Weather Effects

[James M]

I know it's a huge development obstacle and probably unlikely, but I believe it would be a good idea to add weather into ksp soon. This is of course a personal opinion but if breaking ground is all about surface science, then those science experiments seem like they would be better put to use during weather or gravitational effects (etc). It would brighten up the game giving it more life and serve a purpose as well. Any thoughts? (And please dont refer me to mods or shaders)

[OHara]

Wind, especially, seems to fit KSP quite well. 

The mod EVE has each cloud layer on its own sphere, rotating independently from the planet, in general rotating around a different axis.  If the atmosphere moved in this way, maybe containing maybe-2D clouds and rain, there could be interesting variation in weather that has enough of a pattern that we can plan for it, or plan launches during favorable weather.

There is a past thread here (link) with some reasons people think weather having random effects on game-play might be frustrating in an un-fun way, but there seems to be room for weather to be interesting without destroying our planning.

Edited June 7, 2019 by OHara
formatting

[Loskene]

2 hours ago, OHara said:

Wind, especially, seems to fit KSP quite well. 

The mod EVE has each cloud layer on its own sphere, rotating independently from the planet, in general rotating around a different axis.  If the atmosphere moved in this way, maybe containing maybe-2D clouds and rain, there could be interesting variation in weather that has enough of a pattern that we can plan for it, or plan launches during favorable weather.

There is a past thread here (link) with some reasons people think weather having random effects on game-play might be frustrating in an un-fun way, but there seems to be room for weather to be interesting without destroying our planning.

I'm a supporter of weather effects, and I think the handiest middle ground between complete random and a static pattern would be a seed-based procedural generation system, which hopefully isn't as complex as it sounds. Meaning the weather patterns for an entire save would be based on a seed value supplied at game start, configurable and copyable. This way the weather can be as random as you want, while still being possible to make identical between playthroughs for testing something specific or standardising challenges. ie "Try and launch through the KSC hurricane on day 4 using seed 1337" etc.

Plus there's always the fun of procedurally generated weather producing rare, interesting phenomena from certain input values. "Wow seed 74656 makes a storm that takes up a whole hemisphere on Laythe, you gotta check this out"

If we get Jool's cloud bands based on the same system we might even see the occasional Great Green Spot 

[Guest]

Procedural would be awesome but I'd be delighted with something much simpler, like different layers of the atmosphere applying aerodynamic force in a different direction, perhaps with a bit of randomised variation. I don't think it ought to be that hard to implement. 

It would probably have to be a difficulty option as it could really mess with some launches.

[Loskene]

32 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

Procedural would be awesome but I'd be delighted with something much simpler, like different layers of the atmosphere applying aerodynamic force in a different direction, perhaps with a bit of randomised variation. I don't think it ought to be that hard to implement. 

Like the hot air balloons in Rust then. They couldn't afford modelling wind patterns either so they abstracted balloon flight by having the airflow change direction with altitude, making piloting the balloon a matter of maintaining altitude when you find the wind layer that's going where you want. It's a little janky but it's a decent enough abstraction for these purposes if procedural turns out to be too much work, and I imagine the jankiness is less noticeable in a rocket than a balloon.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Loskene

[k00b]

we already have wind patterns don't we ? (my rockets get blown over all the time ?) also planes on time warp is a complete nuisance especially when flying over  mountains (unless i am imagining ?)

i would like rain and clouds (and also rain clouds (lightening)) though... but my rx570 gets a bit laggy as it is.

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, k00b said:

we already have wind patterns don't we ? (my rockets get blown over all the time ?)

no

Quote

also planes on time warp is a complete nuisance especially when flying over  mountains (unless i am imagining ?)

you are imagining mountains having anything to do with it.

[k00b]

..must suck at the game pretty badly in that case my mistake

[Loskene]

14 hours ago, k00b said:

..must suck at the game pretty badly in that case my mistake

It's common for otherwise stable planes to drift off course or wobble during physics warp due to calculation inaccuracies. If you didn't know how it worked and it happened while you're passing over mountains you'd be forgiven for thinking it was caused by turbulence, it certainly looks like it sometimes.

[Cavscout74]

1 hour ago, Loskene said:

it certainly looks like it sometimes.

I've had planes end up bent or with parts shifted in position after a bad case of physics-warp-turbulence, so it certainly has some of the same effects as weather-driven turbulence.