Weather?

[Morloc]

I remember rain and wet stuff and maybe even thunder. Where'd it go?

 

 

-Morloc

[Maharin]

Climate change.  Duh!

[Urban Blackbear]

I've only seen it snow once or twice in the last 200 hrs or so and it didn't do it at all until a friend joined my game. No rain unless its on the biome border with the snow biome too. I've wondered if something is up myself. 

[Reckis]

On the other hand, in a recent playthrough of mine it rained for 3 days straight.

[Morloc]

13 hours ago, Urban Blackbear said:

I've only seen it snow once or twice in the last 200 hrs or so and it didn't do it at all until a friend joined my game. No rain unless its on the biome border with the snow biome too. I've wondered if something is up myself. 

 

Aye, same here except no once or twice. I respect RNG and all, but no...not for this long a stretch.

 

Thunderstorms?

 

 

-Morloc

Edited April 30, 2021 by Morloc (see edit history)

[Boidster]

We had thunderstorms at our forest-biome in-town base a few game days ago. It was close enough to a possible horde night (we play 7 +/-1) that be both freaked out for a moment. The base was NOT ready for a horde. I get overcast every few days, and occasional rain but it's once a week at most. Not near any other biomes, really (at least 1KM away).

 

If I'm reading the XML right - and the weather XML is some of the most confusing to me - if you are in the forest biome you have a 60% chance of possibly getting rain (if global cloud cover is >=70) and a 10% chance of definitely getting rain (if global clouds>0 and precip>0). I don't know yet what the global odds are, but for now I'll assume it's equal across all values. So for example there would be an approximate 30% chance of getting Global Clouds >= 70.

 

Forest Biome weather from biomes.xml:

            <CloudThickness min="0" max="0" prob=".3"/>
            <CloudThickness min="10" max="70" prob=".6"/> <--- rain could happen here, but only if global clouds >=70
            <CloudThickness min="100" max="100" prob=".1"/> <--- rain definitely will happen here if global clouds & precip > 0
            <Precipitation min="0" max="0" prob=".0"/>         <--- this entry can be ignored since prob = 0 (probably used to be .25, but they changed it?)
            <Precipitation min="50" max="100" prob=".75"/> <--- this entry will essentially always be in effect since it's the only non-zero prob

 

Here's how I think it might work for different RNG results.

 

Global Clouds	Global Precip	Biome (RNG) Clouds 0-0 (30%)	Biome (RNG) Clouds 10-70 (60%)	Biome (RNG) Clouds 100-100 (10%)
20	20	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 20 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 50 (3)
50	20	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 50 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 50 (3)
80	20	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 70 (4) Precip: 50 (3)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 50 (3)
20	60	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 20 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 60
50	60	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 50 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 60
80	60	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 70 (3) Precip: 60	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 60
20	100	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 20 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 100
50	100	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 50 Precip: 0 (1)	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 100
80	100	Clouds: 0 Precip: 0	Clouds: 70 (3) Precip: 100	Clouds: 100 (2) Precip: 100

 

(1) Not enough cloud cover for precipitation

(2) Global clouds overridden by minimum cloud cover for biome RNG result

(3) Global precip overridden by the minimum precip for biome

(4) Global clouds overridden by the maximum cloud cover for biome RNG result

 

This is just my understanding of what the WEATHER CONTROL comment at the top of biomes.xml is saying. It's not worded super-clearly IMO so I could be completely wrong. Here it is if anybody wants to offer a different interpretation.
 

Spoiler

 

WEATHER CONTROL

The weather sections within each biome are restrictions to the "global" weather condition running across the
entire world.  For example, if the global weather says the precipitation of the world is 20 and your biome
does not have any restrictions that allow below 50 for precipitation, then your biome will have the lowest possible
precipitation allowed within its restrictions defined in this file.

 

The highlighed part is key to my interpretation and the numbers in the table. It seems to be saying that if global precip is less than the minimum for the RNG-chosen min/max range of the biome, then actual precipitation will be increased to the biome minimum. Using the exact example above they use:

 

Global precip: 20

Biome minimum: 50

Actual precip: 50 (boosted to biome minimum)

 

I would think that the min/max for the biome actually work as a filter, not a floor/ceiling, so that if global precip < biome minimum, then you get no precipitation at all. But that's not what the dev comment above seems to be saying. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

[ElCabong]

It rained on me this morning but I'm playing in a 4K game and I'm fairly close to the winter biome.