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Weather development


nicka117

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Actually it works exactly like that in real life.

 

It may not be as uniform as what you see in DCS using static weather but you are not a very keen observer if you have never noticed thick fog in low lying areas turn into better visibility as you climb to higher elevation.

 

 

 

You're talking about shallow fog, and the slant visibility that improves when climbing. In that case, you will have set the 'thickness' to 0, whereas if you set the thickness to 1000 meters (tops at 3000 feet), the visibility should stay fairly consistent during the climb until you break out, given that there's no point of reference: it's all pea soup anyway. But my point has nothing to do with that.

 

 

If I want to depart from Batumi, which is at sea level, and I set the visibility in fog to 180 meters, then given that the runway lights are 60 meters apart, I should be able to count 3 lights down the runway. It's actually a bit greater in the game for Batumi, but that's besides the point.

 

 

If I depart from Tbilisi, which is at about 1500 feet above sea level, or 500 meters, how come if I set the fog at the same 180 meters, I can see the runway lights almost to the end of the runway, multiple times further than Batumi?

 

 

 

How do you explain that?

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Simulating the environment is just as important as simulating the aircraft, the systems the missiles... Imagine the F1 sim if they left out the commentators, the people in the stands the helicopters and blimps in the sky? Minor things really but doing environments well does a lot of good. I imagine those who poo-poo a decent dynamic weather system would rather play the version with it, than without it, all other things being equal.

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Simulating the environment is just as important as simulating the aircraft, the systems the missiles... Imagine the F1 sim if they left out the commentators, the people in the stands the helicopters and blimps in the sky? Minor things really but doing environments well does a lot of good. I imagine those who poo-poo a decent dynamic weather system would rather play the version with it, than without it, all other things being equal.

 

Agree completely. The weather in DCS is sad as is and needs to be upgraded significantly. It doesn't have to be the epic system that MSFS has, but even half as good would be a massive improvement. Yah, it may affect multiplayer, but less than 10% of DCS players play MP, so let's keep the 90% happy first.

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Simulating the environment is just as important as simulating the aircraft, the systems the missiles... Imagine the F1 sim if they left out the commentators, the people in the stands the helicopters and blimps in the sky? Minor things really but doing environments well does a lot of good. I imagine those who poo-poo a decent dynamic weather system would rather play the version with it, than without it, all other things being equal.

 

Oh definitely. It's not just the graphics. If one only cares about graphics and little else, there's a certain product coming out sometime soon which caters to that crowd. Keep in mind that those guys boast about their flight model no longer treating the aircraft as a single point in space, like FSX did...

 

That said, there's no reason why we can't get rid of the billboard clouds ;)

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+1 Weather should be top priority. Also the coloring of the textures, gamma, lighting system all feel like a big step down even from what we had a year ago.

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You're talking about shallow fog, and the slant visibility that improves when climbing. In that case, you will have set the 'thickness' to 0, whereas if you set the thickness to 1000 meters (tops at 3000 feet), the visibility should stay fairly consistent during the climb until you break out, given that there's no point of reference: it's all pea soup anyway. But my point has nothing to do with that.

 

 

If I want to depart from Batumi, which is at sea level, and I set the visibility in fog to 180 meters, then given that the runway lights are 60 meters apart, I should be able to count 3 lights down the runway. It's actually a bit greater in the game for Batumi, but that's besides the point.

 

 

If I depart from Tbilisi, which is at about 1500 feet above sea level, or 500 meters, how come if I set the fog at the same 180 meters, I can see the runway lights almost to the end of the runway, multiple times further than Batumi?

 

 

 

How do you explain that?

 

I explain it by understanding how static weather in DCS works. You cannot set static weather for individual locations. You set static weather for the entire map. When you set fog, the values you set are set for sea level. Elevations higher than sea level will differ from the values set accordingly.

 

If you want fog at Tbilisi, you need to set a fog thickness value that is larger than the airport elevation. For example, if Tbilisi elevation is 1500 feet and you want a fog layer 200 feet thick at Tbilisi, set fog thickness to 1700 feet. Of course, every airfield at a lower elevation will have thicker fog layers according to the individual field elevation.


Edited by pmiceli

 

 

 

 

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I explain it by understanding how static weather in DCS works. You cannot set static weather for individual locations. You set static weather for the entire map. When you set fog, the values you set are set for sea level. Elevations higher than sea level will differ from the values set accordingly.

 

If you want fog at Tbilisi, you need to set a fog thickness value that is larger than the airport elevation. For example, if Tbilisi elevation is 1500 feet and you want a fog layer 200 feet thick at Tbilisi, set fog thickness to 1700 feet. Of course, every airfield at a lower elevation will have thicker fog layers according to the individual field elevation.

 

 

You confirm what I conclude about the weather model. In this case, it's seriously flawed, is over complicated, and doesn't reflect real life weather dynamics. Maybe because of limitations, one size fits all, but it should be uniform regardless of airport elevation, and I don't buy the visibility generally improving in cloud with altitude (fog is a cloud that reaches the ground); it may happen in some cases, but not generally.

 

 

 

Surface visibility is how far you can see, and it should have nothing to do with thickness or field elevation.

 

 

 

If you set a certain visibility value in the fog settings, regardless of the cloud thickness or airport elevation, that should result in how far you can see at that airport.

