Understanding the Weather (Full Version)

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Kriegsspieler -> Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 1:27:13 PM)

Learning to deal with the weather and the movement of weather is one of the major headaches of BTR. There are a couple of problems that I see with the sysem as it currently works:

First, the graphic display of cloud cover, which shows breaks in the overcast in different places, doesn't appear to correlate with the text descriptions of the overcast. That is, you click on a target and read that there's something like "50% cloud cover at 1100 feet", but you get the same information if you click on another place nearby where the cloud graphic appears to show a break in the overcast. Is that a bug or WAD? IMHO it would be quite realistic to have the ability to bomb through breaks in the overcast in specific places. As far as I can tell, that's how a great many N. European missons worked anyway.

Second, it appears to be impossible to know how the weather might develop during the day or the next several days. According to the manual, you can watch the clouds drift during the movement phase, but that's no help when you're planning missions. Yet in reality Allied bombing groups had weather intell that helped them predict how weather would be evolving and this in turn prompted them to plan for periods when they would be able to rest their pilots during a long weather-induced stand-down. Obviously weather intell shouldn't be pefect -- hell, it's still less than perfect today, more than 60 years later, especially if you go out more than 2 or 3 days. But havng access to a current weather summary and a prediction for the rest of the day and the next two days would be really sweet.

Is there any hope that we could get some significant improvements in these respects? I think both would significantly enhance the quality of the gameplay.



Hard Sarge -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 2:17:37 PM)

if you been playing the game for a while, you will start to pick up how the weather works, but it don't always work as you hope

plus in real life, it didn't help much either, there were a lot of raids that either turned back due to weather, bombed 2ndary or bombed anything they could find, or dropped into the channel, aug 17th, is a good case of what happens when the weather does not do what was expected, and a lot of people died for that one

the first US raid to Berlin, was called back

weather is a major pain in RL and in the game

and yes, you will find holes in the clouds, you will also have a pretty nice day, and the only cloud for a hundred miles will be right over the target you want to bomb



Kriegsspieler -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 2:53:05 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

if you been playing the game for a while, you will start to pick up how the weather works, but it don't always work as you hope

plus in real life, it didn't help much either, there were a lot of raids that either turned back due to weather, bombed 2ndary or bombed anything they could find, or dropped into the channel, aug 17th, is a good case of what happens when the weather does not do what was expected, and a lot of people died for that one

the first US raid to Berlin, was called back

weather is a major pain in RL and in the game

and yes, you will find holes in the clouds, you will also have a pretty nice day, and the only cloud for a hundred miles will be right over the target you want to bomb

Hard Sarge, I'm not asking for perfect information here, and I am happy to play a game where our "best laid plans" will be foiled sometimes by unexpected developments in the weather. That's not where I see the problem.

My problem is that as of now players have far less information about the weather than the historical actors had. My wife's grandfather, for example, was the S-2 officer for a bomb unit in England (I think it was S-2). He told me once when I first met him years ago that he routinely spent hours and hours during the week poring over weather photos taken by high-flying recon planes. And the 8th AF HQ had a designated weather forecast section that was specifically charged with making -- weather forecasts! That's all I'm asking for. They don't have to be infallible, but not having ANY idea of what is happening with the weather is also unrealistic.



Hard Sarge -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 2:56:54 PM)

and if you get the chance, ask him how often any of that did any good ?

I understand what you are saying
I understand what they did and what they had (the English knew what the weather should be, sooner then the Germans did)
but I also know what happens in the game, and what we can do with it or can't do with it, Harley says the insides of the weather system is great

(just in case, are you going by the weather zones, or just the over all info you see on the weather ?)



Kriegsspieler -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 4:13:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

and if you get the chance, ask him how often any of that did any good ?

Know a good medium, by any chance? [:D] He's been dead for many years.

quote:

I understand what you are saying
I understand what they did and what they had (the English knew what the weather should be, sooner then the Germans did)
but I also know what happens in the game, and what we can do with it or can't do with it, Harley says the insides of the weather system is great

(just in case, are you going by the weather zones, or just the over all info you see on the weather ?)

Basically I'm not asking for any changes in the way the weather works in the game to change; I'm asking for a change in the information we get about it.

But your last remark suggests that I'm missing something. Where do I find information about weather zones?

EDIT: And I know the weather is variable and harder to predict in NW Europe than it is where I live, in Wisconsin. Even today, when you listen to a weather forecast for the UK, it's always the same "Scotland will experience periods of variable clouds and sunshine, with intermittent rain. Cornwall and Devon will experience periods of intermittent clouds and sunshine, with rain . . . ." And that's when the weather is supposed to be "good"![:D] The same is often truie for Germany, where I have twice lived for a year or more. So I know that predicting the weather was (and is) chancey in western Europe. But it's an exaggeration to say that weather forecasting during the war was useless.



