Thanks for the info in regards to the accuracy of the historic weather. I was not aware that from 2021 the data is more accurate. In fact I have always forced the app to use the TSW TT year, in case of DLG this was 2018. I will test some more when I find the time… But I am assuming that this will probably bring in more variety in snow cover when driving through a larger area. I would also agree that for the build up of snow it is important to use the spots of snow. However, I would also argue that witnessing the actual build up of a snow cover is rather seldom. In the vast majority of cases you would spawn into a world that already has a snow cover. In any case, I am assuming that the API values between 0 and 0,5 would be something that can not direrctly be taken from open-meteo, but needs to be derived indirectly from other factors coming from open-metro. As soon as a snow cover is shown (1cm and above) I would propose to use API values from 0,5 up in a linear line, where API value 1 equals to 15cm in open meteo. on another note, happy to read that you are now using factors like tunnels to make decision making in how fast the weather is changing at the exit. Something I was thinking about while driving on KWG. Especially as irl very often you will find yourself suddenly in total fog when leaving a tunnel. Maybe you could consider to also make the train speed a factor in the speed the weather changes. Especially if you are at a station it always looks a bit awkward if you have big changes in cloud cover. The same will be true for changes in snow cover. My concrete proposal would be freeze weather changes while stationary (apart from precipitation). Maybe this could be extended to the speed itself (slower weather changes with slower speed). As mentioned before, very impressed with the app and even more impressed with the speed updates and upgrades are coming. I agree with all the others, this app is getting better and better with an impressive speed
All right, I've finished annotating Rosenheim-Salzburg! How do I go about sharing it so that other interested parties can use it?
I also really love how the icons seem to be refined and consistent with one another. What a great job in reading and applying feedback and continuing to make this better and better each time. Just, wow!! Gonna give this a go, now!
Hi Winzarten So you're making the weather tool better every day. It's impressive how quickly you release updates for your app; I have to say, you're doing a damn good job.
You can witness buildup when using the time acceleration, and as I'm still within confines of TSW weather, the transition needs to be defined from 0, otherway there will even more jarring jumps when moving from area that has no snow to one that has snow, i.e. when climbing a mountain. The snow, I think I will give more option to fine-tune it to personal liking, because at half slider the snow cover on ground might be akin to 1cm, but the world as a whole looks to have much more than 1cm of snow cover. Maybe the option would to also look in past history, if there was snowfall. The world will look diferrent if 1cm of snow just accumulated, or it is a few days old snow that is melting away, and is reported at 1cm (at that case you won't see stuff like continous cover on roofs)... But yeah, that's finetuning it And I think the transitions will never look correct, because you can never 'drive' into weather... it magically changes around you (snow is especially jarring, I think clouds would a lot better if we got the ability to set wind speed). But I'm not so sure playing with the tranistion speeds will help... because in the end, the weather is on a timer... and if don't manage to i.e. update clouds in the 5 minutes period, then it will start slipping... and there is a risk of clouds starting to get out of sync with precipiation i.e.... So to preven that I would have to speed-up the transition speed to make up for the time player is in stations... Basically I would need to know in advance what the player will be doing, how long will he be stopped and where..etc. That should create a file other can then import. Thankfully I found a full icon set on https://thenounproject.com/, because yeah... not having consistent icons can be jarring.
So, with historic weather being more accurate starting in 2021, would it be better to use 2021 or 2022 in historic weather instead of "in game year"? Looking forward to seeing files we can download to get annotation data.
I agree, the problem is the transition from no snow to a 1cm snow cover. Having seen to what depth you go with your research and what results you have already achieved I am more then confident that you will find the perfect solution for the not so perfect TSW world But I still think that the speed of transition is also related by how fast you travel through the world. I see the issue you are mentioning, however, why are you strictly bound to a 5min interval? Would it not be possible to define the update window according to the distance (and therefore speed)? To explain this in a bit more detail… You could define a certain speed as the 100% change time interval. Let’s say the interval clock progresses with 100% speed at 100kph. To stick what you have today, at a constant speed of 100kph the weather is updated every 5sec and all 5min a new download is made. If I only drive 50kph the clock only runs at 50%, hence, the weather only changes every 10secs and a new download is only made after 10mins. If you have stopped the clock is stopped (no new downloads are made) and the weather is not updating itself. This idea could probably be extended and altered, there are probably issues with this that I am not seeing, currently. Nevertheless, I just think it would help to dampen the shortcomings and the boundaries of the TSW world, which you have also described in your post.
I’ve noticed something a little odd with the weather code. It’ll sometimes display “light snow > moderate snow” in the overlay, even when the temperature is slightly above freezing, but what I’m actually seeing in-game is rain. I think you mentioned something about this before, but I’m not sure if that part has been implemented yet. Will that eventually be something we can actually see reflected correctly in the sim?
The issue is that I don't control the weather progression, I can only control the smoothing.. The weather progression is tied to in-game clock, because that is the time that's used to query the service... Let's say that I start at 11:00, I query what weather is at 11:05, and that is the weather the world is transitioning to. Once transition finished, I query for 11:10...etc... Let this be the 100kph example... In the 50kph example I reach the 11:05 state at 11:10... So I'm missing the whole thing that happened between 11:05 -11:10. Sure, I can slowly transition into the 11:15 weather... but I'm starting to lag behind what trully happened in that time period. Hmm, what route, what date? It is possibly that weather service is still reporting rain... I will need to check. It might make more sense to force precipitation based on the weather code.
