2.5 weather engine update?

I recall hearing a while back that there were plans to update the weather engine in 2.5. Along with improved night lighting this was one of things I was really looking forward to with 2.5. It appears the improved night lighting visibility is finally being rolled out in the SOH map which is great.

I wonder if we'll get the weather update with SOH or later this year? We really need better fog, cloud layers, etc. Looking forward to at least getting some WIP screenshots of whats being done in this area.

They are working on so many things... trust me... weather can wait :) much more important issues :)

They are working on so many things... trust me... weather can wait :) much more important issues :)

No doubt about that! However, I see they managed to update the night lighting for the SOH map and that is HUGE in my opinion. I usually don't like flying at night in DCS because you can't even see runway or aircraft lights from more than .5 km away.

Hopefully we get some updates on the weather engine sometime in the near future. It was certainly one of the big things with 2.5 that I was looking forward to.

The clouds could defiantly use some more work. They look good, they just need variety. I either get full blown overcast, or cotton balls dotting the whole sky. Layers? Bigger sizes and shapes?

That being said, I'm sure they're working on it, or at least working on tech (vapor trails) that could be beneficial were they to revisit weather.

IMO there's more important issues. The lighting you mentioned, while updated for SOH, is still a nagging issue on other maps, and especially in some cockpits. Really I don't see them "prettying up" stuff before they have 2.5 and it's modules in a truly stable and functional state.

But hey, here's to me hopefully being wrong! For all I know there could be some poor fool coding away this whole time on some awesome weather update that will blow our minds! haha :thumbup:

But hey, here's to me hopefully being wrong! For all I know there could be some poor fool coding away this whole time on some awesome weather update that will blow our minds! haha :thumbup:

I hope so. Surprisingly weather generation and clouds are one of the more difficult things to model in a flight sim. Even P3d, xp11 and others struggle with it. I'm really curious to find out what the 2.5 engine can handle in the weather department. Oddly enough they stripped out the ability to enable the experimental clouds that were present in 1.5. I wonder if they scrapped that and went a different direction.

They are working on so many things... trust me... weather can wait :) much more important issues :)

I couldn't disagree more! Everything about aviation is intrinsically linked to weather, atmosphere and the understanding of it. A flight simulator which models aircraft in great detail is nothing without an accurate or realistic model of the atmosphere. It's like making a racing sim without proper tracks.

For DCS to be a truly great simulator experience, I'd like to see more priority being placed on getting the environment modelled more realistically. We already have plenty of pretty scenery, which is nice. We have high fidelity aircraft which is also nice. However, atmospherics, wind, cloud and density are and have always been very lacking which I think is a massive oversight.

My concern for the last few years is that the whole package may have been spread too thinly in the pursuit of diversity and a wider appeal. Of course, I'm all in favour of broadening the appeal but not at the expense of authenticity. I expect the need to attract revenue through regular module releases is a strong driving factor which, to some extent may be unavoidable, but despite the excitement of the latest modules and in particular the release of the F-18 and Persian Gulf maps, the whole package feels very much like a growing fortress built on sandy foundations.

I look forward to seeing improvements in the future, fingers crossed!

I couldn't disagree more! Everything about aviation is intrinsically linked to weather, atmosphere and the understanding of it. A flight simulator which models aircraft in great detail is nothing without an accurate or realistic model of the atmosphere. It's like making a racing sim without proper tracks.

 

For DCS to be a truly great simulator experience, I'd like to see more priority being placed on getting the environment modelled more realistically. We already have plenty of pretty scenery, which is nice. We have high fidelity aircraft which is also nice. However, atmospherics, wind, cloud and density are and have always been very lacking which I think is a massive oversight.

+1 :thumbup:

Agreed. More varying weather would make just simple flying much more enjoyable, and combat that much more complex and challanging.

Wasn't there an ED sim with at least some crude "sunny becoming overcast" or <foo> becoming <bar> and later <baz> weather system, or am I thinking of a different sim?

I'd be satisfied just to see some screenshots or news about what's being done in the weather department. Prior to the 2.5 release it was said that ED was working on a completely new weather engine for 2.5. Then we got the "updated" clouds but there's been no news on the weather engine since then.

