Realism Overhaul (Calendars – Seasons – Lighting…)

Changelog: 1.0.1
- Added `Config/RealismConfigs.xml` for global mod settings.
- Seasonal sun intensity and intraday sun curve.
- Adaptive sun and moon shadow strength.
- Seasonal dawn/dusk hours fixed
- Moon lighting: astronomical phases, per phase caps in config, phase display lag, single pipeline for intensity/clouds/shadows.
- New moon: darker ambient and sky dome in all biomes, clouds follow moon intensity.
- Fixed `LunarFullMoonWindowDays` BM window behavior (tune in RealismConfigs.xml).
- Blood moon horde scaling: `StrengthCurve`, `EnemyScaleMin`/`Max`, `MaxAliveScaleMin`/`Max`, `BMMaxSpawnedScale`.
- Fog and ambient tied to corrected moon phase, seasonal ambient presets tweaked.
- Snow biome optional sun dimming (`SunSnowBiomeIntensity`, `SunSnowBiomeIntensityMul`).
- UI/crosshair: in RealismConfigs.xml
- Calendar/lunar config: in RealismConfigs.xml
- UI overlaps fixed
- UI night brightness tweaks
### Mods that will be added in near future:
- Item wear (degradation) for lights. Install alongside if you want more immersive gameplay.
- Pocket watch. Slight game logic change: removes the top center compass HUD. Hold the watch to see time, date, compass, and related stats.

Changelog: 1.0.2
- Updated for latest 3.0 game version.
- Seasonal ambient lighting is now fully configurable in RealismConfigs.xml for each season separately.
- Fixed white particle blowout at deep night - breath, smoke, and torch particles.
- Fixed early pre-dusk sun fade.

Changelog: 1.0.2
- Updated for latest 3.0 game version.
- Seasonal ambient lighting is now fully configurable in RealismConfigs.xml for each season separately.
- Fixed white particle blowout at deep night - breath, smoke, and torch particles.
- Fixed early pre-dusk sun fade.

- Fixed UI drag and drop cursor offset when using custom UI scale.

- Compatibility for PocketWatch mod: when installed, the top-center compass/calendar HUD is hidden and Realism stats (date, season, env, etc.) are shown on the watch instead.
- Trader restock date now uses the mod calendar (e.g. 4 Mar 2026) instead of vanilla game day index.
- Trader hours: traders can follow mod seasonal dawn/dusk instead of fixed traders.xml times. Toggle with TraderSeasonalHours - open/close offsets via TraderOpenOffsetMinutes / TraderCloseOffsetMinutes.
- Multiplayer config sync: host RealismConfigs.xml is sent to clients on connect/spawn (fixes calendar, moon phase, and dusk time desync between host and client).
- Lunar alignment adjusted so grace period no longer shows false Blood Moons (8-day window).
- Fixed ambient transition when storms activate/deactivate.
- Sun intensity: seasonal/diurnal tuning and smoother biome transitions.
- Known limitation: a single global sun light is used for the entire world. In summer at peak sun, distant snow biomes can look overexposed from other biomes until you enter snow (local snow dimming only applies at player position). This is a vanilla engine constraint, not a mod bug.
- Calendar / map UI: map stats, trader map panel, and in-world calendar blocks now use the mod calendar. Calendar look prompt adds moon phase and remaining blood moon nights for current month

- Small ambient light boost while night vision is active.
- Smooth fade in/out synced from screen effect intensity.
- 'streetLightBroken' forced fully off.
- For some POI lights: Caps range, intensity, spot angle and view distance added in RealismConfigs.xml
- Day length curve tweakable in RealismConfigs.xml for each season.
- Day length slightly longer by default
- Permanent night boolean added in RealismConfigs.xml (true = remove day, full night cycles)
- Stars no longer dim on new moon.
- Fixed blood moon date red UI sync to moon phase
- Blood moon horde scaling: +15% spawns on first/last window days
- Environmental fire as a real loop, you stay on fire longer, lose water, continuous heat damage.
- Running or jumping feeds the burn even more

