Weather Beta Posted

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG 11..8.0 Beta - weather modifications, has been posted.

 

I am keeping this thread for feedback.

The beta will install into PWCGBoSBeta and PWCGFCBeta, so it will not overwrite your 11.7.2 install. 

If you want to continue campaigns and keep configs just copy your User directory into the beta directory.

Weather related advanced configuration:

Campaign ->Configuration -> Advanced Config -> Weather

Use realistic weather: set to 1 to use weather than includes heavier weather.  Set to 0 to fly in relatively clear skies (Still has clouds but no rain)

Min Haze/Max Haze: Minimum and maximum values for haze. Proper values are 1-10.  This makes use of the new haze feature

Max Wind: Not a new config.  Maximum wind speed in meters per second

Max turbulence: Not a new config.  Proper values are 1-10.  Maximum turbulence value in the mission.

 

The mission will conform to the weather.  You will get much more variety, in particular. lots more rain and snow.  Most battle areas have upwards of 30% rainy days.  

 

Any given weather pattern may or may not impact a given mission type.  If it is overcast and rainy most of the missions are going to be pushed to low altitude.  Dive bombing missions are particularly affected.  Dive bombing will be swapped for an attack mission where the Stuka will drop bombs much like a fighter or IL2.  Tactical bombing will be pushed lower.  Patrols will be pushed lower.  Deeper penetration missions will be scrapped in favor of lower altitude missions near the front.  

 

If cloud cover is not overcast or heavy then you will fly the missions as usual with whatever cloud cover there may be.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[dburne]

Sounds very exciting Pat! I like where you are going with this. I don't think I have ever had a mission where at the start I am on runway and actually see rain or snow falling.

Also good that you are going to make clear skies a configuration option, should be very beneficial for those that run into performance issues.

[PatrickAWlson]

13 minutes ago, dburne said:

Sounds very exciting Pat! I like where you are going with this. I don't think I have ever had a mission where at the start I am on runway and actually see rain or snow falling.

Also good that you are going to make clear skies a configuration option, should be very beneficial for those that run into performance issues.

 

PWCG never properly configured the mission for rain or snow.  As it stands now that is for the best as the flight building process, specifically flight altitude,  did not take weather into account.  

[Yogiflight]

Sounds indeed very promissing. One question, with making weather more realistic, can you also bind temperatures not only to date, but also to daytime. Because flying missions at 6.00 am with a temperature of almost 30°C is not very realistic either. This is the disadvantage of flying the 110, you have an air temperature gauge in cockpit.

[PatrickAWlson]

53 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

Sounds indeed very promissing. One question, with making weather more realistic, can you also bind temperatures not only to date, but also to daytime. Because flying missions at 6.00 am with a temperature of almost 30°C is not very realistic either. This is the disadvantage of flying the 110, you have an air temperature gauge in cockpit.

Stop looking at it  

 

You do realize that I am eventually going to get "The temperature variation from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM in July is off by ... )

 

being serious: if I can get something going that provides a reasonable variation without writing 20,000 lines of code I will do it.

 

This looks promising:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/hourly-outdoor-and-indoor-air-temperature-variation-for-a-typical-day-summer_fig1_277309132

Edited November 27, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[FTC_Mars]

42 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

You do realize that I am eventually going to get "The temperature variation from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM in July is off by ... )

 

being serious: if I can get something going that provides a reasonable variation without writing 20,000 lines of code I will do it.

 

Just an idea, but you could have two weather data sources to support everyone's cases: first, your own weather engine; second, take the weather for a given date, time, and area from CSV files.  Either data source can feed the mission generator the weather for a given date, time, and location.

 

By default, generate the mission's weather as a one-off job from your built-in weather engine. The engine can be as simple or complex as you have time for.

 

For people who want specific weather in the missions you can read the mission weather data from the CSV files.  Maybe one row for a given day and time.  They can populate the CSV with whatever tool they like.  They can use historical data if they want, to get the exact conditions on "this day in 1940-whatever".  They can back-cast today's data to the mission (e.g. make the mission weather match today's METAR).  Or people can write their own weather engine and have that generate the campaign weather in the CSVs.

 

Having both a CSV weather data input and output could make testing easier, too.  Have your built-in weather engine dump its generated data to the CSV and it would be easy to inspect an entire campaign's weather for inconsistencies.  People can use the dumped CSV as a starting point to customize the weather however they want using a spreadsheet editor.  And for mission testing a specific set of conditions can be hard-coded in the CSV for all days (very cold, very hot, very windy, etc.).

 

 

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

being serious: if I can get something going that provides a reasonable variation without writing 20,000 lines of code I will do it.

If you'll do it up to 19,000 lines, it's OK

Seriously, it was just a thought. As someone, who's knowledge about programming ends at, yes I've heard there is something, that is called so, I just wanted to throw it in, in case it is doable without working on it for the next year.

[I.JG3_CDRSEABEE]

Will there be scrubbed missions due to weather. From a couple of books I have read I think the luftwaffe moved some of their planes during the Russian winter.

