Wind direction in ME is wrong

[Darkenmass]

Hello , in the ME you can set the wind direction, however the set direction in ME correspond at the direction the wind goes to and not the one it comes from.

This is both aereonatically and maritime wrong. The wind direction is always FROM.

you can easely see, in the mission attached, that both the arrow and the number in the box indicate the opposite direction.

Wind bug.miz

[draconus]

21 hours ago, Darkenmass said:

The wind direction is always FROM.

You have an arrow of the wind flow in ME, so how can you mistake it? In the mission briefing then there are both wind directions from ME and meteo.

Edit: It's like that in ME since the beginning.

Edited November 18, 2021 by draconus

[Red Dog]

49 minutes ago, draconus said:

No, not always. You have an arrow of the wind flow in ME, so how can you mistake it? 

I think the Op means that when he creates a mission and sets the wind with the DIR box (not the arrow)  then he gets the opposite of what he wants.
Sure if you set the arrow, then you can get around the issue without a problem, It is still unnecessary confusion

There's a indeed a mismatch between the arrow and the numbers, they don't say the same thing.
They actually say opposite things for anyone in the aviation circles (and indeed maritime) 

The arrow says wind is 090°, the text says 270°. Can't be the same thing
As the wind is always given from the direction it is blowing, not to the direction it blows (arrow is correct, number box is off 180°)

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Red Dog

[Qiou87]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

No, not always. You have an arrow of the wind flow in ME, so how can you mistake it? In the mission briefing then there are both wind directions commonly used including meteo.

Honestly I feel the same like the OP, it took me 3 missions to figure out the wind direction was wrong. I was setting up my carrier to go towards 090° for example, so I wanted the wind in the same direction (meaning coming from 090°) because that's how it is done IRL (carrier turns into the wind for launch and recovery). It really took me a few times to figure out that typing 090° into the "DIR" box for direction meant the wind actually came from 270° and I was giving my mission a tailwind. I wasn't using the arrow, just measuring the heading of the carrier and inputing that as wind direction (resulting in a tailwind).

Maybe it is clear for you, but having an arrow pointing in the opposite direction of the number indicated in the box "wind direction" is very confusing, and I'm guessing it is for a lot of people.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Qiou87

[Euan Emblin]

When I started to work in the ME I was somewhat dumbfounded that the designers hadn't taken into account the standard international meteorological convention of designating the direction of wind FROM and not TO. With so much attention paid to the detail of aircraft and their systems the gaffe is surprising.

[Katj]

Mathematically speaking it's the meteorologists, aviation people and general public that's got it wrong.

So from an engineering perspective it makes perfect sense the way it is in the ME.

[Ironhand]

3 hours ago, Red Dog said:

The arrow says wind is 090°, the text says 270°. Can't be the same thing
As the wind is always given from the direction it is blowing, not to the direction it blows (arrow is correct, number box is off 180°)

As mentioned above, this is how the ME has worked from the beginning and, obviously, ED is in no hurry to change it. Both the arrow and number indicate a westward wind. There was some discussion years ago that this had partially been the Russian convention when the original (pre-DCS) sim had been developed. Never bothered to research it because it never seemed to be a big deal, while in the ME. Just made the semantic switch in my thinking.

[Red Dog]

It's not because it's there since the beginning that it is right

it's not because it's there since the beginning that it shouldn't be corrected

It's not because some of us have adapted to it that it shouldn't be corrected

It's not because it annoys me that it should be corrected

It's not because engineer have it right and meteorologist have it wrong that it should be corrected

Seriously, nobody said it was critical or should be fixed overnight but what's the point to have a bug reporting forum if we can't report what's doesn't work fine or is confusing.

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Red Dog

[Boosterdog]

3 minutes ago, Red Dog said:

It's not because it's there since the beginning that it is right

it's not because it's there since the beginning that it shouldn't be corrected

It's not because some of us have adapted to it that it shouldn't be corrected

It's not because it annoys me that it should be corrected

It's not because engineer have it right and meteorologist have it wrong that it should be corrected

Seriously, nobody said it was critical or should be fixed overnight but what's the point to have a bug reporting forum if we can't report what's doesn't work fine or is confusing.

 

 

Valid points made well . I just hope when and if they do they remember to reverse the wind in the existing missions accordingly. 

[Ironhand]

29 minutes ago, Red Dog said:

...Seriously, nobody said it was critical or should be fixed overnight but what's the point to have a bug reporting forum if we can't report what's doesn't work fine or is confusing.

It really doesn't bother me on way or the other. The confusion, though, comes from not reading the manual:

Quote

WIND.