- Updated for V3.1

Fixed zombies running hours at night
Weekdays on HUD/Pocket watch now match the in-game calendar date
Calendar poster prompt shows sunrise and sunset for the current day
Blood moon horde starts and ends at the exact sunset/sunrise time depending on the season
Seasonal day length settings from RealismConfigs.xml update fix

Disabled vanilla NGSS frustum (High / Ultra / Ultra+) due to conflict with RO dynamic lighting and shadow changes. Fixes ground artifacts, edge clipping, and flicker on High+ presets. Directional sun/moon shadows and adaptive shadows unchanged.

Season calendar anchors moved to Mar 21 (vernal equinox) and Sep 21 (autumnal equinox).
Interactive wall calendar UI for vanilla calendar props (calendar2034, posterCalendarWorkingStiff). Press E to open a full month planner window.
Calendar grid: month navigation, blood moon / weekend / today / past styling, season themed header and panel colors.
Shared day planner: write notes per calendar day (up to 600 characters, multiline). Saved per world in RealismCalendarPlanner.xml.
Multiplayer planner sync: host persists notes, all players can read and edit.
Days with a planner note show a gold pen badge in the grid corner.
Planner input: multiline scrollable field (Enter for new line).
Wall calendar date tooltip at normal range, HP bar only within 1 block.
Radial menu: "Open Calendar" label for calendar props.
Updated for 3.2 XUi_InGame calendar window registration and mod controller loading.
Blood Moon kill XP scale balancing: new BloodMoonXpMultiplier in RealismConfigs.xml (default 0.35). Scales kill XP only during the active BM window (seasonal dusk to dawn), so lunar multi-night hordes do not outpace vanilla leveling. 1.0 = vanilla XP, 0 = no kill XP on BM nights.
Party shared kill XP uses the same multiplier.
Wall clock alarm for vanilla wallClockWorking props. Press E to open the alarm UI, or silence while ringing.
Alarm UI: hour/minute adjust, Set Alarm / Turn Off, and Silence when active. Saved per world in RealismWallClockAlarms.xml (world save, host authoritative). Multiplayer sync for alarm state and active ringing.
Alarm rings at the set in-game time with looping audio (15-block range, linear volume fade).
Radial menu: Set Alarm / Silence Alarm labels and status line on the block prompt.

- Early game grace period
- Seasonal wild game and predator spawns
- Seasonal wander zombie spawns
- Seasonal POI loot for food, drinks, and seeds (moved from Seasonal Plant Growth)
- Seasonal trader food, drink, and crop prices and stock (NPC traders + POI vending)
- Separate seasonal trader economy for seeds
- Seasonal trader and vending restock timing
Bug fixes and changes:
- Early game grace makes the first days on a new world easier: more POI food, cheaper trader food, more wild prey. Over the grace window it blends into normal spring scarcity.
- Wild game and predators use separate spawn rules and separate world caps.
- Autumn is the best hunting season and runs heavier on predators. Spring prey stays thin.
- `AnimalMaxSpawnedSpring` and its per-season counterparts are the hard cap for all animals in the world.
- Wander zombies scale by season in the open world. Blood moon hordes are untouched.
- Trader food, drink, and crop buy prices and stock levels shift by season at NPC traders and POI vending. Spring is expensive and thin.
- Seed buy price and stock use their own seasonal keys so you can still start farming in a hungry spring without dumping food prices.
- Trader and vending restock intervals are seasonal too.
- POI scavenging is harsher on food overall. Spring is lean; autumn is when shelves fill up.
- Drinks and seeds have their own POI keep chances. Grace only helps food loot, not drinks or seeds.
- `loot.xml` base tables were tuned so seeds stay findable while food stays scarce.
- Starting a world in autumn placed game day 1 on September 30 instead of September 21, nine days into the season. The first autumn ran 82 days instead of 91 before winter arrived. Spring, summer and winter starts were not affected.
- The same offset was also a day off in a leap starting year such as 2036 or 2040, sliding the whole calendar back by one day.
- Dynamic UI dimming no longer freezes label colors. With dimming enabled, colors the game changes while you play - hov…

Hotfix:
- Fixed dawn/dusk sounds and music using rounded hours: the dusk sound played at the next full hour (e.g. 20:00 instead of a 19:16 sunset), which could also cause two dawn/dusk sounds.

