Is it me or have the spot lights got weaker?

[C04L]

a few months back i got burned out from playing too much KSP. I'm back but i have a quiery thats been nawing at me since i noticed it.
Before my break from the game i used the Mk1 spotlights on the bottom of my Landers for Mun etc and night time decents.
They used to shine nice and bright and would light up the ground below at around something like 40ft (guess).
Now i just made a lander same spec's as previous but the spotlights dont shine at all, even at 5ft!

i used to line up the spotlights 'spots' on the floor of the VAB so they would show me the ground dirctly under my lander.
Now that reflection doesnt even show on the floor.

Is it my client or has the game been updated so everyones lights are this way?
please let me know so i can nail down the problem and try to fix it.

In advance, Thanks. C04L.

[Chibbity]

It's just you.

Check max lights in graphics options.

Also there are two lights, one is short range and weak, the other is long ranged and brighter.

[RoofCat]

I may be wrong, but I can't remember lights being visible in stock VAB ever.

You always had to leave VAB to evaluate their effect. While playing with colors and "Northern lights" illminations I actually built those during KSC "nights" and then also launching a bit up just to avoid launchpad lights messing things up. There was no other way to get proper impression (aside from some mod probably).

[Chibbity]

You can check it in the VAB/SPH, it lights up the floor.

However like you; I don't remember this always being the case.

It may have changed in some recent update, or it's a mod?

[RoofCat]

when I said lights not being visible I didn't mean like 100% invisible. There may have been some highlights eventually. But in general VAB is so lit you shouldn't see much difference neither on ground nor ship with those small illuminators. And they should still work in space. iirc spotlight shows up at 150..200m distance or so. While wide beam is just 30..50m at best.

Also you could make them weaker just moving the sliders to 0.6;0.6;0.6 for example. Those are RGB lights and can actually produce almost any RGB color. To make them brighter you would have to "hack" config files though. That's doable too and not even hard.

Some rare other parts may be made (modified) into light sources too
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928829664
This antenna had small beacon initially so it still has light source properties hidden within cfg and model. But you need model which allows this. Just adding light modules to cfg file for other parts without built in light properties in model won't work. You can also change colors for your crew cabins illuminations and similar stuff - just like landing gear can be modified to give more light or in a different color.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by RoofCat:

when I said lights not being visible I didn't meant like 100% invisible. There may have been some highlights eventually. But in general VAB is so lit you shouldn't see much difference neither on ground nor ship with those small illuminators. And they should still work in space. iirc spotlight shows up at 150..200m distance or so. While wide beam is just 30..50m at best.

Yeah, I assume he's just using the wide illuminator instead of the narrow spotlight.

[Manwith Noname]

This is from ages ago...dunno what it would look like now....

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=554233379

Edit: November 2015

Another edit: ....but that's landing gear lights...not the spot lights.

[Astronaut]

About the illuminators, if you right click them and play with the lighting, you can get different colors such as green.

[C04L]

thanks for replying,
i tested all the lights, i decided to post in the surface mounted stockalike lights post in the ksp forums. as i figured thats whos lights im using.