Brainstorming about the weather

[Hitman]

So we have so far a lot of research and input about the SH3 weather, and the end result of it seems to be that a nice environment like OLC's comes at the price of suffering sometimes the continuous storm bug, and a good weather like NYGM's comes at the price of not seeing any clouds and having a bright sun/sky most of the time.

Now, I have been thinking about an alternative solution and would like to hear your comments about it: Make multiple scene.dats that you can enable via JSGME with different weather patterns. For example, if you take the bad weather waves/wind/sky/fog and make them be reduced, then your "overcast" weather will be rather soft, and if conversely you raise the calm seas wind/fog/etc. you would have a worser "good" weather. What I'm trying to say is that it could be a good way to have reasonably overcast weather in the North Atlantic -as it should- but NOT continuous storm, not beacuse the game won't form the storm, but because the storm waves, fog etc, will be very mild.

What do you think of this? Could it be a solution to have a more uniform weather? Would the sensors react correctly to those changes, or would there be a need to adjust them? :hmm:

[snwcrsh]

i remember the weather issue. there was a thread about tweaking some numbers which made it slightly better, but not really what you expect from typical weather patterns in the atlantic.

I am not much into sh3-modding to judge whether this idea is feasible, but if it is it would be optimal to add it as a feature for a tool like sh3 commander: everytime you load your patrol a certain weather pattern is selected... or something. IF this is possible at all.

[snwcrsh]

Found the thread again:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...hlight=weather

dunno if that is any help .. or even obsolete by now, though

[badwolf]

Hi Hitman
Yes, you can add the files to SH3Commander random and date files. You could then adjust for season (date) and would not know the weather in advance for your patrol (random).
You probably will have to tie this to the Flotilla folder to take account for different world climate. I was toying with this idea to add snow. You could also possible use the Randomised events same as malfunctions.

[Reece]

One thing I changed in the Scene.dat (my version only) was the heavy fog from a maximum viewing distance of 300m to 700m, the bad weather is uber enough IMO, this way I can atleast identify a ship in time, and if I hit it I get a confirmed red symbol instead of nothing!

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Hitman

...a nice environment like OLC's comes at the price of suffering sometimes the continuous storm bug...

OLCE2 contains RWF (the same weather fix as used in NYGM) so I'm not sure why you think my environment causes bad weather. The only time I get continuous storms is by saving and exiting in the middle of a storm, and then reloading later, thereby invoking the save/load "weather reset" bug. That's an old bug which has nothing to do with my env.

[Reece]

Wear it OLC!! Hee Hee ... just couldn't help myself!!

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Reece

Wear it OLC!! Hee Hee ... just couldn't help myself!!

Wear it?
As in, "if the shoe fits"?
Meaning that you also think OLCE2 causes bad weather? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Edit:
No, that can't be it... you don't even use OLCE2, so how could you have an opinion about it's weather?
Please explain "wear it" to me, it's not an expression I'm familiar with.

[Reece]

Wear it?
As in, "if the shoe fits"?

Yeh, that's it!!:rotfl:Sorry OLC, I go overboard sometimes!!
But really, you've got to learn to relax, you ought to know me, I love a good stirr! just ask Jim! Better hide my wooden spoon!
@ Hitman, it really doesn't seem to matter if Scene.dat or the mis files are edited, altimately during the game the weather will go nasty & far too often gets stuck, and I mean for weeks!!

[onelifecrisis]

Hard to relax when someone levels an unfair criticism at months of my work.
Hell it's hard to relax when someone levels a fair criticism at months of my work!
But I do try on the latter.

[Hitman]

Oh I must apologize to OLC for my initial message

I did NOT know that he had included the Weather fix in his mod, because in the Readme (OLC 2.4.2, that's the version I have) it does NOT mention it.

I have downloaded this great mod, and so far it's the best looking environment I have seen, but I have played little with because it is made for GWX and not for NYGM, which I currently use. Thus, I asumed that it did NOT include the weather fix, and have not tested it long enough to be able to say anything different.

Nevertheless, the idea I wanted to comment still is valid: I want to make a scene.dat with a more realistic weather pattern for the North Atlantic, and certainly periods of very good weather do not seem OK in january f.e. the weather fix eliminates the long, persistent storms, but it does not provide an accurate weather for the North Atlantic or the Arctic.

Can a scene.dat be modified in a way that all weather patterns are more similar, i.e. for example ranging only from mild overcast to storm, never good weather with clear skyes?

[onelifecrisis]

Thanks.

To answer the questions I can from what knowledge I have...
You could certainly make the waves calmer (or stronger) and the fog/haze lesser (or greater) by tweaking scene.dat, and - done properly - this would not require any sensor tweaks (the sensors calculate fog based on ObjectsRelativeZMin/Max in scene.dat, which also controls the graphical fog effect on objects like ships).

However, doing it this way would mess up the weather report (make the reported fog inconsistent with what you're actually getting in the game, and possibly the waves too). Hopefully Stiebler will show up with a better answer, he knows scene.dat weather inside out, I imagine!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

However, doing it this way would mess up the weather report (make the reported fog inconsistent with what you're actually getting in the game, and possibly the waves too).

Like that doesn't already happen in the game? :rotfl:

[Hartmann]

The only problem is that you need save and reload sometimes , and it could be a problem with long patrols.

I have good results in the game weather with custom random settings in the campaign files.

[barkhorn45]

i'm running gwx 2.1 and olc and was experiancing a rather powerful storm that limited my visibility to 400 m.but when i asked for a weather report was told that it was overcast with poor visibility and NO precipitation.from the bridge it was coming down in sheets.