Light effect questions

Still fairly new to editing here so these should be easy. I just can't find them in the references!

1.) For light glows, how exactly is the duration calculated. I know it's based on area somehow, but I've seen small windows in other wads that don't blink like a super-strobe even when some of my notably larger sections do.

2.) What determines the order and time delay between sectors using light blinks (1Hz or 2Hz non-synchronized)?

3.) What exactly is the engine darkening rate? I'm looking for something like 'a brightness 144 sector 512 map units away looks exactly as bright as an 128 brightness sector where you stand'. I'm trying to create a minor optical illusion.

Thanks in advance!

For question 2 I believe that since they're measured in hertz, all sectors with a 2 Hz or 1 Hz blinking light effect will blink together 1 or 2 times per second. In case you weren't aware hertz means 'oscillations per unit of time,' in most cased that time is one second. If they have the same frequency (and frequency is measured in hertz), they will all blink together.
*edit* Now I see you meant non-synchronized so just ignore the entire paragraph :P

The best way I can describe the way lighting effects work in Doom, is that the light level of the sector you're using the effect on is the "brightest" part of the light effect, and the darkest adjacent sectors is the "darkest"

1. The duration for light glow varies depending on the range of the lighting of the "brightest" and "darkest" sectors, because the effect transitions from getting brighter to getting darker at the same speed. The light glows 'up' to it's specified light level, and then 'down' to the light level of adjacent sectors (other light effects work the same way, only with different effects) So if you were to make a 192 lit sector that has the Light Glow effect, and it's surrounding sectors are lit at 144, you're going to get a very quickly flickering light. But if you want to get a long dramatic strobe (like in that computer maze in E1M2: Nuclear Plant; notice the pitch black sector immediately before it) then you want the biggest range between the "brightest" sector-- the one with the effect, and the "darkest" sector-- the ones adjacent to the brightest.

2. Light blinks that are non-syncronized will blink in it's specified sequence, 1Hz or 2Hz, but will start blinking at any random time. A good example of this that can be used to your advantage is seen in this room on E2M7: Spawning Vats. It looks like a laser light show, but the lit sectors all have the same light level, and all have the same light blink effect applied. Doom handles everything else from there.

3. Not really sure how to calculate that to be honest, but you are on the right track, because doom's lighting (in software rendering anyway) works by making things darker as they become more distant, and the lower the light level, the shorter the distance.