The route is Boston to Worcester, and the date is November 21-22, 2023. As I’m driving west, the temperature keeps dropping and the weather report first started as rain, then changed to snow, it's been about half an hour with it showing snow. With the accumulation even starting to rise, which matches what’s happening in the real world. The only issue is that the game itself is still visually showing rain instead of snow. It looks a bit strange, haha. It’d definitely line up better if the VFX matched the current condition. I’m guessing it might be tied to how the in-game system only switches to snow visuals once the temperature actually falls below freezing?
I will check it. Yes, in-game it only switches to snow if it's below freezing, but I have custom logic that sets in-game temperature to freezing if it should be snowing (overlay still shows real temperature). So it should match up, I need to check what broke
Oh okay, that’s very neat! Take your time! I’m glad I mentioned something. These are the kinds of scenarios I love taking a look at first as weather transitions are fun and fascinating to explore!
Damn I'm currently doing that will you be exporting and trying to upload your file if so I'll stop, start another route and do the same
I think the changes to the cloud cover level have made a big improvement but I would still reduce the cloud cover level by say a further10-15% from the forcast base. Also is there anyway that the weather overlay could be switchable to permanantly on? I am only seeing the weather overlay at stations. Is this correct? Also I am thinking that if Foobian can implement God Mode on TSW6 we could use the weather data to set wind speed at the start of the scenario? DTG...could you include wind speed in the api? Loving the changes though.
an shared upload place for annotations would be even better and once checked by several people it could become part of the app and appear in a next update ? so not everyone has to download and or check all the annotation files or several route versions if being done by more people it could become a mess if everyone starts to annotate the same route
Found the issue. Will be fixed today.. Also it is possible that permament overlay will be done today, becasue yesterday I missed 2 stations because I was watching the weather widget on the other screen, so I need it is as well... :-D And these scenarios is exactly what I need to test the app. Yep, this I also feel is the way. The files are rather small.. so if they are packet into a .zip they could even be attached here.
An Excel sheet would be really helpful so we can see who’s working on which route and whether there’s already a name attached to it. That way, people don’t accidentally end up working on the same project and wasting time duplicating effort.
I’ve got another really good scenario idea for ya, and this one isn’t US-exclusive. This is from January 20th, 2021, late in the evening, around 21:45 British time during Storm Christoph. If you spawn in around that time at Birmingham New Street, the temperature is about 47°F/8°C with heavy rain and wind. As you drive north, the temperature drops extremely fast. By the time you reach Wolverhampton, it’s down to about 39°F/4°C, and the weather report already shows heavy snow beginning to mix in. Continuing north toward Crewe, it stays just above freezing, but there are reports of around 2-3”/ 5-8cm of snow on the ground. This is a really good scenario with a strong cold front moving through the region, and since it’s a new route, it’s a fun one to explore while testing. It’s unannotated at the moment, but since there’s a way to toggle the weather overlay permanently coming, it won’t be an issue much longer.
Nope, it won't be I've pushed a patch that should fix the rain/snow issue.. and also the overlay can now be made permanent. Just change the overlay mode. It is also possible to modify the location of the weather overlay + set it's background, i.e. to something semitransparent to increase visibility. Few notes If the mode is changed while the overlay is already attached to a station information, it will stay visible also there, while the station annotation is visible. It will not appear next time an information is shown. The weather overlay will stay shown when reverting to TSW menu, or when TSW closed... this is a bug that needs fixing in the future.
So I’ve changed the weather to update every 2 mins with the transition set to every 2 seconds, with no loss of performance and still no sudden jarring. I’ve just completed a couple of early morning runs up to Neilson on Cathcart 2024 timetable (today’s date). Both times Glasgow was full visibility but as I completed my climb up to Neilson the fog appeared to roll in. Absolutely magical. this just gets better and better thank you.
This App is so awesome that make me play the game again, thanks! We just need for DTG to allow the API to write into the Time of Day system so we can have realistic dawns, sunsets and everything in the middle.
So, a bit more on the issue I’ve been having with the precipitation VFX disappearing and not showing up. The only weather-related mods I have installed are Improved Rain, Improved Snow, and Increased Precipitation Intensity from TSC. I removed all of them completely to test, but the problem still persisted, so I don’t think it’s related to those… From what I’ve seen today, it might actually be tied to the TSW Route Annotations app. On some runs I’ve done along the Morristown Line, I’ll be driving and the snow will just completely disappear. When I check the app, the precipitation slider is still up, showing that it’s snowing, and I can even see the precipitation effects on the windshield, but the actual falling snow VFX in the world disappears. It’ll show fine for a while, then suddenly disappear for a few minutes, maybe flicker back for a second, then disappear again, and it keeps doing this repeatedly. When I close out of the app entirely, the snow reappears and stays consistent without issue. I tested this for about twenty minutes and it never disappeared once. But as soon as I reopened the app, the snow vanished again after a minute or two. So I’m starting to think it might have something to do with how the app is communicating with the game via api and adjusting the weather sliders. Maybe something about that process is confusing the system and causing the falling precipitation animation to cut out?? It really seems like it’s linked to the app in some way. I’m curious if anyone else has experienced the same thing. If you’ve had this issue, did it happen while you were using the app or when it wasn’t running? I don’t want to place blame, I just want to share that I’ve noticed this pattern happening whenever the app is open compared to when it’s not. I’m also wondering if has any correlation to custom engine.ini settings too.