[PatrickAWlson]

12 minutes ago, CDRSEABEE said:

Will there be scrubbed missions due to weather. From a couple of books I have read I think the luftwaffe moved some of their planes during the Russian winter.

 

I was not going to scrub missions.  I have no real experience with any of this but I suspect that the conditions will still be flyable.  Have to see what happens.

[PatrickAWlson]

@Yogiflight Done.  Temperature will start off as it is today: a randomized daily average appropriate for the map an time of year.  To that will be added or subtracted a modifier based on time of day.  It's not that sophisticated.  In general 3:00 PM is the warmest time of day while 3:00 PM is the coldest.  At the warmest point temperature is increased 6 degrees C.  At the coldest it is decreased 10 degrees C.  Variations in between are determined on an hourly basis.

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG 11..8.0 Beta - weather modifications, has been posted.

 

I am keeping this thread for feedback.

The beta will install into PWCGBoSBeta and PWCGFCBeta, so it will not overwrite your 11.7.2 install. 

If you want to continue campaigns and keep configs just copy your User directory into the beta directory.

Weather related advanced configuration:

Campaign ->Configuration -> Advanced Config -> Weather

Use realistic weather: set to 1 to use weather than includes heavier weather.  Set to 0 to fly in relatively clear skies (Still has clouds but no rain)

Min Haze/Max Haze: Minimum and maximum values for haze. Proper values are 1-10.  This makes use of the new haze feature

Max Wind: Not a new config.  Maximum wind speed in meters per second

Max turbulence: Not a new config.  Proper values are 1-10.  Maximum turbulence value in the mission.

 

The mission will conform to the weather.  You will get much more variety, in particular. lots more rain and snow.  Most battle areas have upwards of 30% rainy days.  

 

Any given weather pattern may or may not impact a given mission type.  If it is overcast and rainy most of the missions are going to be pushed to low altitude.  Dive bombing missions are particularly affected.  Dive bombing will be swapped for an attack mission where the Stuka will drop bombs much like a fighter or IL2.  Tactical bombing will be pushed lower.  Patrols will be pushed lower.  Deeper penetration missions will be scrapped in favor of lower altitude missions near the front.  

 

If cloud cover is not overcast or heavy then you will fly the missions as usual with whatever cloud cover there may be.

 

[PatrickAWlson]

I have flown 3 missions - 2 eastern front German and one US.  The US mission was in the rain.  No issues so far.  

[Yogiflight]

@PatrickAWlson I am getting 11.0.0 Beta with the Beta download.

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

@PatrickAWlson I am getting 11.0.0 Beta with the Beta download.

 

I pushed the zip again, pulled it and verified it is 11.8.0.  

[vonGraf]

Four missions in Russian winter as fighter until now, no problems. I left the weather settings unchanged but additionally, I'm using rowdyboots cloud mod v.12.1 grey.

I had the first time ever a rougher wind in a mission (7 m/s); wasn't easy to aim in a 109 but I managed to shoot one down though.

Looking forward to the snow and rain.

 

Thanks for your efforts all the time, Pat!

Edited November 29, 2020 by vonGraf

[Varibraun]

Two Beta missions today.  One SP Stalingrad Map and one Coop Rhineland Map.  Both had low clouds with fog and everything functioned fine.  My only issue was that I was not flying as lead on either flight, and the flight leader on both seemed to want to fly just inside the bottom of the cloud layer.  Seems like lead would want to fly just a little lower (or much higher) to have better visibility instead plowing along in the mist. 

 

As a side note - the coop was the first one I have flown.  My wingman/son, who just started flying, found himself inverted in the cloud layer...I told him to keep a better eye on his instruments! 

 

Thank you for working on another great update!

[PatrickAWlson]

Appreciate the feedback.  Going to push it as a release.  My own play has not shown any significant issues.  One thing that I see is lower members of the formation tend to get pushed into the clouds.  Going the other way could put the flight leads into the ground.  If possible I might reduce the vertical spacing between planes, but that has consequences as well.  That can be looked at over time.

[Varibraun]

4 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Going the other way could put the flight leads into the ground. 

 

Agree...that would be a little worse. 

 

Just finished another SP mission on Rhineland map, 2 man flight with me as #2.  Everything went fine, lead stayed just below the cloud layer.  Thanks again!

[Yogiflight]

I was flying a few missions now. I really like the new weather, much more challenging and authentic, I think.

I found one issue, though in my 110 campaign in june 1942 on the Kuban map. I never cared about it with the low wind speeds we had before, so I don't know if this was always the case. But in my last two missions I noticed that the wind was blowing with 5 respectively 7 m/s from behind during takeoff.

One request. As we now have higher wind speeds, it would be nice to get the wind direction and speed in the mission description in game. I constantly forget the wind direction, when flying, so it would be nice to be able to find it in the mission description.

[Yogiflight]

I completely forgot to mention, the daytime related temperatures are working fine, too.