Hopefully we'll see something soon. I'm really looking forward to the new night lighting as well. Night lighting and weather are two things that are long over due for improvements and have a huge impact on the general flying experience in the sim.

I couldn't disagree more! Everything about aviation is intrinsically linked to weather, atmosphere and the understanding of it. A flight simulator which models aircraft in great detail is nothing without an accurate or realistic model of the atmosphere. It's like making a racing sim without proper tracks.

 

For DCS to be a truly great simulator experience, I'd like to see more priority being placed on getting the environment modelled more realistically. We already have plenty of pretty scenery, which is nice. We have high fidelity aircraft which is also nice. However, atmospherics, wind, cloud and density are and have always been very lacking which I think is a massive oversight.

 

My concern for the last few years is that the whole package may have been spread too thinly in the pursuit of diversity and a wider appeal. Of course, I'm all in favour of broadening the appeal but not at the expense of authenticity. I expect the need to attract revenue through regular module releases is a strong driving factor which, to some extent may be unavoidable, but despite the excitement of the latest modules and in particular the release of the F-18 and Persian Gulf maps, the whole package feels very much like a growing fortress built on sandy foundations.

 

I look forward to seeing improvements in the future, fingers crossed!

+1

Hopefully the new effects will apply to all maps when PG map comes out next Wednesday.

We have been waiting for new clouds for a long long time!

I couldn't disagree more! Everything about aviation is intrinsically linked to weather, atmosphere and the understanding of it. A flight simulator which models aircraft in great detail is nothing without an accurate or realistic model of the atmosphere. It's like making a racing sim without proper tracks.

 

For DCS to be a truly great simulator experience, I'd like to see more priority being placed on getting the environment modelled more realistically. We already have plenty of pretty scenery, which is nice. We have high fidelity aircraft which is also nice. However, atmospherics, wind, cloud and density are and have always been very lacking which I think is a massive oversight.

 

My concern for the last few years is that the whole package may have been spread too thinly in the pursuit of diversity and a wider appeal. Of course, I'm all in favour of broadening the appeal but not at the expense of authenticity. I expect the need to attract revenue through regular module releases is a strong driving factor which, to some extent may be unavoidable, but despite the excitement of the latest modules and in particular the release of the F-18 and Persian Gulf maps, the whole package feels very much like a growing fortress built on sandy foundations.

 

I look forward to seeing improvements in the future, fingers crossed!

Totally agree with this!

It would indeed be wonderful to think about density altitude and getting a metar of the airfield on F10 map, actually having full meaning to the altimeter setting, looking at the cloud shapes to know what the weather is changing to and anticipate convection and temperature inversion.

ED has the pioneer attitude so I could imagine they gonna take on challenges like that at some point.

I'll start beating the improved weather drum as soon as AI stops acting like a space shuttle in the vertical. Yes, weather is very much "core" of a flight sim, however, it's competing for time with other things that are also "core" issues (ATC, AI, Lighting).

Like I said before in this thread, I hope I'm wrong. It would be awesome to get a weather update, but realistically other things are in worse shape than weather right now.

I'll start beating the improved weather drum as soon as AI stops acting like a space shuttle in the vertical. Yes, weather is very much "core" of a flight sim, however, it's competing for time with other things that are also "core" issues (ATC, AI, Lighting).

 

Like I said before in this thread, I hope I'm wrong. It would be awesome to get a weather update, but realistically other things are in worse shape than weather right now.

There are many very critical flaws in DCS that are directly related to combat (in other words, rendering DCS not so great simulating combat) and weather is one of those.

We are having most aircrafts and ground units from Cold War era, that is still a period where you are limited to day operations or good weather conditions. Like we don't have a clouds to affect your IR missile seekers by helping someone to fool them better.

Or using clouds to hide from optically guided SAM as you can't see the target.

The same thing is with many other areas than just a weather, like dynamic weather where we really would get in 5-15min time period go from nice sunny day to thunderstorm with very low visibility. Affecting our CAS missions as you can't anymore just fly at 4km but need to go below 500m to get visual.

We don't either have the ground units capability to use terrain as concealment or air cover, nor get them concealed visually, do maneuvers when they spot being being attacked or even so simple things than having a LOS system for ground units so they can't see well when buttoned but would require someone to pop-up to really observe what is happening or get someone talk via radio etc.

