Why are the nights always so dark that you cannot see anything?

[katrina.balanchuk]

Why are the nights always so dark that you cannot see anything?

 

healthy eyes in a moonlight night out in the open will adapt to see perfectly fine almost like daylight

Even starlight can be enough if its a clear night and you are outside  (as long as its not deep woods)

 

And here in the game even in a moonlight night you cant see without the pipboy light ( which isnt great)

Or when in power armor the power armor lights (with I worked to be "bright" on the power armor station and then downloaded another brightness mod for)

 

Even Sancutary where I have lights all over the place its dark unless you are right by them.

With the dozens of lights I have all over sanctuary the human eye would see perfectly fine at night (I have the power to support them too, to make sure they are not dimming from lack of power, a small forest of generators so powerlevel in Sanctuary is 999)

 

I even downloaded night vision for power armor mod.

And this gives me back the ability to do anything at night and works nicely... but time again I am thinking the level of vision that the power armor Night vision mod gives me can be achieved by the unaided human eye on a night with a full moon.

And even a half moon you can still see a lot when out in the open.

 

I dont have any "darker nights mods" (why would anyone want these I dont know) but I think maybe in Vanilla it was not as bad but basically I cannot see anything without the night vison on or power armor lights.

And they both mean I need poweramor which I dont like to wear, when I am trying to be a little helpless for the mods that are common on here.

 

I have NAC-X weather right now..

[Spyder Arachnid]

NAC-X makes nights darker. Like pitch black. That is one of its "features" (and the reason I stopped using it). If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it.

 

If you want something close to vanilla nights, where you can actually see what you are doing, use Vivid Weathers. It doesn't make the nights pitch black. Otherwise, don't use a weather mod at all, as most darken nights to obscene levels. I think True Storms is another that doesn't make nights darker (unless you use the darker nights mod with it, but even then you can adjust it to your preferences).

 

Most ENBs as well will darken your nights, as most of them like that pitch black look. It's hard to find a decent ENB that won't darken your nights. Actually, on that note, Decent ENB won't darken your nights lol, and it still looks good as well (even though it is rather old).

 

 

 

But yeah, I'm in the same boat. I want to be able to play the game when it is night, so I'll never understand why people want pitch black nights. It makes the game unplayable (for me at least), as I want to see what I am actually doing/where I am going.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Spyder Arachnid

[MrFuturehope]

4 hours ago, Spyder Arachnid said:

NAC-X makes nights darker. Like pitch black. That is one of its "features" (and the reason I stopped using it). If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it.

 

If you want something close to vanilla nights, where you can actually see what you are doing, use Vivid Weathers. It doesn't make the nights pitch black. Otherwise, don't use a weather mod at all, as most darken nights to obscene levels. I think True Storms is another that doesn't make nights darker (unless you use the darker nights mod with it, but even then you can adjust it to your preferences).

 

Most ENBs as well will darken your nights, as most of them like that pitch black look. It's hard to find a decent ENB that won't darken your nights. Actually, on that note, Decent ENB won't darken your nights lol, and it still looks good as well (even though it is rather old).

 

 

 

But yeah, I'm in the same boat. I want to be able to play the game when it is night, so I'll never understand why people want pitch black nights. It makes the game unplayable (for me at least), as I want to see what I am actually doing/where I am going.

 

Good point about NAC-X, bad advice on solution (you said "If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it").

 

Brightness at night is configurable in NAC-X holotape and it gets even easier if you also install the NAC X - MCM Settings Menu with Hotkeys. Not only you can turn darker nights off (which are on by default!), but you can actually make the nights even brighter than vanilla!

Edited May 20, 2023 by MrFuturehope

[katrina.balanchuk]

5 hours ago, Spyder Arachnid said:

NAC-X makes nights darker. Like pitch black. That is one of its "features" (and the reason I stopped using it). If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it.

 

If you want something close to vanilla nights, where you can actually see what you are doing, use Vivid Weathers. It doesn't make the nights pitch black. Otherwise, don't use a weather mod at all, as most darken nights to obscene levels. I think True Storms is another that doesn't make nights darker (unless you use the darker nights mod with it, but even then you can adjust it to your preferences).

