15/08/2021
Day-Night Cycle
Time of day can have an effect on visibility and ambient temperature. As the sun sets, the temperature can drop and the world will be enveloped in darkness. At night, the moon will provide a natural light source, and real-life star constellations will be visible in the night sky. Both the stars and the sun-moon cycle can be used to aid in your navigation during your adventures.
The night will make it harder to see and to be seen, and while the moon might provide some light, in order to explore safely a light source (e.g. Flashlight, Headtorch, Torch, or mounted tactical flashlight) might be necessary to see properly. However, you run the risk of attracting unwanted attention from Infected or other players. A set of Night Vision Goggles is very useful for exploring during nighttime without running the risk of exposing your location.
DayZ servers recognize the time of day and can be configured to either use actual-time based on their location in the real world or a time set by the server owner. The day-night cycle itself is also configurable based upon a multiplier. By default, a day lasts exactly 24 hours in real life using a value of 1x, but could be cut down to 1/8 of that cycle using an 8x multiplier, for example, resulting in one in-game day per every 3 hours of real-time. The balance of day-to-night can be altered as well, meaning that the day-night cycle can be weighted towards primarily daytime with only a very short night for exampl
Seasons
Server configuration recognizes the time of year either set by the owner or using real-world data and simulates weather conditions such as wind, ambient temperature, and precipitation. This means that the weather in Chernarus will change automatically throughout the calendar year.
Visual representation of different seasons is not currently present in DayZ because of the challenges involved in developing such a feature. This may be added at some point in the future.
