Night vision mode: please make it ineffective beyond 1km + other simple(?) ideas

[Rubbernuke]

Night vision has its uses, but also destroys what little stealth gameplay is left in Elite Dangerous. Just look at the amount of Youtube videos with it on to see.

This suggestion is simple- please either:

1: apply a falloff so that beyond 1km it does not highlight anything

2: apply a pixelation filter the further away an object is, so that ships cannot be easily made out (such as the pulse wave analyzer effect)

3: exclude certain objects based on sensor grade. Examples:

E sensors- everything is pixellated in night vision, no ships appear until within 250m
D sensors- everything is pixellated in night vision, ships appear but are hard to pick out at 500m
C sensors- pixels are smaller, but still noisy and only large objects can be made out at 500m
B sensors- pixels smaller again, medium objects made out to 750m
A sensors- no pixelation, small objects (SLF size) made out to 1000m

More involved ideas:

For detection beyond 1km for ships, have night vision supplemented with infra red (heat) tracking.

4: change the night vision from the line shader to the pulse wave scanner effect:

And then base night vision beyond a certain range on heat- so hot engines light up but cool ships are dark.

This could be an engineering effect, experimental but it would add layers to sensors.

 

[Old Duck]

I'd be happy with a simple change so that "night vision only works at NIGHT". The sun, a ship's lights, the bloom from engines, ejected heatsinks should all BLIND anyone using night vision, just like IRL. Then I could use tactics to avoid NV, like fly towards the sun or dropping a heatsink. Right now NV is a "cheat" that negates much of the stealth I worked so hard to achieve.

 

[Para Handy]

I'd be happy with a simple change so that "night vision only works at NIGHT". The sun, a ship's lights, the bloom from engines, ejected heatsinks should all BLIND anyone using night vision, just like IRL. Then I could use tactics to avoid NV, like fly towards the sun or dropping a heatsink. Right now NV is a "cheat" that negates much of the stealth I worked so hard to achieve.

Very sensible suggestion.

 

[tolm]

Seems sensible to me. I mainly use it for landing on planetary bases and not flying into asteroids but some form of drop-off does seem sensible.

 

[John Stoutbeard]

I like you're being creative about night-vision and suggest improvement. But.
I don't think a hard 'cap' of range is the way to go. I need my nightvision outside combat for exploration.

Problem:
Assume you're on planet Earth (yeah, one of those obscure places).
Attach your nightvision, have a look up in the sky. Why would the stars and for example ISS be occluded from vision?

Solution:
1. Have a 'cap' on lightlevels instead, in the same way current equipment works (I'm guessing a bit here). Intensity and Spectral ranges perhaps?
2. Have adjustable levels of intensity and spectral 'cap'.
a.) Cheaper sensors have worse adjustments & ranges and worse resolution.
b.) Expensive sensors have better adjustement ranges and higher resolution.

 

[tolm]

I like this ideas. I'd go so far to disallow night vision in combat mode so that it can't be used with deployed weapons. It looks pretty daft when watching some PvP videos where some have obviously chosen NV as their standard view.

Noooo!!! Night Vision is a god-send in a dark HAZRES to stop those pesky asteroids sneaking up on you!!

I think a gradual tail off - whereby objects slowly get dimmer and dimmer the further away they are would make perfect sense: something like <100m away are as bright as they are now, 500m away are half as bright as they are now and 1km are not highlighted at all.

That provides decent visibility of “massive dark objects” that you might otherwise fly straight into whilst also providing a 1km “stealth horizon” for anyone who wants to try using it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Indeed, it would massively change how combat would work in these places. A massive change of pace when no one dares to boost and death could lurk behind the next asteroid. I would like it - but only if NPC behaviour would be adjusted accordingly.
But wait, just forgot: Commanders won't easily give up their cosy habits...

This is why I suggested pixelating objects further out- it means you can tell something is there, just not what it is.

In reality I want to aim for something thats minimal work for FD, just to increase its chances of making it in- its so very hard to resist posting a giant rework of sensors.

 

[Greasetrap42]

The sun, a ship's lights, the bloom from engines, ejected heatsinks should all BLIND anyone using night vision, just like IRL.

This. Also should completely blind the pilot:

• lasers splattering over your shields
• missles exploding 15ft from your canopy
• other ships blowing up

It would also be reasonable if the ship's senors took a full 2 seconds to re-adjust night vision following full intensity saturation.

 

[Vedmo]

Night vision will not blind you if exposed to bright lights, the image will just go white/green/whatever color they use. They auto adjust to conditions as well. Bright lights can damage the actual equipment though.

This is all future tech in the game anyways, so irrelevant I suppose.

Topic at hand, while I really like night vision in game, I agree it's be a good thing if some limitations were imposed.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Night vision will not blind you if exposed to bright lights, the image will just go white/green/whatever color they use.

I think that is what was meant, the image gets saturated such that the pilot can't see stuff. The pilot's vision becoming obscured. Not that the light actually gets blasted in the pilots eyes physically hurting the pilot's eyes.

