Weather = Seriously Bugged?

[Spunky48]

Ok, so how is it that this weather report can possibly remain exactly the same throughout almost my entire patrol:

Clouds Overcast, Precipitations Medium, Fog Heavy, Wind Speed 15 meters, Direction 221.

I ignored it for a while because I figured it would go away by the time I had to sink a ship. But no, 15 minutes later when I've found a ship to sink, I'm all lined up, ready to fire my torp as soon as I can get a nice lock in the periscope, the ship sails right in front of me. Because there was so much fog, I couldn't see a giant C2 cargo vessel right in front of me. Is there some patch or mod that fixes the ****ty weather? I'd rather not turn it off altogether if I don't have to, but that's an option as well if there's no other way to fix this.

[Blacklight]

The weather model for SHIII is broken. The weather tends to get "stuck", usually with high wind, storm, rain, etc..
This is in the stock program and is un-moddable. I believe the latest version of GWX makes the weather a little more random, but nothing is going to be able to TOTALLY fix the problem.

We HAVE discovered a bit of a workaround. We noticed that the weather tends to change roughly every three days of game time. Saving the game, and then reloading it, resets this "timer". So, if say, you're sailing and the weather is perfect with no wind, you save the game when you're out there for two days, and then you exit, and reload your saved game, the timer will reset, giving you another three days of game time of the same weather you had when you saved. This is by no means a 100% as the weather timer DOES vary some for when it changes the weather. Especially the closer you are toward the equator where it changes the weather more frequently.

Hope this helps. Maybe some others have some other suggestions as well.

Also, if you don't know about it, ALWAYS save while surfaced. There is a major bug that will cause you to plunge to the bottom of the ocean when you restart if you save while under water. Also, if you're using the GWX mod, don't save anywhere near a base as it will cause all the ships in the base to crash and burn when you restart.

[Spunky48]

Originally Posted by Blacklight

Also, if you're using the GWX mod, don't save anywhere near a base as it will cause all the ships in the base to crash and burn when you restart.

This is a bad thing how? :P

I'm not using any mods though.

Edit: Is it also bugged in Silent Hunter 4?

[Dissaray]

One thing I have read here on these forums and seen in game is that the weather tends to get stuck less often when when you keep the time compresion no higher than 128. This will also make encounters with the enemy more frequent it seems.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by Blacklight

Also, if you're using the GWX mod, don't save anywhere near a base as it will cause all the ships in the base to crash and burn when you restart.

You are incorrect, matey. What you have described in the quote above is a stock SH3 problem and has nothing to do with GWX. The above quoted problem is common regardless of the mod used.

Saving near any campaign scripted or random layer AI unit in SH3 will cause it to lose its waypoints and travel in a straight line.

[Blacklight]

One thing I have read here on these forums and seen in game is that the weather tends to get stuck less often when when you keep the time compresion no higher than 128. This will also make encounters with the enemy more frequent it seems.

This is true. You definitely do get more contacts that way.

[Steel_Tomb]

Que the obligatory "It's been stormin' for three months!!!!" lol.

Weather is a bit strange in SHIII, but there is nothing we can do about it really .

[Red Heat]

My aproach to the game i consider heavy heather a true ally...except the the heavy fog in some aproaches like in the earlier of the war...because with out radar its very dificult to follow a contact at the surface!

[RConch]

Weather in the North Atlantic really did suck most of the time.
All commanders should take the time to enjoy "Bloody Winter" by John M. Waters to get a real taste of what the boats, escorts and merchants had to deal with.

[Hitman]

So far the best solution I have found is to have different scene.dat files that I enable/disable depending on where I'm going to patrol. If I'm going to patrol in the North Atlantic, I use one that allows random weather (which will tend to go to 15 m/s) but with the waves size smaller than standard and fog disabled. That gives me consistent rough weather, but not unplayable at all. For tropical patrol areas I use one with fixed wind speed. Clouds change, rain comes and goes, but you never get a storm.

NYGM also comes with modifications incorporated to the campaign files that increase the chances and periods of good weather.

[Sailor Steve]

And where do we get these other scene.dat files? I jus' gots to know!

Honestly, this sounds like a cool thing.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

And where do we get these other scene.dat files? I jus' gots to know!

Honestly, this sounds like a cool thing.

I'd be interested too because all I do is change the values to suit from the campaign files to determine the weather conditions I prefer eg: basic GWX3.0

Fog=1
FogRand=0
Clouds=1
CloudsRand=0
Precip=0
PrecipRand=0
WindHeading=0
WindSpeed=4.000000
WindRand=0
WeatherRndInterval=5
SeaType=0

[Hitman]

And where do we get these other scene.dat files? I jus' gots to know!

Honestly, this sounds like a cool thing.

I just did it for private use. It's actually a very easy setting in the scene.dat, takes only 5 minutes to do with Silent Editor, and doing it for every environment mod out there would be a nightmare.

Simply open scene.dat in Silent Editor and go to:

6:Node Sky-->13 EnvSim-->14EnvSim--->Wind--->WindspeedChangeSpeed.

Setting the wind change speed to zero will ensure you have a constant wind during all the time, which will be the one in your campaign layers (GWX by default 4m/s). You can also set the fogchange speed to zero and thus see no fog at all during your patrol.

If you want to have smaller waves in 15m/s wind, then simply go in the same path:

6:Node Sky-->13 EnvSim-->14EnvSim--->Wind-

To wave properties and copy the values for scale from node 2 (8 to 14 m/s waves) to node 3 (15 m/s waves) and you will have at most waves of that size.

You can actually customize a lot the weather playing with those combinations, deciding if you want fog & rain to appear or not, the maximum size of the waves etc. Add to this the ability to change the clouds for any others you want (By changing the TGA file in the Misc folder), and you can have custom weather that goes from mild to rough, or from rough to hurricane-like.

Or simply fully fixed weather, by selecting

6:Node Sky-->13 EnvSim-->14EnvSim--->UseCotrollersWeatherData to TRUE

you override any setting in the campaign files and can put a fixed weather pattern directly in the scene.dat. This works very well if you want to have a fixed good weather with, say, 4-7 m/s wind, no rain, no fog. Ideal for patrolling in the Caribbean.

I also discovered that you can swap scene.dat files during saved games. So you can have one scene.dat with variable weather when you depart base and cross the atlantic, save when you arrive at your patrol area in the Caribbean and load the fixed good weather file, then save before returning home and reloading the original random weather file.

Combinations are endless ... that's why offering it as a mod is not probably wirth it.

BTW Manos EnvPro3 already has the smaller waves for 15m/s wind, so you can still patrol and hunt even if the weather is stuck at rough.

[Hitman]

Oh I forgot: Theoretically (Jaesen Jones will know better) you could place those customized scene.dat files in SH3 Commander and have it put automatically the correct weather for you depending on your flotilla (F.e. Mediterranean). I'm not sure if it can be coarsed to do it according to the assigned patrol area and time of year

[Jimbuna]

That's intersesting Hitman, Personally speaking I've never had to adjust the scene.dat but I must admit my results are not always as far reaching as you are describing...cheers