- Flashlight rework: the handheld flashlight is now a real hunting-style spot + flood light. A narrow long-range center beam reaches far, and a wider, softer flood lights up what's around it. Both fade out softly at the edges instead of ending in a hard ring.
- The weapon flashlight attachment gets its own spot + flood beam, tuned separately from the handheld flashlight.
- The helmet light is now a wide, dim flood with no center beam.
- In multiplayer, you see other players' flashlights, weapon lights and helmet lights the same way as your own, including when they switch them on or off.
- New flashlight modes: hold F with the flashlight or a gun with a flashlight attachment to pick Classic or Hunting light (green beam), Strobe (each pick switches off, fast, slow) or SOS.
- Your light now matters to zombies and animals at night. Point a white beam (Classic, strobe, SOS, helmet light) at a deer, rabbit or chicken and it runs, point it at a wolf, coyote, bear or other predator and it comes for you. Zombies, zombie animals included, come at any beam, white or green, as far as the beam reaches. The green Hunting light doesn't scare or draw animals and doesn't give you away to them.
- How much a light you carry gives you away all around you now depends on the light: a torch the most, then the flashlight, weapon light and helmet light, and a candle barely at all. Crouching still hides you in the dark, but it no longer dims a light you carry.
- Light support for Atmospheric Weather rain, hail and snow: once AW adds it, drops at night show only where light reaches them: your flashlight, weapon light and helmet light, other players' lights, and POI and block lights (street lights, lamps, torches, candles). Without light, how much you see follows the moon phase, and at new moon it's pitch black. Daytime rain and snow not affected.
- Storm fog now goes on top of the seasonal fog cap instead of being cut by it, including Atmospheric Weather storms.
- Fixed flashlights lighting …

NEW FEATURE: Thermal vision
- Hold F with night vision on your helmet and pick Night vision or Thermal.
- Players, animals and NPCs glow warm.
- Zombies are dead and cold, so they show up in cold blue.
- Walls, trees and terrain still hide whoever is behind them.
- Settings in RealismConfigs.xml: `NightVisionThermal` (false turns it off) and `NightVisionThermalRange`.
Other changes
- Night vision got a military-grade upgrade and looks way more realistic now.
- Fixed night vision barely brightening dark nights. It now works like a real IR illuminator: close things are brighter, far things darker, so trees and terrain keep their shape instead of looking flat.
- Night vision now fades in when you turn it on.
- New night vision settings in RealismConfigs.xml: `NightVisionIrIntensity`, `NightVisionIrRange` and `NightVisionAmbientLevel`.
- A lit torch or candle placed next to you now gives you away the same as holding it. Before, it barely raised the stealth meter.

(Hotfix)
- Fixed thermal vision showing upside down on some video settings.
- New setting `SeasonalSpawnEnabled` in RealismConfigs.xml: false turns off seasonal spawns, animals and zombies spawn as in vanilla.

- Thermal vision now shows fire: lit torches, candles, oil lanterns, jack-o'-lanterns, campfires, fire barrels, burning POI pipes and ember piles glow hot, with their real flames.
- Thermal vision no longer shows the world upside down with FSR or DLSS upscaling.
- Electric lights (POI lamps, street lights, powered lights in your base) warm up where the bulb or tube glows, weaker than fire.
- Monitors and TVs that are on have a warm screen.
- Vehicle headlights and tail lights warm up too.