homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War Wind direction

And this, was also my interpretation of wind direction. So, if the mission brief reads "Wind 270 degrees" or I would make a mission and set "270" as wind direction I would make sure my heading was also 270 on finals since the wind would then be blowing from that direction towards me right?

Well, wrong if you are flying RoF! It seems wind direction in RoF is where the wind is blowing to! I tested this yesterday in a sample mission with 15 m/s and wind direction 0 (due north). When I lined up the aircraft due south I could take-off without problems, not the other way around!

This explains why I had so many difficult landings and ran into a shed more than once!

Anyone else realised this or am I overlooking something very obvious here?

No, you're not overlooking anything and you haven't realised anything the Developers haven't already commented on

WHY they've gone with this approach, I have no idea. They just have, but it's nothing new that you've discovered, sorry!

Whe wondered about that to, when we was flown a mission where the mission maker was flying with us. The wind came from the opposite directory from where he set it in the mission editor...

EDIT: Oh, masaq I also didn`t realised that is allready known...

Yes, all directions giving in aviation are where you are flying to, except the wind.

Well it was new to me, so it will make my (simflying) life much easier now!

That may be the reason they did it. They unified all directional data to simplify calculations. Yet it's awkward and violates the convention of course.

So basically, you need to takeoff or land into the Larger end of the windsock in RoF correct? Instead of taking-off or landing into the Small end, as in real life.

Did not know this, will help in the mission editor.

Is it being corrected?

The windsock doesn't work, does it? It didn't used to. Pardon me if it has been fixed; I'm still trying to get the sim to run without being a slideshow and haven't noticed the windsock lately.

Nope. Unfortenately, the windsock doesn't work yet, they use default directions for the airfield group of objects. You will have to read the mission brief to find out the wind direction.

The annoying thing is, that if the mission description just says "wind direction 270" you are not sure if it actually means "90 degrees". if a mission is made by Neoqb it does, but if a clever mission designer would use the normal convention it IS the true wind direction...

Perhaps all of us mission designers will have to be more specific from now on and use the words "the wind is blowing from ..."

"the wind is blowing from ..."

'Wind direction: east' means that the wind is blowing from the west in RoF's France

"wind direction 270"

Means wind blowing from 90

You're right Vanderstock, the mission designer can work around this so there is consistency. Because the mission designer knows which way the wind is blowing, being the one who sets it

It is madness but we're stuck with it unfortunately.

Ming

LOL, it pays to be ignorant some of the time.

I always assumed that an "Easterly" wind is travelling to the east, not from the east.

The windsock issue grates on me; it's the one ground control item that would seem to be intuitively critical to code correctly.

I'm not even asking for it to droop with airspeed - I just want it to weathervane.

Yep, if the windsock would work, we wouldn't even have this discussion!

Wouldn't it be nice if windspeed/direction would also vary with time & location? <-me dreaming

Well. it was news to me.

AND, in Masaq'a T&T server briefings you NEVER see the wind direction or speed briefed.

That is an essential piece of information T&T is ignoring in its briefings. Kinda helps with takeoffs and landings, especially since the RoF wind socks are inoperable.

Of course, very few players actually land in T&T. They fight to the death -- refugees from IL2's childish DF arenas

So, T&T doesn't have it right, either.

HT

When devs were asked about the windsock long ago, they said something about it's physics being complicated and the rag being very CPU-demanding if done right.
They could've made two animations (strong wind, weak wind), and then turn the sock like a compass. No physics, pure modeling. Alas..

Interesting, when you use the simplified gauges, they give you the wind direction and its relative strength with the blue arrows around the compass.

It SEEMS that's the direction the wind is blowing from.

But I haven't used those instruments since the first weeks of flying RoF and I could be wrong. Anyway, it does show the wind direction and force.

Point is: If they can build in the arrows in the simplified gauges they certainly can build in a wind sock that works. It ain't rocket science.

HT

Hehehe, well I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this too. Doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me though since I have no sense of direction anyway; I regularly get "spacially disorientated" in supermarkets, for example....and even the "Isle No. 1" reference point I noted cannot save me

Besides, hairy cross wind landings in storms are fun, whats the matter with you?

