I set up a one-hour race with two weather slots (light rain-storm) and normal progression for both time & weather. The storm never came and the whole race took place under light rain. Then I set up a 15-minute race with 4 weather slots. Again, only the first slot appeared. Finally, I set up the same 15-minute race with 4 weather slots and 10x speed for both weather and time. This time, the second weather slot appeared after about 7 minutes and the third was appearing when the race ended. I expected the number of weather slots to be evenly divided along the race length, but apparently it is not so. It seems each weather slot has a fixed time – which, based on my one-hour race, exceeds one hour, and based on the 10x multiplier, would be around 70 minutes. Is that correct? If so, it would be pointless to have 4 slots for a race in real time, unless it last over 4 hours. Am I missing something here? (Incidentally, (a) the transitions are beautiful; (b) windshield wipers are not working yet; and (c) the AI is very slow on wet track – times were similar on dry, but I gained 5 seconds per lap with rain.)
Interesting. Partly because of the lack of wipers I haven't run a wet weather race yet. If the weather follows how it works in PC2, when set to real time, the weather slots define the weather at hourly intervals. So if you have a 1 hour race with 2 slots, the weather should be as the first slot at the start and the second slot at the end. When the weather changes is random. It can change 15 minutes into the race or it can change 45 minutes into the race. This is one of the features I really like about the Madness engine. It combines both some predictability (we have weather forecasts - its rare we have no idea of what the weather will do) with the unpredictability of weather. It sounds like its not working. or working differently. I will try a 1 hour race with 2 slots in the next day or so to see if I have the same problem.
it even says that in the tooltip 1hr inrervals. Synch to race will cycle through all the slots throughout the race, eg. 4 slots in 1hr will give 15mins each.
Technically they are not 15 minute slots but the weather is defined at the start of the race, 20 minutes into the race, 40 minutes into the race and at the end of a race. Effectively the weather is accelerated by 3 times, not the 2x you might instinctively think. So having 3 slots accelerates the weather by 2. With accelerated weather the rain will be harder and the subsequent drying will be faster.
You can race in weather. The windshield will be cleared by invisible wipers, because the animation doesn't work, yet.
Thank you all! That was very informative. I failed to see the "Sync to Race" option. I would like to have an option to completely randomize the weather (including the number of slots) based on the probability of rain - which could be set with a slider, for example. That would make it actually unpredictable, as in real life.