 

Most ENBs as well will darken your nights, as most of them like that pitch black look. It's hard to find a decent ENB that won't darken your nights. Actually, on that note, Decent ENB won't darken your nights lol, and it still looks good as well (even though it is rather old).

 

 

 

But yeah, I'm in the same boat. I want to be able to play the game when it is night, so I'll never understand why people want pitch black nights. It makes the game unplayable (for me at least), as I want to see what I am actually doing/where I am going.

Thats great info! I do like NAC-X otherwise. 

I had vivid weathers for  awhile but did not keep it.

I seem to rember unlike NAC-X, it did not let u turn off radstorms and the no radstorms patch often doesnt work right.

But maybe I do not remember it right as I tried many weathers.

 

I love the way NAC-X does rain even with raindrop noises when u stand under a porch.

Edited May 20, 2023 by katrina.balanchuk

[katrina.balanchuk]

1 hour ago, MrFuturehope said:

 

Good point about NAC-X, bad advice on solution (you said "If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it").

 

Brightness at night is configurable in NAC-X holotape and it gets even easier if you also install the NAC X - MCM Settings Menu with Hotkeys. Not only you can turn darker nights off (which are on by default!), but you can actually make the nights even brighter than vanilla!

I have the MCM setting.

I know where the brightness controls are, but have not found a toggle for "darker nights". I will poke around in it some more thank you.

[MrFuturehope]

15 minutes ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

I have the MCM setting.

I know where the brightness controls are, but have not found a toggle for "darker nights". I will poke around in it some more thank you.

 

I modified the original screenshot from the mod page to navigate you, here...

[Spyder Arachnid]

3 hours ago, MrFuturehope said:

 

Good point about NAC-X, bad advice on solution (you said "If you don't want dark nights, get rid of it").

 

Brightness at night is configurable in NAC-X holotape and it gets even easier if you also install the NAC X - MCM Settings Menu with Hotkeys. Not only you can turn darker nights off (which are on by default!), but you can actually make the nights even brighter than vanilla!

 

I've tried to use their setting for no dark nights, but it looked awful (for me). It's like someone increased the gamma of everything when you turn it off. Everything was way bright and washed out. Maybe it's changed since I last used it, but oof, it just looked really bad when you turn it off lol.

 

1 hour ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

Thats great info! I do like NAC-X otherwise. 

I had vivid weathers for  awhile but did not keep it.

I seem to rember unlike NAC-X, it did not let u turn off radstorms and the no radstorms patch often doesnt work right.

But maybe I do not remember it right as I tried many weathers.

 

I love the way NAC-X does rain even with raindrop noises when u stand under a porch.

 

Yeah I don't remember anything about the radstorms, as I just left them how they were. They never bothered me as I would go for cover when they hit lol. Or carry plenty of rad-X/radaway (or just be in power armor).

 

If it's all about the rain though, True Storms kills it in that department. It is designed for rainy weather (thus, True Storms lol). Most weather mods all have that effect (raindrops hitting the roof when you're covered), but I found True Storms to be the best in that department when it comes to rainy weather. It also has those nice rolling fogs which look fantastic during it as well. Downside is, rainy weather is a lot more frequent with True Storms. Pretty much it will always be either drizzling or raining in your game lol. Sunny days are rare.

[katrina.balanchuk]

1 hour ago, Spyder Arachnid said:

 

I've tried to use their setting for no dark nights, but it looked awful (for me). It's like someone increased the gamma of everything when you turn it off. Everything was way bright and washed out. Maybe it's changed since I last used it, but oof, it just looked really bad when you turn it off lol.

 

 

Yeah I don't remember anything about the radstorms, as I just left them how they were. They never bothered me as I would go for cover when they hit lol. Or carry plenty of rad-X/radaway (or just be in power armor).

 

If it's all about the rain though, True Storms kills it in that department. It is designed for rainy weather (thus, True Storms lol). Most weather mods all have that effect (raindrops hitting the roof when you're covered), but I found True Storms to be the best in that department when it comes to rainy weather. It also has those nice rolling fogs which look fantastic during it as well. Downside is, rainy weather is a lot more frequent with True Storms. Pretty much it will always be either drizzling or raining in your game lol. Sunny days are rare.

