[Stiebler]

@H.sie:

I have now amended my envsim.act code, and provided a download link in case you wish to see my code.
I have sent to you a PM with the download address.

It is absolutely certain that between us (mostly your work, of course) we can now solve the persistent 'foggy storms'. There is more than one way of achieving this, and other coded patches might be better than mine, but my code *definitely* functions to get rid of the 15 m/s foggy-storms.

What I have done:
As mentioned earlier, my solution has been to subtract 15 m/s from wind speeds whenever the windspeed exceeds 15 m/s (the devs, as you discovered, had used a limiter, chopping off all winds to a maximum of 15 m/s). My method provides the use of random wind-speeds, and not a sticking at 15 m/s. In addition, I have then re-tested the new windspeed to make sure that it does not now fall below the lower weather limit (normally 0 m/s, but 7.5 m/s in the Arctic). For the minimum windspeed, I have retained the original dev’s code. All testing was carried out at tc=2048, which is well known to induce bad weather quickly.

I have now carried out extensive trials with my repaired copy of the key file envsim.act, and protracted foggy-storms, in the north Atlantic (around the Azores), around the equator, and in the Arctic south-west of Spitzbergen. Prolonged stormy winds are no longer seen! (Although it must be emphasised that random variables are involved, so that theoretically foggy-storms remain possible. However the chances become much smaller with every passing weather change.) I spent two game-months for each patrol in each area without any coding problems.

What I discovered during testing:
There is no doubt that the wind speed precedes the heavy rain and the fog. You never see heavy-rain-and-heavy-fog with windspeeds below 9 m/s, although sometimes the fog and rain lingers after windspeed has briefly reached 15 m/s.

In the north Atlantic: these might be regarded as standard weather conditions (for SH3), and weather updates (not necessarily changes) occur every 24 hours or so. Under these conditions, foggy-storms that exceed two days are very rare.

At the equator: the devs provided much faster weather changes near the climate, perhaps to mimick ‘tropical storms’. Foggy-storms are much more common here (since rapid weather changes induce the wind to move upwards), but none now persist more than a few days. However, there was one instance where a foggy-storm persisted for seven days, even although the windspeed fell, because the windspeed fell only to 12 m/s, from which it could rise rapidly back to 15 m/s again.

At the Arctic: the big problem here is that the devs set a minimum windspeed of 7.5 m/s. This is half of the theoretical range of all available windspeeds, and my envsim.act patch will also reduce some wind speeds originally in excessive of 15 m/s to low values below 7.5 m/s. In addition, the weather changes much less frequently in the Arctic than in the north Atlantic, so that the weather tends to ‘stick’. I think that the devs' choice of a minimum windspeed of 7.5 m/s is too high [Edit: high, I had written 'low'], resulting in persistent winds of 7.5 m/s, which lack rain and fog (for which a minimum of windspeed of 9 m/s is necessary). Perhaps this minimum value should be lowered to give a better range of weathers, or an additional patch should be made to envsim.act.

I look forward to seeing your work, too.

Stiebler.