We have many things lacking and many things are too simple, but weather is not just eye candy but tactical and strategical element in combat.

Wasn't there an ED sim with at least some crude "sunny becoming overcast" or <foo> becoming <bar> and later <baz> weather system, or am I thinking of a different sim?

Yes / No

There was, and there still is a system to have discrete weather systems (up to 6) that generate different weather across different parts of the map & that move across the map with time & interact with each other.

Most people never click on the tab to meet it, and if you do it's not very intuitive or particularly user friendly, but it does work, and if you play with it you can get some good results.

I think there are synch issues on MP which make it even less popular there.

I'd like to see it that the systems could be given a user defined starting point / width / length / vertical height / orientation / rate of rotation / direction of travel / travel speed.

Some of these are already there, but randomised and access to the setting missing.

Well, good news... Wags mentioned in a recent live stream the weather will be on the list to improve. He mentioned things such as cloud shapes, dynamic weather, dust and sandstorms. Wouldn't expect it until later this year at earliest, but better than nothing!

I suggest watching the stream if you haven't seen it (F-18 video thread) as the second half is a pretty good Q&A. More weather related things that I didn't mention.

Lets hope that the get a more dynamic weather engine and real weather before I get retired ...

Please give us Cumulus clouds that will stay at 1500ft if you put em there! now they will just show up at 7-10k ft even if you assign them below that altitude... And maybe have them stay in the game, because now they tend to dissapear after flying some NM. It would also be nice if we could choose for ourselves say "zones" in the map, where we put clouds. Of which type/density/with-without rain.

I tried doing that last part with Dynamic weather. But i just cant seem to get a nice setting. Plus for someone who doesnt understand how weather systems work, its fairly hard to understand the dynamic weather option.

thanks

Weather would be fantastic, but at the moment I think ED has their plate full, and concentrating on the now is IMO what they should be doing.

That being said I'd love a major overhaul to the weather system.

The 3 main things I'd like to see are:

More control over clouds

In particular cloud layers, types and densities. So for instance you get a graph with altitude along the y-axis. The graph is divided into horizontal partitions. These partitions define a cloud layer, and you could define the altitude of the layer, and where the boundaries start and finish to a limited degree. In each partition you can select the cloud type and the density. This should have controls so that only the clouds that form in a certain altitude range can be placed within that range. E.g Cirrus clouds only between 5-14km ASL, Startus clouds <2km ASL for example. You should also be able to set the wind speed and direction within each layer.

A weather timeline

Something that allows you to define the initial weather and a weather 'forecast' so you define the initial weather, define a lag period and then define the new weather that the mission will transition to (not sure how to do the transition, maybe make the lag time the transition period also). A further extension of this would allow the player to set multiple weather states (not just initial and forecasted) so the weather could initially be AAAA, then after a user defined time it transitions to BBBB and onto CCCC, DDDD and so forth, depending on how many different states the user wants to define. Once the last state is reached it stays that way until the mission ends.

Ability to set weather in different locations

This could probably use the geographic grid. How I envisage this to work is you have the weather menu as normal, with the enhanced features and controls, you set it all up and when you're done you press a button (define areas or something) and you just click on the squares you want the weather to apply to, there should also be options for apply to all, then select finish. Once you click finish the weather menu pops up again allowing you to make changes and select the squares you want to be defined with that weather and so on until all the grid squares in the map are defined with weather. Doing it this way allows you to set the same weather in multiple locations without having to change each grid square individually. There should be an option for apply to all, which applies the weather globally (like what it does now).

The weather shouldn't be allowed to change too drastically between adjacent grid squares, only subtle changes (wind speed and direction), maybe a change in precipitation severity, small changes in temperature and pressure. Not sure how transitions are going to work between adjacent squares (maybe have a degree of overlap or something) and I guess the timeline will have to be set for each individual weather state, in each location (so each location has it's own timeline, but the timeline shouldn't allow for drastic deviations between adjacent grid squares also, i.e the weather should get worse throughout the map if you see what I mean.

Other things I'd like to see are

• Control over precipitation type and magnitude (1-10) obviously depending on clouds present
  
• Control over thunderstorm severity (1-10) again, dependent on cloud types & densities
  
• Thermals/Ridge lift (not that important, it's really something for turbulence).
  

+ MP synced