Sandbox Weather Almanac

[Ape88]

So I think the whiteout challenge is great, for those who want an increased sense of impending doom, but surely it should be possible (though perhaps rare) to find in a regular sandbox, a weather almanac. Too often I've played in voyager mode (still don't consider myself ready for stalker as those wolves are difficult enough to evade in voyager) and had plans to go out and get wood, or hunt, or fish, but as soon as I wake up I hear the worst possible thing outside and when I peek outside to check if it's just windy, there is a full blown blizzard going on, visibility is nil and it's so cold that I'm sure even the best quality crafted clothing won't keep me warm. The situation becomes even more grim when I realize I need to eat and there is little to no food apart from herbal tea and coffee. If I'm in the Mystery Lake map, it's not that big of a deal so long as I am at the camp office as even in poor visibility it isn't too difficult to find one of the fishing huts if one is careful not to get misdirected. However, anywhere else can spell player death. An almanac would be useful, and I'm sure in an area like the one we find ourselves in, it wouldn't be too strange a find. Perhaps it would be best found in one of the prepper bunkers or locations like the camp office, or the lookouts. Again, it could be a rare find if devs think it would make the game too easy.

What do you think?

When I think of an almanac, I think of the calendar in the whiteout challenge that tells us when and how likely a storm is on a particular day and the farmers almanac that is sold in the US.

[Dirmagnos]

It would be grand if you would also post what this almanac is supposed to do. I assume allowing player to predict weather with some degree of success.

[EternityTide]

I was under the impression that yes/no polls were banned by forum convention... I may very well be wrong, however.

Regardless, I'm not sure how a weather almanac could be used. In conjunction with a barometer, perhaps, but alone, Almanacs are not especially trustworthy.

Books on weather that increase a skill to maximise weather endurance ( that is, the ability to reduce the effect of the weather on your status) would be interesting, perhaps unlocking comments by the character that aids in weather prediction (e.g. "hmm, looks like a bank of fog rolling in" or "I think the wind might be picking up").

[Ape88]

EternityTide, wasn't aware of any such rule, but maybe there is and I forgot. If so, oops.

What I was thinking is that it could be like the almanac/calendar in the Whiteout Challenge, where we would have a somewhat accurate (at least better than just looking at the sky and guessing) way of knowing whether or not we should be prepping hardcore for bad weather or have the leeway to spend some time just exploring or researching or crafting stuff. I hate it when I decide that today is the day I can spend all day finishing up those buckskin pants and then the next day I am stuck inside because of the weather.

Though your idea also has merit too. We just need something to help us predict weather. I'm not sure audio cues would be the best way to go about it though as there are players that rely on the information that is visible. Maybe if we had a book on weather, and maybe some sort of tool as well that would be required. A barometer or something and depending on our skill level, we could get a certain chance of being right when predicting the weather using that tool? I didn't even think of that until you suggested what you did.

[Fuarian]

Since the world is dealing with the impending apocalypse due to a geomagnetic disaster that wouldn't work. Since it affects weather patterns and changes them.

[EternityTide]

1 hour ago, Fuarian said:

Since the world is dealing with the impending apocalypse due to a geomagnetic disaster that wouldn't work. Since it affects weather patterns and changes them.

Err, no. Weather is driven by heat, atmospheric pressure, local geography and hydrology. Geomagnetic storms don't do anything beyond ionise gases in the extreme upper atmosphere (we are talking exosphere/thermosphere), causing the aurora.

The geomagnetic event catches a lot of things, from dodgy compasses to non-hibernating bears, but weather is something completely unrelated to the state of the earth's magnetic field, in the short run, anyway.

[Dirmagnos]

17 hours ago, EternityTide said:

Err, no. Weather is driven by heat, atmospheric pressure, local geography and hydrology. Geomagnetic storms don't do anything beyond ionise gases in the extreme upper atmosphere (we are talking exosphere/thermosphere), causing the aurora.

The geomagnetic event catches a lot of things, from dodgy compasses to non-hibernating bears, but weather is something completely unrelated to the state of the earth's magnetic field, in the short run, anyway.

Geomagnetic storms cause a lot of things, including changes in weather. One of the theories regarding climate changes is due to increased/decreased solar activity. Since were talking about tremendous forces those changes are extremely slow, but have a lot of momentum.

Not to mention that meteorology and other fields related to weather prediction are pretty much hokum, a guessing game.

[EternityTide]

33 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

Geomagnetic storms cause a lot of things, including changes in weather. Not to mention that meteorology and other fields related to weather prediction are pretty much hokum, a guessing game.

Ok, first of all, I would like a source to back that statement up

Quote

One of the theories regarding climate changes is due to increased/decreased solar activity. Since were talking about tremendous forces those changes are extremely slow, but have a lot of momentum

And that theory is correct, in a small part, as there has been some correlations drawn between global temperature and solar activity, However, solar activity is no more active in recent years than it was in the 1950s, yet since then global temperatures have spiked dramatically, indicating another driving factor, found to be the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Quote

Not to mention that meteorology and other fields related to weather prediction are pretty much hokum, a guessing game.

