Configuring campaign weather

Shortly after getting in to BMS I wanted to learn more about configuring the weather in my campaigns. Sunny skies are great and all, but bad weather is better

Actually, I wanted to create variable, unpredictable, changing weather patterns. I ended up choosing the WeatherGen program by Tyrant. It is awesome. After starting to fly online with Schnidrman, I discovered he also uses this for his campaigns. It's easy and powerful and highly recommended for players that want to get their weather groove on. I was talking to Axe about it last time we flew and am posting this for you, in case it helps.

https://firstfighterwing.com/weathergen/

It is entirely web-based, nothing to install. It gives you control over all weather parameters, or you can just choose randomize and go from there. It generates a few files that you have to unzip in to your campaign folder. It works great, and I use it for all of my campaigns, both online and off line.

It can seem confusing at first glance, so feel free to ask any questions. It makes campaigns so much better in my opinion. Not only does it look great, it makes it more challenging, both in weapons delivery and airmanship. And it's just plain cool to be taking off in a thunderstorm and dropping bombs in the sunshine, or whatever.

To generate a random weather map, follow these instructions. This is the most basic way to use WeatherGen, not adjusting any parameters manually. In just a few clicks you'll have a custom weather map ready to use

- Under "Load/Save", enter the mission name or (easier) click the folder icon to load the campaign file.
- Under "Weather Parameters", click "Random" until you see something you like.
- Under "Load/Save", click "Save Package"
- Unzip the resulting zip file into your Campaign\SAVE folder.

Some of us have DBond-Weather experience, it is awesome and horrible at the same time.

You sure do Oden, but you handle it like a pro

To give folks an idea of what is possible, here is a shot from a few moths back of a landing approach to Taegu. 54 knot crosswind (check DED), and FPM off the HUD. Ya gotta love it!



http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4359559/re-my-falcon-odyssey#Post4359559

Thanks,........ I bookmarked the weather ... ???

Very cool, really. but,

Seriously, I scare myself just landing in clear daylight...

I'll go slow with it, and work up to it. For me weather will be better than night flying, I'll suck at both, but will enjoy the weather change.

BTW , I'm already working on a 'setg-b no night missions bool= 1'

One of my most enjoyable experiences in BMS was back in 4.32.4 or thereabouts. There was a nasty bug in the game that introduced some sort of downdraft just before touchdown and it was significant enough that the guys who approached right on the AoA donut would get caught out and get slammed on the deck. I just imagined it as some sort of weather anomaly and just flew through

I love the crappy weather... something about being in the soup... is there any way to bring the weather down to just around minimums? Would be cool to be FORCED to use the instrument approach plates!

LOL. that ought to work a treat

I love flying at night. I can see the HUD.

That sounds cool, Ice. Wind Shear oh yeah.

You can bring the clouds down to 100ft at least. And thick as you want them too. Nothing like descending through 10,000 feet of "can't see s#!+" and popping out of the deck with a face full of runway threshold!

But thankfully we wouldn't do that when DBond is in one the jets. Right? Right?

I gotta see if there's even a strip there. At least.

Let's cut the bad weather talk. Or jason's gonna serve us up some soup.

Relax DBond , I think schnidrman was just having a flash back about his mission from the other night.

At least you and I HOPE so!!!

Hey man, he actually did pretty durn good, but don't say it outloud.

Now for the reason I'm here to begin with,,,,,,,,Soups up!

I had my first go with the weather gen, was lucky but got it on the first try. Put it in a TE and it's really something nice to have.

It was thick 12,000 to 18,000.

The main thing I learned was that maintenance is NOT polishing my canopy worth a crap like they said they were!!!

It's full of friggin scratches like crazy. I am so pissed.

[Well theres' a whole lot more there for me to figure and use .]

thanks DBond.

Hey no problem, glad it worked.

I tend to mess with different parameters, like wind velocities, cloud decks, coverage and then randomize until I get the amount of red (bad weather) that I'm looking for and save.

Be sure to enable the auto maps update in BMS.

Yeah, everytime it rains I have all these scratches too. What the hell.

ok will go and find that.

'Yeah, everytime it rains I have all these scratches too. What the hell.' LOL

I should have added enable auto map update if you want the weather to change. This setting is in the weather window below the DTC.

OK. So I went there and it was on. (Thanks, I was about to hit up his web page.) I wonder if that's because I used the 6 files from the weather gen download folder 'weathermapsupdates'?

Good news is that it is indeed on.

Excellent.

A few more shots showing what WeatherGen does

Approaching the coast of Montenegro



Weather front visible



Hole in the clouds

Again, I make my petition for SimHQ to have a drool smiley.

Until then...

I think that's drunk-drooling. Here's one I like....

I agree that's an improvement.

My 7 year old son Ben has green-lighted the Patrick image as the most appropriate.

I got the approval of a 7-year old, that means I'm super-cool!

Tell him thanks for the affirmation and will use this image going forward.

