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About this mod
A game time curveset which painstakingly reconfigures dawn, dusk and nighttime so that their durations are true to reality. True darkness now lasts as long as it should, and twilight no longer overstays its welcome.
- Requirements
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The problem:
As many players have noticed over the years, there is something fishy with nighttime in Cyberpunk 2077. It doesn't last very long. Observant players may have noticed that sunlight in the sky persists until sometime after 10 PM, and that it seems to come right back by perhaps 2:30 AM.
It's really much worse. Cyberpunk 2077, it turns out, never has a time of day when the sky has finally stopped darkening and reached stable, total darkness. In the real world, of course, true darkness is understood to last many hours. In Cyberpunk 2077's setting, it should be totally dark for over five and a half hours.
In detail:
Mercifully, although Cyberpunk 2077's sky never enters a stable period of darkness per se, there is a small window between about 11:45PM and 1:00AM where the actual changes are arguably too subtle to notice without measuring tools. These ~75 minutes are the only span of time during Cyberpunk 2077's day/night cycle which visibly qualify as "nighttime."
Cyberpunk 2077's canonical setting: Watsonville, California—a short drive south from San Jose. Canonical date: June 12th has been spotted on the in-game monitors. With the time and location established, we can figure out the exact moments for various phases of the day/night cycle:
Reality: In-game:
Astronomical twilight: 3:55AM to 4:38AM (43mins) ~1:00AM to ~1:30AM
Other twilight: 4:38AM to 5:47AM (69mins) ~1:30AM to 4:39AM
Sunrise: 5:47AM 4:39AM
Daytime duration: 880mins 882mins
Sunset: 8:27PM 7:21PM
Other twilight: 8:27PM to 9:36PM (69mins) 7:21PM to ~11:15PM
Astronomical twilight: 9:36PM to 10:19PM (43mins) ~11:15PM to ~11:45PM
Nighttime: 10:19PM to 3:55AM (336mins) ~11:45PM to ~1:00AM
Nighttime duration: 336mins ~75mins
Observations:
The solution:
Explaining the difference between "vanilla" and "realtime":
The unmodified vanilla curveset is not flat. What this means is that even if you play Cyberpunk 2077 in a completely unmodded state, the passage of time will still subtly speed up and slow down as the day progresses. Because these changes are not balanced against one another, a vanilla "24 hour day" at a speed multiplier of 1 actually lasts about 25h 24m.
In the regular version of this mod, the above-elaborated time discrepancy is closely mimicked, so the mod's 24 hour period is the same as vanilla. But I recognize that having a true 24 hour day could be useful to players who desire 24 hours to actually last 24 hours exactly. That is why I have provided a version of the mod labeled "Realtime." Using this version of the mod, alongside a tweak that forces the speed multiplier to 1, will enable a true 24 hour day. The tweak, also labeled "Realtime," is in the optional files.
Concerning the duration of a day:
The duration of a single vanilla day is about 3.5 hours, and that's also pretty much how long a day lasts with this mod. If the length of a single day feels too short (or too long), this can be further adjusted with a tweak, using TweakXL. I've provided three example tweaks as optional files: one to halve the length of a day; one to double the length; one to bring the length of a day to realtime*. If you want to plug in a value that meets your needs better, it's as simple as editing the text file found in those files. The vanilla value is "8", higher values speed the day up, and lower values slow it down. (My own personal setting is 3.5.)
These tweaks operate independently from the curveset adjustment and can be used with or without the main mod.
*The "Realtime" tweak sets the speed multiplier to 1. With the regular version of the main mod, this makes a single day last the same as vanilla would at this multiplier, which is about 25.4 hours. If you are hoping for a 24 hour day, grab both the "Realtime" tweak and the "Realtime" version of the main mod.
Caveat:
This mod is a solution for the inaccuracy of twilight and nighttime durations. But because it achieves this by changing how long those spans of time last, the in-game clock between sunset and sunrise may be recognizably incongruous. That said, as noted earlier, even the vanilla curveset has dips and troughs, meaning the vanilla clock speeds up and slows down already. There isn't yet a way of fixing the nighttime cycle and keeping the clock in check. Naturally, a faster or slower clock will not introduce any weird bugs or instabilities—there are already tons of curveset mods in existence.
