Airport Lights
Runway, approach and PAPI lights for the airfields SP2 leaves dark.
- Version
- Version 0.2.0
- Works with
- SimplePlanes 2 0.7.9
- Updated
- Category
- World
- Online
- Local onlyExperimental: still has bugs in multiplayer
- Needs
- BepInEx 5. The Gravy Mod Menu is recommended.
What it does
Night lighting for the airports SimplePlanes 2 leaves dark. On the main island, Daland Airfield and the Migicovsky grass strip have no runway lights at all, and neither do the airports of the classic islands brought back by the Classic Islands mods (Wright Isles, Krakabloa, Snowstone). This mod gives them a full set of airport lights, laid out the way real airports are lit and fitted to the game's own runway and ground.
(open larger)Features
- Runway edge lights. White lights every 60 m or less along both edges. Seen from the landing side, the last 600 m (or the last half of a short runway) show amber, the caution zone. The lights are bidirectional, so each direction sees its own colours.
- Threshold and end bars. Green across the threshold seen from the approach, red seen from the runway, at both ends.
- Centreline and touchdown zone lights on long, wide runways (1500 m and 30 m or more): Wright Airport, Jundroo AFB and Avalanche Airport (touchdown zone from 1800 m: Wright and Jundroo AFB).
- Approach lights in front of each paved threshold (MALSF style):
- light bars every 60 m out to 420 m, with a crossbar at 300 m;
- sequenced white flashers on the outer three bars, firing towards the runway twice a second (the "rabbit");
- they stand on short poles following the ground, levelled with the threshold where they can be;
- a bar is left out where the ground rises more than 6 m above the threshold, drops more than 30 m below it (a cliff or the sea) or a building stands in the way. If more than half have to go, a pair of flashing runway end identifier lights (REIL) marks the threshold instead;
- the long runways (Wright 36, Jundroo AFB 01L/01R) get MALSR: the same plus five more sequenced flashers out to 720 m.
PAPI on the left of each paved runway at the aiming point, using the game's own PAPI housings. Each of the four units turns white or red by your angle above it:
- on a 3° approach: two white, two red;
- too high: all white;
- too low: all red.
It works from any camera position and only shines towards the approach. By default it stays lit by day at a lower intensity, as real PAPIs do.
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- Rotating beacon on a small tower beside each field. It's green and white and turns at 12 rpm, so you see a sweep every 2.5 seconds from far away.
- Blue taxiway edge lights along Daland's taxiways and apron.
- Apron floodlights at Daland: four poles in front of the hangars, each with a pool of light on the ground. A few real spot lights at the poles nearest the camera light up the apron and your craft.
- Grass strip style at Migicovsky and Bandit Airport. Dim white edge lights with no caution zone and short green/red groups at the ends (and a beacon at Migicovsky). A grass or dirt strip gets no approach lights and no PAPI.
- Night and weather:
- the lights follow the game's own "dark outside" test, the one that switches its runway and city lights on, with a smooth fade;
- in fog the game counts daytime as dark too, so the lights come on, and they're turned up as real airport lights are in low visibility;
- a cloud deck seen from above dims them, by the clouds as drawn at that moment (also while the weather changes), the same way as the Night Traffic street lights.
- Classic island airports. With the Classic Islands mods installed, their airports are lit too, wherever the island mods put the islands (each island's position is read from the island mod when the flight starts, so moving an island in its settings moves the lights with it). An island whose mod isn't installed is simply skipped. See the table below.
- Fitted to the real airport. When an airport loads, it's surveyed:
- the game's runway object (Daland's runway mesh, the classic runways' meshes) corrects the whole layout, in case a game update or the island mod moves the airport;
- on the classic islands each paved runway is measured on its own colliders: where the pavement starts and ends, its width, its centreline and its surface height. A threshold off the pavement or a centreline off by more than 3 m is corrected, and the numbers go to the log;
- every light is set onto the real ground with ray casts (also on the classic islands' runways, which stand on deep box colliders);
- the game's own lights near the field are checked, so nothing is ever doubled;
- the airport's start locations and the runways found are written to the log.
- Jundroo AFB's old lights. Krakabloa's air force base still has SP1's night lights (sparse edge lights, threshold bars and short approach bars at the south ends; no PAPI, centreline or beacon). By default they're switched off and replaced by the full set; set Jundroo AFB SP1 Lights to Keep to keep them and add only centreline, touchdown zone, PAPI, REIL and the beacon. Either way nothing is doubled. Switching them off is local and visual only.
- Cheap. Every light is a glow dot in one particle batch (the same technique as the game's own runway lights), a few hundred in all. The lights only shine and add a few small models, with no colliders.