Seriously though, I think they will probably fix this in future. I wouldn't think the windsock needs a complex physics model, should be easy enough to do. Then again, I would have thought those "Shimmering Spinach Sunsets" at low alt would have been easy enough to fix too. (ATI here so I can't use Nhancer) They are beginning to get on me t*ts.

But we live in hope.

Hehe never trust windsocks !

My father found that out the hard way when he did his first flights at Berlin - kids hat bound stones to the windsocks, to see "their" crates and aviators flying

Greetings,
Catfish

There is also the option of not using a windsock, but using a smoke barrel, or laying out lights/panels to form a triangle or arrow indicating the current/prevailing wind.

This might be easier to animate 'quickly' and well.

Double quoting myself from another thread:

Yes there is an issue with the RoF mission editor as well as the pre-made misions with respect to wind direction. (yes - we've made sure that the devs know) I would ask all mission builders to pay attention to the following comments, and anyone who takes the time to read mission descriptions and briefings before they fly.

Quoting myself in another thread:

"Another important point for mission builders to understand is that the RoF Mission Editor wind directions are the opposite of the standard convention.

Experienced simmers (and pilots) would expect that setting a wind direction of 144 and a landing direction of 144 would result in landing with a headwind, however in the RoF ME you must use the reciprocal course with this editor.

In the example above with a landing direction of 144, you would have to set the wind direction in the Mission Editor to 324 degrees to produce a headwind. You also need to remember to write the mission description/weather briefing using the reciprocal of the wind direction value which you specified in the editor. Also, if building a mission using real world reported wind directions, you can't just plug those values in the the Mission Editor either as they will be opposite that which they actually were.

In summary, for a Mission Editor wind direction of 001-180 add 180, for 181-360 subtract 180 and use the results for wind directions."


The thread this came from includes the details on how to set AI landing directions (so they land into the wind) and is posted over here: http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=2264&start=0


Additionally, you may have noticed that the wind socks currently are not functional in RoF. Because of this I always place an aerostat/balloon at the bases. The aerostats are well done in their responses to wind direction. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long for neoqb to fix the windsocks, as well as correcting the wind directions in briefings, and ideally in the mission editor as well so that we no longer have to calculate reciprocal values.

Well, the info was out there is what I meant - not that this was a scoop on the issue, apologies if it came off as smug.

With regards to the missions on T&T - I think three of the missions we host were actually designed by T&T members (and yes, they're missing accurate weather information). The others were not created by us and some of them do have wind direction I believe, and some don't. I'm not responsible for editing others' missions and would consider it pretty rude to do so unless I've been given permission by the mission's creator to modify for our purposes.

Also: we're not responsible for the DF-esque behaviour of players. If people want to go out and brawl until they die, that's their problem. Me, I'll always run home the second my engine gets hit or I'm torn up badly.

T&T have said several times that we prefer co-op style mission play on our server, and that is what all of our missions would be geared for, given the opportunity. As there is currently no DF mode available for those who want it, in the interests of giving *all* RoF players a good online experience we've included those dogfighty missions.


What's more - given that until last week most of our missions were showing no briefing at all due to a bug with RoF itself - getting them updated to show weather info would have been pretty pointless. It was only after about two hour's work in the mission editor and testing things out on the server itself that I was able to get briefings to load properly again.

Yes, in time, we'll have a full set of (hopefully) realistic-style missions with lovely atmospheric briefings and no bugs. Until then, you're gunna have to accept that right now we have enough of an issue ensuring that the server is running correctly and that we even have *any* new missions to play, ever, because frankly that Mission Editor is as easy to work with as my ex

Masaq,

Please understand this really is a just a tiny peep of a complaint. Your server is by a few light years the best available.

I only raise the issue because in some of the T&T missions there appears to be considerable wind at the aerodrome and it sure would be helpful to know where it is coming from (or going to in RoFese). I've done some very hairy crosswind takeoffs, a few ending up in the trees

I, too, hope Neoqb hurries designing some DF servers so those of us who much prefer coops can play real organized missions.

S!

HT