Installation:
Any files you download, including the optional tweak files, should be installed in the usual way: extract them into your Cyberpunk 2077 folder.
FAQ:
Q: Does this interfere with weather mods?
A: Logically it shouldn't. This mod tweaks how fast time goes by. Weather mods tweak different things entirely. I have already scrutinized a few weather mods to see whether they, for whatever reason, also make changes to the passage of time, and sure enough, they don't. To assure you further, know that there are already a dozen other mods out there which change how fast days or nights (or both) transpire, and if any of those had somehow wrecked weather mods, we would today have a firm understanding of that potential conflict. But it hasn't happened.
Q: Does this interfere with Game Time Tweaks?
Short answer: Yes—it modifies the same curve that Game Time Tweaks modifies.
Long answer: This mod's most fundamental goal is to "make nights longer"—specifically, exactly as long, down to the minute, as they should be in real life, relative to the length of a day. Because in the game's vanilla state, nights are too short and excessively intruded upon by the twilight of sunset and sunrise. I say "relative," because if all one wishes to do is make an entire 24 hour cycle longer than vanilla, that can be done with a TweakXL tweak all by itself: Grab one of the tweaks from the Optional Files if that's what you're after. They are just text files which change the game's speed multiplier (default:8, realtime:1), and they can be edited to one's taste. Such tweaks can be used alongside any curveset mod, including this one, to achieve whatever length of day and/or night one desires.
As many players have noticed over the years, there is something fishy with nighttime in Cyberpunk 2077. It doesn't last very long. Observant players may have noticed that sunlight in the sky persists until sometime after 10 PM, and that it seems to come right back by perhaps 2:30 AM.
It's really much worse. Cyberpunk 2077, it turns out, never has a time of day when the sky has finally stopped darkening and reached stable, total darkness. In the real world, of course, true darkness is understood to last many hours. In Cyberpunk 2077's setting, it should be totally dark for over five and a half hours.
In detail:
Mercifully, although Cyberpunk 2077's sky never enters a stable period of darkness per se, there is a small window between about 11:45PM and 1:00AM where the actual changes are arguably too subtle to notice without measuring tools. These ~75 minutes are the only span of time during Cyberpunk 2077's day/night cycle which visibly qualify as "nighttime."
Cyberpunk 2077's canonical setting: Watsonville, California—a short drive south from San Jose. Canonical date: June 12th has been spotted on the in-game monitors. With the time and location established, we can figure out the exact moments for various phases of the day/night cycle:
Reality: In-game:
Astronomical twilight: 3:55AM to 4:38AM (43mins) ~1:00AM to ~1:30AM
Other twilight: 4:38AM to 5:47AM (69mins) ~1:30AM to 4:39AM
Sunrise: 5:47AM 4:39AM
Daytime duration: 880mins 882mins
Sunset: 8:27PM 7:21PM
Other twilight: 8:27PM to 9:36PM (69mins) 7:21PM to ~11:15PM
Astronomical twilight: 9:36PM to 10:19PM (43mins) ~11:15PM to ~11:45PM
Nighttime: 10:19PM to 3:55AM (336mins) ~11:45PM to ~1:00AM
Nighttime duration: 336mins ~75mins
Observations:
- Daytime, as measured by the first glimpse of the sun to the last glimpse, is essentially accurate by default.
- Though unimportant, the in-game clock times for sunrise and sunset are early by about 1 hour and 7 minutes.
- The entire span of twilight, including the final dregs, should last no longer than about 113 minutes, but this period of time lasts twice as long in-game.
- As previously noted, "nighttime" in the game is nebulous but certainly lasts no longer than perhaps 75 minutes, whereas it should span about 336 minutes.
- The game's pre-dawn twilight experiences a sudden explosion of brightening at 2:00AM on the dot, abandoning an otherwise smooth curve.
