What I'm getting at is, if SH3 *does* make any adjustments for the Med (and you're right, logic would suggest not, but...) it's all fine while the start weather is set to perfect. However, set it to something that SH3 *doesn't* use in the Med and there may be unexpected side effects. So, I think setting to "extreme" and then running a 29 Flotilla patrol should be tested. To the same degree, anyone that has extensively played a Med career should let us know their observations in comparison to the Atlantic.

One great bonus though is the rate of change randomisation. That alone should be worth the price of admission!

Stange... Yes it is spelled correctly, maybe the mailserver was down? try kriller2tester@hotmail.com :)

/Kriller

Any feedback from the testers? Any problems? suggestions for improvement?

Im reworking a fair amount of the code, with suggestions and tips from Jaesen (thanks again) it won't make any difference to the end user, but while I'm in there changing code, I can deal with anything you guys have found!

Much appreciated guys!

Cheers,

Jamie

When I tested your 0.90 beta, the results were:

1. Start of patrol in Kiel (IIA) - overcast, heavy rain, thick fog, 10 m/s winds.

2. Raining inside the subpens (so much for being bomb proof) :D

3. When I changed the Watch Officer to raingear because of the rain, he became frozen in place (looking inward) with his left arm through the middle of the bridge compass !!!

I then removed your mod, and reran the patrol, the Watch Officer did NOT have this problem when wearing his raingear. What do you think the problem is ???

I really like the change of weather, if only you can solve the frozen WO problem.

The crew in port usually don´t do nothing, did you go out of harbour for test if they behaviour is normal in open seas ???

Perhaps is a glitch or bug of the game in port with rain. in this case they have to wait until open waters to change his clothes :rotfl:

I had this happen as well during one patrol ( the "frozen" watch officer) I thought it was just mine. Once you get out to sea, and the rest of your crew begins their watch, remove and replace the watch officer, he will resume as normal.

I have NO idea what does this, as I dont affect anything but the weather values. Maybe this behaviour is linked to a certain combination of weather constraints? Get the weather details next (and every time this happens) and lets see if a pattern emerges.
The same happened to me in Kiel, raingear in a IIA. We need to find out if this happens with all boats, other ports, and when there is no rain.

As for the rain thru the bunker, unfortunately I have no idea how to fix that. SH3 probably does not model the ceiling for collision detection, or as a solid surface (logical really, as what U boat is going to hit the ceiling! :) )

Thanks Panama! By the way, I sent you 0.91, did you receive it? it has an option to manually set weather.

Cheers,

Jamie

Skweetis:
Yes, I received your 0.91, but I have not had a chance to test it yet. I realy like this concept of variable weather, so we just have to work the "bugs" out of it. :up: :up: :up:

The IIA WO was okay until I took him below to change into raingear, it was when he came back to the bridge that he became "frozen" (except for his eyes).

Thanks

Just thought I would update for those interested, with planned enhancements and functionality for the Weather Gen Utility.

Essentially this is a stand alone programme that generates weather for the start of a patrol, either by user specified values, or random. It writes directly to the .mis files, so no worries about it overwriting any moded files you currently have, making it compatable with any mod that is out there.

That said, here is what it is all about
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURRENT FEATURES IN BETA:

generate random weather "realistically"
i.e. no more than 8 knots wind, no rain if there are no clouds, etc.

generate weather based on user selected values
ie. Windspeed, direction, cloud cover, precipitation and fog

randomly set "rate of change" values for clouds, wind, fog, and precip.
ie balanced for smaller rates of change to be more common, except in the case of winds.

randomly set weather interval check
currently between 2-8 hours. Doesnt mean it will change in that interval, thats just the timer for checking to see IF it changes. Set low for users that save and reload, as the interval check timer is reset, thus preventing a patrol that the weather never changes in.

PLANNED FEATURES FOR RELEASE:

User selected interval and rate of change values
Self explainatory, really.

Date driven weather patterns
Following in the footsteps of SH3Cmdr2.4, will generate rate of change, and interval values based on seasonal weather patterns. (this will NOT mod wave height, I am leaving that to SH3Cmdr) Expect harsher weather in the winter months, and so on.

Mediterranean weather patterns
Sailing for the 29th? Select the option and rate of change and intervals will be set accordingly. (As soon as I get feedback on how SH3 handles weather in the Med of course.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


If you have any suggestions on enhancements, or have comments on values and such, let me know, either in this post, or PM.

I will upload Beta0.92 to realsimulation tonight so anyone can try it, and let me know of their findings.

Cheers,

Jamie

I've followed this thread with interest, if you do a search you may find other threads started by me about the weather.
I've done lots of tests and played around with the files etc and basically come up with the same results as above without using any generator. I place the player sub with no other ships using the mission editor somewhere on the map, then I go hunting ships.
The ships appear from the campaign files, so this made me look at those files, you will notice there is also a weather reference in those files too, but the values are all set to zero.
If you leave your sub motionless and do a TC and keep looking every now and again you will see the first thing to change will be the wind speed, then the clouds, in a matter of 3-4 days I had varied weather.
I think one of the main problems is only having 2 cloud types, if we could change this whether it be eye candy or not it will make a big difference.
I made a few different clouds myself as I got bored with the stock ones, I manually change these from time to time but it would be good if this could be randomised.
I'm an avid flight simmer too and also had thoughts of (if only we had the weather from that in SH3) how much better it would be.

Please understand I'm not knocking what you are doing but I seem to be getting the same results without the generator.