 

 

 

Imagine if a weather observer was consistently under-reporting visibility in the aerodrome METAR, like reporting 200 meters when you can actually see 1000 meters, that person would fast lose their job. That's what happens at the airports with higher ASL elevation in DCS: what you set in the fog settings is not how far you can see.


Edited by Goggles
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You confirm what I conclude about the weather model. In this case, it's seriously flawed, is over complicated, and doesn't reflect real life weather dynamics. Maybe because of limitations, one size fits all, but it should be uniform regardless of airport elevation, and I don't buy the visibility generally improving in cloud with altitude (fog is a cloud that reaches the ground); it may happen in some cases, but not generally.

 

 

 

Surface visibility is how far you can see, and it should have nothing to do with thickness or field elevation.

 

 

 

If you set a certain visibility value in the fog settings, regardless of the cloud thickness or airport elevation, that should result in how far you can see at that airport.

 

 

 

Imagine if a weather observer was consistently under-reporting visibility in the aerodrome METAR, like reporting 200 meters when you can actually see 1000 meters, that person would fast lose their job. That's what happens at the airports with higher ASL elevation in DCS: what you set in the fog settings is not how far you can see.

 

I explained what is. You are complaining about what should be.

 

 

 

 

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And it shouldn't be anyhow...

 

It makes no sense to reference the weather at a specific airport when building a mission. Maybe when you take off and you ask tower for weather info sure... they'll report relative to that airport and maybe knowing your flight plan they'll tell you other useful info...

 

But when building a mission it SHOULD be reference to Sea Level.

 

but it should be uniform regardless of airport elevation

 

No. It shouldn't. Are you saying that if you set the soup layer to 300M thick or 500' vis for an airport at 500' ASL then go to one at 2200' ASL you should still have the same fog? WTH? No man... that's not how it works.

 

The visual effects in DCS may be a bit "sub par" relative to many/most other anythings that have graphics engines made after about 2008 but... Referencing weather relative to the MAP in the mission editor is absolutely 100% certainly for sure the right way to do it.

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Here is a good comparison on visuals at least

It's not good comparison at all. Only one type of weather, season and time was shown for DCS. More - the DCS area is catered for around 1990 while the other one is 2020. Caucasus was just updated in 2018 so it's not a new map at all.

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And it shouldn't be anyhow...

 

It makes no sense to reference the weather at a specific airport when building a mission. Maybe when you take off and you ask tower for weather info sure... they'll report relative to that airport and maybe knowing your flight plan they'll tell you other useful info...

 

But when building a mission it SHOULD be reference to Sea Level.

 

 

 

No. It shouldn't. Are you saying that if you set the soup layer to 300M thick or 500' vis for an airport at 500' ASL then go to one at 2200' ASL you should still have the same fog? WTH? No man... that's not how it works.

 

The visual effects in DCS may be a bit "sub par" relative to many/most other anythings that have graphics engines made after about 2008 but... Referencing weather relative to the MAP in the mission editor is absolutely 100% certainly for sure the right way to do it.

 

 

You're missing the point:

 

Compare the visibility of departure airports only, not after flying to the destination airport.

 

For example, put your airplane on the runway at Batumi (near sea level) and set the fog to 300 meters. Notice how far you can see.

 

Now put your airplane on the runway at Tbilisi (about 1500 feet ASL) and set the fog to 300 meters. Notice that you can see multiple times the distance you had at Batumi.

 

The fog setting at the departure airport does not reflect how far you can see at that airport, and the difference increases with airport height above sea level.

 

If you set the visibility to 300 meters, whether at sea level (Batumi) or 1500 feet ASL (Tbilisi), the maximum distance you can see should be the same: 300 meters. It is not.

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I just wish the weather got a major update as it’s so connected to immersion. I appreciate the new maps and modules and weapon systems but for me all I want is weather to be very realistic looking. I won’t be jumping on the other sim as I prefer to kill enemies but I would just love to see a major weather overhaul more than anything.

 

 

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I just wish the weather got a major update as it’s so connected to immersion. I appreciate the new maps and modules and weapon systems but for me all I want is weather to be very realistic looking. I won’t be jumping on the other sim as I prefer to kill enemies but I would just love to see a major weather overhaul more than anything.

 

 

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What kind of enhancements would you like to see? What do you find lacking presently?

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The clouds are not great - even BMS has better weather now....!! And the dynamic system is pretty complicated to use. I used to fly FSX for many years and you could get great weather in that with some add on texture packs and real weather system generators. Even the standard weather options where you could build various cloud layers, etc was good....Seems silly that DCS cant even match the ability of a 10 year old sim. Would love to see more realistic clouds and textures for this. Not so fussed about about real life weather, but some degree of change over time would also be great.....

 

The other frustrating thing is that they have made it so difficult to mod......so may talented people out there who no doubt would do this if was easier...?

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Hi all,

 

Apreciate it feels like forever for the clouds, the team are working on it, but it can not be rushed, we have seen what our competitors have done and the bar is high, with that said lets keep the other sim discussion out of the thread.

 

As soon as we are ready we will share more news, I will ask if we can share some screenshots soon.

 

thank you

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Cool thanks Big Newey, by the way, there is so much that is good as well in the sim, loving Syria map, a work of art, and I have amazing performance with it as well. Thanks fo all the teams hard work....

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