E2150 - Weather
The weather in Earth 2150 is dynamic and can actively influence the gameplay. Various weather effects can happen due to being scripted by gamemode/campaign designers, console commands, or player actions (LC's Weather Control Center). The weather effects available in the game are as follows: snow, rain, wind, thunderstorm and meteor rain. Thunderstorm usually happen along with rains (although it is possible to have a thunderstorm without a rain).
Day and night cycle
The time of the day in game is dynamic and there are days and nights, just like in real life. Those cycles are not just visual feature, as they affect gameplay - the vision at night is limited and it is harder to spot enemy structures/units (unless they have lights turned on), obviously the LC solar power is affected, and additionally, the temperature changes during day and night.
The entire in-game 24h can be divided into 4 phases:
- dawn (06:40 AM - 09:00 AM)
- day (09:00 AM - 05:00 PM)
- twilight (05:00 PM - 07:45 PM)
- night (07:45 PM - 06:40 AM)
You may notice that the night is longer than the day and the actual ratio is 9:7. The entire 24h period is ~819s of real time ~= 13,65 minutes.
Clouds
Although not visible, the clouds are there and they actually matter. The game calculates clouds on the sky, that come along with weather effects such as rain or snow. Those clouds later affect solar efficiency of LC's solar power plants.
Snow
Snow is an effect that can reduce sight range of an object within its range, by 1. Sight range is calculated in 4x4 square areas so it virtually reduces sight range by 4 tiles - same as the night does.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 50% to cast this effect, what takes 7,5 minutes. The effect lasts in range of 30 tiles, for 2m10s, with 1m40s at full intensity.
Rain
Rain is an effect that can reduce movement speed of all units in its area. Being in the area of rains effect, doubles the time a unit needs to move by 1 square, which is the same penalty as a unit may get if moving at night with lights off. Thus a unit with lights off, at night and in rain will move 3x slower.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 50% to cast this effect, what takes 7,5 minutes. The effect lasts in range of 30 tiles, for 2m10s, with 1m40s at full intensity.
Wind
Wind is a global effect that affects the movement speed of all air units. If strong enough (12 m/s or more), it triples the time an air unit needs to move by 1 square. It can also prevent a landed unit from taking off, although it doesn't affect resupplying ammo when the suppliers are seemingly landing for ammo in supply centers' docking bays. Taking all possible penalties into account, an air unit without lights, at night, rain and wind, would move 5x slower. Wind has a global range (works on entire level). If it is created by WCC, its direction is determined by the vector between WCC building and click location. Multiple wind effects stack, so two WCCs could create 2 wind effects in opposite direction, which would effectively void the wind effect. The stacked wind speed is capped at 15 m/s. Wind can also move clouds, shifting weather effects, although it is not too significant.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 50% to cast this effect, what takes 7,5 minutes. The effect lasts for 1m30s, with 1m at full intensity.
Thunderstorm
Thunderstorm spawns lightnings on the area, that damage and destroy units and buildings. The lightnings are more likely to hit targets that are placed higher, what can make it worth to build structures in the vicinity of higher terrain. Unless spawned with console command, thunderstorms always come with rain effect.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 100% to cast this effect, what takes 15 minutes. The effect lasts in range of 30 tiles, for 1m30s, with 1m at full intensity.
For technical details, see a dedicated site.
Meteor rain
Meteors are another destructive weather effect, which similarly to thunderstorm hits multiple targets at the area it happens. Meteors are stronger however, since they don't get intercepted by higher elements, they deal AOE damage and cannot be canceled with Weather Control Center.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 100% to cast this effect, what takes 15 minutes. The effect lasts in range of 30 tiles, for 1m30s, with 1m at full intensity.
For technical details, see a dedicated site.
Clearing effects
All weather effects end after a certain period of time. Some effects (rain, thunderstorm and snow) can also be cancelled by either Weather.RemoveCloud(x, y) console command, or WCC action. The effect cancellation applies to a single effect with the longest remaining time, among those that affect the selected location. In case of rainstorms, cancellation cancels both rain and thunderstorm. The cancellation pushes the event to the "fade out" phase, or in case it is already there, reduces the remaining time by half.
Weather control center needs to be charged at 100% to cast this effect, what takes 15 minutes.