Smoke Direction
 

Hey guys. I finally updated to 1.4 today! I was holding out until the new version of NSM was completed, but I couldn't take the wait no longer. Anyway, I'm running all the latest ROW, RFB for ROW, and RSRD for RFB. Everything looks great, except I noticed that in the Borneo Convoy mission, the ship's smoke is blowing forward ahead of the ships. I was detected by the escorts, and attacked. I noticed that when the Destroyers were in their attack runs, their smoke flowed correctly (blown back behind them).

I would understand if wind speed and direction were a factor, but the seas in this mission seem fairly calm, suggesting light winds. Certainly winds not capeable of blowing the ship's smoke ahead of the vessel. As I noted befor, while the Destroyers were in their attack runs, the smoke flowed correctly, suggesting the ship's speed countered any effect the wind may have had on the smoke.

I just started a new career, and haven't come in contact with any other vessels yet. Also, the mission mentioned above was the only mission I have tried thus far, so I can't say for certain if this is a problem, or a feature. Anybody else see this, or am I the only lucky one? HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone!!!

I'm pretty sure that's a bug with the stock game in that smoke from funnels or fire flows in the exact opposite direction of the wind.

So in the Borneo convoy mission the wind is at 5 m/s heading 0, and the convoy is heading 180. Therefore the funnel smoke is going to blow ahead of the ships. This effect is also far more noticeble with ROWs longer and darker smoke trails.

As of yet I don't think anyone has attempted to rectify this.

Funny, I never saw this effect prior to updateing to 1.4:huh: Smoke always flowed back behind the vessel in motion:yep:

There's nothing to rectify here - I just loaded up this mission and the smoke is fine here. When the weather report says that "the wind is at 5 m/s direction 0", that means that the wind is blowing from 0, not towards 0. This is consistent with the way winds are normally reported IRL. Thus, a wind from direction 0 is actually blowing towards 180, which is the same direction that the convoy is traveling in this mission. Winds of 5m/s are blowing at about 9-10 knots, which is faster than the convoy's ships are steaming - therefore, their smoke is blown slightly ahead of their funnels, which is correct. Of course, once the destroyers put on speed and start heading for you, they'd be traveling faster than 10 knots so their smoke would start to bend "backwards" behind their funnels at that point, as you saw.

Devs got this one right - it's a feature, not a bug :)

Thanks for clearing that up !;) Appreciate the info.

Au contraire!

There is infact a, shall we call it 'technical discrepency'. ;)

I decided to run some more thorough tests after that new bit of information about wind heading (thanks btw). Now thus far
The smoke and clouds move in the correct direction when the wind is reported at a heading of 0 or 180, +/- 5 degrees
or so, which is correct.

However, anything outside of a heading of ~ 05-355 or 175-185 will result in the smoke flowing the correct direction. The
clouds on the other hand will not properly reflect this.

Example: (using the 'Borneo Convoy' mission still)

Wind is at 15m/s with a heading of 150 degrees, so therefore blowing toward 330.
The funnel smoke is modeling this correctly, and is being blown toward 330.
But the clouds are incorrectly moving toward a heading of 30, instead of 330.

Thus it looks like that yes the devs indeed got the smoke modeled correctly, just not the clouds.

Maybe it's the jet-stream that's moving the clouds in a different direction:hmm:

The Jet Stream may be a bit too high, but wind does indeed blow in different directions at different altitudes.

Did the devs do that on purpose or just mess up? Ya got me...:sunny: