Weather & Light
Looking at somebody in the dark, in the rain, through fog, or from across the street takes longer. The script models that.
The effect
Only the seeing cues are affected — face, clothing, tattoos. A voice sounds the same in the rain, so the voice bar is never slowed.
| Condition | The face bar (90 s in daylight) takes | Feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Day, clear | 90 s | – |
| Night (21:00 – 06:00, outdoors) | 150 s | about 1.7× longer |
| Night, with a flashlight on them | 106 s | about 1.2× longer |
| Rain | 113 s | 1.25× longer |
| Fog | 129 s | about 1.4× longer |
| The edge of your range (from 3.5 m of the 5 m) | up to 120 s | about 1.3× longer |
| Indoors | 90 s | the light is normal inside |
The details
- A flashlight replaces the night penalty, it does not stack with it. Shine your own torch or a flashlight weapon at somebody at night — within a 35° cone, with the weapon in hand — and the scan goes from 1.7× back to about 1.2×. It is the single most useful thing you can do about a dark alley.
- Rain and fog multiply with the light. A rainy night is 0.60 × 0.80 = 0.48, so a little over twice as long.
- Indoors ignores all three. Being inside a building means normal light, whatever the sky is doing.
- There is a floor. The weather and distance slow-down never goes below a
set point (
MinFactor), so even a foggy, rainy night at the far edge of your range still finishes the face bar in about 257 seconds — inside the 300-second longest scan — as long as you face the person squarely. - Turning away comes on top. Your angle to the person still halves or quarters the speed after the floor. See Scanning & the HUD.
What players see
While a scan runs, the top-right HUD shows a line that names what is slowing you down:
Slower: dark, rain
The small ring above the person's head shows the main reason the same way. Nobody has to guess whether the script is broken or it is simply three in the morning. Besides the weather it can also say too far, turned away, no clear view or not on the same level.
The Mirror Check card shows the same line, so players can see how the light around them affects them too.
Settings
All in Config.Environment:
| Key | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Enabled | true | false = every scan runs at full speed, whatever the sky |
Night | { FromHour = 21, ToHour = 6, Factor = 0.60 } | Night hours (game clock) and how much they slow seeing, outdoors only |
Flashlight | { Factor = 0.85, ConeDeg = 35, Weapons = { 'WEAPON_FLASHLIGHT' } } | At night, a flashlight on the person lifts the light to this factor. Replaces the night factor |
Rain | { Threshold = 0.30, Factor = 0.80 } | From which rain level it counts as rain, and the slow-down, outdoors only |
Fog | { Factor = 0.70, Weathers = { 'FOGGY', 'BLIZZARD', 'HALLOWEEN' } } | Weather types that count as fog, and the slow-down, outdoors only |
Interior | { Factor = 1.00 } | Used inside buildings instead of night, rain and fog |
EdgeDistance | { FromPct = 0.70, Factor = 0.75 } | From 70 % of the scan distance the bars slow down to this factor at the edge |
MinFactor | 0.35 | The floor: the total slow-down never goes below this |
A factor of 1.0 means full speed; lower is slower (0.60 = the face bar
takes 90 / 0.60 = 150 s).