American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Gentlemen,
has anyone of you tried to applied the weather lines that are provided by various Old Banshee's Weather Mods to the current(3.0) PDT & scenario files?
Just wonder if it is as "easy" as it sounds.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Don't know anything about Old Banshee's mods but most of the 3.0 versions have pdt's with weather lines.
The ones I don't see any weather pdt's for are
Gettysburg
Penninsula
Vicksburg
Corinth
Ozark

As to adding weather lines or changing the pdt file for a scenario you'll find tips at the Engineering Department
http://acwgc-engineering.com/

Look at PDT Files Explained to find the location of the Weather Lines in the pdt.
and look at Using the Scenario Editor for an explanation of how to edit a scenario and change the pdt file used without have to create one from scratch.

All you really need is a plain text editor, you can use Notepad although I use an old version of Textpad because I am familar with it having used it for 20+ years.
As long as you follow the instructions and load the file and rename it before changing anything you don't have to worry about messing up the stock files.

_________________
Gen. Ken Miller



The McKeesport Union Guard

3/1/II
AotP

Thanks, I assume if I want to add weather to an old PDT I would have to raise the version number to at least 5 or higher.
In the case of Campaign Peninsula PDTs are version 3.
So I would not only have to add weather lines but also values for Max bridge value, Bridge repair value and night movement fatigue.
Easiest seems to me to use Campaign Shenandoah values, and maybe right away go the the latest PDT version and add all missing values.
Shenandoah seems from time and geography close enough that all missing values, except the specific weather liens, could be taken from it.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Sorry for taking so long but I wanted to verify this would work before I answered your question.
I opened Corinth.pdt, saved as Corinth_test.pdt.
Changed the version to 8
Copied Overland2.pdt data from Line 6 to the end.
Removed all of the weather lines except 4
Modified those for the correct date and time, setting probability at 100% and visibility at 40-50-60-70
Opened 02hist_Corinth-full, renamed it !!test.scn and saved, the changed pdt to Corinth_test.pdt.
When I opened this scenario in the Main Engine I saw the weather line with visibility 40 hexes.
Advanced turn and got 50 hexes, next turn 60 and finally 70.
I got curious and tried setting visibility to 75 hexes and got 70 so currently that is the max day turn visibility.

Hope this answers your question.
And now I have to find the time to update the Engineering site with this info so I don't have to answer this one again.

_________________
Gen. Ken Miller



The McKeesport Union Guard

3/1/II
AotP

Many thanks for your work.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

I did all the weather mods for Old Banshee back in the day, for most of the games on Ken's list above, except Corinth. I wasn't sure how many folks were using them since both sides had to have the pdt files for HTH. I think the variable weather makes the games so much more interesting.

22dec2020 Edit: I made the pitch to JTS to get the weather mod to these titles. I'll let you know what happens.

_________________
Brigadier General Richard Simonitch
1st Brigade, 2nd Division
VI Corps, AoS

[quote="simovitch"]I think I would do them again but only for the official stock JTS games. Meaning JTS would have to contact me to do it for them as an official patch. Gratis of course.[/quote]
Please reconsider this approach, I see a lot external stuff being added to the PC series but afaik this stuff was done beforehand and not somehow "order" by JTS, only when finished JTS decided to integrate them into patches.

I think doing weather versions for the scenarios of the current patch level of our series will surely lead to JTS adding them. At least wouldn't see a reason why not, especially if games like Petersburg purposely do weather & none weather versions right from the start. This way all games could have a load of weather & none weather scenarios and everyone can play what type he likes, not to speak of the massive expansion of scenarios those titles have.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

Why not contact JTS Support and see what can be done.

_________________
General Ernie Sands
President ACWGC -Sept 2015- Dec 2020
7th Brigade, 1st Division, XVI Corps, AoT
ACWGC Records Site Admin

"If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there."

Just wandered into this conversation. Hadn't been to the Scenario Center in a while.

The game engine is too generous in its treatment of night "movement" (or lack thereof) as to what actually occurred during the Civil War. This is well known to anybody reading this, or perhaps every member of the ACWGC. This leads -- at least in MP games in which I participate, or perhaps one-on-one encounters across the board -- to agreed rules for night movement. Clumsy often, but necessary.

The weather lines in a PDT can be utilized to mitigate at least some of the problem. Road movement is unaffected be it hurricane, volcano, or swarm of locusts. Such it has always been. But, if one considers darkness a "weather" condition, a significant dent can be made in off-road movement at night. Measured against the fatigue accumulation, one must determine whether it is worth the effort.

Changing the weather lines in a given PDT, one can up the ante for off-road movement. If weather is clear in the first night turn (100), double it to (200). If there is actual weather involved -- rain, for example -- then the cost would be greater.

Does this address the problem of night movement? Not completely, but it is a consideration.

_________________
MG Robert Frost

I am working with JTS to update and supplement the weather mods to those games that do not have them. I'll look at modifying the night movement as well but not without seeking input from the club in this forum. The Old Banshee mods needed to be reworked for the new file structure and pdt development. I will prepare the mods for all 5 games that do not have them.

Besides having many war diaries and soldier accounts available on line and my own access to Shelby Foote's volumes, I recently purchased a fantastic reference called "The Howling Storm" by Kenneth Noe which includes an analysis of the weather and atmospheric conditions throughout the entire course of the war. So even if I don't have the actual weather for hypothetical battle, this book will more or less track regional weather systems through trans-Mississippi - Ozarks - Mississippi basin - Eastern theater throughout the 4 years of campaigning.

These mods will be produced for and released by JTS.

_________________
Brigadier General Richard Simonitch
1st Brigade, 2nd Division
VI Corps, AoS

Sounds great, looking forward!

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

[quote="simovitch"]I did all the weather mods for Old Banshee back in the day, for most of the games on Ken's list above, except Corinth. I wasn't sure how many folks were using them since both sides had to have the pdt files for HTH. I think the variable weather makes the games so much more interesting.

22dec2020 Edit: I made the pitch to JTS to get the weather mod to these titles. I'll let you know what happens.[/quote]

Following up on this, you may have noticed by now that all the JTS ACW games that did not have weather scenarios before now have them included with the new updates.

_________________
Brigadier General Richard Simonitch
1st Brigade, 2nd Division
VI Corps, AoS

Great addition!
Didn't have the time to check them so thanks for the information.

_________________
Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."