Oops! The weather info overlay can't be turned off. There's a checkbox, but it just re-checks itself and the overlay stays there.
Is there any way to show the Live Weather Precipitation Value directly on the overlay? Right now, it looks like the value maxes out at the rain mapping limit and doesn’t match the actual precipitation rate from the data. I’m currently in a heavy rainstorm with over 1.5 inches per hour, but the overlay doesn’t seem to reflect that intensity since it appears tied to the TSW precipitation slider. I think the default rain mapping max of 10mm (around 0.39 inches per hour) works perfectly for the in-game visual intensity, but being able to see the true Live Weather precipitation rate on the overlay would make it so much better! If possible, it might be a neat addition to have a dedicated field that links the live weather precipitation data to the overlay’s display. That way, even if the live weather precipitation value goes beyond the slider’s maximum (with or without a thunderstorm present), it could still be accurately reflected in the overlay, while keeping the TSW Weather Precip slider and data handling just as they are - which already works perfectly. Sorry if all this was a jumble. Trying my best to explain that haha!
A minor technical point, but when I change the value in settings to try to make the font size smaller it doesnt have any effect. I have tried restarting the program but it remains the same. Has anyone else got this to work?
You have to press the apply button.. without that the settings will not be.... applied.. Yes, little bit unfortunate UX, I will try to improve it with a pop-up/something when closing settings befory applying the changes. Aaaand, that's why Snow Depth is not yet in the overlay... Becasue it is taken from the TSW clamped values (so 0 - 1), and for any serious snow cover the values are just too small. So, I'm figuring out how to do it more properly. So real data are shown, and also stuff like snow depth can be added
Apply button doesn't work, WRT the weather info. As soon as you close the Settings window the box re-checks itself.
Weird, it works on my end.. You could try to go to %AppData%\TSWMarkPoints\ and delete all the Settings.xml file there, to see if that resolves the issue...but this will ofc reset the app do default setting. You could also try to change the settings manually in the settings.xml
This is a nice utility! I am trying to add a custom location for a crossing. When I add it, it shows TimeoutRange whenever I get to the location and it doesn't display in the Overlay. What does that mean? Thanks!
That means that point was recently shown, and the player needs to get to a certain distance, before the point would be eligible for showing again (this is to avoid double-showing when the route is winding on itself, or if the player switches to rear camera... or if you're just doing yard work in the same area). Clicking 'save' will also reset the state of all points, and allow it to be shown again.
1. If I want to use your app for the weather, do I have to set the weather to Custom in TSW6? 2. If I start your app, then start TSW6, and then sit somewhere on the train, what do I have to press in your app? Do I just have to click on the Apply to TSW button in your app?
1) It looks like updating weather via the API also stops TSW dynamic weather from changing (which is good).. so in theory even dynamic is ok. But is custom is safe. 2) It shouldn't be necessary to press anything. The app should automatically pick-up you entering a map, and after a few seconds update the weather. Update now is only if you would like to do a manual real data update. Apply to TSW only makes sense in Manual mode, as it applies the sliders to TSW. It will be hidden for other modes in the future, so it doesn't confuse.
for best results i have set it to historic weather in the app to me it does not seem to matter much if in game weather is custom or dynamic i have done several journey mode runs and those are all dynamic anyway and i rarely see anything weird
Just running the Birminham-Crewe today, and I see the app is not reading the stations. I guess it is because they have not been programmed in yet, or am I possibly doing something wrong?
Yep, it is becasue the route is not annotated. Annotation has to be done manually, as it it is usually stuff that is not in TSW in any way.
I have been running with dynamic weather (under the misguided assumption that custom weather disables the whole weather-change routine), and the app has worked perfectly. What I see through the windscreen matches the historic weather data every time.
Yeah, it's definitely looking like this app overrides the game's weather no matter what it's set too.
ok now I have got it all working, lol, it looks and acts like real weather. In winter we should now not get snow all the time whenever there is precipitation. My question mark is over the data provider. Its good its free but is it accurate? Has anyone yet got a pure sunshine run, or an especially foggy one? Blackpool was sunny today at around 1pm but showing 50% cloud on the program. I haven't experimented a lot but so far have had no fog and no clear skies. Am I just unlucky at the moment or is this a trend? Could other data providors (including paid ones be included as a choice? Also can wind speeds be factored into the simulation. Could thunderstorms be factored in on a random basis when precipitation is at maximum? I also suspect that DTG's weather types (clouds etc) are not good enough to enable a really good weather representation. Just some thoughts, still a massive improvement over the wild 'dynamic weather'.
