Camouflage At Night

What works well in daytime might not in darkness. Here's a quick guide on how not to stand out like overwhites at night.
ACE3 is not used in this guide so as to pertain to as wide a part of the playerbase as possible.

Recently updated for Arma 3: Contact!

Introduction

Camouflage is one of the most important factors in combat. After all, who sees and can shoot the enemy first generally wins. This is doubly so at night, where being able to see at all is a challenge. However, night-vision goggles significantly alter your perception of light; color is meaningless, and contrast is everything. Camouflage patterns optimized for use in daytime operations may not always be the right choice when the sun goes down.

So, with that in mind, let's take a look at a few images, and give you some things to think about the next time you're on a night operation.


I hope I will help you add some more consideration to what you wear in the dark. Give a like if you did, consider sharing if you think this would be helpful to others, and most of all, thanks for viewing!

NATO and LDF

Being that NATO is by far the most frequently-played of the factions included in Arma 3 by defualt, we'll start with their uniforms.

Here we see a NATO soldier standing crouched on a hillside wearing his MTP uniform. As we can see, it provides a pretty effective daytime camouflage



But, if we turn the clock over, the story is quite different. Way too bright when stationary and almost asking to be shot when you're moving.



And as we see in the header image, going full black with the wetsuit isn't a great idea either; it's so black it becomes almost just as visible at night as a uniform that's a couple shades too bright. Not so bad when stationary, but add movement in and you're actually quite easy to spot. To drive the point home, here's an example from some distance.



So, the Wetsuit is too dark, and MTPs are too bright? Well, the most logical conclusion would be the Tropic uniform included in Apex. and indeed it does work quite well. Save for the Khaki weapon, though; best to go with black next time.





Excellent, the brightness is correct, but we've lost all separation of color in the process. Tropic didn't have much to begin with, but night vision has sapped what's left of it away, save for the lightest color. Kind of.

Likewise for the Woodland uniforms introduced with Arma 3: Contact. It's plenty dark enough, but there's not much more separation of color than the Tropic uniforms. On the upside, the new Woodland gear is free for all Arma 3 players to use, so there's no longer any excuse for being inappropriately dressed for night as NATO. Apologies for the different location; these images were taken long after the originals and I was unable to locate the original location.





Fortunately, the CTRG Uniforms seem to be designed especially with night ops in mind. Two contrasting colors in a sharp, well-defined pattern. CTRG Combats are the best of the bunch for Altis, so those of you who wear them for the British flag, rejoice!







Stealth might be a touch too dark, but Urban is quite close.


While it would perhaps be unrealistic for the Livonian Defense Force to be spotted running around Altis, and while their uniforms are far too dark for Altis in daytime, they do work pretty well at night.

CSAT, Spetsnaz

In the (quite unfortunately, IMO) uncommon event that you find yourself playing CSAT, your options are a bit clearer. Urban is in the header image, and it's just as useless at night as it is in daytime. Save it for Weferlingen Winter.

So, how about Brown Hex? Perhaps a shade too light, but it does work quite well



Well, except for the pack. The tan desert pack is indeed too bright




What about Green Hex? Turns out, that's even better. Darker and better color separation!




For cheeki breeki REDFOR players, the Spetsnaz uniforms are also both excellent at night. The plain-colored Granit suit on the left offers two defined, contrasting colors to help break up the silhouette, while the Taiga camouflage on the right offers good color separation.





Unfortunately for the cheekiest of cheeki breeki, the Tracksuit, just like the wetsuit, is way too dark. Worse, Arma doesn't come with a Slav Squat animation by default. Truly a travesty :(

AAF, Ghillie, Moonlight

As for AAF, you only get once choice, but fortunately it's pretty good



Bush Wookiees have nothing to really worry about, either. On the Mediterranean maps, the Lush ghillie suits work excellently at night. Jungle is too dark and semi arid and arid are too light, though.



Of Course, this completely changes in Urban terrain. Dark uniforms stand out like a sore thumb, while the lighter kit works quite well. CTRG Urban is of course perfect here, while MTP makes a good case for itself. CSAT Urban in the middle is surprisingly okay, but that's about it.



As you might expect, things to change quite a bit when you have significant amounts of moonlight. Much, much more light is reflected off of the surface, making dark uniforms overly dark and causing you to totally stand out. When designing missions, ensure to put the lunar conditions in the briefing so that appropriate uniforms can be selected for night operations. This can also swing the other way, and the terrain will be way darker during a total overcast, so make sure the weather is accounted for in the briefing, as well.

Tanoa

All of that applies pretty equally among Altis, Stratis, and Malden, but what about Tanoa?

Well it's actually pretty straightforward. Your daytime uniform is about as effective at night as well. CSAT gets screwed a bit with their unusual arms giving off a notable shine, so the Officer uniform is probably preferred, or the Special Purpose Uniform if you have access to it. Even so it's still on the light side. But for the rest of them, they're not perfect but they're very good



Other than the obnoxiously bright brown flippers and shiny hard bits, the CSAT wetsuit actually works quite well, though of course it is a specialized uniform and does have some big drawbacks, but for stealth missions as CSAT, it's definitely better than Green Hex



Don't even think about that black Wetsuit, though....

Livonia

Livonia, on the other hand is a very different terrain to the others, and in turn beings its own challenges and surprises to night fighting.

While Tanoa is dominated by dark tropical vegetation and Altis, Malden, and Stratis by bright Mediterranean vegetation, Livonia is, of course, lighter temperate Eastern European conditions, which leads to a surprisingly light background across much of the terrain when there is no overcast, even with zero moonlight.



Naturally, the darker uniforms will perform better when near vegetation, in fields with darker grass, and with overcast, but lighter uniforms like the Brown Granit, Hex CSAT, and MTP NATO work much better than anticipated.



Nonetheless, due to the very high amount of forested area, the Woodland uniforms are still recommended




With regards to Ghillie suits, the Lush and Semi-Arid suits tend to work well with no overcast, though Lush is going to be generally preferred due to it's least-worst performance in moonlight and superior performance in daytime. The Tropical suits are recommended for stormy nights due to idiosyncrasies with the way Arma renders uniforms vs terrain. Arid suits are far too light and don't really work in any conditions, including full moonlight.

From left to right: CSAT Tropic, NATO Tropic, Arid, Semi-Arid, Lush.

Moonlight


New Moon


Overcast

[Black-Jack]

Literally running a CTRG unit. Bunch of the guys were asking me what the point to the funky looking drazzle-cam was, now I'll just show them this. You have my thanks.

[dripped gramma]

Great guide! Thanks a lot

[Cl44]

Why NATO 1st