...To the right of the wind speed setting is the wind direction setting. This can be set in two ways. The first is to click on the radial dial to denote the direction you want the wind to blow in (North is indicated as the top of the dial). The second option is to input the value using the left and right arrow buttons. The set direction that wind will blow in is indicated in the right field in degrees. For example, when set to 0 degrees (due north), the wind in the mission will blow from the south to the north. (Italics mine)

 

 

[AdrianL]

People are used the the wind working this way in the ME for many, many years.

Changing it now will likely cause a lot of confusion 

[Rudel_chw]

6 minutes ago, AdrianL said:

Changing it now will likely cause a lot of confusion 

 

Not only that, but the idea of having to update most of my missions is depressing .. and all for what? to please a few perfectionists? 

[Boosterdog]

26 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Not only that, but the idea of having to update most of my missions is depressing .. and all for what? to please a few perfectionists? 

Id would really hope that given its just semantics and a GUI arrow the coding wouldnt alter exisiting missions (the wind is still come from the same direction afterall, its just demoted differently in the  ME GUI). 

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

Not only that, but the idea of having to update most of my missions is depressing .. and all for what? to please a few perfectionists? 

If they ever change it they can do it so that missions don't have to be changed. That's the obvious choice and no coding effort.

[rayrayblues]

4 hours ago, AdrianL said:

Changing it now will likely cause a lot of confusion 

No S**T

3 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Not only that, but the idea of having to update most of my missions is depressing .. and all for what? to please a few perfectionists? 

I have been here less than 2 years and I can only imagine how many missions' others have that been here much longer than I.

Draconus said:

"If they ever change it they can do it so that missions don't have to be changed. That's the obvious choice and no coding effort."

I wouldn't count on that. It's probably why they won't change it. I kinda' like it the way it is. Set the ship's waypoint direction,

then set the wind going the other way. Easy Peasy. 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by rayrayblues
typo, additional thoughts

[AlexCaboose]

This has always bothered me. DCS is a sim, and weather is a large part of flight simulation. It should be denoted and reported correctly.

[Ironhand]

1 hour ago, AlexCaboose said:

This has always bothered me. DCS is a sim, and weather is a large part of flight simulation. It should be denoted and reported correctly.

You mean it’s not denoted and reported correctly in the sim? I thought it was but maybe not. I often don’t pay enough attention to these things. The ME isn’t the sim. It’s the tool used to create the simulation experience. The method to denote static weather wind direction within it may be unconventional but it’s documented and applied uniformly within the ME.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Ironhand

[Frederf]

12 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Not only that, but the idea of having to update most of my missions is depressing .. and all for what? to please a few perfectionists? 

It wouldn't change your mission. It would change how it's displayed. The bytes in the .miz would be unaltered.

[Nealius]

"Change causing confusion" is a non-issue. The standard in aviation is and always will be wind FROM. Knowing this there will be no confusion, as the non-standard notation of the sim will be brought to standard.

"I would have to update all of my missions" is also a non-issue if the change is made a certain way, for example the base code is still TO but the GUI automatically converts TO to FROM for the users. Your wind direction would be unchanged in the code in that scenario.

[Euan Emblin]

ED prides itself in getting things right with details, the 'raison d'etre' of a true simulation. Ergo ...

[Darkenmass]

On 11/18/2021 at 11:07 AM, Red Dog said:

I think the Op means that when he creates a mission and sets the wind with the DIR box (not the arrow)  then he gets the opposite of what he wants.
Sure if you set the arrow, then you can get around the issue without a problem, It is still unnecessary confusion

There's a indeed a mismatch between the arrow and the numbers, they don't say the same thing.
They actually say opposite things for anyone in the aviation circles (and indeed maritime) 

The arrow says wind is 090°, the text says 270°. Can't be the same thing
As the wind is always given from the direction it is blowing, not to the direction it blows (arrow is correct, number box is off 180°)

 

 

This is what i meant, let the arrow as you like give me number as it should be.

[Flappie]

18 minutes ago, Darkenmass said:

This is what i meant, let the arrow as you like give me number as it should be.

Requested.

 

[Darkenmass]

To add some more infos, while the ATC will call the wind direction correctly the JTAC will call it as it is written in ME, so 180 degrees off.

[Flappie]

3 minutes ago, Darkenmass said:

To add some more infos, while the ATC will call the wind direction correctly the JTAC will call it as it is written in ME, so 180 degrees off.

What do JTAC do IRL?

[Scaley]

18 hours ago, Flappie said:

What do JTAC do IRL?

IRL everyone will talk about wind in a FROM format. That true for every aviation community that is anywhere connected to an English speaking aviation system, or to NATO.  It's also true in maritime use, mountaineering, civil aviation and popular weather forecasting.  The ONLY place that has routinely reported wind in a TO direction format is the former Soviet Union, and that is probably why the ME is the way round it is.