Live Weather & Forecasting

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Live Weather & Forecasting

 

Overview

 

The current weather system, while practically functional, was not always realistic. Weather could jump from a clear sky and a sunny day to a storm and back all in the range of an hour. To combat this, and provide players with some more roleplay opportunities around the weather, we have decided to move in the direction of a live weather system.

 

With the new system, weather is now split into three zones:

Los Santos, Sandy Shores and Paleto Bay

 

The weather in each zone is based on their real-life counterpart, accordingly:

Los Angeles, Desert Shores and Morro Bay

 

What does having the weather split into three zones mean in practice? Well, weather will change as the player travels through the map. A set of rules and functions have been put in place to make the transition from one weather to another as smooth as possible, though unfortunately it might still be noticed in very extreme transitions. Given all three places are in the same state however, we do not expect heavy variations.

 

 

A full overview of the changes:

 

• Thanks to @zoephix, the phone weather app has been updated to show the hourly weather in all three places, along with a 3-day forecast. Players can now use the phone weather app to determine what the weather might be like in the future, hopefully providing some more roleplay around organizing in-character events.
• /weather command has also been adjusted to show the temperature, wind speed and humidity at the player's zone (LS, SS, or PB). The command will also give an estimated feel like temperature depending on the player's elevation (those hunting, camping, etc. in the mountain).
• If raining, the rain intensity will change depending on the average rain precipitation for that hour. If it is a light rain, then it will also be a light rain in-game. If raining along all three zones, rain intensity will change as the player travels through from one zone to another. Puddles may remain on the ground when moving from a rain to no-rain zone, unfortunately this is a GTA5 limitation we could not go around of.
• Zone weather blends together as you move from one area to another -- traveling on the highway will probably create for a noticeable change in the sky.
• Cloud size & opacity will also change as the player moves from one place in the map to another.

 

While we have tried our best to make the transitions as smooth as possible, they can only be perfected with time, so please bear with us as we try to find the right balance.

 

 

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