Golden Bear -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 6:18:01 PM)

I believe that the weather conditions listed at the bottom of the page are for the center of the map screen (?). At least that is the rationale that makes me feel like there is some use to it.

Over time I have learned to look at the clouds at the start of the turn and estimate when there might be clear areas in certain areas. Like if it is clear over SE England but there is a belt of clouds off to the NW I won't try to launch planes at 6 a.m. That sort of thing. Or if things look good for a 6 a.m. launch but there is a belt of clouds over the channel I'll figure that it might get in the way of an attack on the Ruhr. Stuff like that. It is a little easier for Italy I think because I can see all of the clouds that are coming down.

Naturally this sort of guessing gets less meaningful as the raids get longer.


Carlos



MajorDude -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 9:44:47 PM)

The Germans had a pretty good idea of the weather from units and stations they had posted west of England.



Hard Sarge -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/15/2009 10:01:29 PM)

yea, until the English took those back

but what I was asking, there are 6 weather zones

so England can be bright and shiny, and Germany can be dark and dank

(well, normally the other way around)




jtareb -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/16/2009 1:42:56 AM)

Just as in the old btr its a matter of timing. You will get a feel for the movement of the clouds from playing and that will help you in determining when to launch.




Richard III -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/16/2009 2:48:10 AM)

Ya know I`m not trying to be Snarky or a know it all here and this is just a general observation about the issue of fine tuning and not directed at anyone, so please take it that way [:)]  BUT my experiences with Gary`s games go back to PacWar Ver 4.0 and WIR Ver 1.0 some of which I helped playtest parts of, and following the elvolvement of them by different designers & programers ( WITP is a good example of my point ) I will say that tinkering and " enhanciing " his code to make it more "realistic" almost always leads to very unhappy results and a broken game.

The dicking around with the Sub/AntiSub routines in WITP is a good example. Many AI players thought the original Ver 1.0  by Gary and Joel was fine & historically correct, BUT the Vocal PBEM`ers didn`t like it, the Japanese PBEM Fan Boys didn`t like it and some of the Allied PBEM players didn`t like it because it was No Fun. So to make people " Happy [&:] " Wood et al fixed it, and then fixed it again, and then the " New " design team fixed it and then it was really FIXED and then at last it was fixed until it was about back to where it started.

Please do not go down that road with BOB/BTR. If it`s not broke don`t fix it.

Thanks [8D]




Kriegsspieler -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/16/2009 2:28:54 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Richard III

Ya know I`m not trying to be Snarky or a know it all here and this is just a general observation about the issue of fine tuning and not directed at anyone, so please take it that way [:)]  BUT my experiences with Gary`s games go back to PacWar Ver 4.0 and WIR Ver 1.0 some of which I helped playtest parts of, and following the elvolvement of them by different designers & programers ( WITP is a good example of my point ) I will say that tinkering and " enhanciing " his code to make it more "realistic" almost always leads to very unhappy results and a broken game.

The dicking around with the Sub/AntiSub routines in WITP is a good example. Many AI players thought the original Ver 1.0  by Gary and Joel was fine & historically correct, BUT the Vocal PBEM`ers didn`t like it, the Japanese PBEM Fan Boys didn`t like it and some of the Allied PBEM players didn`t like it because it was No Fun. So to make people " Happy [&:] " Wood et al fixed it, and then fixed it again, and then the " New " design team fixed it and then it was really FIXED and then at last it was fixed until it was about back to where it started.

Please do not go down that road with BOB/BTR. If it`s not broke don`t fix it.

Thanks [8D]

I'm kind of losing track of what we're talking about here. I have not said a single thing to criticize the effects of weather in the game, the fact that missions get delated or cancelled, or become less effective because of havng to bomb through undercast. All I wanted to suggest was that certain kinds of information be made available to the player. At a minimum, the way the screen indicates local weather conditions could be made clearer. Are those "holes" in the cloud cover real or not? If so, then why doesn't the textual information register the difference? So it's basically an interface issue.
Second, it seems to me entirely within the boundaries of historical realism that a certain level of weather forecasting information could be given to the player. If that is too much to ask, possibly because it would require the creation of a routine for calculating weather changes over a couple of days, ok. I understand. But let's not take what I am asking for is a change in the way the game handles the effects of weather.



Oliver Heindorf -> RE: Understanding the Weather (10/16/2009 5:50:58 PM)

I like the weather model in this game so far. [sm=innocent0004.gif]



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