Weather Engine

[Rikus]

The weather engine is done, but, who understand it?

 

Do you think it´s easy to work with it, for mission builders?

[159th_Viper]

 

Do you think it´s easy to work with it, for mission builders?

 

How about you ask specific questions about what you don't understand and get it explained to you by people who do understand. Right now when reading your post it just seems to be a general moan which in itself will not aid you at all in attempting to get people to explain to you what it is you need to know.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

The weather engine is done, but, who understand it?

 

Do you think it´s easy to work with it, for mission builders?

 

Can you please be more especific?

 

Are you referring to the weather engine in DCS?

Edited April 16, 2013 by jcomm

[Grimes]

I wouldn't exactly call it finished. There are plenty of improvements to be made with it. As far as I know the weather systems hasn't changed much since it was introduced. You can check out this thread and ask specific questions there for help regarding dynamic weather: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=82610

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

@Grimes: Thx for the link!

[Demongornot]

Its not a problem of finish or understand, the problem is that the weather, the simple or the dynamic are both way too much simplified.

 

Standard :

Season and temperature, its the minimum of the minimum, we can't choose the temp relative to the altitude.

Completely simplified single layer of cloud, and the cloud are way too flat (i have already talk about this) and no other cloud than this single layer are allowed, precipitation, it miss things like hail, freezing rain, melted snow, i least at 0°c we have rain, thunderstorm, snow, snowstorm, but nothing else and its only at 0°c, NO even little forgiveness, not 1 not -1, only 0°c and that's all.

The pressure is in mm of mercury, the US aircraft use inch of mercury, the famous 760 vs 2992, its nice for Russia, but for those who NEVER use or even hear of mmHg (Torr) its stupid, a lot of aircraft in the world use the 2992 version, same for altitude of the "single" cloud layer, a lot of people use feet and not meters, a system who show both is needed.

For the wind we have 3 different (begin to be nice with several possibility) layer with predefined altitude (yes, why people don't just understand that customer want CHOICE and certainly not want restriction) with direction that we don't know of the wing come from or to this direction and a single Turbulence setting, yes 3 wind layer and a single turbulance setting, INCREDIBLY realistic waw...

How and we also have a fog, for those who don't know yet, for its supposed to be a cloud at low altitude above the ground lvl.

 

And Dynamic ?

Its "simple" (yeah we can say it) :

Season and single layer of temperature...

Baric system with Cyclone and Anticyclone, we can choose the number that we want of them but we can't choose a cyclone and an anticyclone in the same time....

Yeah i don't want to live inside a country who only have cyclone or anticyclone but everyone its free to choose the suicide...

We can up to 6 cyclone or 6 anticyclone, yeah its a pretty nice apocalypse, every weather specialist who ever hear about DCS Weather must laugh so hard...

Do ED guy recently look the weather at the TV or internet ? for example in my country : France, we have ALWAYS an Anticyclone who prevent us against...cyclone, and a lot of time anticyclone and cyclone fight each other, they are in the SAME country in the SAME time.

MAYBE Georgia have a particular system who permit only cyclone or anticyclone at the time, i don't know the Georgia, but i don't think so, and even if its possible, why just restrict the player to using only it ? cause THEY have choosing to do ONLY a SINGLE map, i prefer have a fictional planet but fully available, like in FSX/X Plane (they both have the real planet) than a single country.

And anyways if we change totally the map and we don't importing all characteristic but recreate it, the DCS weather system won't change from the first to the second map cause its unrealistic.

But maybe its cause we can choose negative pressure anticyclone and positive pressure cyclone...

Yeah... that right, i don't know how work the weather system in their planet but on earth negative pressure baric system is called cyclone and if it grow in pressure over the 101325 standard Pa it will become an anticyclone, don't forget that we can't even move the center of any of this system, even the main and first one.

 

How i have forget we have the pressure deviation, everyone talk in Hpa and know 1013, and they just decide to complicated one more time what we want, and over that rather than write : 101325 or 1013.25 they just write the 4 last number for totally lost people who don't understand weather, and we can notice that they just decide to finish the job of torture by first choosing in the Standard weather mmHg and in the Dynamic just decide to using Pa without any system for converting for those who want it or who NEED it.