Those clouds totally looks like "awesome looking 1999 graphics campaign"

So does the cockpit! Very pretty 1999 graphics!

Here are two screenshots of the cockpit and the terrain.... I betcha you can't tell me which one is 1999 and which one is current-day BMS!!

But look how crappy those wingtip vortices are! Like not even there! How can I be expected to fly combat without wingtip vortices! Madness.

If only there were a sim that had great wingtip vortices. Always somethin'

Ah, it's hard to show wingtip vortices in a screenshot... you will note that I've not even shown my A-G radar on the MFD, despite coming in for a landing.

Well at least we have AG radar right? DTS on the other hand...

Yeah, that dude in that thread irked me with his silly comment. But I got it out of my system now

I think I want to go fly my 1999 dynamic war generator. OK, a little left in the system

You mean in the Digital Combat Aircraft Pretty Wallpaper Generator? DCAPWG?

Here's some crappy weather for ya!

On a side note, get shot down-get rescued-get a medal. :

:

Nice video. 137 kills, yes you should get a medal.

I don't see how a player could be satisfied flying in the default CAVU after watching that.

Yeah, that, or what I meant was Digital Training Simulator.

ILS landing.

Nice!

I like the new warning MOD that you have installed. It sure comes in handy in that mess of soup.


'Something in the way' 'Something in the way'


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

One day I gotta put that on my 'to learn' list.

DBond look what schnidrman did to me!! You know that ain't right...... Plus if you'll note, he's already landed.

Sorry, what am I looking at?

Hey Ice. Ok here's what's important. Visibility is poor, it is raining, look at my, oh about 2 oclock on the horizon and you can see the red airbase lights. Just barely. That is home. For me.

Also on my HSD you can see my bud is safe an cozy in the lounge prolly by now. Ok, I do tend to exaggerate a smidgen.

Errbody knows I suck if weather is not perfect. All this is schnidrman's fault. (even the part about how I dont fly so good, sometimes, mostly)

But he did put together a cool mission, and got real good kills.
Is it too late to turn this into a positive? He's a good dude and I can't wait to fly with him soon again.
Really this is my way of saying thanks to him, down south we talk bad about the people we like, you know in a messing around sort of way, and are just sorta quiet of the rest.

What?? If you can see the lights that far out, visibility can't be that poor!!

That looks like an awesome mission to fly!

Yeah, gotta say that's pretty good vis

Axe, you're too hard on yourself. You stuck the landing on the first try.

You are better than you think you are.

Thanks schnidrman. That was a first bad weather landing for me. I feel better.

DBond/-Ice now that don't help at all

I gave you some wind and rain and you handled it like a pro. Visibility was pretty good because I didn't kill you with a low cloud base. I'm not quite that evil.

If you have an extra half hour of your life to give up, here is a foul weather hop from Taegu to Kunsan. This is the kind of weather I was kind enough not to start you out with.



The weather in 4.33.X is far and above what you could do in previous versions, and there are a lot of 3rd party tools that simplify things.

Hehehehe... apologies, Axe!

schnidrman, love the weather in that video! Is that as bad as Falcon can make it in terms of visibility? As for winds, I noticed that it varied during takeoff?

Yeah! if you can see the lights on your wingtip it's pretty clear skies!

(this is going full Monty Python's Flying Circus anytime now haha )

You had a pond, you were lucky!

Pond!? Oh, we lived in a..

You can make visibility worse, but can't get much worse! I would suggest you play around with the weather tool DBond posted the link for on the first post in this thread. It is really easy to use and there is a help flag on just about every function, so if you are unsure about something, just click the "?" next to the function and you will get a message box telling you how it works. You can make clouds as thick as you want them, change wind directions (as you saw in the take off) and speed, etc. Just a whole bunch of different ways to spice things up.

I'll re-post the link so you don't have to back track...


https://firstfighterwing.com/weathergen/

Thanks!!

For Axe....

Thanks, that'll help but I saw where they made an early mistake. They should have rolled the window down to get a better look. And I need some time to catch up on the instrumentation, also I don't have that special goggles that helps you to see in the soup.

But I do like the philosophy of letting go of the steering wheel to just let the plane turn 180 so's it can get you home.

Well I have a few more min's left to finish it but so far I'm staying with it pretty good.

LOL I was just funnin with ya!

I was implying you'd best turn away from that weather.

I think with a little work, you'll be comfortable landing in the worst of weather. And just leave the Drift C/O switch be when landing.

Yeah that's cool.

But for real, that rain and lack of visibility is crazy.

Yeah, finding out the crosswinds don't really help a fella like me. Better to just leave it off. lol

Just for the sake of keeping current. I think this deserves to be addressed. Weathergen is no longer being further developed on its own but as a part of Tyrant's semi-new release of VMT. Note that this is a download and not a website tool any longer. The wethergen webpage remains active, but will recieve no further updates.

