Weather modeling in Harpoon Classic

The IRC Chat sessions in #HarpGamer often produce interesting and useful information as seen below:

Q: Weather. What was done about it? Is there now a better model in place?

A: Sea state from weather now has an impact on sonar modeling.

[Participant Comment: I remember sailing litte boats into storms with no effect whatsoever.]

Q: Is the starting time/date still the same that you have on your PC clock?

A: No, HCGold fixed time/date. We also got Night/Day/Morning/Evening to work and affect visual detection. Find the current date/time of day in these terms in the Weather Report.

Thanks to all who participated in this informative discussion. Also, please know that these are open chats and all are welcome. The balance of the conversation is summarized below:

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Summary of Weather as Currently Modeled in HC:

Weather affects Sea State

Weather model includes a Precip number

Weather model includes a Visibility number

Weather model includes an Alert number

Weather impacts groups within 330 some odd miles of the ramdomly generated roving weather symbol center, by applying a weather modifier to those aspects of the game it is designed to affect:

if within 25nm, max precipitation and the only sector where ESM suffers

if within 50nm, less precip

if within 100nm, lesser precip again

if within 150nm, same precip as 100nm but general modifier is less severe

Precip affects Visibility, Radar, IR, and ESM

Precip values are 0 to 3.

Only heaviest precip, (3), cuts down ESM.

IR and Visual detection degrade with each sector change above

Weather groups are randomly created.

Alert variable stores the strength of the storm.

Length of the lines from the hub of the roving storm icon is indicative of the strength.

Weather groups move from 17 to 23 knots.

The weather group grows or reduces in intensity randomly.

Each weather group (or storm) has roughly a 72 hours life cycle give or take.

Every 12 hours storms are either upgraded, downgraded, created, or killed off.

Weather is evaluated and updated for it's effect on local game units every 5 game minutes.