Dynamic Weather- The Problem

I definitely agree this should be an option from DTG made available to everyone but unfortunately it is not.

Don’t be overwhelmed or discouraged by the long list of features. Yes, it includes a lot but the overall UI is quite simple to use, especially the environment settings. You can control just about every single parameter. It’s not as complicated as the download page might make it seem. And as noted above, installation is super simple. There’s virtually no impact on performance so you should have no issues running it at all.

 

Haven't had the sudden fog since setting the fog quality to low. I use that as a temporary solution

 

I don't know whether something changed with the recent update, but the last two services I drove with dynamic weather, the fog gradually formed and I thought here we go again, give it 10 mins and it'll suddenly vanish, but no, a little while later it gently lifted as slowly as it had come.
One route was BPO, the other BCC.

 

Maybe we just have weird weather here, but there are spots locally where it DOES change like a light switch due to terrain, weather patterns, etc. When you get halfway between two towns, the weather will "poof" change. Likewise, weather near the lake will disappear once you get 5-10 miles away. So.... while I'd still say there are issues with the implementation, it's not like it's game-breaking or ENTIRELY unrealistic. The saying around here is "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute."
I don't know if there are any route-specific weather patterns (so places like Cajon get less rain for example) but I would doubt it because that's a lot more work and programming. I'm good with just changing the weather if I want to drive in something specific. Now the raining indoors....that could be fixed.

 

Last 4 Dynamic Weather runs I've done have started and ended clear. I'm pleased every journey doesn't include a thunderstorm now but this seems a very un-dynamic. I'm also having the suddenly disappearing fog, I noticed it first with the GOBLIN Line release.

 

I remember creating a dynamic weather thread in the early TSW3 days raising these exact issues and Matt replied with a very detailed response along with rough flowchart diagrams to how it was implemented (then).

I need to dig through my post history and find it again

 

I enjoy the dynamic weather but would prefer it to be broken up into segments which can be selected. Once playing the weather can only vary one segment ahead or behind.

For example selecting heavy cloud, the weather could improve to light cloud or deteriorate to rain.
Or selecting rain the weather could improve to a drizzle or deteriorate into a thunderstorm.

This way you would still get an element of randomness but without the crazy exaggerated changes.

 

Sometimes the dynamic weather feels like a caricature of dynamic weather.

 

The game is very lacking in changing the color of the sky, and in many variants. Sunsets and sunrises are always the same sky color.

What prevents DTG from adding some artistry to the atmosphere of the game?

 

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/is-the-dynamic-weather-really-dynamic.61035/#post-557876
done (supposedly the percentages are not accurate, since they were changed before being put into the game)

 

Snow does stay visibly around on the floor after it actually stops snowing you know.

 

Not in England it doesn't , can't remember the last time it did

 

What????? Have you suffered a bump to the head? So you're telling me that the minute it stops snowing in the UK the snow all suddenly melts from the floor and evaporates into thin air???? (I'll remember that the next time it snows here and it doesn't miraculously evaporate into thin air)

 

Indeed. Unless there is grass, the snow melts upon hitting the floor, so it never has a chance to build up, and we get sad puddles instead...

Largely due to global warming - it never used to be like this.

 

Where in the UK are you people living that snow disappears from the floor within minutes of it stopping falling from the sky?

The first image below was taken the day after it snowed..... The second image two days after it snowed here in Sheffield..... It wasn't a heavy snowfall either just a couple of inches if that.

 

Wow that looks amazing! I wish I could be in Sheffield!

 

Got to love you southerners...... Judging by the sound of it you'd not last anything more than a light snow shower.

 

Fair point - I haven't had to prepare for it in years!

 

I wonder whether there have been some tweaks to the dynamic weather for TSW5? With TSW4 I used to experience the issue mentioned that once it started raining/snowing it rarely stopped. However, since TSW5 arrived I've had a couple of runs where I've had a shower, which then stopped. Running in the snow and sunshine after a snow shower on WCMLOS was beautiful!

 

One thing i would love to see is the ability to select custom weather settings before starting into a session with dynamic weather. So you dont just have the pre-edited options but can start from a new weather situation every time.

 

One problem I have with it is using photo mode. Weather instantly changes upon exiting photo mode

 

Not so far on WCMLOS. Starts off in sunshine then within 5 minutes you have the thunderstorm from Wheel Of Time which keeps on going. Once it faded off a little, but after a couple of minutes came back with a vengeance. So IMHO dynamic weather is still pretty much borked, starting with the fact 90% of the time it probably wouldn’t change at all over the course of an hour or so.

 

As I've said here before, the dynamic weather, while improving, still feels like it's got one setting for the whole UK. We're a small island but just like the variety of accents found over relatively small distances, the climate in Scotland (for example) is significantly different to what the South East experience through the year.

Not all precipitation between December and March is snow in the UK. In fact, snow is a rarity down south these days, we mostly get rain in the Winter here in Essex.
Likewise the multi-cell thunderstorms depicted in TSW are rare in the UK outside of the warmest months and even rarer up the further north you go. You do occasionally get a couple of claps of thunder from single cell storms that can occur all year round (including the rare spectacle of "Thundersnow"). We have a lot of showers in the UK most are not thunderstorms.

Frost and morning mists over rivers - More common than snow and fog in the UK but not modeled.
It also appears that a day's weather is set to one temperature. I've not had enough time to test JTs "Over Shap" but you will often see a snow line on the tops of the moors during winter after precipitation, it would be good if such a thing existed in TSW.
No sleet. No hail either.

It's a good feature but has some way to go to feel realistic.

 

To me the tempratures seem totally wrong. They always seem to be in the minus. but even at the moment Shap is going to stay above freezing all week long.

 

It's perfect for me the snow keeps laying on the ground.

But as the thread opener said, fog comes much too often even in summertimes. It seems to exist an internal order of weather: Sunny -> Foggy -> Rain -> Thunderstorm. That's why I often deactivate dynamic weather.

 

Very comparable to RDR2’s dynamic weather system. They are so alike. Both games I’ve had it go through 4 seasons in 5 minutes…. At least with TSW you can just manually set the weather unlike RDR2. You’re stuck with it.

 

I fully agree. The most unpleasant thing for me about dynamic weather is knowing that 90% of the time there is going to be nasty fog, which is neither realistic nor makes any sense. Also technically it's badly done, as it appears and disappears very abruptly, quickly and unexpectedly, killing the immersion.
I've seen a lot of complaints from the community about this, so it's hard to understand why they haven't changed the algorithm.

 

I remember playing Microsoft flight simulator like over 14 years ago and you could ask it to go get actual real world weather and load it into your game.

 

I hear thunder in bleu sky no one cloud.

 

I nice blue sky with a few little fluffy fair weather clouds, and yet it's raining.

 

Finished service 5S80 Upperby Sidings (Carlisle) to Preston.

Suddenly going from a pitch black 3am, to apocalyptic blinding light as fog appears, only for it to instantly bugger off without warning 10 minutes later.... Yeah, doesn't do much for the immersion.


DTG need to get all routes updated to ToD4 though, because the TSW2020 and TSW2 lighting and weather are really showing their age now.

 

Yes, on a run from Euston to MK, it was thick fog all the way. Not a fun drive. There's far too much of the misty stuff in WCMLS. Can't be normal. This isn't the '50s before the Clean Air Act. Time to permanently switch off dynamic weather methinks.