I've seen a couple of threads talking about weather. While I don't see the point in live weather, there are indeed some more improvements needed. The fog. While I love the feature, a lot of people have reported, that suddenly it's all foggy without any transition. That should be fixed. The dynamic weather system. As also reported by other's, it's always going to be sunny, rain, storm. Hardly any run you start in sun will stay in sun. While I appreciate that the weather does indeed change in reality, it doesn't *always* change that extreme in only like 30 minutes. The lighting. In TSW3 we've had in a scenario by rivet some lighting. You could also make a thunderstorm appear with some console commands. While the lighting artwork was very bad, I liked the fact that it was actually lighting up the area. It was very very bright for a second, just to go dark again. While I love the TSW4 lighting artwork, it doesn't light up anything in the environment anymore. So let's find a middle between them: good artwork & lighting up the area. Rainbows. You all know the beauty of a rainbow which appears when it's sunny and rainy at the same time. That should also be the case in the sim. Let's bring some colours into the game . Hail. Not necessarily needed, the other options should be prioritised as it hails only rarely. But why not? What do you think about these changes? What else should be fixed/changed?
A light haze would be great for showing off the lighting. Likewise a ground-level misty dew effect on fields in the mornings would be awesome on the more rural routes. Also, it would be good to have windows that can fog up and be cleared, especially on older traction.
Yes to all the above and better rain particle effects! It looks like needles falling from the sky whenever it rains.
Temperature shouldn't always be the same for a given day, it should be random within certain limits, for example rain in winter or snow in spring Snow should melt a lot slower Snow actually covering the ground rather than just being a snow texture, and being able to push it out of the way. I don't know whether it is feasible though, maybe it would hurt performance too much Stronger storms, where the wind is strong enough to affect trains Auroras (would be better if we get some Scandinavian routes at some point) Minor flooding Lightning strikes having rare chance of causing power failure (this might be considered more of a gameplay feature than weather)
In cab and in train condensation requiring the use of the in game fans and environmental controls to resolve.
Dynamic weather needs to go both ways, i.e. not just start off sunny then deteriorate into a thunderstorm that lasts the rest of the run. Direct sunlight should not give the trackbed a washed out or shiny look. You should not get the flare burst as you emerge from a tunnel, that's a camera artefact not how the human eye sees it. Rain, snow or autumn conditions should significantly affect adhesion. Persistent rain should lead to water accumulating by the side of the track and on roads. If it's raining in the world, should not appear as clear blue sky outside if you're stationary in a station with an overall roof.
Yes, literally makes me avert my eyes from the screen momentarily when emerging from a tunnel. This " feature " really needs some work. Personally, I wouldn't miss it if I could toggle it off.
I really think we should think sky instead of weather. Weather is just a part of the sky. Sure weather needs to be improved but the entire sky needs to be improved. There is a lot of stuff missing in the skies. Have you ever seen long-lasting condensation trails from planes in the skies of TSW?
I think DTG should stop all the ToD2, ToD3, ToD4 constant updates. All they are doing is making extra work for themselves, going back and updating routes and locomotives. Development time is being wasted, going back to update old routes with ToD2 and ToD3 to the current ToD4 standards. DTG should just stick with ToD4 and continue all weather and lighting effects in a "permanent beta" state, unreleased until it is perfected. Then just add that final implementation to all routes going forward.
We have cumulus (the bubbly clouds that lead to showers if they build-up), alto-stratus (high level flat-looking cloud) and fog/mist. The light is also wrong, especially for the UK which at above 50o Latitude doesn't have particularly strong sun as, for example, Austria. In TSW sunshine looks the same in California, Germany and Scotland. It does affect immersion but I'd happily take a range of different, more realistic weather options. And yes, the tunnel flare looks so unrealistic, as does the mist only appearing once you've reach the tunnel opening.
The rate of change between different weather types also needs looking at. Instead of going from a partially cloudy day to full rain storm in less than a minute the weather should slowly change, 2 - 3 minutes maybe more? Also different cloud types would be nice
Totally agree. The typical range that you can hear thunder during the day over land is about 10 miles. That can change depending on wind direction, elevation of the storm, noise pollution and time of day. It is possible, with favourable conditions to see lightning that's over 100 miles away. The last physical element of a storm that we encounter as it passes is rain. It shouldn't be the other way round.
That said, MS Flight Sim still can't get cumulonimbus clouds right and there aren't distant storms either which is something you frequently see in-flight, especially at night.
I would like to see "live" weather as an OPTION- i usually play services on the current date, so that would be pretty cool to see. Improved weather transitions, as others have mentioned- especially fog to clear as that one looks really bad. Improvment to the look of both "cloudy no rain", and "cloudy light rain" weather states. They're both way overexposed currently- maybe the clouds need more opacity, for lack of a better word, seems like the sunlight bleeds through way too much. User control over dynamic weather change rate- similar to the "chaos factor" for the fault simulation in the new DB 101. That would seem to make everyone happy as i've heard complaints both ways. Better particle effects for rain- the new fog is fantastic, if rain was upgraded to that level, i'd be happy.
Have a 'random' option when selecting the starting weather to make it a little more unpredictable... Perhaps also an option to change the rate of which the weather changes along with smoother transitions between them.
Don’t know if this counts as weather… more of a weather effect I suppose. Waves in water at beaches / sea. Water is too still and flat. If it’s windy there should be waves for sure. Also how about real life star constellations just like what Gran Turismo 7 did ???.
Temperature variation through the 24 hour cycle within a pre determined set of randomised variables. Low lying fog/mist in river valleys in the morning linked to a temperature/dew point convergence/divergence, derived from the aforementioned temperature variable.
