Table Top RPG Weather Forecasting

Update 7,

Turns out getting RimWorld was terrible for my productivity.

Still, I plan to continue the project on and expand the scope of what it can do. The current program does what I set out to do, minus any user interface. And the codes will allow easy additions for different biomes that might come up in my D&D game, so overall a success I feel.

Update 6 addendum,

I change the program I was using to write the program, I’m not using Atom which is much more friendly on the eyes, I’m also using the Anaconda prompt to run the program.

Update 6,

So I managed to complete the week two goal, which is great.

I have set the program logic up in classes. This means that there is a central logic class that selects weathers and the amount of day the weather will last for. There is then additional classes which will contain the unique weathers lists for any given area, in this case temperate. The practical upshot of this is that I can add different climates as classes without having to copy the logic again and again.

Having a central class that other classes inherit from also allows unique weather systems to be made. What these might be I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be winds in a desert will allow a sandstorm to come along, or a hurricane in an ocean.

All in all I’m about a week in front on my project main goals. This will allow me to begin working on a user interface. I expect this to be a bit of a stumbling block, while I knew a small amount about logic for programing before starting this project I have no idea how to transfer this knowledge to making a user interface.

Update 5,

A few days have passed since the last update. Progress has been made. I implemented the sub list idea from update 4.

One difficulty was figuring out how to get the program to take the amount of days left in the sub list and generate a new result for each of those days.

This was solved by using a while loop. While the amount of days is above one randomly choose a new result from the sub list, then decrease the value of the amount of days by one. This produces a result as seen below.

![(https://imgur.com/5iFMJ8x)]

Now, under the advice from a friend who is assisting me by answering my (probably very simple) questions, I am trying to set the logic up as a class to make future modifications easier as well as making the future aspects of the DK30 easier.

Update 4.

This includes an image of how the code is currently structured.

[https://imgur.com/A4N7zbf]

I’m already thinking of changing how the system works. Having a hierarchy of different lists to generate the weather from. Say, have three weather types (rain, cloud, sunny) which then inform the next list to use.

For an example, if ‘sunny’ is picked the next list that is used contains [‘moderate cloud cover’, ‘light cloud cover’, ‘sparce cloud cover’, ‘clear skies’]. This idea came up in a discussion with one of my D&D players where the idea of having one long list containing all types of weathers doesn’t make much sense.

Where would you put hail on the list? It’s a weather type that occurs infrequently when it rains and usually only for short periods of time. So would it go between light rain and heavy rain or does it go between heavy rain and stormy?

I think it makes more sense to use the sub-list idea rather than having one universal list. This is probably more work but hopefully it’ll make a better end product.

Update 3.

This is an image of the flow chart for how I think the logic will work.

[https://imgur.com/Iu2mNQg]

Update 2.

This is a bit overdue. This update is an image of how I think the logic should work.

[https://imgur.com/4COOHLZ]

Maybe this worked, maybe it didn’t. Updates are going to be a pain if I can’t put screen grab or images of my notes in.

Update 1.

I think I’ve sorted out how the logic is going to work for the program. I’ll try and add a photo of the flow diagram I’ve done in the next update.

In terms that I’ve figured it out.

1. The program will generate a random number (No. A) and use that to pull a result from the list of weathers.
2. The program will then generate a second number (No. 2), this will be the amount of days that the weather lasts for.
3. For each integer that makes up No. 2 a new number is generated (No. 3a though to end).
4. For values within a range the weather stays the same on each day, for values outside of that range a new weather is taken from the list of weathers at -1 or +1 on the list depending.
5. If a new weather is generated the program will ignore any remaining integers in No. 2 and generate a new value for No. 2.
6. Step 4 and 5 are then repeated until no new weathers are generated.

Hopefully this will produce a more dynamic change in weather rather than flipping between clear skies and heavy rain (which while does happen it isn’t something that should be happening all this time).

If this makes sense to anyone who might read it, great. If not, hopefully adding the flow diagram will help.