SH3 Historical Weather

[andqui]

For people who like airplane simming with FS9 and FSX, there is a program called "ActiveSky" which enables you to apply historical weather data to the sim. I was thinking, instead of having SH3 generate it's own random weather, with all the vagaries and foibles that entails, why not use historical data to manually set the weather to realistic values?

I've applied for ocean weather data between July 1939 and October 1946 from here http://icoads.noaa.gov/index.shtml. I have the data, in IMMA format. I have no meteorological background and am working on figuring out how to read it.

If the data is there and usable, we come to the ultimate issue: is it possible to change sh3's weather in-game?
The mods http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=132868 and http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88063&highlight=sh3weather both change the weather, but it appears that they require a reload of the game for the changes to take effect. If not, maybe there would be some way to do it by modding the .exe, like h.sie and stiebler are currently doing.

If the data is complete enough, and if someone can figure out a way to change the game's weather without requiring a reload, then it should be possible to take the player's location and apply the appropriate weather. Now, that's a big if, and I believe the programming challenges in picking up the player's position and the like would be quite difficult. Anyways, this is just to throw the idea out there.

[pditty8811]

For people who like airplane simming with FS9 and FSX, there is a program called "ActiveSky" which enables you to apply historical weather data to the sim. I was thinking, instead of having SH3 generate it's own random weather, with all the vagaries and foibles that entails, why not use historical data to manually set the weather to realistic values?

I've applied for ocean weather data between July 1939 and October 1946 from here http://icoads.noaa.gov/index.shtml. I have the data, in IMMA format. I have no meteorological background and am working on figuring out how to read it.

If the data is there and usable, we come to the ultimate issue: is it possible to change sh3's weather in-game?
The mods http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=132868 and http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88063&highlight=sh3weather both change the weather, but it appears that they require a reload of the game for the changes to take effect. If not, maybe there would be some way to do it by modding the .exe, like h.sie and stiebler are currently doing.

If the data is complete enough, and if someone can figure out a way to change the game's weather without requiring a reload, then it should be possible to take the player's location and apply the appropriate weather. Now, that's a big if, and I believe the programming challenges in picking up the player's position and the like would be quite difficult. Anyways, this is just to throw the idea out there.


Awesome, nice work. This would be a great mod.

So in order for the weather to be realistic matching realistic data, it would have to update in-game depending where the player went?

So the weather data is only relevant to the current location of the player's sub?

-pditty8811

[irish1958]

Andqui: "is it possible to change sh3's weather in-game?"
Yes it is. See the mod "Stop the Rain" by Rubini
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=424

[urfisch]

the amount of work is extraordinary for such a mod. but it is possible, to add certain weather for all days 1939-1945.

[irish1958]

the amount of work is extraordinary for such a mod. but it is possible, to add certain weather for all days 1939-1945.
You are correct. By using SH3CMDR it can be done without making the loading time one or two days long; working 40 hours a week, you could probably be finished by Christmas.

[Victor Schutze]

It is a fantastic project!:rock:

[FIREWALL]

SH3 Weather Standalone Mod. In Downloads. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1880

[andqui]

I am unclear if these methods of changing the weather require the user to exit the SH world or if they can be applied instantaneously. As far as I know, the stop the rain fix requires the user to exit to the SH3 menu, apply the fix, and then load a save, which is a bit of a pain if you need to do it every time the weather changes.

From what I've been able to find, the weather data I found in the first post requires a bunch of detailed programming knowledge to even be able to read it- the organization provides a FORTRAN program, of all things, to read the information, which is a bit beyond me at the moment. I think that anyone can agree that this will be impossible without some sort of script to format the mass of information into the relevant parts needed. For the purposes of SH3, it would be necessary to split the world up into regions, such as N. Atlantic, middle Atlantic, South Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, etc, and then "average" the weather in each of those areas to a single daily value for visibility, wind, and cloud coverage. The game would have to decide which region the player was in (without leading to weird behavior at the boundaries of the regions), and then have the weather automatically changed depending on the date and region. Outside of the sh3-modding challenges, getting and compiling the data alone would be extremely difficult.

There's a World War 1 modification of MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 called "Over Flanders Fields" which includes a feature like the above- they got hold of weather data over France, Britain, and Germany from 1914 to 1918 and applied it in game, and it's a really cool feature. I think that land weather data like that is much easier to find, added to the fact that the only area you need to really cover is France and Belgium, as opposed to pretty much the whole ocean except for the Pacific.

What got me thinking about this is the fact that the variability of SH3's weather is so invariable. The bad weather fixes have cured the endless loops of 15 m/s winds, which was vital, but now, playing GWX3, we have weather that pretty much changes once every 24 hours, and is so predictable. Besides the length of day/night, I can't tell much difference between summer and winter as far as weather is concerned, and not once in my time playing SH3 have I ever been in fog together with calm winds, which is how ocean fog exists the vast majority of the time. The weather patterns in the Caribbean seem identical to those in the North Sea. It feels like it lacks "character," and that you replay the same loop each patrol, which of course you do.

[Wolfstriked]

The mod Firewall pointed to is what I use. I love it but and this is a big but....the weather seems to always be bad.I found a post about this mod that states that this issue of bad weather for weeks was fixed but its not in this mod.I prefer bad weather as I think that Sh3 looks amazing in bad weather and also the area I patrol in is not the Bahamas.One other but and its even bigger....I uninstalled the mod and it is still bad weather most of the time.:o

Love leaving port in bad weather when I navigate out to sea by lighthouses only.SH3 does a great simulation of this:up::up:

[Sailor Steve]

SH3 Weather Standalone Mod. In Downloads. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/downloads.php?do=file&id=1880
Only controls the weather you get when you start the patrol. After that it changes the way it always has. This mod has no affect on the game except at the start.

[danzig70]

Sounds like a great project to me. Would be great to see the 1938 hurricane off New England. Thanks for the tip about Active Sky and the link to the weather data.