Dynamic Weather - All The Time Rain And Thunderstorms

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by joerg.lange, Sep 3, 2022.

  1. joerg.lange

    joerg.lange Well-Known Member

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    Basically, the dynamic weather is great stuff. However, I now have played many services on all three routes since last night. I start each time with cloudless, nice weather. Season is autumn. Really every time I had rain after half an hour, mostly thunderstorms a little later. I also had the effect (which, according to the stream, shouldn't exist) of going from thunderstorms to bright blue skies within 30seconds.

    This is exactly what I had feared. DTG is proud of the dynamic weather and now wants to prove every time how great it is by going through the whole range of possibilities. For my taste thats too gimmicky and arcadey.

    For me personally, a reasonably "realistic" dynamic weather would work like this:

    1. there is a 75% chance, that the weather set at the start remains largely as it is, with only wind and cloud cover varying.

    2. there is a 20% chance of major weather changes, e.g. rain, storm and or heavily overcast skies.

    3. there is a 5% chance of severe weather like thunderstorms.

    You could perhaps include two options in the settings for the dynamic weather, e.g. Arcade and Realistic. "Arcade" could be as it is now and "Realistic" could be ... you know ... a bit more realistic.

    I think such things as thunderstorms should remain something "special", otherwise you get used to the effects very quickly and then it's just annoying.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2022
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  2. MisterV

    MisterV Member

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    Yeah I agree, I think the dynamic weather should have a greater bias to staying at or close to what it starts at. I was running a service earlier that went from clear skies to thick fog and cloud in the space of about a minuet and it felt really silly (I know you can have localised fog but this was ridiculous)

    I ran another service later and it started at light cloud, clouded over a bit, then had a quick rain shower and cleared back up again, that felt much more realistic. so it's possible. I just think some of the probability's need tweaking.
     
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  3. richtayls

    richtayls Well-Known Member

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    I like your suggestion of multiple modes, I would suggest a ‘chance of change in weather’ toggle for ‘low, medium, high’, high clearly being what is in place now.

    I don’t want to use the existing option to turn it off completely as it’s really cool how the clouds roll in and it starts raining, but it shouldn’t be happening on pretty much every service.
     
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  4. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    This is the kind of flawed design that plagues so many games with "dynamic" weather. Dynamic = rain. Because it's in the game, the engine must show it off, otherwise some people would think it's not dynamic.

    In the real world, weather doesn't really change over the course of an hour, only if there's a weather front right near a given location. But "clear skies" doesn't mean "clear but with an incoming stormfront".
     
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  5. Snek

    Snek Well-Known Member

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    I was always afraid that would be the case if DTG ever decided to do dynamic weather. Making the weather too random results in unrealistic weather patterns and that's just as bad as not having it dynamic at all. The probabilities need be heavily weighted as the weather doesn't change all the time in real life. Another solution would be to randomly choose already predetermined weather patterns and just follow those, but that's not optimal.
    I get that they want the changes to be seen even on shorter routes, but I don't think that should matter at all. It seems like DTG never thinks through completely how their features should work to make them feel just right (as we've seen with rush hour passenger numbers for example).
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2022
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  6. Monder

    Monder Well-Known Member

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    Hopefully, from what they've described it as, the whole thing is directed by a bunch of coefficients, so they could change them easily to make it more realistic.
     
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  7. DTG JD

    DTG JD Director of Community Staff Member

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    It's something we'll monitor - I don't believe we have plans to change it comprehensively, but perhaps a couple of tweaks. I've passed on your feedback, anyhow.
     
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  8. Easy301

    Easy301 Active Member

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    I agree with a lot of this feedback, while I don't think any comprehensive or sweeping changes have to be made I do think less of a bias before rain and thunderstorms would be a good idea.

    Obviously it's based on RNG but it seems like no matter what if your session is long enough you're guaranteed to have rainy and inclement weather, to the point where the dynamic weather no longer becomes dynamic but predictable.

    I think tweaking just a few of the values here without large changes could have a drastic effect on the quality and perception of the dynamic weather feature.

    With such a strong bias towards inclement weather we may see a lot of users for going this feature all together unless they want guaranteed inclement weather in their route.

    I have no idea how this is set up in the engine or if it's possible, but I think a good idea would be having a bias towards whether that reflects the initial setting selected. I.E if you select light clouds the chance of rain is less then if you selected fog or heavy clouds.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2022
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  9. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    I think the best way would be to tie the potential weather change to the starting condition. If a session starts at clear skies then the maximum deviance from that should be heavy clouds only, with very little (but not zero) chance of some light showers. Heavy rain should be ruled out. If the starting condition is light clouds then it should have the possibility to change to clear skies, heavy clouds, with more chance of light rain and medium chance for heavy rain. If the starting condition is heavy clouds then there could be a high chance for rain, storms, anything.

    So in short, there should be an "interval", a given amount of maneuvering space for the dyamic weather system that doesn't contain all possibilities. Right now it simply changes between all extremes. The potential to change should be restricted by two or three "clicks" of weather type, originating from the starting condition.

    So, as an example, if we define weather patterns as levels:

    Clear skies - 1
    Light clouds - 2
    Heavy clouds - 3
    Light rain/snow - 4
    Heavy rain/snow - 5
    Storm/blizzard - 6

    Then it could be set that the potential weather change during a session shouldn't be more than +/- 3 levels, with a 3 level deviation having much less chance than a 1 or 2 level change.
     
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  10. SonicScott91

    SonicScott91 Well-Known Member

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    Out of curiosity, has anyone stayed in a session long enough to see if the weather changes?

