An idea just pop into my head while I was playing another simulator game called Microsoft Flight Simulator. In this simulation, you get the option of choosing what dynamic weather you want to fly in, or you have the option of choosing in real-time LIVE Weather Mode, basically, whatever location you are flying to it will set up the weather as in the real world time. In terms of this content, for example, let's say the weather in London right now is rainy, whenever you load up that particular route in the timetable, it will allow you the option to choose what weather you want to drive in or you can just allow the option of LIVE Weather to choose the same weather setting as in the real world. Basically, I really want to see a LIVE Weather Mode added to create a more realistic train drive like in the real world. Please tell me what do you think of this idea? Hopefully, the team can make this happen.
There is a mod, which allows you to set the weather dynamic. The engine supports that, its just not used by dtg probably because the effort. Also if you have 1 degree in rain at the lowest point of a station and "climb" to a higher point of the route you will have snow there. About live weathering..., in flight sim it was essential to me. When i made a 8 hour leg the weather was the real weather at the destination. This could lead to surprises and was enhancing the experience. In tsw however i use the weather in my area. This gives me the best experience. If it raining here, i also make the routes setup in rain weather. Im sure a lot of players would like live weather location based where the route is set. So ironicly i have rudolfs 5 part thread in mind where he pointed out the wasted / unused space in the menus of tsw, when it comes to setup a ride. In this case a simple option below the current weather settings called "use live weather" could solve this. If somebody would activate that, the bars become grey and the weather is controlled automatic.
So True, i really do want to see a Live Weather button, basically it portrays the real weather in real-time, and gives it more realism. Hopefully, Matt and JD, and the team can do this, this year.
But it would be much better to do it manually if they have the LIVE Weather option also, having the exact same weather meaning the cloud, the setting, the dynamic weather. If you were to do it on your own you can't get it 100% correct, trying to also find out what cloud it is. Also even though you are in London and driving on that route, not all weather in London will be the same, it will be different, because of its being in different city in all don’t. Also the timezone will be different and based on that real-time along with the weather if you were to select that timetable service from the timetable menu. The team should also add a mode which allow us to created a timetable service based In Real Time combine with the Real Time Weather as well. I wonder how the team is going to approach this if they do because i know in Microsoft Flight Simulator they use google Maps in real-time, live weather. Maybe that can also do the same as what Microsoft Flight simulator did as well.
That wouldn't make sense. You'd only be able to choose from one (maybe more) service in a timetable at a time, and any services that are before or after the time you are playing wouldn't be available. Then, if the weather changes irl, the game has to adapt to that. Also, it would restrict the month you could use to whatever month you are in at the time of playing. It also makes 0 sense for any route set prior to, well, today. Which is near enough every route. Just a waste of time and would be far too complicated, I'd imagine.
I've always thought it would be a good idea. It doesn't need to be as accurate as in a flight simulator imho (wind 240@9, temperature 14, dewpoint 8, etc.). Just "Temperature mild and not raining, not much cloud" would be okay. If it selected a weather theme based on the real world weather that would probably do it for me. I'm trying to think whether it would be worth having a "Weather like my local weather" option (it might be, I'm not sure). Also I respectfully disagree with trainsimplayer about it not making sense to have this as an option on historical routes. I don't see why when the route is set makes a difference.
This is just so easy to implement as injecting the few variables related to weather to the running service, so it can be done without big efforts if they want. They just need to read weather data from NOAA servers, any other weather source or just google and simplify that into a set of few variables, which are the ones used by game (temperature, rain, clouds and wind basically). The engine creates fog and snow on its own depending on those variables, so it's even easier. Indeed with the online info that your mobile gets to run the weather forecast in its widget you have mainly all that is needed. In my signature you can find the dynamic weather tool for the time being. I just coded a small logic to simulate an artificial weather evolution myself. Cheers
I'm not saying it would be a bad thing, however it would be somewhat weird to have the weather of 2021 on a route from the 50s or something, especially with climate change and the likes.
trainsimplayer Have you played MFS and tried the LIVE Weather option, I find this mode really fun and that's why i was hoping they can bring it to this game as well. How would you go about it, to make it more fun and realistic? Other seem to also want to see this happen as well. I am just trying to sure my idea and make the game more fun.
I have played MSFS and it's live weather option is fantastic. However MSFS isn't set in specific time periods, and it does not have set times for flights (unlike TSW with services in timetable).
I get your point, trainsimplayer, but would it really matter if you were experiencing today's weather in the Bay Area or the Tees Valley, even though your actual journey " happened " 5,10 or 50 years ago. Climate change notwithstanding, it would add a lot to the immersion to have unpredictable weather events, even if it's just a dull, cloudy day. Of course the whole month/ weather page would have to include live weather as a selectable option. And, if you want to play a 3am service in darkness, you'd actually have to play at 3am local time, whatever time it was in your actual location. Sounds like fun.
Tbh all the benefits of Live weather are probably shared by dynamic - thanks to that element of surprise. It's probably also far simpler to create dynamic weather, considering it's in scenarios.
MSFS does use real world flight data to input these flights into the sim. There’s an option to have them turned on or off. I did a flight this morning, Aberdeen to London Heathrow, en-route I was passed by an AI British Airways using a real BA flight number, after a quick look on FlightRadar24, I found out it was a BA 777 from the US to London Heathrow. TLDR: MSFS use real world data to add in real AI flights.
I’m of the opinion that live weather makes little sense unless you are playing in real time. Playing a 1pm service with the live weather at 1am wouldn’t even be typical let alone realistic, especially the temperature, so there’s no point in it being live. You would be better off having a random weather setting which is easier for the devs to implement and less likely to cause any lag in the game.
I think they should just give us the option as well, that way if people the choice that they want, just like in Microsoft Flight Simulator, people can choose what they want. Everyone have the option to choose turn it on or off
They kind of replicate it already, albeit not fully. Plus, if we don’t have every train on that route, they’d only need to program in a real timetable for those trains which are in the game. Shouldn’t be too hard. But what do I know..
Not technically accurate , there’s several sims that pulls (where available) historic weather. Few racing sims where you can recreate races down to the car and the conditions that day
I wouldn't say trash, if MSFS weather system is trash then DTG have a LONG way to go. Don't get me wrong, it's had it's problems and it'll have more I'm sure. Flying around Tonga was interesting the other day and for the most part, the weather I get at home is what's replicated in MSFS, not sure what else they can do.
Believe me, if you fly properly using metars, sigmet and so on it's trash. Anyway sorry for the offtopic.
Well, yes real time weather would be Nice but a dynamic one should be enough. While It can feel right to have sun, or clouds during 1 hours job, i cant stand 1 hour of pouring rain over 70 kms.... even over UK...