Their data are sources from national agencies, so NOAA, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), UK Met Office..etc... So the weather should be in general as good as is the general weather forecast in those agencies. It might be off at the exact time and location (like cloudliness at the current moment), but it shouldn't be off in the general state and trend of the weather. If you're playing with live (and not historic) weather a single route... you will get very stale weather...becasue how drastically does weather, usually, change during a day... not to mention the 1 hour period which are most services My personall sweetspot is Historical with 5x acceleration. Other weather providers will also be basing their data on those sources (you really cannot get more accurate predictions than with local provides). It is possible that you will get more accurate current weather in other services, as they might also combine the data with actually weather station measurements, but I haven't really compared it... And I don't think they just provide those weather station data without processing, because interpolating weather on longer distances is... not correct... weather is complicated... that's why I'm always astonished when any developer is like 'we have a random weather that should be like real like weather'.... but I'm going on a rant here :-D The app doesn't really simulate anything, it just takes data from the services, does some simple mapping and applies that to those same in-game sliders which you see when setting a custom weather. It cannot set weather type, it cannot set if it is raining or snowing (that is still based on temperature in-game)...and it cannot currently control wind (becasue it isn't in the DTG API) :-D But those national weather models do simulate stuff like, what effect on weather geographical properties, like big rivers, and mountain ranges will have.. Other provides might come, i.e. openweathermap.org, but those might be lacking some data (openweathermap doesn't look to have snow depth info). Purely payed service will most likely never be an options, as I would need to subscribe to them to implement their api... And I honestly don't see people paying for weather data, when there is a free option. I.e. if I would like to have the same data from open-meteo, but for comercial use, that's 99e a month....
Have you looked at the ICAO weather stations and this ICAO weather? This data can be accessed free of charge from these ICAO weather stations, and they provide accurate weather information for the current conditions in these areas. I don't know if these ICAO stations also provide accurate snow depth information, but they definitely provide wind data. You can access all ICAO stations, whether they are normal airports or military airports. Perhaps you could take a look at how you could query these weather stations for your m
The wind issue is not open-meteo issue, it is DTG issue.. you cannot set in-game wind via the DTG API. Open meteo has wind speed data, from ground, up to 200m.. which is more than enough for train sim. ICAO weather stations is not the way to do it. The density is too small. You have a weather station in Innsbruck and then in Hohenems-Dornbirn Airport, 130km away (or Altenstadt to the north, similar distance). That means that for i.e. the whole Mittenwaldbahn you get Innsbruck weather. And that would be wrong.. what's the weather in Scharnitz, which is 400m higher than Innsbruck, and on other side of the mountain range? Even though it is only 30km away, the weather can be drastically different, becasue of the geographical properties of the ara. What's the weather between Innsbruck and Hohenems-Dornbirn Airport? It definitely isn't interpolated weather between those two stations, becaue there are Alps between them, and each valley can have it's own micro weather. Weather stations are great if you want to model weather for where the station is located (so, for a city). But for a train sim, wher you pass quite a distance, in often in sparse countryside, weather models are better. These are highly advanced models ran on an actuall supercomputers, and they provide nuanced small diferences that makes weather interesting. Which for me is the most important aspect of live weather.
weather is a really complicated but interesting topic isnt it? Its a pity the DTG api does not allow for wind settings but there is no doubt that the program makes it more interesting and natural looking to play. Is there anyway a manual wind setting slider could be provided.
It's very interesting, that's why I don't understart why DTG didn't trully expand on its weather options... The hardest part was done, TOD4, despite it's flaws, really makes routes feel trully different in varios conditions. Not only in terms of cloud cover, but also temperature, time of day...etc.. It's all there, everything affects how the light propagates in the atmosphere and how the world feels. All that was left for them to do is to move those sliders reasonably.... Anyway, new version is out I've swapped the Overlay and Weather tabs, as I imagine more people will be interacting with that.. so it is now the first tab, saving you a click The app is now also controlling the wetness sliders (the last slider that was left mostly untouched by the app). Wetness is affected by: Current precipitation (obviously :-D) Precipitation in last 3 hours - the more it rained in the last 3 hours, the wetter the world will be. So in theory you could spawn into a clear weather, but it will be wet, becasue it rained recently. This is affected by temperature (the hotter, the less effect past precipitation will have). Humidity (thanks coderbyday for this one). Hight humidity + colder weather-> condensation -> wetter world. (in theory this should be more based on temperature tendency - air getting colder not able to contain the moisture, and the difference between air and soil temperature, causing condensation - dew... but maybe in the future :-D ) Snow cover - when there is snow cover and the temperature is around freezing, than world will get wet based on how much snow there is. The hotter, the wetter, because melting And, the app now parses weather codes, and displays them in UI (this is first step, so they can be shown in the overlay in later versions) These are the codes for weather at start of the hour and end of the hour. If the weather is stable, then only one code will be shown. This should be the general trend for current location. But it can ofc change, as you're moving around the world Ther are also some updates for the annotation part, I've added Crossing, Road, and Road Underpass POI types, so they can now be marked with a dedicated icon. And also the editor will now hide all build-in location by default, which should make work with users own points easier.
