Antartica X at Night, (my last prepurchase question)

[wingclip 13]

Hi Folks,

I'm about to order the Antartica X Box version and I just wanted to know if there is any night capabilities in the program? You know, for runway and building lights and such if flying at night.

I know it sounds like a strange question but I've spent an hour looking at scenery screen shots from all over the wb and I didn't see any nightime shots.

BTW Is it ever possible to see a patch for the Aurora Australis lights in the future or is that beyond FSX capability?

Thanks

[KPD 0]

Unless it's a rare and extreme case of emergency (medical evacuation mostly), there are no flights during the Antarctic winter. Actually, there was one such a flight only a few months ago.

As for the Antarctic summer, it never gets completely dark.

I'm quoting this from the user manual:

There is basically no flying in the dark in Antarctica because of the lack of proper navaids. Only a

few runways like McMurdo, Rothera and Marsh are illuminated at night but those lights are rather used for

bad visibility than actually for night flying. In the past years McMurdo sometimes received flights shortly

before the winter blackout was over (called “Operation Deep Freeze”) but even then there are no runway

lights (except approach lights) and everything is done using night vision gear. McMurdo basically being the

only station receiving occasional flights in the dark, this is the only station in “Antarctica X” with some

illuminated terrain around the base.

[wingclip 13]

Thank You... too bad. I know that in the name of realism there are things that can be done but are not. Sometimes it's nice to have an option for the sim pilot to choose. But I have no idea what it takes to program anything in FSX let alone something that FSX itself didn't have to start with.

I guess the the default FSX terrain has no lighting either. Come to think of it, I don't think the default terrain even has any buildings.

As for the 'Southern Lights' I'm assuming that won't happen because FSX doesn't provide an ability for it either. If it did, many other terrain addons would have done the 'Northern lights' by now.

Thank You. I have to check my user settings for this site because I didn't get a notification that you had answered.

[Sasa 921]

BTW Is it ever possible to see a patch for the Aurora Australis lights in the future or is that beyond FSX capability?

Unfortunately it is beyond FSX capability indeed. We spend quite some time in getting this done but there is no way in FSX to have an effect shown that is further away than 15kms. Given the fact that those lights span over a much larger area and are located in a much higher altitude than that, there is just no way to get them done properly in FSX. You will see the same with the Mount Erebus volcano's snow. It's supposed to be visible 100kms easily but FSX doesn't display it before you are in a range of approx 15kms around it.

Bests,

Sascha