Weather trouble/bug?

[Nukesub]

Just wondering what others experiences with GWX3 weather is.

Just went on 2 patrols and noticed that it was almost always extremely calm, from the moment I left wilhmshaven to the mid altlantic to the azores. No rain, hardly any waves, beautiful clear sky. Just seemed strange, I am no sailor though so I do not know if it was realistic or not.

Is this a bug or just a 'lucky' run of nice weather? To its credit I ran out of deck gun ammo both times

[banryu79]

Hi Nukesub,
currently I'm returning home (in Wilhelmshaven) after my second war patrol with GWX.

In my first patrol (Sept.-October) me and my crew left our home port for the Western Approaches and during our voyage we experienced a progressive worsening of the sea state (very good to good near Heligoland, good to moderate up to Scapa Flow and so on till we came in the Atlantic, not far from Britain west coast, where we experienced mixed weather for all the two weeks spent here and we also experienced wind at 14-15 kts).
The same thing was experienced in reverse on our way back home.

In our second patrol (Nov.-December) BdU sent us along Britain east cost, and this time the weather has been nice (light clouds) with constant calm sea (wind at 3-4 kts) all the time (3 weeks patrol), without a single day of rain. We have to say that despite the season (winter) the North Sea looks like a gentle environment, at least in the region we explored.

---

To tell the truth, I'm a bit annoyed by the constant excellent weather I had experienced on my 2nd patrol, I mean: at least one or two days with some rain and slightly stronger winds where expected, considered the seanson.

I have decided to add the "EnvSimAct_Stiebler" to my mod soup, after having red this 2 threads:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...imAct_Stiebler

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...imAct_Stiebler

[captgeo]

damn, you guy's are lucky, all I seem to get is stormy weather for most of my patrol's so far.

[Pisces]

The weather generatorof sh3 is indeed a bit buggy. It has a tendency to not change very much. This is amplified if you save your game often and reload. A change timer gets reset every time you load.

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by Pisces

The weather generatorof sh3 is indeed a bit buggy. It has a tendency to not change very much. This is amplified if you save your game often and reload. A change timer gets reset every time you load.

I think this is the biggest problem. Why didn't they include the timer state in the save game data instead of this "RAM only" timer? What were they thinking!?

[Pistoliero]

Originally Posted by Nukesub

Just went on 2 patrols and noticed that it was almost always extremely calm, from the moment I left wilhmshaven to the mid altlantic to the azores. No rain, hardly any waves, beautiful clear sky.

What do you mean saying "always"? Did you check weather every hour of game time during patrol? Or it was fair every time when you fight something?
Looks like coincidence from here, bad weather deffinetely exists in GWX.

[Nukesub]

Thanks for the replies gents.

I think Pisces hit the nail on the head though. I do save/load quite a bit and this bug seems to be a product of that.

I'll look into the mods Banryu79 suggested, gave it a cursory read and it looks promising

Originally Posted by Pistoliero

What do you mean saying "always"? Did you check weather every hour of game time during patrol? Or it was fair every time when you fight something?
Looks like coincidence from here, bad weather deffinetely exists in GWX.

By always I mean, it never changed. When I TC'ed in the nav. map screen I would keep an eye on the depth meter and it never moved (barring the times I submerged obviously).

Indeed I know bad weather exists, which is why I thought this was a bug in the first place :P Could not figure out why the bad weather from previous patrols had disappeared!

Thank you for confirming though shipmate Glad I am not going crazy!

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by Nukesub

Thanks for the replies gents.
...

Hi Nukesub,
if you are *really* intrested in understanding a little more about the weather algorithm in SHIII I can point out this intresting explanation (is a small pdf document, by Stiebler, I founded hosted in the Mod file archive of hsie):

http://www.mediafire.com/view/dd6zgw...therReport.pdf

Nice reading, and I like to highlight some point of general interest:

Originally Posted by NYGMWeatherReport.pdf

...
Additional variables that were considered by the devs for SH4
The devs have kindly added the following information: These parameters were considered, and are now included within the SH4 weather pattern. [Probably all exist in SH3.]
- Rain lasts longer in autumn and spring.
- Weather changes are more frequent in summer, less frequent in winter.
- Weather changes more frequently near equator, and less near poles. [Definitely in SH3 – Stiebler.]
- Wind is stronger if very close to poles
...

and:

Originally Posted by NYGMWeatherReport.pdf

...
Rate of random wind changes
Subtype Zero discovered that the random wind almost always changes approximately every n=32 hours with his settings, with an extra hour being added after every change. [BlackLight subsequently noted that the value of WeatherRndInterval in the campaign.mis files is multiplied by about 16 hours to give the rate of potential weather change.] Thus changes in weather appear more slowly as a given game campaign patrol proceeds. If parameters RandomWindSpeedVariationSpeed and RandomWindHeadingVariationSpeed are altered, the time between changes is also altered slightly
...

finally (very important):

Originally Posted by NYGMWeatherReport.pdf

...
Very persistent fixed weather
There are occasional reports from users about very prolonged periods of unchanging weather (‘sticky weather’). I have encountered this just once during testing of our new mod (below), when the weather ‘stuck’ with ‘stormy-rain’ for over a week. I saved the game, and reloaded. There was a crash-to-desktop (CTD) during reloading. The previous save was also corrupt.
It appears that sticky weather is due to some kind of game error that causes computer memory to be corrupted with unpredictable results. This kind of behaviour can doubtless occur for a number of reasons, but a very common (and reproducible) cause occurs when two or more convoys spawn at about the same time close to the U-boat. This behaviour is typically found at convoy congestion areas, such as between North Ireland and Scotland, and south of Newfoundland. Try to avoid patrols in such areas - the bug can affect more than just the weather
...

Hope it helps

[Zosimus]

Well, anyone who has read much about Weather and Sh3 knows the system is broken. Personally I think that anytime a person changes zones there should be a chance that the weather is different. After all, it's hardly impossible that it's raining in the north of England and sunny in the south.

At any rate I have changed WeatherRndInterval in the campaign.mis files to 1, and I've found that the weather is usually different every day. That difference may be between wind speed 13 and wind speed 15, but it's better than nothing.

[Nukesub]

Just installed Stiebler fix, gonna run through a couple patrols and see if it makes a difference