Skweetis:
Your Random Weather Generator is sounding better and better all the time. Look forward to 0.92 and thanks for your efforts. :up:

Col7777:
If you read the new Commander 2.4 thread, you will see how to "add" randomness to the cloud formations.

Thanks Panama, I read the thread but only saw one mention of random clouds but Irish Red was asking how to add them.
I don't have the Commander installed though I do have it in one of my folders ready to install, question: I don't have a lot of mods installed so if I install the Commander will it conflict with anything or is it a stand-alone mod?

I don't want to take this off topic but if the commander randomises clouds then can it randomise the rest of the weather, also does it only randomise the 2 stock clouds or does it add others?

Edited to add:
What does the file "CloudTranstion" do, I changed it for a different texture to see what would happen, the game didn't crash and I didn't notice anything unusual?

Col7777:
SH3 Commander will work with ANY mod or with no mods at all (Jones has done a real nice job creating this program). In fact, SH3Cmdr can change some items in your mods that you may want to change without changing any of the rest of the mod (the scene.dat file for example). You just have to remember to "roll back" SH3Cmdr before you change anything in his JSGME tool since SH3Cmdr makes a backup of all your files too (that butten is right next to the start butten).

I had sent to Irish Red the three partical cloud mods that I had collected and he was going to put them into the new SH3Cmdr 2.4 to see if the "randomness" worked (I was still out on patrol and did not want to "change" anything until I got back to port since SH3 can get fickle about that). Since Jones has posted on how to add these random partical clouds to his SH3Cmdr 2.4, I will try them myself when I upgrade to Cmdr 2.4 this week.

You have to add any clouds that you want, SH3Cmdr does not have any included in this version.

As for the "cloudtransition file", I do not know what it does either.

weather
 

i have modified the random folder in SH3Cmdr2.4 as outlined by jscones with the cloud files supplied by Panama Red, and so far I have had varied weather.
However the weather generator mod would be a great improvement as it would give better control.
I would like to test this mod and if you sill need beta testers, PM me.
irish1958

Just to clarify, when using the Weather Generator, it sets up the values before you launch SH3 (or SH3Cmdr for that matter). After that, everything else is in SH3's hands.

The only parameters that effect the weather during a patrol that I can affect are: cloud, fog, wind, and rain rate of change (how fast the weather will change if SH3's interval check determines that the weather will change) these rates of change are: almost Nil, Mild and Heavy. For example, if set to heavy then weather could possibly change from clear and calm to raging storm at the next weather change. The lower rates of change have this transition of weather "states" to be more subtle.

The other thing we have control over, is the interval (in game hours, from 2 to 96. I believe that 24 is the default.) that SH3 checks to see IF the weather will change. If the check comes back as a change, then it uses the rate of change levels to determine what the next weather pattern will be. These checks are performed in such a way, that the chance that the weather will change increases for every check that fails (ie determines that weather wont change for this interval)

Interval is actually one of the hardest things for me to balance correctly, due to the fact that when you reload in a patrol, the counter that sees how long until the next check for weather change resets to zero.

Here is an example:
Lets say your wife calls you upstairs to do some chores, so you save and exit SH3. Lets say your interval is set to 24hours (every 24 hours the game will check to see IF the weather will change) In the game, at the time of save, you have been sailing through the same weather for 93 hours (the previous three checks failed to change weather). another check is due in three hours game time, and since this will be the fourth check, it is more likely to change than it was at the previous check. With an interval set at 24, our counter is currently at 21 hours with 3 checks failed. When we reload our game after we have made our wife happy, the counter is reset to 0, as is the number of failed checks. This means that for the next 96 hours, its quite possible that the weather will not change, thus the result is weeks long of the same weather, if we exit and reload.

THe problem with balancing this is determining a realistic interval check that doesnt result in the weather changing drastically, every game day, for those that may run an entire patrol without exiting. On the other end the difficult thing is setting the interval check low enough that if you only load up for a couple game days at a time, that you don't get continually stuck with the same weather.

Ill do the best I can, it is intended more as a utility to give us more variety in weather, but at the same time give the illusion that we are in a dynamic real world weather setting. Difficult with only 5 variables to play with!! If only it was based on a barometric model, rather than just random changes, we could do oh so much more!

Cheers,

And sorry for the long post. I needed to "think out loud"

Jamie

Is is possible to have a selection that asks "how many day since your last save ???"

This way you might be able to "reset" the counter to something other than "0" (if this is possible), and not have to worry about how often the weather should change. :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

Sounds great!Looking forward to the release! :ping:

can I ahve a look at it too, pretty please?!!

adonys13 at yahoo dot com

thank you!

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no. This is hardcoded in the .exe, to do so would require a trainer, that modifies the values in memory in realtime.... WAAAAYYYy beyond my meager capabilities!

Just as a side note, I should have it ready for public release by the end of next week. I just started a career in the 29th to see how my formula's hold up, that are based on the excellent information I received on these forums regarding weather in the Med. Im putting in a Laminate floor this weekend, so I probably wont get much testing in, or programming for that matter. (my hands are raw from tearing out carpet and pulling nails.)

For that matter, if you can afford it, have someone install the laminate for you, its a major PITA....

I just hijacked my own thread... is that even possible? Im tired....

Jamie

will this mod fix the sometimes constant perfect weather days in the North Atlantic and North Sea in the dead of winter? One reason I avoided career playing was that I often saw winter months with perfect weather in those seas, only to see missions in June and July with constant storms in those seas.

Could this problem be related to Global Warning?

Could you please drop me a copy when able please :)
saavkjediknight@telpacific.com.au


Thxs