Its not complicated to do a slider system who show SEVERAL irreverent value, like USA type QNH, Russian type QNH and in Pa.

 

We can't choose the cloud, the rain, the snow, the humidity, NOTHING, if we don't want a mission who can during 3 year without any weather change, we are forced to use the dynamic system who are COMPLETELY random and WITHOUT any indication of what it will be at the mission start and without any possibility to choose the type of weather we want at the begin.

 

But we still able to choose turbulence and fog, it must be funny a dry air without wind with fog and turbulence on it...

 

Yes i know i have done a lot of sarcasm, and if it look like i don't respect the weather system in DCS its cause i'm.

I will respect this bad weather system when it will become complex and with POSSIBILITY like we see in FSX for example.

 

Actually the Dynamic weather need to be meteorologist, but real meteorologist will laugh by watching it.

Anyways we can't do bad things and wait for people to respecting it, no one can blame me for this, i respect ED team, u just don't respect some bad part of the software, and blaming me for this its like blaming someone who disrespect the use of nuclear weapon against innocent people, its the same way.

 

Anyways i hope a new weather will one day be available, something like the FSX one, with or without real world weather data downloading...

[agentkgb]

@Demongornot:

I don't get your point. DCS is not FSX, and it will hardly ever be. DCS stands for Digital Combat Simulator, so the main purpose of the "game" is to create a virtual battlefield, instead of creating and modelling the real-world weather systems or a nice environment for civilian aviation. Of course it would be nice to have everything in one game, like DCS+FSX+ArmA+... but it is not going to happen. Anyway we get more and more in DCS, and as it was mentioned this dynamic weather system has just been introduced, as many other improvements, which makes the world of DCS more and more realistic. And it makes a lot of simmers more and more happy. Who knows, if everyone supports the game, maybe in the future at some point we will all get those "personal features" what we want from the game, which makes it even more realistic.

The rest is just whining, not sarcasm...

 

- KGB -

[Exorcet]

@Demongornot:

I don't get your point. DCS is not FSX, and it will hardly ever be. DCS stands for Digital Combat Simulator, so the main purpose of the "game" is to create a virtual battlefield, instead of creating and modelling the real-world weather systems or a nice environment for civilian aviation. Of course it would be nice to have everything in one game, like DCS+FSX+ArmA+... but it is not going to happen. Anyway we get more and more in DCS, and as it was mentioned this dynamic weather system has just been introduced, as many other improvements, which makes the world of DCS more and more realistic. And it makes a lot of simmers more and more happy. Who knows, if everyone supports the game, maybe in the future at some point we will all get those "personal features" what we want from the game, which makes it even more realistic.

The rest is just whining, not sarcasm...

 

- KGB -

Weather isn't a civil aviation issue, it's an aviation issue.

[GripenNG]

Weather isn't a civil aviation issue, it's an aviation issue.

 

If no flight sim have hade perfectly realistic weather and combat enviroment before, why blame ED for not having it now? With todays standard you have to choose. But maybe not in 5 years.

[Exorcet]

If no flight sim have hade perfectly realistic weather and combat enviroment before, why blame ED for not having it now? With todays standard you have to choose. But maybe not in 5 years.

 

I'm not blaming anyone, just pointing something out.

 

The only thing I would hold against ED is that the current GUI for dynamic weather is a bit limited and confusing. Outside of that I acknowledge it is WIP.

[agentkgb]

Weather isn't a civil aviation issue, it's an aviation issue.

Please read my post, no offense. It has just been introduced. Before that, we had no dynamic weather at all. It is still not perfect though. Maybe the gui is still not perfect. But at least we have something to begin with.

I didn't say weather system is a civilian aviation issue only, please note the "or" in my sentence.

For me it's like ED is introducing something new --not as a separate DLC-- for free in DCS world, which is still under dev, and then people coming here to state how simple and bad it is. This is what I meant to say. If I were ED, I would say: you know what, you don't like, don't use it at all, and stick to the simple weather...

For me it seems a few guys started to experiment with dyn weather, and got nice results, Grimes already linked it: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=82610 I followed those posts, and I also like what I got, no matter how realistic it is compared to a real life weather system.

 

- KGB -

[Demongornot]

@agentkgb

Like Exorcet say :

Weather isn't a civil aviation issue, it's an aviation issue.

