Weather

[Shannon V. OKeets]

In response to the last few posts.

Changing the terrain when the weather changes isn't really possible. The bitmaps for the coastal hexes are generated through preprocessing. They all exist before the program is loaded. To transfer that preprocessing task to the game itself, to be done on-the-fly as the map is generated, would require too many CPU cycles. That is, the screen refresh would take too loooooong. For a mere cosmetic effect, I do not want to adversely impact screen the refresh rate.

The small graphics bar that indicates the weather in each weather zones is a great idea. Displaying it would be optional, of course. This would supplement the global map's presentation of weather throughout the world.

I believe each sea area has only 1 weather zone - no multiple weather zones within a sea area.

[trees trees]

I think there are at least two with multiple weather zones...the Baltic and the South China sea. As long as the sea-boxes fall on the same side of the line as they do in WiFFe, things will work out fine. But it does get confusing in Indonesia when the naval units are in one weather type, trying to do something to a land hex in another weather type. I'm thinking more about the new players, perhaps a special 'help' pop-up menu could be used in these two zones.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: trees trees
I think there are at least two with multiple weather zones...the Baltic and the South China sea. As long as the sea-boxes fall on the same side of the line as they do in WiFFe, things will work out fine. But it does get confusing in Indonesia when the naval units are in one weather type, trying to do something to a land hex in another weather type. I'm thinking more about the new players, perhaps a special 'help' pop-up menu could be used in these two zones.

Thanks for the insight. I will have to think about this for a bit.

[Mziln]

ORIGINAL: trees trees
oh, and it is important to know the weather _In The Sea Box_ in sea zones where the weather line is running through the zone, not on the sea zone boundary. this could be a little confusing for new players.

There is one type of weather per Sea area. Weather lines should not run through Sea areas.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the RaW (final edition)

8.1 Weather zones

The weather zones are marked on the map. They are:
1. The Arctic zone
2. The north temperate zone
3. The south temperate zone
4. The Mediterranean zone
5. The north monsoon zone
6. The south monsoon zone

A hex is in the weather zone it lies in. A sea area is in the weather zone
its sea-box lies in. The Baltic Sea is in the north temperate zone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:

Sea actions are effected by the weather in the sea area. Shore bombardment of land hexes is effected by the weather in the Sea area not the hex being bombarded.

Air Actions are effected by the weather in the Sea area/Hex the aircraft are flying to.

Land actions are effected by the weather that the Hex is in.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Mziln

ORIGINAL: trees trees
oh, and it is important to know the weather _In The Sea Box_ in sea zones where the weather line is running through the zone, not on the sea zone boundary. this could be a little confusing for new players.

There is one type of weather per Sea area. Weather lines should not run through Sea areas.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the RaW (final edition)

8.1 Weather zones

The weather zones are marked on the map. They are:
1. The Arctic zone
2. The north temperate zone
3. The south temperate zone
4. The Mediterranean zone
5. The north monsoon zone
6. The south monsoon zone

A hex is in the weather zone it lies in. A sea area is in the weather zone
its sea-box lies in. The Baltic Sea is in the north temperate zone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I investigated this a little bit. MWIF doesn't draw the weather zone lines through the sea areas. Instead it draws a lot more lines so as to differentiate the weather zones for the sea area from those of the adjacent coastal hexes. So, the all sea hexes in the Baltic are North Temperate, but the coastal hexes vary between NT and Arctic. The weather zone lines make this pretty clear and placing a cursor on a hex eliminates all confusion (or by toggling on the weather zone indicators for each hex).

[Mziln]

See my edited post above.

You could fly an air mission from a weather zone that is in blizard if the weather zone you were flying to was not blizard.

You could Shore bombard a land hex that the weather was storm and the Sea area weather was fine with no ill effects.

Etc.

[trees trees]

actually the weather overlays will help a great deal in keeping track of what's happening in the South China Sea in which Monsoon zone. learning the nuances of the South Monsoon zone is an important skill for the Japanese player especially; and is something that should be mentioned in the docs, preferably in connection with the Guadalcanal scenario that most people use to learn the naval systems.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Mziln
You could fly an air mission from a weather zone that is in blizard if the weather zone you were flying to was not blizard.

Right.

You could Shore bombard a land hex that the weather was storm and the Sea area weather was fine with no ill effects.

Wrong. Storm in the land hex precludes the shore bombardement, the weather in the sea zone is irrelevant.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Its been a while but here are the revised graphics for the weather. These can be toggled on and off, though I intend for them to be used as 'on'. To that end, the icons, rail lines, names, and units appear on top of the weather, as you can see here.

This screen shot shows snow and blizzard. The weather overlays hold up very well at all levels of zoom (they do not get distorted).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are snow and blizzard again, plus fine and storm (over the ocean).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's Blizzard and Storm at zoom level 4.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's rain, storm, snow, and clear.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Another shot of blizzard and storm. This is as heavy as the images get. Though it occludes at lot of the map details I am not too bothered, since movement and combat under these weather conditions is difficult at best.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

6th and last in the series. Rain and storm.

My goals were to make the 4 types of weather super-obvious in all types of terrain, without having it cover up the basic terrain features. I'm pretty happy with this version. What do you think?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
6th and last in the series. Rain and storm.

My goals were to make the 4 types of weather super-obvious in all types of terrain, without having it cover up the basic terrain features. I'm pretty happy with this version. What do you think?

I've watched all 6 screenshots, and I must say that I like them much more than the previous ones.
I like the way the little lines are very tight for the worst weathers, and more loose and not all in the same direction for the lightest weathers.
However, I would like to propose another color for the rain / storm weathers. Black seems rather "dark" to me. Have you tried dark gray ? Maybe it would be better.

Anyway, the 4 types of weather are super-obvious as you wanted, in all types of terrain.
The terrain type underneath is still visible enough for my tastes, so for me this is good.

[wosung]

I like it. Shows, how important weather is.

Perhaps a white outline (like in "Mediterranean Sea") for making the black-printed location names more visual in storm? Vice versa for white printed names in Blizzard?

Regards

[Froonp]

I was again looking at the weather graphics, and they look really good !

If there was a sound of thunder and pourring rain as ambient sound, when the map displayed on the screen is mostly under Storm, this would complete the "storm" effect very nicely, up to the point of going grap the nearest umbrella.

Storm --> sound of thunder and pourring rain.
Rain --> sound of falling rain.
Snow --> ?
Blizzard --> sound of howling wind.
Fine weather --> sound of birds singing, nature...

Those sounds would play all the time, and would cycle around at low volume to form a sound background.

[jesperpehrson]

Snow --> ?

Jingle bells? [:D]

[jesperpehrson]

Weather effects look fantastic! A major improvment from the first try.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wosung

I like it. Shows, how important weather is.

Perhaps a white outline (like in "Mediterranean Sea") for making the black-printed location names more visual in storm? Vice versa for white printed names in Blizzard?

Regards

This sounds good to me. I'll give it a look-see.

======

Thanks to all of you who like the new weather overlays. Rob and I went through a dozen or so variations. For example, Rob tried about 4 different colors for rain (e.g., grays, blue-grays, etc.), but making it visible against mountain terrain was a real problem. Black works, though it is a little heavy-handed.

Sound effects are for another day. They will probably be nearly the last thing I work on.