Factorio Forums

TL;DR
Highlight obstacles near the player.

WHAT
When I drive the car the lights from the car should reflect stronger on the vertical things like powerpoles, rocks, tubes, assembling machines, chests, enemy bases, tree trunks -- anything that I can crash into.

Actually the same should happen when on feet (we have a light on our head -- do we?).

And the same should probably happen in a daytime as well, and with the nightvision.

WHY?
It's sometimes hard to see a rock (or a tree, or powerpole, or a tube). Especially at night. And it won't break any gameplay.

NOTE:
I'm afraid it will take to much developer efforts, but I leave the decision to them as I personally don't really know how the rendering actually works.
It's just a suggestion from my side.

New tech: Driving assistant

Shows a red outline around obstacles in front of the car while driving at night.

LazyLoneLion wrote:It's sometimes hard to see a rock (or a tree, or powerpole, or a tube). Especially at night

That's ... what a night is. You plan your work to do all driving during the day, and work on local staff at night.
This is harder when hitting on biters bases, but for that we have night-vision goggles

It's true that the car's headlamps don't have any special faux 3d effect. The light doesn't cast shadows or illuminate the side of anything it hits (uv map I think?). Without these clues it becomes very difficult to navigate during the night, because the light gives the impression of all the obstacles being completely flat.

I wonder how much easier night driving would be with shadow effects.