Why no Night Vision? NV Discussion.

I don't know if this was asked before but i think its pretty importend.

From the beginning i started fly LOMAC there was no Night Vision when you flew at night. I tought i had it wrong all those years and that most fighter jets didn't had NV. Because why should leave it out when real ones have. And this is a pretty realistic flight simm so i assumed they know what they are doing. But now i hear from several individuals that almost all modern fighetrjets have Night Vision.

So my question is... what is the reason they left out Night Vision. Is it hard to code? No time? To lazy to do it? No importance? I like flying at night and even without Night vision its pretty enoyable and i can hold my own. But its a b*tch to not have it when flying Low Alltitude or when you have to do formation flying.

Are you asking about Black Shark or Lomac? The reason I ask is that there is night vision in Black Shark.

Oww sorry.. talking about Flaming Cliffs 2 (LOMAC)

Try this mod: http://lockonfiles.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&cid=269&lid=1727&title=FC2%20NVG%20Mod#dldetails

Note: you must login first to lofiles...

and enjoy NV almost the same as BS!! ;)

Thanks for the link man... Didn't even know it was possible to make a mod for NV. I'm gonna use that alot. :)

But its still weird that they didn't put NV in this game.... And i would like to know why... When playing the first Lock On i allready tought it was stupid it was not implemented.

do the old su-27, su-33, mig-29 and su-25a have night vision goggles in fact ?

do the old su-27, su-33, mig-29 and su-25a have night vision goggles in fact ?

Well, NVG is something that can be considered as 'external gear', added when needed to a pilots overalls... For example, F16 pilots often use those clipped on their helmets... and i dont think they differ much from the standard army issue NVGs (for troops)

So, it is not something that comes standard with a particular AC, but something that can be easily added if needed... for example take Black Shark, you can ask your ground crew to fit you NVG equipped helmet, which has no integration with the chopper itself... AFAIK

Although i reckon in RL Su-27 pilots for example wouldnt be needing them per say, as they dont do A2G stuff... but, if really necessary im sure they can fit them no problem....

As far as I know, no aircraft simulated in FC2 has a cockpit compatible with NV goggles. The F-15, MiG-29 and Su-27 depend on radar to fight in the night or in adverse weather (N/AW). The Su-25 and A-10A are basically daylight, good weather attack aircraft (with some exceptions). Both depend on aquiring targets visually, for which NVGs are not good enough.

The Su-25T has some night capabilities with the LLTV pod.

As far as I know, no aircraft simulated in FC2 has a cockpit compatible with NV goggles. The F-15, MiG-29 and Su-27 depend on radar to fight in the night or in adverse weather (N/AW). The Su-25 and A-10A are basically daylight, good weather attack aircraft (with some exceptions). Both depend on aquiring targets visually, for which NVGs are not good enough.

The Su-25T has some night capabilities with the LLTV pod.

true true... but as regards to the mod, which i havent tested much yet, but judging from screenies on lockonfiles, it doesnt offer much in terms of target spotting ability AFAIK... you really can see squat at night regardless... :lol:

i would say the only thing it offers is better sense of horizon, pilot direction awareness in order to avoid night "vertigo" effects... obviosly to really fight at night, you need night sensor fusion, and none of the above AC can do any of that... as you pointed out...

In the old days, just having a radar alone would make the figfhter night capable. :)

As far as i know, the illumination ranges of the IR Lights for night vision goggles are not long enough for an efficient use in fixed wing cockpits.

NV is mainly built for infantry units and is clipped on top of their helmets.

For A-10 / Su-25 Pilots it would not help much as distances to enemy ground units are much bigger than the NV can show.

Also both Aircraft dont have cockpit instrument illumination which you can dimm down, so there will be dazzle effect inside the cockpit if you use NV at this time.

The AH-64 D Apache combat helicopter also has NV, but it is projected into the right eye of the Pilot and works with high sensitive FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red ) optical system which is a round box on top of the rotor blades.

So right now there are only illumination flares that you can use in the hot zone to light up the dark night :)

As far as i know, the illumination ranges of the IR Lights for night vision goggles are not long enough for an efficient use in fixed wing cockpits.

 

NV is mainly built for infantry units and is clipped on top of their helmets.

For A-10 / Su-25 Pilots it would not help much as distances to enemy ground units are much bigger than the NV can show.

Also both Aircraft dont have cockpit instrument illumination which you can dimm down, so there will be dazzle effect inside the cockpit if you use NV at this time.

 

The AH-64 D Apache combat helicopter also has NV, but it is projected into the right eye of the Pilot and works with high sensitive FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red ) optical system which is a round box on top of the rotor blades.

 

So right now there are only illumination flares that you can use in the hot zone to light up the dark night :)

F-15 pilots have been using NVG for years. That's right, not a pound for air to ground. NVGs are standard fair for A-10 and F-16 pilots too. The types of goggles used by the military work on the same principle as the Starlight scope from Vietnam. They gather ambient light and amplify it. What you're thinking of is the old IR illumination stuff. That's been around since WWII.

Well, NVG is something that can be considered as 'external gear', added when needed to a pilots overalls... For example, F16 pilots often use those clipped on their helmets... and i dont think they differ much from the standard army issue NVGs (for troops)

 

So, it is not something that comes standard with a particular AC, but something that can be easily added if needed...

Despite NVG being let’s say “stand alone” system, it is not that simple. If you want to use NVG for flying, your cockpit must be NVG compatible, as MBot said. The problem with the usage of NVG with cockpit whose illumination is not NVG compatible would be something like this:

Even if you dim down the cockpit illumination to the lowest level (we are talking about non-compatible illumination), still it would cause so much saturation of your NVGs so you will not be able to see much on the outside.

On the other hand, turning cockpit illumination completely off is not the solution, because then you are not able to see your instruments. Despite the NVGs have zoom level x1, their focus is in the infinity and everything that is close to you (like everything in the cockpit) is seriously out of focus. So it looks something like this:

Flying with NVG means looking outside with the googles, but when you want to check your instruments, you have to look below the NVGs, with naked eye.

So in order to be able to read your instruments, you must have NVG friendly cockpit illumination that is achieved by putting different lights and filters in the cockpit. Generally speaking, when you see a cockpit with red illumination – it is not NVG compatible.

igormk and mbot have hit the nail on the head. You cant simply pick up a pair of NVG's and go. To use NVG's you need the cockpit lighting to be modified to be NVG compatable.

Interesting... thanks for all the comments.