The airports
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| Airport | Runway | Lighting |
|---|---|---|
| Daland Airfield | 12/30, paved, 527 × 20 m, headings 117° / 297°, 28 m elevation | edge, threshold/end, MALSF approach lights with flashers at both ends, PAPI at both ends, beacon, 65 taxiway lights, 4 floodlight poles |
| Migicovsky Airfield | 09/27, grass, about 550 × 24 m, 456 m elevation in the hills west of Cochran | dim edge lights, threshold/end groups, beacon |
| Wright Airport (Wright Isles) | 18/36, paved, 2308 × 62 m, 70 m elevation | edge, threshold/end, centreline, touchdown zone, MALSF (18) and MALSR (36) approach lights, PAPI at both ends, beacon |
| Wright Isles North Runway | 08/26, paved, 1000 × 75 m, 276 m elevation | edge, threshold/end, REIL and PAPI at both ends |
| Jundroo AFB / Yeager Airport (Krakabloa) | two parallel runways 325 m apart, 19R/01L and 19L/01R, paved, 2568 × 63 m each, 369 m elevation | edge, threshold/end, centreline, touchdown zone, MALSR at the south ends (01L/01R; the bars over the cliff are left out), REIL at the north ends, PAPI at all four ends, military beacon (green and split white). SP1's own lights replaced or kept (see above) |
| Bandit Airport (Krakabloa) | 21/03, dirt strip, about 1230 × 50 m, 186 m elevation, by the WW2 base | dim edge lights, threshold/end groups |
| Avalanche Airport (Snowstone) | 09/27, paved, 1602 × 94 m, 61 m elevation | edge, threshold/end, centreline, MALSF approach lights and PAPI at both ends, military beacon |
| Maywar Airport (Maywar) | the Maywar mod's copy of Cochran | already lit by the game's own Cochran runway lights and PAPI, so left alone (checked and logged each flight) |
The classic runways' geometry was measured from the runways themselves (meshes and colliders), and is checked again in the game by the survey. Other airports can be added later, one table entry each (thresholds, width, surface, approach type and extras).
Multiplayer
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Experimental online. This mod runs in multiplayer, but it still has bugs there that aren't fixed yet. It works best in single player for now.
Local only. The lights are drawn on your own screen only: no colliders, nothing networked, and other players don't need the mod. It works the same whether you host or join. Switching off Jundroo AFB's old SP1 lights is local and visual only too.
Settings
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| Section | Setting | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airport Lights | Enabled | true | |
| Airport Lights | Brightness | 1.5 | All lights (0.25–4). Above 1 they bloom with the game's bloom on |
| Airport Lights | LightSize | 3 px | Size of the light dots on screen (1–8) |
| Features | ApproachLights | true | Approach lights, flashers and REIL |
| Features | Papi | true | PAPI lights and housings |
| Features | DaytimePapi | true | Keep the PAPI lit by day (dimmer) |
| Features | Beacon | true | Rotating beacon and its tower |
| Features | TaxiwayLights | true | Blue taxiway edge lights (Daland) |
| Features | ApronFloodlights | true | Floodlight poles, light pools and real spot lights (Daland) |
| Features | RealLights | 2 | Real spot lights at the nearest floodlights (0–4) |
| Classic Islands | WrightIsles | true | Light Wright Airport and the North Runway (needs the Wright Isles mod) |
| Classic Islands | Krakabloa | true | Light Jundroo AFB and Bandit Airport (needs the Krakabloa mod) |
| Classic Islands | Snowstone | true | Light Avalanche Airport (needs the Snowstone mod) |
| Classic Islands | JundrooAfbLights | Replace | Replace: SP1's old lights at Jundroo AFB are switched off and the full set drawn. Keep: they stay, and only what they lack is added |
The Gravy Mod Menu tab also shows:
- the airports lit and the state of each one: waiting for its island, from the table, waiting for it to load, or surveyed;
- how many lights are drawn and the night factor;
- the low-visibility boost;
- the update cost.
Its Survey Airports Again button re-measures the airports and writes the survey to the log again.
Known limitations
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- The classic islands' airports need their island mods; without them they're skipped. If an island mod is installed but its island is switched off, the airport waits for the island and is never lit.
- Bandit Airport has no runway object in the game: its ends come from the terrain (a flat, dirt-painted band measured offline). The survey logs how far the flat ground really reaches.
- Wright Isles and Krakabloa only have a 15 m terrain grid, so a light just off the pavement can sit on a slightly uneven shoulder.
- Classic runways have no taxiway lights or apron floodlights yet.
- Until an airport has loaded (within a few km), its lights use the table's heights. A light can sit slightly off the ground in the distance until the survey sets it down.
- The Migicovsky strip has no runway object in the game; its ends come from the terrain (a flat 455–457 m band). The survey logs how far the flat ground really reaches.
- Taxiway lights at Daland follow the outline of the taxiway and apron surface, so a few sit along the apron edges near the hangars.
- The lights are drawn on top of the sky, so a cloud deck seen from above dims them as a whole rather than cloud by cloud.
- PAPI and the approach lights only shine towards the approach, so from the side or behind they're dark (as real ones are).
Requirements
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- SimplePlanes 2 0.7.9
- BepInEx 5 (5.4.x, x64 Mono build) installed in the game folder. On Linux/Steam Deck with Proton, add
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winhttp=n,b" %command%to the game's launch options.
The Gravy Mod Menu is recommended: most mods keep their in-game settings and status there. Without it, edit the .cfg files in BepInEx/config/.