Weather settings in Condor2

Moderators: Uros, Tom, OXO

HB8
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:05 pm

Weather settings in Condor2

Post by HB8 » Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:11 pm

Unfortunately, the weather setting in Condor is not explained in detail in the manual. Especially missing a hint which consequences the attitude in "Flats Activity" has. If the "Flats Activity" is set to "Very low", CondorWeather will be calculated as described on the Condor Homepage under Key Features. Also, the slope updraft caused by sunlight on the southern slopes:
- Up slope wind on sunny ridges (anabatic winds)
Unfortunately, the weather calculation takes a long time on some computers and the error message appears in multiplayer mode: "Time out, slot request, you were kicked from the server".
If the setting in "Flats Activity" is set to Low / Normal / High, the "Up slope wind on sunny ridges (anabatic winds)" is switched off, the calculation time is shortened and the error message in multiplayer mode no longer appears.
So in the weather setting think carefully what you want to set for a weather.
To avoid turning off the Up slope wind on sunny ridges (anabatic winds), could Condor2 extend the join flight time?

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:29 pm

You are correct about this not being explained very well (and I think the name is also confusing, possibly a left over from a time where we had no thermal maps?). However, Im not convinced anabatic winds are affected by this at all. Are you sure about that?

My understanding (which could be wrong) is that "flats activity" only impacts, well, flats and the setting determines the weight given to the thermal map. AFAIK this has no impact on ridge thermals or anabatic winds.

If that is correct, then for now the easy solution is simply not selecting "low flats activity" and using sceneries with proper thermal maps. But the issue of getting kicked when calculating weather is known, reported and "on the list".

User avatar
Capricorne
Posts: 397
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:34 pm
Location: Strasbourg (France)
Contact:

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by Capricorne » Mon Mar 25, 2019 2:40 pm

janjansen wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:29 pm

If that is correct, then for now the easy solution is simply not selecting "low flats activity" and using sceneries with proper thermal maps. But the issue of getting kicked when calculating weather is known, reported and "on the list".
What is for you a "proper" thermal map ? is the one generated by LandscapeEditor not proper ?
You can NOT fly in a scenery if you don't generate this one In Landscape Editor, and the load time is the same if I use this auto generated thermal map or the one I have created following the Manual.!!
Capricorne - S67

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:11 pm

By "proper" thermal maps I mean actual maps that correlate with the scenery, like giving much lower chance of thermals over water or wet lands or forests and higher chance over cities or corn fields. Im sure EDB can expand on that, Im certainly no expert.

But for instance North UK scenery, if you set flats activity to anything other then "very low", then you will get as many or more thermals over the sea then you do over land. If you set it to "very low", I dont really see less thermals over land, but condor seems to calculate its own map and thermals die out over the ocean. But setting it very low, the "calculating weather" stage then takes a very long time, several minutes, and players get kicked by the server.

On other sceneries like AA or matamata, no matter what NOTAM settings you use, you will never get meaningful amounts of thermals over the sea or even large lakes. So there is no real reason to select "very low" AFAICS. Although in a quick test, on Matamata, if I set flat activity to very low, I really do have very few thermals over land. So I guess Im not sure how that setting and the thermal map interact :?:

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:23 pm

This is flat activity high on North UK:

Image

This is flat activity very low:
Image

Doesnt look like a lot less activity over the flats, but a lot of difference over the ocean

This is flat activity high on Matamata:
Image

And this flat activity very low (calculating weather took almost 2 minutes)
Image
Last edited by janjansen on Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

HB8
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by HB8 » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:27 pm

HI,

The review is very simple and easy to check with the setting "Thermal Helper" enabled. With the setting "Flats Activity": Very low you can see the anabatic wind rising up the slopes. Key "H" activated. Airfield Sondrio or Aosta e.g. Wind 2-3 km / h. Then change the setting. "Flats Activity": high / normal / low. Activate thermal helpers with key "H" and no "colored" balls rise the slopes. You can not overlook the significant difference in calculation duration "Calculation Weather" when joining. I refer to the article in Landscapes: "How to develope a thermal map ......". You know this post. I do not want to go into further problems with thermals in the valley, where she does not belong at all.
Our tests also gave Slovenia2 the same result on all maps: Anabatic slope uplift switched off at Flats activity: high / normal / low.
In case of extreme settings: "Flats Activity: Very low," Streeting: High ", Cloud base: Variation: High, you are no longer on your own internal server, the known error message" Time out ..... etc .. "
Calculation time too long.
The simplest solution would be an extension of the join time and then the anabatic hillside uplift does not need to be switched off. Your suggestion "Flats Activity": Very low not to use is obvious. But some pilots then receive the well-known error message "Time out ......". Computing power too weak. Therefore, the urgent request to extend the join time, more is not necessary. Then everyone can set the weather real or not real. The topic is endless and the pragmatic solution is again: extend Join Time and everything is fine.