Edit:
It is possible that in the future optical enhancements could automatically compensate, similar to noise cancelling headphones but for light. But in the interest of the OP it would be handy if that wasn't invented in the future. In the ED future universe optical enhancements seem crappy anyway. Two minutes after scanning a planet I get no false color imaging of planets when I'm landing on the dark side of a planet. I enter the glide in complete darkness.

Edit:
Even with sensor enhancements that automatically compensate, lasers splattering over your shields might cause serious interruption to what a pilot can see using night vision. This would be a "realistic" method for making night vision awful for use in combat.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

Seems sensible to me. I mainly use it for landing on planetary bases and not flying into asteroids but some form of drop-off does seem sensible.

Agreed. Like you I only use it for planetary landings when it's dark (it's always dark when I go to engineers seemingly ) and when bounty hunting in a H-RES if it's on the dark side of the planet, you can't see the 'roids otherwise. Would definitely agree to a sensible drop off as it definitely makes finding targets very easy

 

[Screemonster]

Dazzle shells would be great if they actually dazzled night vision too.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Dazzle shells would be great if they actually dazzled night vision too.

I suggested this last year as well: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...hites-out-night-vision-like-flashbang.513214/

 

[Nadreck]

How about "night vision doesn't highlight ships below 20% heat (or with silent running on)"?

Ships below 20% heat are generally trying to be stealthy (and any ship with silent running on obviously is). Night vision is supposed to be simply a way of finding your way around in the dark without hitting a mountain or whatever, it isn't designed to counter stealth technology.

 

[CMDR Serra]

Make NV drain SYS? Adds extra pip management decisions.

 

[Northpin]

I dont think capping the distance is something i'd like especially if ships are not targetable past certain ranges (1km?)
It opens up for some long range sniper-like gameplay that doesn't seem appropriate in ED context.

You would have hull-tanks abusing long range weapons and countless heatsinks...
it will be like reversky, if you get engaged by one you simply highwake and not bother - obviously, paper planes might not even be able to highwake from a sniper, so waves after waves of salt rivers will flow

I do like the idea that sensors should matter. As it is now, d-rated are more than enough for basically anything especially with long-range engineering for smaller sizes.
Also, microgimbal from hitscans should go or the ability to target modules past certain distance should go...

 

[Rubbernuke]

I dont think capping the distance is something i'd like especially if ships are not targetable past certain ranges (1km?)
It opens up for some long range sniper-like gameplay that doesn't seem appropriate in ED context.

You would have hull-tanks abusing long range weapons and countless heatsinks...
it will be like reversky, if you get engaged by one you simply highwake and not bother - obviously, paper planes might not even be able to highwake from a sniper, so waves after waves of salt rivers will flow

I do like the idea that sensors should matter. As it is now, d-rated are more than enough for basically anything especially with long-range engineering for smaller sizes.
Also, microgimbal from hitscans should go or the ability to target modules past certain distance should go...

The problem you have is FD applied a sledgehammer to a walnut, and currently have applied a simple line shader that boosts everything uniformly- so you can see everything the same regardless of range in any light level.

I'd also say that the bigger problem is with long range engineering in general. If you had to be closer in to fire but had to compromise your ship to get it that cold (and be smaller- i.e. no 'stealth' Corvettes) it would suit the game perfectly.

It all comes down to FDs willingness to redo sensors and actually give them depth. If they won't or can't do that, then they need to provide simple changes.

 

[tolm]

The problem you have is FD applied a sledgehammer to a walnut, and currently have applied a simple line shader that boosts everything uniformly- so you can see everything the same regardless of range in any light level.

I'd also say that the bigger problem is with long range engineering in general. If you had to be closer in to fire but had to compromise your ship to get it that cold (and be smaller- i.e. no 'stealth' Corvettes) it would suit the game perfectly.

It all comes down to FDs willingness to redo sensors and actually give them depth. If they won't or can't do that, then they need to provide simple changes.

If sensors get a re-do they seriously need to drop some sizes and weight... C8 Sensors ... 160T? Don't be ridiculous. C1 through 3 maybe (C1 == Small Ships, C2 == Medium, C3 = Large) and then make the grades count. Maybe ONLY A-grade have night vision? Or only C-grade and upwards but A-grade NV has better range and can cope with cooler ships than B or C?

 

[PaulieWotsit]

I'd be happy with a simple change so that "night vision only works at NIGHT". The sun, a ship's lights, the bloom from engines, ejected heatsinks should all BLIND anyone using night vision, just like IRL. Then I could use tactics to avoid NV, like fly towards the sun or dropping a heatsink. Right now NV is a "cheat" that negates much of the stealth I worked so hard to achieve.

I like this, but sometimes the IRL room the player is in has really bad lighting, making the screen tricky to see, nv does help a bit..

 

[nanothargon]

Fdev: could you maybe try limiting night vision range to 3km? 1km might be too short. That should be the easiest way to implement it, and re-enable stealth as a combat mechanic?

My point is that it the range of night vision needs to be comfortably less than some reasonable attack range. 3km would allow long range mods, or multicannons, cannons, missiles etc, to be fired from outside of night vision range, without hampering night vision use for e.g. navigating asteroid fields.

Or, the “night vision doesn’t highlight ships below 20% heat”, above.