Biases the dynamic weather system to favor good weather. Comes in two versions, one for vanilla weather, and one for the Extended Weather mod.
By default the dynamic weather system works by going good->neutral->bad->neutral->good->neutral->bad and so on, back and forth (Extended Weather adds very_good and very_bad but the pattern remains the same.) This mod changes that so that good weather has a 66% (default) chance to stay good (with Extended Weather version there's even a chance it will go to very_good). It will still rain, it will still storm, but it should be sunny more often and for longer.
Blowouts somewhat hijack the weather system and will leave a storm in their wake. Because of this the maximum time between blowouts has also been raised to 36 hours making the blowout timer 20-36 hours rather than the vanilla 20-28 hours. These values have been left at Extended Weather defaults for the Extended Weather version as extended weather already changes the time between blowouts.
This mod is not packaged as a .xdb file and will not show up in the mods tab of the launcher. This is to enable users to tweak the weather probability to their liking (see Advanced Editing below).
Installation:
1. If you are running the Extended Weather mod choose better_weather_extended. If you are not running any weather mods choose better_weather_vanilla.
2. Extract the appropriate archive to the Lost Alpha/Gamedata folder.
A new game is not required.
The Extended Weather version of this mod is for Extended Weather v0.39. This mod may need to be updated when Extended Weather is updated (most updates of Extended Weather have thus far not required an update to this mod). The vanilla version of this mod will be unaffected.
Advanced Editing:
The chance weather will stay good is controlled by BETTER_WEATHER_CHANCE on line 33 of level_weather.script. The default value of 3 is a 66% chance that weather will stay good and 33% chance it will get worse. So 2=50% good/50% bad, 3=66% good/33% bad, 4=75% good/25% bad, etc. Don't set this to 1. If set to 1 the chance will be 0% good/100% bad.
The Extended Weather version of this mod also fixes a bug in Extended Weather.
Normally after a blowout the weather is set to bad. The value this is set by was not changed when Extended Weather added very_good and very_bad. Because of this it still sets the weather to 3, but while 3 is bad in vanilla (1 good, 2 neutral, 3 bad) in Extended Weather 3 is neutral (1 very_good, 2 good, 3 neutral, 4 bad, 5 very_bad).
It does this while also setting the actual weather it shows the player (la_silenthill) to one that normally doesn't even occur during neutral weather, hence the bug.
Does this require a new game?
You do not need to start a new game.
Thank you.
Just a note that this bug was fixed in Extended Weather v0.22 so the above post no longer applies.
Nice, thank you!
Thanks, really appreciate this! Could I be so annoying to also ask an additional addon (since you seem to have the know-how), where cars use less gasoline in game? Cars in LA use up their gasoline way too fast, making them less useful. The gasoline should last significantly longer, IMO about 3-4x.
Also having drive-able cars being marked on the hud map (like mechanics, guides etc.), would be a big improvement. It's very easy to walk straight past drive-able cars (like the one placed in Darkscape), then having to walk huge distances unnecessarily. Just an idea... :)
Again, thanks for the addon!
I've made the cars each use 30 percent the fuel consumption. Just extract to your gamedata folder.
Mediafire.com
You can also change the trunk capacity for each vehicle by editing this file as well.
I think there's some bug with the first car you get in Dark Valley (the chopper chase into Darkscape), as it consumes more fuel than the cars I've found later. Still, this is a much welcomed addon.
I also notice that cars sometimes just disappear (after having driven them), maybe the emissions destroy the cars? If that's so, that would be a good addon (make cars impervious to emissions).
Anyways, thanks, will definitely use this!
Thanks again, I've been using this now for a while, and it's a huge improvement. However, cars are much to vulnerable to bullets and fire from enemy NPCs (like military in Darkscape). To make some changes to the overall resistance to bullets in the cars would also be much welcomed. It's not exactly realistic that the whole car blows up after being hit by a few bullets anyway. :)
No update needed for Extended Weather v0.21
Eh, where can we download Extended Weather 0.21? :) Just did a google search, but nothing showed up...
Update was released through the Lost Alpha launcher.
OK, thanks! (Duh..)
Sorry to ask that stupid question but is Extended Weather another mod and when yes where to get it.
Mods tab of the Lost Alpha launcher
Updated for Extended Weather v0.22
-Weather after blowout changed to Clear(la_clear) to match Extended Weather v0.22
Is the weather following a Markov chain?
I had to look up what a Markov chain is so I'm not 100% sure but I'm going to give that tentative yes.
So, I recently played LA V1.4007. I *quickly* got tired of grey weather, so installed this mod; I *don't* have Extended Weather installed, so I installed better_weather_vanilla.
Sadly, it doesn't appear to do *anything* !! I had 90% grey weather throughout the game... very disappointing. Is there something else I can do, to make this mod work?