    So say you start light clouds, they build up and it rains during a run. Is there a possibility that the rain stops and the clouds break away? Or does it just stay in a thunderstorm until you quit back to the menu?
     
  11. joerg.lange

    joerg.lange Well-Known Member

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    If you stay long enough, it may change back to clear sky as well. It works in any direction. But the changeover from thunderstorm to clear sky took about 30s last time I saw it (on Cajon Pass).
     
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  12. ASRGT

    ASRGT Well-Known Member

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    I am all for Dynamic weather, however I too have found it to be far from random and also changes far to fast.
    Out of 12 runs each one starting at clear has resulted in rain within 30 minutes and only on one occasion did it ever clear back up to clear weather again.

    If possible in the system id probably weigh the chances of thunderstorms to be far less and the system should not really be able to jump from no clouds to storm within 20 minutes as it appears to be doing as it does seem very unrealistic.

    That said its still a million times better than sliders, just needs some tweaks.
     
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  13. chacal#2181

    chacal#2181 Well-Known Member

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    I vote also for a less "dynamic" weather. Either give the crowd possibility to tweak it with a scaler or something, or just tweak it down like suggested.
     
  14. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I’ve ended up with lightning (with thunder that is barely audible) on every service where I’ve used dynamic weather, even when starting with completely clear. What this does is makes me not want to use the feature. If I want lightning in every service I would set it to lightning from the start.

    I’ve had the lightning stop but the rain hasn’t stopped once it has started. The clouds almost clear up but the rain keeps going and then eventually, within a few minutes the lightning is back.

    It doesn’t need tweaking, it needs thinking about carefully, and adjusting to make it useful.
     
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  15. joerg.lange

    joerg.lange Well-Known Member

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    I think DTG is putting the cart before the horse here: the weather is supposed to bring a "moment of surprise" to the trip - and thus make it more interesting. But this "element of surprise" is not given if I already know in advance that it will rain and possibly thunderstorm every time. Then I don't use the feature anymore because it's just - guess what - unrealistic and no longer surprising - the opposite of what DTG wanted to achieve.

    The "element of surprise" would work well if there was a more or less extreme weather event every 10 trips or so. Then it would also create an experience that would be remembered ("omg, last sunday, that was a difficult ride..."). Such experiences only have a certain "impact" or "value" if they don't happen all the time but are "rare".

    It's basically like loot boxes in an MMO... not every single box has the level 30 platinum sword in it.

    Give me a real thunderstorm once every 10 trips and I have an "experience". Give it to me every time and I'm bored.

    From a marketing standpoint, I would put it this way: "Our dynamic weather engine produces an authentic weather pattern - and sometimes it can really challenge you. Enjoy your ride - but be prepared for surprises."
     
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  16. Sharon E

    Sharon E Well-Known Member

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    I just ran a service on Swhs, 1J81, and it stayed sunny the entire run. So, I am thinking that dynamic weather is just a chance thing. I have done several others that start out clear and end up in heavy rain or dense fog.
     
  17. fakenham

    fakenham Well-Known Member

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    I've had good results using dynamic weather, but I've just been using the current date and a few days around that. Getting mostly no changes, occasionally got a bit of cloud build up/decrease, had only one trip which became heavy rain after a slow build up, which I must say was pretty awesome.
    Haven't tried other seasons yet, but it seems it gets v changable with those.
     
  18. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Just mentioned about thunderstorms in another thread. IMHO, far too frequent and duration too long and bolt lightning hitting the ground at low level or in front of your train is not realistic. If the RNG for rain is something like 1 in 20 then the possibility that is a thunderstorm needs to be something like 1 in 300. It also needs to moderate back to normal rain as you move beyond and way from the centre of the storm.
     
  19. Sharon E

    Sharon E Well-Known Member

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    A service run in Cajon, U-HOULAC6-05, Barstow to Victorville. Clear on leaving Barston, shortly thereafter the fog set in and stayed with me until almost Victorville and it cleared up. No rain noted.
     
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  20. redrev1917

    redrev1917 Well-Known Member

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    Im going to throw my hat into the wanting a more realistic setting for dynamic weather as well. I get why DTG and the wider community may like more changeable and extreme but it should be easy enough to cater for both tastes. I know which I'd select.
     
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  21. darylb88

    darylb88 Member

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    To be fair on the UK routes rain should be a 90% chance of happening haha
     
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  22. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Not at the moment! there's barely been any rain in some parts of the UK for weeks.
     
  23. darylb88

    darylb88 Member

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    Lucky! I live near London and had a few bouts of rain last couple of weeks - def dryer than usual though! just wait until October haha
     
  24. joerg.lange

    joerg.lange Well-Known Member

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    Why not? ;) Every route could bring its own set of variables, for example a GB-route could have a bias towards more rain.

    It’s also not so cool to use the seasons as kind of „weather options“ - as Matt stated in the stream - spring and summer are more stable, autumn and winter are more volatile. That’s not realistic (in fact in Germany for example we have regions with less rain in autumn than in spring / sommer), a possible ratio stable vs volatile should be adjustable in the game options and not by selecting a season.
    I for myself very often set the same season in the sim as in real life. That means for me, during autumn and winter I always get those arcade-racing-game-weather.
     
  25. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

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    upload_2022-9-5_14-40-27.png
     
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  26. darylb88

    darylb88 Member

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    Dynamic Weather.jpg Dynamic Weather
     
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  27. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Given how the storms invoke a roughly 20-30% hit to FPS on Series X over clear weather, it's a little concerning how often we're seeing them.
     
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  28. joerg.lange

    joerg.lange Well-Known Member

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    On the Cajon Pass route there are several water canals along the route. I always wonder... when there was a thunderstorm again... are they full of water? That would be cool.
     
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