 

And its MAINLY a military issue in fact, a 737 in IRF at FL300 don't care about cloud, military do ! visual is important and in both side.

An F-15 can be completely surprise if he just flying over cloud if a SU-27/33 or a Mig-29 flying inside high altitude cloud approach him at 6 radar off and IR sensor ON.

Or if a high altitude military aircraft are just shooting by a SAM, the cloud can do the difference between the life and the death cause cloud prevent pilot to see the missile smoke at high altitude for some cloud at 10Km and he will need to only watch his RWR/RPO until the missile some hundred feet under.

Don't think when i complain i don't know what i talk about, i have reflect about this since a lot of time, and i have already use this cloud approach with optical/IR sensor of the SU33 for shoot down some AI F15 who have never notice my presence until i shoot them in short range with medium range fatal Russian IR missile who can kill easily in short range.

 

And the "just introduced" system have something like one year now, i don't complain about the weather fidelity or the realism, just the completly lack of option and possibility and like Exorcet say again, the its confusing.

I have already explain why, so maybe i whining, but you actually do the same.

 

I know DCS is not FSX, but FSX still have a way more better and REALISTIC weather system, and DCS, FSX, civilian or military doesn't matter when we talk about realism, you can have the most realistic and advanced simulator of the world capable to handle even turbulence from an insect applied to the aircraft flight, it will still a unrealistic simulator if you don't correctly handle weather, things like prop engine ice problems or control surface who can freeze its not a problem of military or civil, its a problem of fidelity and realism.

Its like our actual pilot don't care about pressure or temperature (only about oxygen that he breath) and you can say for 200 year and argument how you want that pilot can have hypoxia and "G simulation" (that just make us have a cadet pilot unable to resist high G like real pilot actually do), it still be unrealistic for pilot simulation, and an aircraft simulation its definitely NOT realistic without correct pilot and environment simulation.

The only simulator who don't need to simulate atmospherics situation is maybe train, submarine (only when he is not surfacing, and he still having to simulate the sea condition for being realistic) or even an underground machine.

Even a car simulation have to simulate humidity, wind and temperature if it want to be correct, maybe only at ground level, but it still have to do it.

 

So yes i complain and sarcasm about weather system of DCS cause i know since the time what happen and i'm sure if no one complain and talk about it, the final version of the dynamic weather will still having almost no option, no possibility, it will probably be realistic, but it will still have a comprehensible interface.

 

Anyways for me Flight simulator is not realistic for plane side, but a least it still having realistic weather (capable to using real life weather data) and realistic ATC.

http://www.avweb.com/news/avtraining/flight_simulator_x_for_pilots-chapter_13-weather_196384-1.html

http://www.avweb.com/newspics/196384_fsx_chap-13_fig_07.jpg

 

No one talk about a realistic simulation of global weather, just something correct capable to REALLY be comprehensible and who don't need to always make 200 conversion for finally have random things that will be probably far from what we want, if you success in the FIRST TRY with the Dynamic weather to make a Thunderstorm i'll give you a cookie.

And i prefer have complex Standard weather system like FSX (who anyway handle dynamic) than a Dynamic one with no option, no possibility, terrible interface and totally random.

 

An aircraft simulation without correct weather simulation who don't give us any choice its like a car race simulation without tires simulation where we can't parameter anything about wheels.

And at lease FSX (even if it was created by Microsoft) give to people the possibility to doing mods (and i don't talk about payware and other third party) and even some weather mods are available.

 

Anyways i don't want to debate anymore about this, it wont change the fact that the weather is not realistic in DCS and it will probably never be WIP or not.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Demongornot

[GripenNG]

I'm not blaming anyone, just pointing something out.

 

The only thing I would hold against ED is that the current GUI for dynamic weather is a bit limited and confusing. Outside of that I acknowledge it is WIP.

 

I agree with you that the GUI for dynamic weather is way to complicated, it does not have to be so just because it´s WIP. So a big minus on that.

 

It´s impossible for me to fly with rain, snow or thunderstorm in DCS, my FPS goes down to 2 or 3.......can´t imagine how it would cope with FSX weather :music_whistling:

[agentkgb]

OK, just short answers.

- You're right, in DCS there is no standard "dynamic" real world weather, no argue.