The only other mod that I installed, which *might* have been related to this, is the M97 patch... is it possible that M97 conflicted with your mod somehow?
Later note: I started a new game, and changed BETTER_WEATHER_CHANCE to 6, and at least initially, it appears to have reduced the probability of grey days to something that I can tolerate!!
sqparadox one thing I noticed, not sure you can fix it. It still does rain some (light rain), but has the chance to light rain during sunny days, this doesn't seem to fit. Is it possible to not make it rain when the weather is "sunny" ?
Not quite sure what you mean.
If you mean that it rains while the sun is shining (rain with a sunny sky texture) that would likely be controlled by the individual weathers (gamedata/config/weather). I might be able to fix it but I wouldn't know where to begin.
If you mean that the "good" weather period has a chance to rain than yes, that can be fixed. Under Extended Weather 0.22 the "very good" period includes af_clear, la_clear, and la_sunny. The "good" period adds wtc_clear, la_dully, af_partly, and la_rain. Vanilla also has af_cloudy, af_foggy, and af_rain but not wtc_clear (there is no "very good" period in vanilla).
Any of those could be edited to change the chance of that weather type or even removed completely. This is all at the bottom of gamedata/config/lost_alpha/lost_alpha_cfg.ltx (note: the weights for each weather are not percentages).
I haven't wanted to change that file because it's rather important, covering some very diverse settings, not just weather, thus increasing the likelihood of mod conflicts. This is why I chose to weight periods instead. I suppose I could include it as an optional addon.
Sorry late reply sqparadox. Yes, I do believe the situation is more towards this:
"If you mean that it rains while the sun is shining (rain with a sunny sky texture) that would likely be controlled by the individual weathers (gamedata/config/weather). I might be able to fix it but I wouldn't know where to begin."
But again, I guess if it could be "fixed" via this way as well:
"If you mean that the "good" weather period has a chance to rain than yes, that can be fixed. "
So in "lost_alpha_cfg," you can safely comment out an entire line? Have you tried that? When you mention weights are not percentages, I see the equation under the header as an example does show %, can you elaborate?
Thanks for the response, appreciate it.
I think I know the weather you are talking about, light rain with a partly cloudy sky.
You could use the Weather Editor. I haven't done much with it myself but I believe it edits the current weather, so next time that weather occurs open up the console and type "weather_editor". One (or more) of those sliders will increase cloud cover.
Can you safely comment out an entire line in lost_alpha_cfg.ltx? Probably not, though it would depend on which line. Likely that would cause scripts to look for data that isn't there, possibly glitching, possibly erroring or even crashing. Taking out entries, like removing "la_dully, 15," should be fine.
I say the weights are not percentages because they do not have to total 100. They effectively act like percentages but reading them that way is misleading. For example "la_dully, 15" in the good period has an 8.1% chance, not 15%.
First thx for the addon it really helps when you are tired of too much bad weather. But I still would like to have more rain and storm between good weather. Which file/game archive I need to unpack for edit to get a higher chance for storms/rain while still having a higher chance for sunny weather?
Are you running Extended Weather or vanilla?
Extended weather 0.22
Most of the info you need is in my above reply to LiquidBronze. You'll need to edit gamedata/config/lost_alpha/lost_alpha_cfg.ltx.
Go to the bottom and lower the numbers next to af_rain, af_cloudy, af_foggy, etc. in the "bad" and "very_bad" periods to decrease the chance of that weather type. You can also just remove any of the weather types you don't want to see or turn up the weights on the types you do want to see.
Since you are running extended weather, you'll need the version out of that: Dropbox.com
If you need to unpack it yourself in the future, this converter works for unpacking/packing .xdb files and the gamedata.db files (page is in Russian, the converter is in english):
Bit.ly (have to use a url shortener as moddb doesn't like the russian in the url)
It's a command line utility but there are examples in English on that page, including unpacking .xdb files.
Hello ez jó az 1.005 verzióhoz?????
I can't get it to stop raining. If it stops, it starts up again in like 5 mins. I am playing vanilla, with the vanilla script. I turned up probability of good weather from 4 to 5, then to 6, and it's still raining all the time. This is my second playthrough. I played before with extension weather, and this mod, and it worked great (without any adjustments to the settings). What am I doing wrong?
I noticed the Extended Weather got updated to v0.40; where does that leave this mod?
now its on 0.43... any infos somewhere?
Playing with CGIM`s Weather Mod^^
*All Infos about most mods like Ext. Weather on the Launcher are in russian...
I guess the only way is to unpack both mods with Dead Air unpacker, and compare the files.
Does this work on Lost Alpha 1.30000, 1.30001, 1.30002 and 1.30003?
Where i must add it ?