Campaign oddities

[Nealius]

I've noticed some things that are a little...nonsensical in the first couple of missions of the campaign.

 

1. The campaign takes place in Spring, specifically March, with temps around 15C, yet there is snow on the ground.

2. In the second mission it is raining with only 70% cloud cover.

3. In the first mission, one of the pilots says not to fly over the left side of a live fire range, yet in the second mission the flight plan takes you directly over the area you were specifically told NOT to fly over.

[Weta43]

I've noticed some things that are a little...nonsensical in the first couple of missions of the campaign.

 

1. The campaign takes place in Spring, specifically March, with temps around 15C, yet there is snow on the ground.

The 2 are not completely incompatible.

2. In the second mission it is raining with only 70% cloud cover.

Is your problem that there is rain (if so why), or is it that there is rain under the 30% parts ?

3. In the first mission, one of the pilots says not to fly over the left side of a live fire range, yet in the second mission the flight plan takes you directly over the area you were specifically told NOT to fly over.

Be sensible and fly around it.

[NeilWillis]

Snow in spring with 15 degree temperatures is entirely feasible. I drove to Italy a couple of summers back, in June, and there were drifts banks of snow over 3 metres deep. All you need is a little altitude to preserve snow all year round.

 

The phenomenon of the rainbow happens in sunshine.

 

The shortest distance between waypoints isn't always the best course to fly when you are in a helicopter. If you are told to avoid a specific point, just because it happens to be between two waypoints, would you really over fly it?

[Nealius]

If the temperature is 15C the snow will melt. At altitude where it's closer to 0C then it makes sense, yes, but when the thermometer in the cockpit is reading 10-15C? No way I should have white all over the entire map, even at sea level. Every snowfall I've seen in my life begins to melt as soon as the temps get even two or three degrees above 0C and the sun is out. It wasn't 15C exactly where the snow was in Italy, was it? I bet it was much colder due to the altitude.

 

The minus point in immersion about the rain is that it's still falling underneath areas of clear sky. Limitation of the modeling engine, but that should be known, so why not just make it overcast?

 

And finally, if I'm told not to fly over a specific point I'm not going to make a flight plan that goes over it. I doubt real pilots file flight plans with routes taking them over restricted airspace and just say, "I'll fly around it when I get there."

 

There are some issues with the game itself making things odd. Wind direction 180 degrees opposite what's in the Briefing/ME, and wind speeds that are often doubled from what's in the Briefing/ME. These are all things that I can fix through the ME, but having to open 20 missions and fix the season/weather every single time I update is getting tiresome.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Nealius

[Quadg]

did you finish that mission?

when you go for the high mountain pickup the rain turns to snow and the de icing system robs you of power just when you need it most.. especially as i volunteered for all the extra weight..

 

i really liked that mission....

 

i had horrendous icing problem for the whole final leg...

first the engines, then the rotor and tail kicked in. and i started dropping like a stone till it all stabilised.

 

just because it says 15c in the sun in the valley does not mean squat really :)

 

its march in the caucuses...

[Art-J]

I recall the algorithm of loading season scenery textures was changed significantly a couple of months ago to something date-dependent.

 

I'd hazard a guess that default campaign, being more than 3 years old, might not be quite compatible with the new system, loading winter textures all around when back in v.1.2.x-era March was probably Spring-textures only (I didn't play it back then). Rule of thumb in DCS is not expecting the old, stock campaigns to be updated often, if ever.

[NeilWillis]

In fact Nealius the air temperature was at least in the low 20s Centigrade, at high altitude, in bright sunshine. The large mass of snow - probably hundreds of tons would mean that even with high temperatures, the snow falls might even persist all summer long. What makes snow melty is persistent high temperatures over a considerable time frame. So saying that because the temperature was well above freezing you can't have snow is frankly wrong.

[ricktoberfest]

Where I live (Canada) we often have snow into late April and early May- even though the temperature might be above 0. It takes weeks or sometimes several months to melt snow that can be several feet deep. You often see people in short sleeve t shirts with snow on the ground. In the mountains and higher elevations snow can (and does) persist all summer long (hence glaciers).

 

 

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[Art-J]

Oh, c'mon, nobody argues about snow during spring in the mountains (especially in Canada :D). But having it in Caucasus, sea level, at +15 is just absurd, so I understand where the OP is coming from.

 

That being said, It's just a result of engine limitations. Weather modelling in DCS is rather simplified compared to civilian aviation sims out there, the mission editor applies the terrain textures based on the date, not the temperature (so one can even create a fantasy combination of snowy map with scorching, tropical SL temps, the game will not mind it at all), so I don't think it's something worth being bothered about.

[ricktoberfest]

1. I don't live in the mountains

2. I understand about the limitations of the sim, just offering about how it could happen IRL

 

 

 

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[firmek]

I've noticed some things that are a little...nonsensical in the first couple of missions of the campaign.

 

1. The campaign takes place in Spring, specifically March, with temps around 15C, yet there is snow on the ground.

The 2 are not completely incompatible.

2. In the second mission it is raining with only 70% cloud cover.

Is your problem that there is rain (if so why), or is it that there is rain under the 30% parts ?

3. In the first mission, one of the pilots says not to fly over the left side of a live fire range, yet in the second mission the flight plan takes you directly over the area you were specifically told NOT to fly over.

Be sensible and fly around it.

C'mon, lets stay pragmatic.

Snow +15 deg could happen but it's not exactly the most common situation. As for the flight plan leading through a no fly zone I remember it also struck me when flying the campaign. Those are not a big issues, just a small "oddities". Something probably easy to fix. None is bashing on a campaign because of them but let's not try to twist the things around and say that users are lacking imagination.

 

I recall the algorithm of loading season scenery textures was changed significantly a couple of months ago to something date-dependent.

 

I'd hazard a guess that default campaign, being more than 3 years old, might not be quite compatible with the new system, loading winter textures all around when back in v.1.2.x-era March was probably Spring-textures only (I didn't play it back then). Rule of thumb in DCS is not expecting the old, stock campaigns to be updated often, if ever.

If my memory serves me right this might be the case. I flew the campaign some long time ago and can't remember any snow there. Actuallym, another reason that I remembered it that way was that some of the story line mentioned winter while the environment was using spring (or autumn) textures all the time.