This is actually pretty cool and expands on weathergen and will be a useful tool in the online campaign environment.

Here is a link and please watch the video if you do any online flying. I don't know who this guy is, but he has some mad skilz w/ BMS add-ons.

Linky.... VMT

For example, here is a mission I flew w/ Axe last night. This is weather and tactical info you can share before take off.




Here's the debrief...

RECORD BEGIN TIMESTAMP 12/5/2017 22:10:48.
Game is Campaign type Networked


Mission Type: AI
Flight Unique Id: Python3
2 Ship Flight
Ac type: F-16CM-40
Contry: U.S.

FLIGHT EVENTS
Event schnidrman joined as Python31 at 18:42:12
Event Axe joined as Python32 at 18:42:13
Event DPRK MiG-29A downed by schnidrman at 19:02:46
Event AA-10A launched at schnidrman 19:04:22
Event DPRK MiG-29A downed by Axe at 19:10:51
Event DPRK T-55 destroyed by schnidrman at 19:12:12
Event DPRK T-55 destroyed by schnidrman at 19:12:12
Event DPRK M-1992 destroyed by schnidrman at 19:12:14
Event SA14 launched at Axe 19:12:39
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Axe at 19:12:51
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Axe at 19:12:51
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Axe at 19:12:51
Event DPRK M-1975 destroyed by Axe at 19:12:52
Event DPRK M-1975 destroyed by Axe at 19:12:52
Event DPRK M-1975 destroyed by Axe at 19:12:52
Event 30mm AAA (RG) launched at schnidrman 19:14:10
***edited for content***
Event 30mm AAA (RG) launched at schnidrman 19:14:20
Event 30mm AAA (RG) launched at schnidrman 19:14:21
Event DPRK T-55 destroyed by schnidrman at 19:14:24
Event Axe landed at 19:30:51
Event schnidrman landed at 19:30:56
Event Axe exited from Python32 at 19:33:37
Event schnidrman exited from Python31 at 19:34:18

-------------
PILOT SLOT 2:

Human Player: Col Axe
Callsign: Axe
Pilot status - OK
Aircraft status - OK
AA Kills 1
AG Kills 6
AS Kills 0
AN Kills 0
Shoot At 1
Other Player Kills 0

WEAPON DATA

LOADOUT 0: 20mm M61
Starting Load 510
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0

LOADOUT 1: AIM-120B
Starting Load 4
Fired 2
Missed 1
Hit 1
Event AIM-120B released at 19:04:30@72miss
Event AIM-120B released at 19:10:06@72hit MiG-29A - destroyed

LOADOUT 2: CBU-87 CEM
Starting Load 8
Fired 8
Missed 6
Hit 2
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:12:36@72miss
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:12:38@72miss
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:12:39@72hit KrAz T 255B - destroyed
Event @72hit KrAz T 255B - destroyed
Event @72hit KrAz T 255B - destroyed
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:12:40@72hit M-1975 - destroyed
Event @72hit M-1975 - destroyed
Event @72hit M-1975 - destroyed

LOADOUT 3: 300 Gal Tank
Starting Load 1
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0

-------------
PILOT SLOT 1:

Human Player: Col Schneider
Callsign: schnidrman
Pilot status - OK
Aircraft status - OK
AA Kills 1
AG Kills 4
AS Kills 0
AN Kills 0
Shoot At 43
Other Player Kills 0

WEAPON DATA

LOADOUT 0: 20mm M61
Starting Load 510
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0

LOADOUT 1: AIM-120C
Starting Load 4
Fired 3
Missed 2
Hit 1
Event AIM-120C released at 19:01:22@72miss
Event AIM-120C released at 19:02:05@72hit MiG-29A - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 19:04:25@72miss

LOADOUT 2: CBU-87 CEM
Starting Load 8
Fired 4
Missed 1
Hit 3
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:11:45@72hit T-55 - destroyed
Event @72hit T-55 - destroyed
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:11:47@72hit M-1992 - destroyed
Event CBU-87 CEM released at 19:14:03@72hit T-55 - destroyed

LOADOUT 3: 300 Gal Tank
Starting Load 1
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0

IIRC he's a member of the 72nd VFW..... some people just have mad skillz.....

He's w/ the 1st VFW.

I stand corrected then.

this does look great.

ya know, I'm a big inclement weather fan from way back!

Hey , I'm glad I didn't have a friendly fire incident, looks like this will tell the story. I may need a throw-down logbook, just in case.



"got it"

Edit, ok i looked more an its not a weather generator I will need to look further into it to see what's really going on. Seems to be a SA enhancer. Who wouldn't want more of that?

Just watch the video. It does weather, but it doesn't go into it that much because it is more about the added features above and beyond weather. He states in the video that you should watch the how to video for weathergen as it is currently still relevant to how weather works. He is basically describing the additional features that are include in VMT vs. weathergen.

Watched the video, boy this guy does some impressive work.