That is your opinion, and I invite you, yet again, to provide a source that backs up that statement, however the increasing complexity of weather prediction models means that precise predictions, far into the future, are not going to be as accurate as you would want. The things is, when the weather forecast is correct, nobody thinks anything of it, but when it is wrong, people remember it as being wrong, so the number of times it was right get forgotten, and people only remember the times it failed, and because of this,  the mistaken belief that the forecast is always wrong is perpetuated. 
I can assure you, however, that weather prediction is far from a guessing game, but predicting a solid outcome out of a chaotic system, with only the limited scope of todays weather data on hand, is nigh impossible. instead, meteorologists rely on statistics and complex mathematical models, and by invoking statistics, you automatically have an uncertainty. Go have a look a the science behind weather prediction, you'll see it is far from hokum.

[Ape88]

Hehe, Dirmagnos, yeah, I mean, how often is the weatherman 100 percent correct about the weather in a general area especially when you're looking as far as a week out. However, a day in advance can be fair, which leads credence to the idea that maybe we could have a skill and a tool to help predict weather for the next 24 hours if not longer.

IRL, coastal regions especially have it hard because there is less data to go by as the systems they use only reach so far past the coastline. But the weather prediction are acceptably accurate when looking at a day or two in advance. Weather prediction is by no means perfect, but usually, if there's a forecast for a HUGE storm tomorrow, it happens. So maybe scrap the idea about an almanac, and just put in a way to tell tomorrow's weather. That would be satisfactory because knowing to prep for a storm in survival conditions would increase chances of long term survival which we just don't have right now.

[Ohbal]

Guys, remember that we are not talking about watching the weather guy on TV  

The Almanac idea, while I've suggested a few times it could work in the sandbox, I can't avoid thinking about the gamey factor of it. Besides, I don't think anything written before the geomagnetic storm would have the level of accuracy we would need for it to be useful. 

For the sake of brainstorming, I'm going to try to give it a twist with the stuff you guys have been mentioning (I really liked @EternityTide's approach... but let me make a disclaimer first: I don't have the slightest idea about how to predict weather, so none of the below will be aiming for realism. 
 

On 7/9/2016 at 7:42 PM, EternityTide said:

Regardless, I'm not sure how a weather almanac could be used. In conjunction with a barometer, perhaps, but alone, Almanacs are not especially trustworthy.

Books on weather that increase a skill to maximise weather endurance ( that is, the ability to reduce the effect of the weather on your status) would be interesting, perhaps unlocking comments by the character that aids in weather prediction (e.g. "hmm, looks like a bank of fog rolling in" or "I think the wind might be picking up").

I really like how these things could expand into a nice feature/mechanic. 

For starters, we would need some equipment: barometer, whatever could work for science (see disclaimer). 

So, once (if) we get these items, then we could start our own almanac of the end of the world. Player would have to actively do something with the equipment and within days with certain pecualirities (clear day, foggy, windy, blizzard...). to advance into a weather prediction skill. The more you practice with climate changes and transitions, the better you get at the guessing game. This skill should never allow to exactly predict what's going to happen during the whole day, but it could be helpful to predict which could be the following weather transitions. 

PS: the ability to reduce the effect of the weather... I do not like it that much. We already have the feats for that  

[Dirmagnos]

@EternityTide There has been rather high solar solar activity, particularly sun spots in last 50 years, compared to 100 years prior to that. 17th century Small Ice Age coincides with extremely low solar activity on that point. And yeah, in 50s there has been a lot of activity, its considered modern maximum. And since weather doesnt change instantly it also may have played its role in what we have today.

And 2 degrees increase is not really "dramatic spike", considered that it didnt occur instantly.

Also whole theory about CO2 being main driving factor behind "global warming" dosnt really have much basis either. Its just been widely advertised, similar to many other pseudo facts, that is rather popular nowadays, especially in western world. Not a single prediction model, based on CO2 emission, have been even remotely accurate in predicting climate changes, yet its still advertised as truth.

As as as science goes, no1 really knows for sure what is going on with climate or what is causing it, instead we got scam artists like Al Gore who preach doomstay on every corner and makes boatload of cash off it. Most of climatologists say that there is just not enough data to say one way or another. Most likely its a combination of various factors, but what factors, how they correlate and to what extend they affect climate is unknown.

So compared to CO2 myth(or at least theory, because thats all it is at best), sun is known and documented to have effect of weather.

@Ape88 I hate summer, its warm, its sunny, its humid and all-round unpleasant. As result i watch weather forecast every day, sometimes multiple times, from 3 different sources(yr.no , noaa.gov , wunderground.com) and aside extremely generic "partially cloudy" they tend to fail a lot. For example just yday all predictions were for mild, again, partially cloudy warm weather with a bit of rain we got completely clear, not a single cloud whole day, weather that resulted in hot day and cold night. And it happens more often than not and im at least 100 km from nearest coast. At least its getting colder day by day so my life(and health) is getting better.

But yeah, youre right on major events like storms, part. Basically most accurate forecast is "weather will happen".

@Ohbal Things like barometer could actually be interesting, allowing for short-term, but fairly accurate predictions. So, before skinning that deer player may take a look at what is coming towards him and after he learns what sudden drop of barometric pressure means it may make life a bit easier. Its still not 100%, but reliable enough to make a difference.

I remember when i almost died when i got greedy and decided to skin that particular deer with just 3 hours on daylight left - normally i try to have at least 2 hours buffer for heading home, but in this particular situation i thought that 2 hours on deer and just 1 hour for a walk home would be enough... ended up in a blizzard with next to zero visibility and barely survived that night by sitting is some hole(not even a cave, just small indentation that provided some wind protection) at the base of the cliff till storm passed, barely survived.