally posted by J_Weaver:
The nav lights on aircraft at night are a real immersion killer(at least for me). IMO they completely ruin night missions. The search lights and the new fires could make for some cool night missions, but the nav lights shoot it all down. Why couldn't it be an option in the FMB like radio silence is? This is one old bug that I would love to see fixed in 3.04.

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How would you locate enemy a/c at night, then?

In real life, radar and eyesight was used

You could see the exhaust stacks glowing and throwing off sparks

We do not have that modelled in FB

We do have map icons to replace Radar. Also you can switch on symbols to see aircraft at night. The good thing about the symbols is that you can always toggle them off, unlike the enemy nav lights.

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You may rationalise, like I have, that since you cannot see the exhaust stack flare from an aircraft's engine at night, the nav lights are a game-play compromise

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These flares are in no way as eye-catching as the nav lights are in FB. You'd have to be much closer and look very carefully to see them at all. Also typical night bombers and fighters were equipped with special devices to hide the exhaust flares.

In-game visibility at night depends very much on your monitor and video card gamma settings. It's possible to adjust this so that the night is as bright as the day.

Nav lights are annoying in FB. Fortunately there are a few aircraft types that aren't equipped with them, e. g. Pe-8 and Ju-88. Use these as attackers in night fighter missions. But I guess that the JU-88 will also receive lights once it becomes flyable.

Sure they are more noticeable than exhaust flare.

But since I can't control the nav lights enough to make them do what I want, and I can't have exhaust flare in the sim, what else can I do?

Well, actually, there is another thing I can do- avoid night missions like the plague

There is a partial solution to this problem, and it all relies on timing. Basically you need to set your missions to begin at the cusp of evening and night, so that when the mission begins it is early enough that the AI won't activate their nav. lights, but you arrive at the target late enough so that it is dark enough for the searchlights to be activated.

The AI don't like to switch on nav. lights between waypoints, so if you set a good distance before the attack waypoint, then they will arrive at the target lights-off, and while you won't have full darkness, it'll be dark enough to see searchlights and thrilling silver webs of tracer.

I think these times are probably different for each map (e.g. 19.30 is a good time to start on the new desert map), but if you experiment, you should get the right result.

I don't think you need too much aid in finding aircraft at night, in fact it can be hard making the night truly dark. Although the midnight sun on the northern summer maps is very good and creates some nice effects, it seems rather bizarre that you can still see a glimmer from the sun over the northern horizon in temperate or tropical latitudes!

Lets face it, the AI nav lights are just a c*ck-up and it would have been far simpler AND more realistic if they just hadn't bothered programing them. But it's hardly a major issue, I guess, and you have no radar, so, like Chuck says, 'what else can you do?'.

Phil, thanks for the possible solution; I might play around with night missions again now.

Heres an example from my next campaign:



There are 6 B-25's in the picture. If I start the mission 5 minutes later, they will all be lit up like Xmas trees.

I suspect that if AI start the mission with lights off, they are quite reluctant to switch them on, whereas if they start with lights on, they are reluctant to turn them off.

It would be worth trying this on a bigger map, with a longer flight distance, so that it is even darker over the target for even more realistic night missions......