Dear IPACS team,
Thank you for your continued efforts and passion in developing the Aerofly FS series.
Through long-term experience, I have noticed a significant change in night lighting behavior since the release of Aerofly FS Global.
At night, both aircraft surfaces and the ground environment often appear uniformly bright, even in areas that should naturally be in shadow.
The effect feels like a simple dimming of daytime rendering, rather than lighting properly adapted to nighttime conditions. This results in a very unrealistic appearance during nighttime gameplay, taking away the true meaning and immersion of night flying.
However, Proper night lighting involves natural light attenuation and shadow behavior. Areas without direct illumination or farther from the source should gradually darken, creating realistic light-to-dark transitions across aircraft surfaces and scenery. Currently, the night environment appears overly uniform in brightness, as if simply dimming daytime rendering, resulting in the loss of immersion and physical realism expected during nighttime flights.
Not only myself, but several other players have also noticed that the current night lighting appears less natural compared to earlier versions. Many players are very eager to see improvements to this night lighting issue. The Aerofly FS team has consistently worked hard to enhance visual quality, making Aerofly one of the best-looking flight simulators on mobile platforms.Fixing this one remaining night lighting issue would truly bring the mobile version to near perfection.
Current night in game：
In contrast image of Aerofly FS Global, the entire aircraft appears uniformly bright, even in regions that should naturally be in shadow. There is a lack of proper light attenuation and shading, making the night environment look more like a dimmed version of daytime, thus significantly reducing nighttime realism and immersion.
By comparison, Aerofly FS 2021 (mobile version), although darker overall, better captured the true experience of real-world night flying:
Illuminated areas were bright, while shaded areas naturally faded into darkness;
Aircraft surfaces showed reasonable light and shadow variation based on light source positions, creating a highly immersive and realistic atmosphere.
Gameplay screenshots from Aerofly FS 2021 with a user-created scenery add-on installed ：
In the image of af2021, the aircraft surfaces show realistic lighting behavior: only the areas directly illuminated by light sources are bright, while non-illuminated parts naturally fade into darkness, creating a highly immersive night flying atmosphere.
I fully understand that these adjustments might have been made to address player feedback about the night being too dark.
However, improving night lighting realism would not require major changes — simply restoring the light and shadow handling from Aerofly FS 2021 would already make a significant difference.
To better balance different player needs, I would suggest adding an optional “Realistic Night Lighting Mode” in the settings:
The current brighter night environment could remain the default;
Players who prefer a more natural and realistic light transition could manually enable the realistic mode.
This way, both casual users and realism enthusiasts could enjoy the simulator according to their preferences without affecting each other’s experience.
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider this feedback.
I sincerely look forward to seeing Aerofly FS continue to evolve and improve !