I'd personally want more random weather but realistic, I always set to custom now, as no matter what time of day or time of year, Fog would always be the second weather event, followed by rain. Thick fog would also randomly disappear, like I'd be in a real pea souper and then one second later, glorious sunshine. It was for me immersion breaking.
I like the idea of early morning light mist, slowly clearing to a beautiful sunny day. (And not having a biblical thunderstorm five minutes later).
Whilst not really weather but related to it, I want that omnipresent haze/mist toned down, or at the least have an option to remove it or tone it down in a setting. We now have a fog slider but even at zero there is far too much haze present. I know it’s there for extra distance perception but it is visible far too close to the player and is what washes out the view from the cab and takes away all contrast in the scene. For some routes it also turns into a thick fog at a certain distance and obliterates the view of all scenery beyond that distance, all with the fog slider set to zero. I’d like to have my contrast back.
You can remove the fog via Engine.ini or GodMode - but be aware that it's also used to cover up bland distant scenery... The default minimum fog for TODv3 routes is 0.0009, for TODv4 they raised it to 0.003 (starting at 4 metres away from you) - blue haze everywhere. I'm using 0.001, shouldn't go below that. Tod4 fog: TimeOfDay.Fog.MinDensity I'd rather have them fixed the "new" rain. Even with maximum precipitation, it seems only a few thin drops are reaching the windscreen, and wiper in intermittent is sufficient even in a rain storm. Also, at a certain speed, rendering of rain completely disappears. The old system was much better. Just give me ETS2 style weather please, with beautiful sky backdrops. There's no cloud variation in TSW. Clear weather, default fog / no fog Exposes one of the biggest visual issues - distant trees not casting any shadows (ground should be at least painted in a darker tone - this makes a huge visual difference without any performance loss)
You seem to be comparing TSW to flight simulator. Live weather May be fine on a 12-hour flight, but how many times do you need weather changes on a 1 hour journey from Birmingham to Euston or something like that? Variable weather is a cool idea, don't get me wrong, but would casual gamers really care? - cloudy sky - sunny sky - rain - snow Ask a casual gamer what a cumulonimbus cloud is, and you're likely just going to get a blank stare. Unless you are flying a 747 through this variable weather, would anybody driving a train notice any real difference from what we have now?
I can’t because like most TSW players I play on console so DTG are the only people who can help me with this. A God Mode for consoles would be a great feature for DTG to introduce! I’m completely in agreement with you on this.
Agreed. I wish TSW sky, sunlight and weather effects would look more like what ETS2/ATS offers. These games are far superior in this aspect.
Whenever it rains in the game, there's also fog, and when there's fog, the world is very grayish. DTG doesn't seem to understand there's still colors to see when it rains or fogs in real life. Instead, TSW is pretty much void of color in these weather conditions.
1. Not really. I'm saying that if MSFS can't get a very important component of flight right, then I'm perhaps asking too much from DTG. I wasn't thinking "Live Weather", just more variation, more consideration of an area's usual climate and more realistic transitions. 2. It's only in some situations such as wall-to-wall stratus or a totally cloudless day that the sky looks exactly the same in London as it is in, say Birmingham. There are many options between the two and Britain has notoriously mobile/changing weather. 3. When I look out of a train window at a forest, I don't know what all the tree types are, but I'll immediately spot something that just doesn't look like a proper tree or there's a line of trees that are exactly the same (as I sometimes see in TSC and TSW), so I take your point that those who weren't paying attention in Geography classes might not know what the cloud types are called, but they will spot when a cloudscape doesn't look very realistic or it acts all weird like some of the showers in TSW.
Bottom pic looks way better. Much more colour. There’s a few other games that have this sort of filter over them. Don’t know why they do this…. I understand the bland scenery from far away but it still looks better in my opinion.
That's why I go with 0.001 most of the time, for the distance effect. Removing the fog completely can ruin the scenery, as seen from Alp Grüm on Bernina here. 0.003 / 0.0 Note that TimeOfDay.MinFogDensity only applies to TODv3 (<= TSW2) routes. You want to use TimeOfDay.Fog.MinDensity for TSW3+ routes!
Reshade can provide quite a bit of customisation for pc users. It's not for everyone and takes a bit of dialling in, but I can't play TSW3 without it. I suspect when/if I buy an upgrade, I'll be rapidly installing it in that one too..
I dunno, maybe i'm just used to living somewhere with high humidity/pollution (especially in the summer), but the bottom picture looks way less realistic to me- where i live, there's almost always a distant haze like what's shown in the top pic. In the winter scene shown further down in the thread, i agree the haze could be toned down a little. Another argument for "live" weather, i'd say as relative humidity and dewpoint would presumably be modeled rather than the current system that doesn't seem like it all fits together very well in all conditions. Edit: typo
That top picture looks almost like an inversion. I think that kind of climate modelling might be challenging to implement. The dewpoint temp relationship and other weather modelling could be really cool though I think..
Disagree. The older weather implementation is so far off ToD4 that I have absolutely zero interest in revisiting them until they adopt the ToD4 lighting system. And I don't think ToD4 is a long ways off from this idea of a final implementation. A lot of these suggestions seem entirely doable such as adding more transition time between phase shifts and something like the rain effects (which have a PC mod that addresses this).
I think that if you’re using dynamic weather, instead of the weather suddenly changing from bright sunshine to thick fog without warning, we should have Carol Kirkwood or Thomas Shavenknackers giving us a weather forecast before each run so we know what to expect.