- There is thermal gradient in DCS. Not for FC3 but in BS2 there is definitely. If I climb up to the mountains of Caucasus, I have to switch on all the heaters to carry on. Don't forget FC3 SFM!

- You can choose what overcast you want, you can choose from 0-100% of cloud coverage and the thickness from some 100m to 1000m or more, not sure now, I have to check. This is available even in the standard weather options. So I don't understand why is that you cannot create your cloud fighting scenario. Well OK, one layer of clouds, that's right. I'm not a meteo expert, but I personally never seen full overcast of high-level clouds.

- Wind options, right 3 layers as you described in standard weather.

- Pressure system is also implemented on some level, again no effect for FC3 level flyable.

I think that is more then you described, but yep, still far from perfect. But if the message is "hey do something instead of this shit" we won't get it.

 

- KGB -

[159th_Falcon]

Since when does dynamic weather not affect FC3 planes????:huh:

 

Dynamic Weather is a DCS World feature, and affects EVERYTHING in said world.

[cichlidfan]

Since when does dynamic weather not affect FC3 planes????:huh:

 

SFM vs. AFM

[159th_Falcon]

So you guys are saying that if Dynamic Weather engine is creating a 20 km/h head wind that;

KA-50, A10C and P51D's will have there ground speed reduced by 20 km/h

 

FC3 planes have an ground speed equal to there airspeed?

 

Didn't think so. Go try for yourself.

 

Same whit precipitation, same for all aircraft, regardless weather its produced by standard or dynamic weather engine.

 

Same for Turbulence to, also affects SFM, though quite less noticeable for obvious reasons. There not unaffected though.

[agentkgb]

Since when does dynamic weather not affect FC3 planes????:huh:

 

Dynamic Weather is a DCS World feature, and affects EVERYTHING in said world.

 

Where did I wrote that?

I said FC3 will not utilize each and every capability of the World's engine. This is valid for the weather system also.

 

-KGB -

[159th_Falcon]

Where did I wrote that?

I said FC3 will not utilize each and every capability of the World's engine. This is valid for the weather system also.

 

-KGB -

 

No you didn't,

 

- There is thermal gradient in DCS. Not for FC3 but in BS2 there is definitely. If I climb up to the mountains of Caucasus, I have to switch on all the heaters to carry on. Don't forget FC3 SFM!

 

- Pressure system is also implemented on some level, again no effect for FC3 level flyable.

 

 

- KGB -

 

Thermal gradient i don't know about for sure, but the fact you can't read the temp in the cockpit of FC3 flyables doesn't mean there not affected by it. (you won't get icing though, cause the flight model turns on the anti icing for you, well could do, no way of telling really)

 

Pressure system is the whole basis of the dynamic weather engine and is what creates wind for example.

Which in turn affect all planes in DCS World, including FC3 ones.

 

So FC3 flyables are affected by pressure systems.

[agentkgb]

Pressure system is the whole basis of the dynamic weather engine and is what creates wind for example.

Which in turn affect all planes in DCS World, including FC3 ones.

So FC3 flyables are affected by pressure systems.

 

In FC3 aircraft you won't get the lack of thrust depending on the pressure. In a shark you have that.

I think the same is true for the icing conditions, SFM doesn't handle that, but sure, I'm not an ED dev, so I may be wrong.

I'm sure there are a lot more things in DCS:W, I just highlighted what I have experienced so far, and came into my mind.

The wind affects FC3... It would be very sad, if it wouldn't, but the original topic was about the implementation of complex weather system in DCS, and I think that the evaluation of that with an FC3 aircraft is not the best idea. Moreover my point was the way it has been expressed.

 

- KGB -

[159th_Falcon]

Well, in that case, complex weather sytems are modelled fairly well i think.

And its ongoing development, we already have in the dynamic weather;

Icing

Rain

Snow

Temp variations whit location geographical and in altitude

pressure variations dependent on number of systems and type of systems.

As above for wind direction and speed. (function of said pressure variations)

 

Only thing missing is a good graphical representation of clouds associated whit the weather being simulated.

Then again, never did much whit weather stuff so might be overlooking something.

 

Oh, sea state is dependant on wind now aday's, so i guess that could be added to the list as well.

Not sure about fog though, its there, but from what i have seen its either everywhere on the map or no where.

(for the set altitude)