User avatar
Pit_R
Posts: 1348
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:16 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by Pit_R » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:31 pm

Instead of testing and guessing - maybe one of devs would be nice and write detailed explanation of all weather settings, to be included in manual and cut down speculations.

Rgrds
No matter where you go... There you are...

Image
:::: Please use this envelope
Image
to send me a PM.

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:38 pm

HB8 wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:27 pm
The review is very simple and easy to check with the setting "Thermal Helper" enabled. With the setting "Flats Activity": Very low you can see the anabatic wind rising up the slopes. Key "H" activated.
No, you cant. The green dots are not the anabatic winds, they are slope thermals. Anabatic winds (or any ridge lift ), wave lift etc can not be visualised with the Thermal Helper H key. Doesnt mean they are not there, but the only way to know is fly there.

HB8
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by HB8 » Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:35 pm

HI,

We tested without wind. Flats Activity: Very low. Wind on a slope is not displayed with "H". Thermal winds and anabatic slope winds are indicated by "H" and are made visible. Anyone can test that, set the wind speed 0 km / h. Not taking note of this does not solve the problem. Also, the shorter "Calculating Weather" time shows that the south slopes are not calculated and the join time is therefore shorter. The well-known error message "Time out, slot request ......" also does not appear. I recommend this to anyone without wind on southern slopes to test. And I refer again to the article in Landscape "How to develop a thermal map ......". There is also described by a meteorologist the problem.

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:32 pm

HB8 wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:35 pm
We tested without wind. Flats Activity: Very low. Wind on a slope is not displayed with "H". Thermal winds and anabatic slope winds are indicated by "H" and are made visible.
But they are not
Anyone can test that, set the wind speed 0 km / h.
I just did. No wind. Green ridge thermals when I set "activity" (not "flat activity") to high :

Image

and no green ridge thermals anywhere when I set "activity" to None.

Image

Setting "Flats activity" to low or high made no change whatsoever, other than in loading time. Because its not flat there, and the green things are ridge thermals and the occurrence of thermals on ridges is determined by the activity setting, not the flats activity.

As for changing the timeout; I agree. which is why I already reported this issue quite some time ago. But its on a looooong list of issues and feature requests, so who knows when this will be fixed, and until then, this is an issue that can easily be avoided.

User avatar
UrosM
Posts: 905
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:46 pm
Location: Slovenia

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by UrosM » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:39 pm

Pit_R wrote:
Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:31 pm
Instead of testing and guessing - maybe one of devs would be nice and write detailed explanation of all weather settings, to be included in manual and cut down speculations.

Rgrds
+1
Image

User avatar
EDB
Posts: 1575
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:17 am
Location: The Netherlands, Europe Continent, Earth Planet, Milky Way Galaxy, Virgo Super Cluster

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by EDB » Mon Mar 25, 2019 9:44 pm

Weather is in the manual...
See : 4 FREE FLIGHT > WEATHER > THERMALS
Flats activity

In mountainous areas which adjoin flat land, it is common for there to be thermals in the mountains, but none on the flat land. This setting lets you inhibit flatland thermal activity.

User avatar
EDB
Posts: 1575
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2011 1:17 am
Location: The Netherlands, Europe Continent, Earth Planet, Milky Way Galaxy, Virgo Super Cluster

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by EDB » Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:14 am

Some extra info.
Although I find this difficult because I am not allowed to tell more then is already in the manuals and reported on the open forum... If I could tell more, I only needed one line of text... now I need more... :?

All this info is from the manuals and this forum. And what can be found by experimenting. Most things you can test for yourself if you want to learn more.

A thermal-map was there in Condor V1 too. In the first C1 manuals this thermal-map had also sunny slopes and shades included. So the scenery builder basically defined and I quote :
The best places should be sunny slopes (100%), then fields (70%), then grass and coniferous trees (40%), then deciduous trees and shades (25%).


