How would I use lights effectively?

[Telyon]

Hey community, avid (although not as others) KSP player here. I have many questions, but I'll save them for later, I guess. Right now, I would like to know more about the lights, and specifically, how/where to place them. I grasped the concept of the Mk1 being 'thin and long', and the Mk2 being 'wide and short'. However, I just simply don't know where on my craft to place them, or the angle! Anyone willing to help me out with the knowalls of lighting in KSP?

[leopardenthusiast]

For a lander, you want to place them as low as possible, and angled reasonably far apart. For something intended to dock, put them as close to the docking port as possible, and angled so that the center is parallel with the docking port.

[sal_vager]

You can place them anywhere really, I like mine higher up on my landers so they illuminate the lander as well, and more of the surrounding terrain but you can always have two or more sets of lights

I also like to use the Mk2's on my stations hull and solar panels as it makes them look nice, Mk1's are a little too bright but are the best for docking approach and landing.

[Vanamonde]

What are you trying to do with them? Point them at the ship so you can see it better, or point them at the ground for landing, or what?

[RawChicken]

Yeah, try and add them where you like.

I like at the top pf the lander / docking module so that it gets illuminated.

Also, use the rounded lights, they emit much more light than the square ones!

[GreatBeast666]

don't get too overzealous with them, especially the spotlight ones... too many illuminating the same area can basically obscure details in a white-out, and give some glitchy graphic rendering (areas flip-flopping). I like to use the square ones (softer light, more diffused) to illuminate the craft, and spotlights (tighter, brighter beam) to illuminate outwards

[Telyon]

I understand how lights can help land with positioning and stuff. I am trying to put lights on my ship so as to illuminate it. I am not sure which way symmetry. Most of the time, I use three way with Mk2.

[sumghai]

I have a habit of adding numerous lights from B9 Aerospace Pack (especially the small red and white ones) to my space station modules - I arrange them around nodes so that they act as reference markers for docking.

[Finnerty]

Place some lights and then go to the launch pad and you can turn them on to see how they look before launching and then just go back to VAB to adjust them. Thats how I checked out solar panels before launching since you can't activate anything in the VAB.

[Engineer_Tony]

I think the lights can be a very useful asset. I use them for two main activities, docking and landing.

For docking i tend to use the square lights to illuminate the target ship (it can be very frustraiting when you are in the middle of a docking attempt and you suddenly pass into a planets shadow). I place them on all my ships that are capable of docking, angled to illuminate the main body, but i do something the other guys don't seem to do, i exclude the actual docking rings from the ships self illumination. This is because i also fit spot lights to the front of my docking ships, this helps me with aligning the ships for a successful dock. Remember you can quickly switch ships in orbit to turn the lights on by pressing the square brackets '[]' keys, just don't forget to turn them off!

The second use i have for them is during landing. I place three symmetric round lights on the bottom of my landers, but crucially i place them so that the beams are not parallel, so that the spots will be seen to converge as you get closer to the ground. The spots on the floor give you a visual reference of your impending impact and with practice can be very useful for manual landings. It works in daylight too!

Did you know that in the VAB you can adjust the angle (in 5 degree increments) of lights and any other part for that matter by holding SHIFT and pressing QE WASD keys?

[Godot]

I use 2 sets of lights in my spaceships (that is, my lander/spaceship combinations that are intended to bring Kerbonauts to other planets/moons ...

2 illuminators each at the bottom of each fuel tank of my lander (i.e. a total of 8) to illuminate the ground in case of low illumination conditions during landing

and 4 illuminators at the bottom of my spaceship that illuminate the lander as long as it is docked at my spaceship.

The latter set has been proven to be extremly helpful, for example if I want to transfer my crew to the lander while on the nightside of the planet/moon