Why is the date being forced to 9/20?

[Uncle Zed 272]

From the init.c:

    if (((month <= 9) && (day < 20)) || ((month >= 10) && (day > 20)))
    {
        month = 9;
        day = 20;
        
        GetGame().GetWorld().SetDate(year, month, day, hour, minute);
    }

What is the reason for forcing the date to 9/20?

[Seitan 161]

1 hour ago, BetterDeadThanZed said:

From the init.c:

 

    if (((month <= 9) && (day < 20)) || ((month >= 10) && (day > 20)))
    {
        month = 9;
        day = 20;
        
        GetGame().GetWorld().SetDate(year, month, day, hour, minute);
    }

 

What is the reason for forcing the date to 9/20?

Stars? It's autumn. Real sky. Sun won't stay up so late and you can navigate from the stars, if you know how.

this is just my guess...

[Uncle Zed 272]

No one knows for sure? No dev/community manager input?

[Sammi79 4]

Because the engine contains quite a complex and realistic seasonal simulation regarding weather and temperatures as well as star maps, daylight proportion etc.  so to keep servers consistent in the demands put on the player to keep warm and so on. In the past different patches have played with this setting while testing the temperature mechanics, for a while we were all freezing to death in minutes, then a subsequent patch we were all endlessly overheating.  Obviously individual server owners can change this to whatever they want, right now the default as you can see is Autumn which is probably quite an easy middlish time for the temperature mechanics.

This seasonal simulation has been in BI's engines since the very first ArmA (which was call Operation Flashpoint at the time) and iirc there was a mission that required you to use the stars to navigate. I remember being hugely impressed when I first noticed Ursa Major and subsequently found Polaris.

[drgullen 597]

2 hours ago, Sammi79 said:

Because the engine contains quite a complex and realistic seasonal simulation regarding weather and temperatures as well as star maps, daylight proportion etc.  so to keep servers consistent in the demands put on the player to keep warm and so on. In the past different patches have played with this setting while testing the temperature mechanics, for a while we were all freezing to death in minutes, then a subsequent patch we were all endlessly overheating.  Obviously individual server owners can change this to whatever they want, right now the default as you can see is Autumn which is probably quite an easy middlish time for the temperature mechanics.

This seasonal simulation has been in BI's engines since the very first ArmA (which was call Operation Flashpoint at the time) and iirc there was a mission that required you to use the stars to navigate. I remember being hugely impressed when I first noticed Ursa Major and subsequently found Polaris.

Well, if this is true, the engine is lacking to some extent, because if I remove their force to 9/20 and set the date to be in June, it still snows rather than rains.  It may be that they've simply replaced rain with snow for now, but I was expecting it to be smart enough to know what precipitation type should fall from the sky depending on what season it is.  I guess that isn't in yet.