Condor evolved over time and now thermals on sunny hills (and its shadows) are dynamically done by the Condor engine itself. So in the morning the eastern hillsides are best although with a low sun-angle, Somewhere between 1200h and 1400h the southern hillsides are best (in the northern hemisphere) and in the evening the western hillsides are best although with a low sun-angle. That is why the current Condor Landscape Guide doesn't tell you to define sunny hills and shadows from those hills (a shadow-map). Condor 2 now also shows the shadows in the landscapes dynamically, although there are landscapes that turn this new feature off.

So a scenery builder now (if he does his work correctly) does not make a shadow map (that would only exaggerate southern hill thermal probability), but he should only make an (1/) Albedo map (maybe with some height info added). So a map that defines surfaces and their thermal probability. A surface that heats up more will likely generate more thermals in a given time then a surface that will not warm up or only absorbs the heat and not releases it. So a scenery builder should define :

Towns,Cities,Villages
Bare rock
Desert
Fields
Grass
Coniferous trees
Mixed forest
Deciduous trees
Water, Marsh, Swamp
Snow
etc, etc...

There are however situations (depending on the scenery characteristics) were the dynamically generated thermals (generated from the elevation map) create so much thermals in the mountains, that the flat areas (valleys, etc) will be blue without thermals. So a too high contrast compared with reality, For these situations there is the "Flats activity" setting. What it should do is create more or lesser (depending on the setting) thermals in the flat areas. It changes the relation between thermal generation without hills vs thermal generation from hills...
So this setting also has some (questionable) relation with the thermal-map as can be seen in the examples of people testing...

What people don't know when they are testing is that not every scenery is created equal. And the Condor Team is not happy about it...

In the above example the North-UK landscape doesn't have an (1/) Albedo thermal-map. So no matter where you are in that landscape... normal thermal generation is all the same. It's the same above the sea and it is the same above city areas... The only difference is the thermal generation done by the Condor engine on hilly slopes.
A scenery with an (1/) Albedo thermal-map (like Matamata or Nephi) that has water (and all other known surfaces) assigned will react different on the flat activity setting then a scenery without water assigned...

Examples :
1. 50% activity on a no-1/albedo thermalmap will generate 5% activity with a 10% activity correction.
2. 5% activity on a 1/albedo thermalmap will generate 1% activity with a 10% activity correction.
3. 0% activity on a 1/albedo thermalmap will generate 0% activity with a 10% activity correction.
In the first example you will see differences. In the second you probably wont and in the third you wont see any difference for sure...

Currently only a handful (four fingers and one thumb for most people) of landscapes have an (1/) Albedo thermal-map. And the Condor Team is not happy about it... Every landscape should have a proper (1/) Albedo Thermal-Map.

Seeing those pictures I think they also have some wind in the weather settings. Wind from land to sea... Thermals created on land and drifted to sea before they die.

I hope I haven't said too much.
Personally I think we shouldn't know exactly how Condor's weather model works. We don't understand everything in the real world either... And the Condor engine will evolve in the future and things will be changed when needed.

HB8
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:05 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by HB8 » Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:40 am

Hi EDB,

Thanks for the detailed info of weather settings in Condor. Actually, I did not want to trigger such a big discussion at all.
The problem with the weather setting: "Flats Activity: Very low", the short join flight time, (error message "Time out, slot request ..................") to contact with a server, was the actual reason to put this in the forum.
Again the question: Can the "join flight" time be extended to give pilots with slightly weaker computers the possibility to contact the server without being kicked by the server ?????
Since we fly in the scenery AA2, we rarely need the flats activity. We want to set this to Very low, but unfortunately the calculation process for the weather will take too long for some pilots.

Regards
HB8 AlpenCondor

janjansen
Posts: 1089
Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 9:26 pm

Re: Weather settings in Condor2

Post by janjansen » Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:05 pm

HB8 wrote:
Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:40 am
Again the question: Can the "join flight" time be extended to give pilots with slightly weaker computers the possibility to contact the server without being kicked by the server ?????
I think you already know this is not a user or server configurable setting, but to be clear: no, its not something we can fix, it isnt jointime or ping related. Its something in the communication protocol between the client and server that times out while condor is too busy calculating the weather, and that requires a modification by the developers, possibly a significant one (like threading the weather calculation to keep the directplay connection alive during this period).

That is why I reported this issue quite some time ago, and its on the ~1000 item long list of bug reports and change requests, and for almost every single one of these, there is at least somebody who will think that issue is more urgent. And Im only saying that so you dont hold your breath for a quick fix, there is no way to know if/when it will be addressed, so you will have to work around the problem for the time being.

Post Reply