 

On a seperate but relayed subject to radstorms:

One of the biggest reasons i hate them I imagine my NPCs standing in the open getting dosed.

 

I heard different things on this, some people say NPCs are not affected by rads but there is at least one case of  a yutuber that had his NPCs next to radioactive barrels and they died regularily until he figured it out.

So based on that NPCs, take rads and cna die from them.

 

And even with the AI upgraded that they run for cover, they never do when it radstorms.

 

So i worry about my NPCs more than anyhting, espcially since there is no game mechanism to apply radaway to them.

[katrina.balanchuk]

2 hours ago, MrFuturehope said:

 

I modified the original screenshot from the mod page to navigate you, here...

 

I found it thank you

[MrFuturehope]

28 minutes ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

I found it thank you

 

Yay. You're welcome!  I'm glad I was able to help.

[MrFuturehope]

1 hour ago, Spyder Arachnid said:

I've tried to use their setting for no dark nights, but it looked awful (for me). It's like someone increased the gamma of everything when you turn it off. Everything was way bright and washed out. Maybe it's changed since I last used it, but oof, it just looked really bad when you turn it off lol.

 

If you're using other graphical changes, mods and modifiers, post processings such as enb, reshade, each of them is a factor on its own which adds to the overall visual appearance of the game. For example, if you felt like the nights are too dark and you tried to solve it by modifying post processing through reshade or enb presets instead of dealing with the problem at its core - in this case in NAC-X itself, you basically mixed many different settings that maybe made sense when all of them were enabled together, but as soon as you disabled one of them, the whole chain of those custom settings which were to be used together was suddenly broken and made the visual appearance of the game look differently than what was the original intention or perhaps even worse than vanilla itself.

 

For that reason it's best to go all default first and only enable and fine tune the options one by one individually to achieve the desired effect. It's also the reason why you felt like there's no good enb preset. Of course there isn't perfect preset if it's made by someone else. This is because your mod list which may greatly affect the game visuals is different than the mod list of the enb preset author and also their GPU, their monitor as well as their own individual settings are different and are to be customized by everyone individually to their liking and as a result, the look of your game most likely won't ever be identical to that of the enb preset author.

[katrina.balanchuk]

1 hour ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

I heard different things on this, some people say NPCs are not affected by rads but there is at least one case of  a yutuber that had his NPCs next to radioactive barrels and they died regularily until he figured it out.

So based on that NPCs, take rads and cna die from them.

 

And even with the AI upgraded that they run for cover, they never do when it radstorms.

 

So i worry about my NPCs more than anyhting, espcially since there is no game mechanism to apply radaway to them.

 

As long as a I have the attention of two knowlegable gentlemen anyone have any thoughts on this?

Or would it be more proper to start a seperate thread?

Edited May 20, 2023 by katrina.balanchuk

[Spyder Arachnid]

1 hour ago, MrFuturehope said:

 

If you're using other graphical changes, mods and modifiers, post processings such as enb, reshade, each of them is a factor on its own which adds to the overall visual appearance of the game. For example, if you felt like the nights are too dark and you tried to solve it by modifying post processing through reshade or enb presets instead of dealing with the problem at its core - in this case in NAC-X itself, you basically mixed many different settings that maybe made sense when all of them were enabled together, but as soon as you disabled one of them, the whole chain of those custom settings which were to be used together was suddenly broken and made the visual appearance of the game look differently than what was the original intention or perhaps even worse than vanilla itself.

 

For that reason it's best to go all default first and only enable and fine tune the options one by one individually to achieve the desired effect. It's also the reason why you felt like there's no good enb preset. Of course there isn't perfect preset if it's made by someone else. This is because your mod list which may greatly affect the game visuals is different than the mod list of the enb preset author and also their GPU, their monitor as well as their own individual settings are different and are to be customized by everyone individually to their liking and as a result, the look of your game most likely won't ever be identical to that of the enb preset author.

 

I was just using NAC-X. Nothing else. NAC-X covers so much stuff, it doesn't make sense to use anything else lol.

 

But at the time, I was just using NAC-X to test it over other weather mods. No ENB or anything else (no Reshade either). I think it is just an NAC-X issue itself though (for me at least). NAC-X gives the game an overall washed out look, not just when making the nights brighter. So when I use the setting to make the nights brighter, it just made the natural effect of NAC-X way more prominent, giving it an overall majorly washed out look.

