[Baldo_the_Don]

You can see the whole reticle in the binoculars pointed at the ground, but the screenshot where I'm looking at the pitch black sky, all you can see is the illuminated square.

Similarly, the non-illuminated PSO-1 reticle I made for the Dragunov is visible against the terrain, but point it at the deep black night sky, and... Ah, will you look at that?

I learned the lesson that, for illuminated reticles to function better in daylight, a slightly dimming 'multiply' layer between the world and the reticle ensures the reticle has the brightest pixels on your screen, the 'multiply' draw method being good for changing higher light levels while barely affecting low light levels.

I've been experimenting with slightly brightening 'add' targas between the world and the unilluminated crosshairs and reticles of various types, but they didn't appeal to me 'cause I thought the little bit of glow around the lines was more distracting than helpful. Today it occured to me that I could just spread that glow all the way out to the screen edges, ensuring the unilluminated crosshairs have the darkest pixels on the screen under all light levels, 'cause the 'add' draw method treats black as transparent, and any pixel not RGB 0 0 0 will be brightened, so a screenwide layer of RGB 2 4 3 under everything you want to see kind of simulates a bit of glass in a scope behind the reticle that's slightly illuminated, bleaching your view of a target a tiny bit perhaps, but putting the reticle in an undeniably helpful contrast.

I think it's suboptimal, but as I demonstrated with the binoculars, a suboptimally visible reticle is better than invisible one.