Winzarten A great thank you for all the work you are putting into making the app amazing and most useful in TSW.
I can only echo what has been already said but all members on here . Thank you so very much for the dedication and continuous work you put in to this wonderful app .
What are the distinctions between the three? I am guessing that "road" means a level crossing, but does "road underpass" mean the road is going over or under the railway? And does "crossing" refer to diverging track, or something else? Sorry if I'm being obtuse; was up late last night. Yes, I know these were things I specifically requested.
Wow, and the app just continues to get better. Can’t wait to give it a go in the AM, and can’t wait until we see those weather icons in the future! Perched!
There is no technical difference, it is really just what icon you prefer And happy people are enjoying it. There are still some features planned It is good to have something positive for a change ;-)
I recently bought TSW5 then TSW6m i'm a long term TSC user and i must say this program is amazing! Thank you so much for creating and sharing.
I'm having trouble getting it working today. First time using it was yesterday and it worked a charm. But today, it just says "waiting on TSW" in the bottom left. The API key is present and I've double checked the -HTTPAPI is set and the API key matches that in the config file. All fine. I've tried launching the game and this app in various orders but nothing seems to get it to connect.
Hmm... There was an issue I just fixed, with the poi list not being populated, but that shouldn't be causing that. Try to uninstall the app, and the install again the latest builds - https://gitlab.com/-/project/720324...4c2c8e5d553a328bcb4dd/TSWRouteAnnotations.msi You can also try to delete %appdata%\TSWMarkPoints folder, as that where the config is located, and see if that will helps...
I checked the log file for the app and it was going on about refusing the API connection. So I tried deleting the text file with the api key in it and that did the trick. When I relaunched everything, it generated a new one and connected in straight away.
Great, happy to hear you have it sorted And looks like I've been able to "work around" one of TSW limitation Above freezing, but it's snowing... It's a ruse ofc, but it's one of the benefits when the app shows 'real' weather, and not what is set in TSW. When there is more snow than rain reported by the weather service, the app will apply below freezing temperature in-game.. while still showing 'real' temperature in overlay. Giving the illusion of snowing above freezing (or raining below freezing)
Loving it. I pushed my SRM annotations as far as Bernau-am-Chiemsee last night. (FWIW, since the icon for "crossing" is a crossbuck I'm using that for level crossings, the one for "road underpass" shows the arched carriageway so I'm using that for roads carried over the tracks, and "road" where they go under the tracks)
It's possible to have snow when ground temperature is above freezing. Probably no accumulation, but as long as it's freezing in the cloud layer snowflakes will form
NO WAY! OMG! This was actually something that I was going to mention, but I didn't know if it was possible because of the TSW limitations already in place. In my video, I was driving through a major snowstorm that occurred in the Northeast (USA). There were several areas where, in reality, the temperature was above 32°F (0°C), yet snow was still falling. This happened because the upper levels of the atmosphere were much colder, preventing the snow from melting before it reached the ground. It's truly remarkable that this phenomenon will now be accurately depicted in-game! That's insane! Interesting little weather tip for those interested! Have you noticed that when you’re running a snowy service and the precipitation rate in the overlay doesn’t quite match how much snow seems to be falling/accumulating? That’s because what you’re seeing in the overlay is the liquid equivalent, which in simple terms is essentially how much water the snow would produce if it melted. The actual snowfall depth depends on a variety of factors like temperature, humidity, and also how dense the flakes are. So, colder, drier air creates fluffier snow with a higher snow-to-liquid ratio, while more warmer, wetter conditions tend to lead to heavier, denser snow that accumulates less even when the same amount of liquid is falling. So, around 32°F (0°C) the liquid-to-snow ratio is around 10:1, so if you see 0.15" /hr, that's roughly 1.5" of snow an hour. (which will fluctuate based on other factors listed above)
Question regarding snow cover. When is "piled snow" starting to take an effect? What effect does it actually have?! I have played around with the API itself and have not actually seen any effect on piled snow. Bringing ground snow to 1 does "pile" the snow in TSW to its max depth, hence I am not sure what piled snow is actually doing... I tried to play around with the sliders on your app in "manual Weather", however, here they did not seem to have an effect. Snow simply started to pile on its own with enabled snow fall. But regardless, I drove in historical weather in a region with 7cm of snow and I thought this looked a bit low for this depth. So I tried to play around with the ground snow layer to propose something... Its all a bit subjective, obviously, however, looking at a typical track in TSW you can estimate that from the top of the ballast to the top of the rail itself it should be around 20cm (assuming a standard rail profile is about 14-15cm high). Comparing no snow to full snow cover I have estimated that the max snow hight in TSW