 

But again, it's been a really long time since I've used NAC-X. All of this could of been changed in an update that I never saw, so I could just be spouting nonsense about an old version lol. When I used NAC-X, it was still brand new as it just got released. So yeah, I'm sure a lot has changed since then lol.

 

 

As for ENB, didn't say there was no good ENB preset, as many of them are pretty amazing. I was just saying that most darken nights, making them hard to see at night. Regardless of weather mods or lighting mods. It is hard to find a good ENB that doesn't darken nights.

[MrFuturehope]

57 minutes ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

As long as a I have the attention of two knowlegable gentlemen anyone have any thoughts on this?

Or would it be more proper to start a seperate thread?

 

I guess it depends on the properties of that NPC. I tried to lure a raider I needed to die near radioactive barrels. I was getting a lot of rads and the raider was totally fine. I was protected by special suit to reduce rads intake of my own character and I let my rads get critically high which means I let the radiation affect us both for too long for non-protected character to survive, but the raider survived it which made believe that NPCs can't actually die of radiation, but to be fair I haven't checked all of their properties so perhaps there is something which could trigger their death due to high radiation intake, but that would be some non-default behavior of the game as the vanilla NPCs seem to be immune.

[Spyder Arachnid]

59 minutes ago, katrina.balanchuk said:

 

As long as a I have the attention of two knowlegable gentlemen anyone have any thoughts on this?

Or would it be more proper to start a seperate thread?

 

NPCs won't die from radstorms or being around rad barrels or just radiation in general. Sounds like that youtuber you saw had some sort of mod that allowed that to happen. Unless you're using whatever mods they have, then you won't have a problem.

 

So I wouldn't worry about it. NPCs don't die from rad poisoning. Unless you have a mod that will actually make them die from it.

[MrFuturehope]

6 minutes ago, Spyder Arachnid said:

 

I was just using NAC-X. Nothing else. NAC-X covers so much stuff, it doesn't make sense to use anything else lol.

 

But at the time, I was just using NAC-X to test it over other weather mods. No ENB or anything else (no Reshade either). I think it is just an NAC-X issue itself though (for me at least). NAC-X gives the game an overall washed out look, not just when making the nights brighter. So when I use the setting to make the nights brighter, it just made the natural effect of NAC-X way more prominent, giving it an overall majorly washed out look.

 

But again, it's been a really long time since I've used NAC-X. All of this could of been changed in an update that I never saw, so I could just be spouting nonsense about an old version lol. When I used NAC-X, it was still brand new as it just got released. So yeah, I'm sure a lot has changed since then lol.

 

 

As for ENB, didn't say there was no good ENB preset, as many of them are pretty amazing. I was just saying that most darken nights, making them hard to see at night. Regardless of weather mods or lighting mods. It is hard to find a good ENB that doesn't darken nights.

 

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by washed out look, but I do admit that by default NAC-X has some quite significant changes to the feel of the game which may not please everyone.

 

I know of few which I turned off for my own game - the visual presets being one of them. Yes, NAC-X actually comes with its own enb/reshade like presets and I do believe some of them are on by default. Just to be safe, always check if all of the presets are turned off.

 

Then there's a visual effect for the sunglasses which basically simulates looking through sunglasses when you're wearing them, making the game look darker. My problem with this is that one of the suits I use is a complete suit which comes with sunglasses and I use that suit most of the time which means that my game would look like it's always late evening and dark if I didn't turn that option off, so I turned it off. Not to mention it's hard to fine tune the general look and feel of the game, if your vision is constantly affected by something.

 

There's also the so called vignette effect, again a vision obscuring effect which may look good on those fancy screenshots, but it's bothersome for actual gameplay, you don't want your character to suffer virtual cataract, do you? lol

 

There's more, but do you really need a comprehensive list? I guess it'd be better if you went through every option and tried to turn it on / off to see whether you like it more that way or not. That's what I did and that's also how I came to a conclusion that there are quite a few settings turned on by default which subjectively made the game look worse for me.

[katrina.balanchuk]

Such great info in this thread!!! Thanks!!