Weather bug ?

[Meco]

Hello.

I have a question regarding Weather in SH3.

I have been on a campaign for some time now. I am still in the early 1941 stage of progress.

On my last mission it called for a simple patrol. As I approached the patrol grid. the weather changed to a most unfavourable condition. Heavy fog, heavy precip, overcast, and 10 knt winds.

Not the best conditions for engagement. I was lucky enough to find and position for a C2 kill. but visibility for the firing solution was only possible if I was within 500 M of the target.. now thats pretty close.

So no biggy.. nasty weather. So I figured I would kill time and wait for better weather to continue the mission. then I noticed something wierd. 2 weeks had passed and the weather was the same. I traveled over 12 grids, 14 days back and forth. but still the weather was the same. and I mean exact same. right down to the wind direction of 201 deg.

and another peculiar part was that the weather report said precip was none. yet outside it was a heavy deluge. ??

Was the weather engine stuck in some way?

Is this normal?

Is there a walkaround?

Cause I tried to save close and reopen but this had no effect.


Any input would help :)

[Average Joe]

Hello Meco,

Sounds like you had some 'rough luck' with bad weather.

Nasty weather can occur for a very long time, but usually does not. So it's normal to see this once in a while. Moving far away from of a specific area 'might' have helped.

Also, some say saving/re-loading your patrol will create the same weather-pattern for around 48 hours, and should be avoided. I think this occurs too, but not all the time.

So yup, it's normal, but rare.., usually! :huh:

[jasondef]

Yes, this is a game bug, and no way to mod-fix it unfortunately. I've read many posts on this just over the course of the past two months, and its a famous problem. Doesn't happen all the time, but often enough to be annoying. Deck/Flak guns become unusable over 7knts wind speed I think, and I find once those weather conditions occur on any patrol I go on, I can pretty much forget about using them for the rest of the patrol, as the weather stays bad the entire time. So use the heck out of your deck gun early in your patrol if the weather's good if you ask me, cause there's a good chance you won't be able to use them at all later on in the patrol!

I did notice one thing once. I was suffering a storm one patrol for a straight week, and decided to sneak into an enemy harbor (Scapa Flow or Lock Ewe, I forget) for some moored capital ship tonnage. Once in the sheltered harbor, the seas calmed of course. I farted around in and out of the harbor for maybe 10 hours or so, then when I got out and started getting back into the open ocean, the weather stayed calm, the exact same conditions as when I was in the sheltered harbor! So maybe going into a harbor, letting the sea calm down, then going back out may "reset" the weather, but it could've been a coincidence, not sure about that. Risky going into those harbors though, for other obvious reasons.

[MarshalLaw]

However later in the war 1943 and on, you PRAY for bad weather to keep the planes off you. :o

[AO1_AW_SW_USN]

That's the only real complaint I have with this game. I've sailed the seas with the US Navy for eight years. I've only seen the weather turn nasty twice. The first time was April of 1999 off the southern coast of Australia due to an Antarctic storm, and the other was a Category III Typhoon 150 NM east of Singapore in 2002.

Yes, the Atlantic Ocean is different than the Pacific, but my shipmates who sail in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean told me the same happens for them... calm with a sea state between 0 to 3. The sea almost looks like you're on a plate of glass with the occasional swell or two for 95% of the time.

This game tried to capitalize on the traditional weather patterns in the North Atlantic Ocean... but they applied that weather pattern to the entire map all year long. It's completely frustrating that you know what it's like in real life at sea... and play a "simulation" that lacks in realism in this department.

[THE_MASK]

I remember the ubi devs saying that they would like to have dynamic weather in SH4 .

[Meco]

Hmmm. Ok so it's not just me then.


After further testing of the problem I think I was able to reproduce the locked weather effect.

Most times I have to leave mid mission so I save and exit to continue another time. So it seems that saving the game mid mission is the culprit after all.

And this can, in a sense, be used as a cheat. I had sinced docked and started a new patrol then as usual had to leave the sim once more. Only this time the save was during Perfect conditions.
No fog, precip and wind was 5 kts.

And wouldn't you know it. when I returned the rest of the mission maintained this fine weather till I docked.

So it seems you can simply start a mission, wait for desired weather conditions. save, exit, restart. and it will hold untill you dock.

The only real way to eliminate this and maintain any randomness of the weather system is to start and complete a full mission in one sitting before exiting the Sim.

But it was neat to be able to actualy use up all the main gun ammo during one mission with the weather cheat prior to having to use the torps. Made for some great renown :D

I never sunk so many ships before :D

But I do look forward to SH4 and dynamic weather. :)

[jasondef]

Interesting cheat discovery! I'll have to test this theory... :hmm:

[zzsteven]

So it seems you can simply start a mission, wait for desired weather conditions. save, exit, restart. and it will hold untill you dock.

:)

Uhhhmmm no, not quite. If you continue saving and exiting before the varible decides to change the weather ( at midnight IIRC) then yes. If you continue to run the program for several game days after restart, the weather will change.

zz

[Meco]

Confirmed zzsteven.

It's not uncommon that I am forced to do multiple time sessions in order to complete a single mission because of my work schedule.

So yes, Multiple saves within 48 game time hours pre midnight seems to be the glitch.