is about 15cm (maybe a bit more): However, taking a simply linear approach would make 1cm snow cover (the smalles open-meteo can actually report as snow depth, as far as I know) not visible as any snow cover in TSW. Considering 15cm max depth at API value 1 would translate into API value 0,067 for 1cm, which looks like no snow at all: In fact, if you play with the API values, the snow does not actually "pile" before you hit a value of 0,5. Hence, one could argue that as soon as a snow cover is mentioned in open-meteo one would need to start displaying API values above 0,5. Taking a linier approach between 0,5 and 1 would make 1cm snow cover look like this: My earlier mentioned 7cm snow cover would then look like this: The values 0 to 0,5 could be used otherwise, with logic associated to it, like light snow drizzle results in 0,1 or similar. I have noticed that, as open-meteo is model based, snow cover seems to be more or less axactly the same for huge areas. IRL this would probably vary much more between those areas. Hence, it would be cool to implement some randomness to the whole snow cover process, anyway. I could go on, sorry for the academic approach, I probably got carried away, a little bit I think your App is already superb! And I am happy with how snow is implemented already today. However, maybe something you could consider in the future
I noticed today that I ran a scenario that was supposed to be through a snowstorm, I had started the app before starting the scenario, and no snow.
I’ve honestly been having such a blast with this tool over the past few days. It’s probably one of the best things to ever impact TSW, and I really can’t wait to see what future updates bring! That said, I do want to mention something I’ve brought up before. I’d personally really love to see some way to separate the weather overlay from the POI overlay, for a few reasons. Some routes don’t have annotations at all, and others are annotated but just don’t have many POIs, or at least not ones that display weather data, like rivers and tunnels. On routes without many stations or yards, you end up missing out on that information entirely. So, having the weather overlay separate would make a big difference. I remember reading that if it were displayed constantly, regardless of whether you’re passing a POI or not, G-Sync wouldn’t be enabled. But honestly, that’s something I could personally live with. Sometimes it’s hard to notice when it’s raining, especially if it’s very light (sadly, some trains are bugged and barely show rain on the windshield), and if you don’t realize it and forget to turn on your wipers, you end up losing AP. Having that weather info visible at all times would make it so much easier to stay aware of any precipitation, even just a small amount. Would be down for a checklist allowing players to choose which POIs show weather data in the overlay, too, if all that isn't possible. It’d also be neat to have both the weather and POI overlays position on the screen separately customizable. I know that’s probably a big ask, but I really think it could go a long way. And even if they can’t be fully separated, just having the choice to tick a box to keep the weather overlay always visible, without forcing it on everyone, would be something I’d 100% enable.
or a overlay popup interval that just shows the current weather at certain time's or a weather alarm if it starts raining
yeah scenarios are scripted so if weather takes a big part of it then it is better to disable it or not use the weather app while playing the scenario
i wonder if the app can see the difference between scenarios and timetable services would be nice to have a setting like if playing scenario use manual weather instead
Yes, I also noticed that with the historical data, but from around 2021 onwards, also historical forecast data are present, which look to have higher accuracy. This is what the app primaly uses for historical (one way to differentiante what the app currently uses is visibility, the historical data don't have visibility data, so it is always 15km). Academic approach is very welcomed.. and will definitely be helpfull, as values currently in the app are just eyeballed (make it work somehow, finetune it later), and now I'm going back thourgh them and often time changing the mapping. I'm currently stuck in pages like these: https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/courses/ats...01-met_concepts/01c-cloud_coverage/index.html trying to improve the cloud coverage representation So the snow coverage can definitely be improved. But I would also like to have that part when snow just start accumulating as flakes on the ground present... And it is little bit unfortunate how uniformly TSW applies the snow.. like, if there is 7cm of snow reporterd, how much actually stayed on the tracks? And pilled snow, I also have no idea what it does... my thinking is that route makers can use it to apply additional effect on scenery object, but I have yet trully see what it affects. So yeah, keep the academic posts comming More customization options will come in the future, with the ability to have the weather info shown at all times. Another thing I would like to do is also have an option to show it in a normal, separate window... which the user can then position i.e. on second screen and avoid gsync/loseless scaling issues Not the next update, but most likely after. I doesn't. But it should be able to identify if the player is in menu and reset the weather api and don't update it any futher (i.e. you can notice that if the app is running, changing of months in TSW doesn't change the temperature).. But it is currently bugged and needs a fix.
