SH3 Random Weather Generator [RELEASE v1.02]

[Skweetis]

Just to clarify, when using the Weather Generator, it sets up the values before you launch SH3 (or SH3Cmdr for that matter). After that, everything else is in SH3's hands.

The only parameters that effect the weather during a patrol that I can affect are: cloud, fog, wind, and rain rate of change (how fast the weather will change if SH3's interval check determines that the weather will change) these rates of change are: almost Nil, Mild and Heavy. For example, if set to heavy then weather could possibly change from clear and calm to raging storm at the next weather change. The lower rates of change have this transition of weather "states" to be more subtle.

The other thing we have control over, is the interval (in game hours, from 2 to 96. I believe that 24 is the default.) that SH3 checks to see IF the weather will change. If the check comes back as a change, then it uses the rate of change levels to determine what the next weather pattern will be. These checks are performed in such a way, that the chance that the weather will change increases for every check that fails (ie determines that weather wont change for this interval)

Interval is actually one of the hardest things for me to balance correctly, due to the fact that when you reload in a patrol, the counter that sees how long until the next check for weather change resets to zero.

Here is an example:
Lets say your wife calls you upstairs to do some chores, so you save and exit SH3. Lets say your interval is set to 24hours (every 24 hours the game will check to see IF the weather will change) In the game, at the time of save, you have been sailing through the same weather for 93 hours (the previous three checks failed to change weather). another check is due in three hours game time, and since this will be the fourth check, it is more likely to change than it was at the previous check. With an interval set at 24, our counter is currently at 21 hours with 3 checks failed. When we reload our game after we have made our wife happy, the counter is reset to 0, as is the number of failed checks. This means that for the next 96 hours, its quite possible that the weather will not change, thus the result is weeks long of the same weather, if we exit and reload.

THe problem with balancing this is determining a realistic interval check that doesnt result in the weather changing drastically, every game day, for those that may run an entire patrol without exiting. On the other end the difficult thing is setting the interval check low enough that if you only load up for a couple game days at a time, that you don't get continually stuck with the same weather.

Ill do the best I can, it is intended more as a utility to give us more variety in weather, but at the same time give the illusion that we are in a dynamic real world weather setting. Difficult with only 5 variables to play with!! If only it was based on a barometric model, rather than just random changes, we could do oh so much more!

Cheers,

And sorry for the long post. I needed to "think out loud"

Jamie