The solution:
- This curveset was developed both to fix the durations of twilight and nighttime, and to account for other anomalies in the game's twilight behavior, such as the aforementioned phenomenon where brightness instantly accelerates at 2:00AM.
- Footage of sunrise/sunset timelapses were scrutinized to ensure the final result was decently true to life.
- The total duration of a 24 hour period is essentially no different from that of a completely flat curve.
- Daytime in particular is completely flat, so the sun moves across the sky at a fixed rate for its entire appearance.
Explaining the difference between "vanilla" and "realtime":
The unmodified vanilla curveset is not flat. What this means is that even if you play Cyberpunk 2077 in a completely unmodded state, the passage of time will still subtly speed up and slow down as the day progresses. Because these changes are not balanced against one another, a vanilla "24 hour day" at a speed multiplier of 1 actually lasts about 25h 24m.
In the regular version of this mod, the above-elaborated time discrepancy is closely mimicked, so the mod's 24 hour period is the same as vanilla. But I recognize that having a true 24 hour day could be useful to players who desire 24 hours to actually last 24 hours exactly. That is why I have provided a version of the mod labeled "Realtime." Using this version of the mod, alongside a tweak that forces the speed multiplier to 1, will enable a true 24 hour day. The tweak, also labeled "Realtime," is in the optional files.
Concerning the duration of a day:
The duration of a single vanilla day is about 3.5 hours, and that's also pretty much how long a day lasts with this mod. If the length of a single day feels too short (or too long), this can be further adjusted with a tweak, using TweakXL. I've provided three example tweaks as optional files: one to halve the length of a day; one to double the length; one to bring the length of a day to realtime*. If you want to plug in a value that meets your needs better, it's as simple as editing the text file found in those files. The vanilla value is "8", higher values speed the day up, and lower values slow it down. (My own personal setting is 3.5.)
These tweaks operate independently from the curveset adjustment and can be used with or without the main mod.
*The "Realtime" tweak sets the speed multiplier to 1. With the regular version of the main mod, this makes a single day last the same as vanilla would at this multiplier, which is about 25.4 hours. If you are hoping for a 24 hour day, grab both the "Realtime" tweak and the "Realtime" version of the main mod.
Caveat:
This mod is a solution for the inaccuracy of twilight and nighttime durations. But because it achieves this by changing how long those spans of time last, the in-game clock between sunset and sunrise may be recognizably incongruous. That said, as noted earlier, even the vanilla curveset has dips and troughs, meaning the vanilla clock speeds up and slows down already. There isn't yet a way of fixing the nighttime cycle and keeping the clock in check. Naturally, a faster or slower clock will not introduce any weird bugs or instabilities—there are already tons of curveset mods in existence.
Installation:
Any files you download, including the optional tweak files, should be installed in the usual way: extract them into your Cyberpunk 2077 folder.
FAQ:
Q: Does this interfere with weather mods?
A: Logically it shouldn't. This mod tweaks how fast time goes by. Weather mods tweak different things entirely. I have already scrutinized a few weather mods to see whether they, for whatever reason, also make changes to the passage of time, and sure enough, they don't. To assure you further, know that there are already a dozen other mods out there which change how fast days or nights (or both) transpire, and if any of those had somehow wrecked weather mods, we would today have a firm understanding of that potential conflict. But it hasn't happened.
Q: Does this interfere with Game Time Tweaks?
Short answer: Yes—it modifies the same curve that Game Time Tweaks modifies.
Long answer: This mod's most fundamental goal is to "make nights longer"—specifically, exactly as long, down to the minute, as they should be in real life, relative to the length of a day. Because in the game's vanilla state, nights are too short and excessively intruded upon by the twilight of sunset and sunrise. I say "relative," because if all one wishes to do is make an entire 24 hour cycle longer than vanilla, that can be done with a TweakXL tweak all by itself: Grab one of the tweaks from the Optional Files if that's what you're after. They are just text files which change the game's speed multiplier (default:8, realtime:1), and they can be edited to one's taste. Such tweaks can be used alongside any curveset mod, including this one, to achieve whatever length of day and/or night one desires.