Season 6 Weather feedback

[Daniel Hansson]

So, what do you think of the way the weather has been made this season? Just to make a summary of all thoughts on it.
Gotta say I don't know what will happen for next season, if I will still do the weather or if anything else changes.

 

[Tim McIver]

Loved it thank you.

Like I mentioned in the other thread. Particulars I liked.

- Impartial weather man. Not because I think anyone else would cheat. But I know the job is much easier and more achievable if you don't need to hide the files from yourself!
- 2 forecast system was really good. Having a reasonable idea of whether there would be rain a week in advance gave a good indication of how to spend limited practice time. 1 days notice before the final forecast meant it wasn't possible to over analyse and ruin the spontinaity.

- Naming the times of each session in a logical way so that Q and R whether were related by not completely dependant.

- Knowing that Daniel was using some mathematical randomness really helped prevent the guessing games. I was always tempted to think he wouldn't do the same thing to us that he did in the last race, surely not another cloudy but no rain. The fast that that never came into the equation meant tension everytime.

- Not having to worry about temperatures and radiator settings was a big relief. If we all had more time it would be good, but I think we struck a good balance this season without the temperature changes.

All in all a huge step forwards for presto weather! A few things I think we could improve upon for next season...

- I think it would be good to establish what Daniel regards as light medium and heavy rain. Within the game rain is assigned a percentage. My impression is that the heaviest rain we had this season was falling at about 30% (I'm probably wrong with that number). Wets are only of use at much higher amounts of rain. Obviously it could have been the mathematical randomness that prevented any heavy downpours, but I would be interested to hear a few numbers from Daniel. I suspect we have a very enjoyable monsoon up our sleeve!

- This season we never had to go back to dry tires after rain. This could again have been the maths. Though I suppose it depends how many variables Daniel was using? If intermittent showers were forecast, how many possible showers got plugged into the maths? I realise the great beauty of this seasons weather was the combination of Daniels creativity and the randomness. I'm just wondering if Daniel is prepared to disclose some of the interactions he used between those two this season.

- I believe we are having trouble finding a legal Montreal. If we do manage to run Montreal next season, I propose we run a profoundly wet race in honour of the wonder race we saw last week. Jim also suggested we could stop for a couple of hours in the middle of the race to add to the ever increasing realism of presto. Even without the stop, a very wet montreal, with all the randomness and variables just scaled down the wet end of things.

Thanks again Daniel, none of my suggestions should be taken up or considered if they make the process much more complicated or time consuming for the weather man. If things were to run exactly the same next season I would be very happy indeed.

Tim.

 

[Sean Greenlaw]

I like the randomness of the weather its a great idea, doesnt always seem random enough though but its the best way driving round seeing clouds etc wondering what will happen also with the forcasts and with the percentages gives you a ruff guess although i never practised racing wet conditions anytime this season.
I think maybe the best way we will get good at wet races would be to have a planned 1 or 2 each season, full on wet races and/or drying tracks this would allow us to practise for wet races making the whole event a higher finishing percentage and also helping us learn about full on wet conditions and then the changable aspect maybe copying like tim says f1 races that are wet make ours wet.
We might also find setup changes etc that really benifet in wet conditions etc so going on in further presto races or seasons that have weather like over 50% chance of rain etc we might make changes to lean towards wet setups, wakins glen this season is my only wet experience really and then i used inters i did notice the grip levels changing during race which was really cool.

Big thanks daniel for the weather never mind if you will do the weather again, when are you going to come back racing ?!!:wink:

 

[Valter Ostman]

I think the guys have already said everything. It's a luxury to have a good weather man and irl like conditions.
The only thing I would like to suggest is a smal adjustment of the "random" formula towards the rainy side.

A million thanks Daniel and Nicolai!

 

[Anthony Ishak]

This league is absolutely superb, it is definitely a luxury to be a member here...we have the most disciplined and passionate Admin , a talented weather man, a luxury setup library, best drivers in the world and on top of that we have an Alien with us ...what can you ask for more!!

This unique combination is what makes the difference here .....


I really enjoyed the weather setup this year... hopefully we CAN see some morefull wet races next season...( Tim and Sean said it all)..

Thx to all the guys, you are the best.

SEE YOU SOON...


Anthony

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

I (1/24th of the league) agree with almost all that is said here, with one exception

I think it is important to do the weather in a way that nobody spends much time practicing in the wet (like this season). This is to make every single driver's preperation for a race as simple and little time consuming as possible.

Every driver have their own time budget to become competitive. Some need only an hour or two to reach their desired pace, others, like myself, need more time, 4-5 hours or more. If we create an environment where drivers start preparing for an eventual wet race, everybody will feel (rightly so) they have to do it to be competitive if it rains. This means that either you will have to spend more time preparing, or you will be less prepared for an eventual dry race.

Preperation time is a key aspect in running this league. The more time that is required, the more "stressed" the group will get. It means bigger spread in times, poorer race quality and a higher "leave-the-league" frequency. (my opinion only of course)

I think the wet races we had this season proved that we are all capable of doing a good race preformance in the wet even though not preparing spesifically for it. We might be a second or two slower than out potential, but that matters little when it is the same for all.

If I was to dictate how to tweak the weather for next season, I would only make one change, namely to increase the general likelyhood for rain in a race (or qualify).

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

Thanks Daniel,
I join them is a luxury.
Not bad ours race in wet conditions but one thing that I want say is perhaps no many race in wet but more change in race "dry-wet-dry" or vice versa so shuffling the cards with pitstop.Know one day before what will the weather seems truepart of the game to decide how much time to devote to the set wet or dry:tongue:.

 

[David McCradic]

I think the weather was well done this season.

I did wet testing for maybe 3 of the rounds this season. I tested something like damp, wet, and flooded. Once the track gets past maybe 70% wet, I find the cars are pretty difficult to drive with a normal setup.

If we did a practice race on off weeks consisting of 2 half-length races, one wet and one dry, that might be interesting.

 

[Peter Marshall]

More words of appreciation for Daniel here

I agree entirely with Nico's post. I love wet weather driving but I see no need to practice to wet conditions in advance unless everyone else does and then it becomes a chore [only speaking for me].

 

[Daniel Hansson]

Thanks everyone for the comments. A big thumbs up for Tim who wrote it down so good.

- I think it would be good to establish what Daniel regards as light medium and heavy rain. Within the game rain is assigned a percentage. My impression is that the heaviest rain we had this season was falling at about 30% (I'm probably wrong with that number). Wets are only of use at much higher amounts of rain. Obviously it could have been the mathematical randomness that prevented any heavy downpours, but I would be interested to hear a few numbers from Daniel. I suspect we have a very enjoyable monsoon up our sleeve!

I agree with you Tim about this. I myself haven't really checked in the game what the different levels of rain we get when a specific number is entered into the weather file. Here is how it looks in the file:

Minute=18.00
{
Conditions=39.73
AmbientTemp=20.00
}

The "Conditions" is dictating if it will be sun or rain, and how much. Sunny from 0 to 60, thick cloud layer between 60 and 70, and then progressively harder rain from 70 to 100. But I don't know how this relates to the 0 to 100 % you can see in the game.

In the forecasts I have used about 70 to 80 as "light", 80 to 90 as "medium", and 90 to 100 as "heavy".

 

[Jim Hawley]

Daniel

Thanks for all your time this year the weather has been splendid

I agree with all the others have said, maybe in the off season we could do a few experiments with some different files to see if we can get that wet to dry senario working, it might need an increase in the temps but we shall see

Jim