Realistic Environment Pro

Realistic Environment Pro (REP) (formerly Just More Weather) is a complete living environment for Transport Fever 3: dynamic seasonal weather, snow, temperature, ice on the water, a 7-day weather bulletin, the time of day and longer days, service hours, and weather that really affects your network. It brings together Just More Weather and Better Clock in a single mod.

Everything is optional: each part can be switched on or off, so you only keep what you like (see Settings below).

What REP adds to the base game

The base game keeps everything it already has (Cloud Coverage slider, Dynamic and Custom cycles, rain, day and night). REP adds, area by area:

• Weather: base game: sun, clouds and rain. With REP: snow, thunderstorms with lightning and thunder, mist, a real wind (strength and direction) and weather chosen by season and climate.
• Landscape: base game: the same green landscape all year round. With REP: four seasons (autumn colours, bare trees, scorched grass, hoarfrost), snow that settles with relief and melts.
• Temperature: base game: none. With REP: a temperature for every hour, heatwaves and cold spells, a thermometer next to the date.
• Water: base game: water with small fixed ripples. With REP: ice in severe cold.
• Simulation: base game: the weather is only a look, it changes nothing. With REP: speed and comfort of vehicles, trains stopped by deep snow, ships blocked by ice, seasonal industries, winter costs.
• Forecast: base game: none. With REP: a 7-day weather bulletin whose forecasts come true.
• Time: base game: the date only, and the day/night cycle of the sky is not linked to the calendar. With REP: time of day and day of the week, longer days where the date changes at midnight, service hours for lines and vehicles, residents' daily rhythm.

Dynamic seasonal weather

• Sun, clouds, overcast skies, rain, thunderstorms with lightning, snow and mist, drawn according to the season and the climate of your map (temperate, subarctic, dry, tropical).
• Wind with a real strength and direction; trees and grass sway with it; pollution and noise drift with it.
• Rare snowstorms (at most one per winter), snow amounts that vary from a light dusting to deep snow.
• The weather slider of the game keeps working: you can still set the weather by hand.

Snow

• Falling snowflakes, snow that settles on the ground with real relief, on roofs, vehicles, tracks and ballast.
• On roads, a smooth snow layer that reaches the curb from 30–40 cm; road markings and tyre tracks disappear under deep snow.
• Small plants are buried from 25 cm, foliage whitens; the snow melts above 0 °C, faster in the sun and the rain.

Seasons, sky and nature

• Autumn colours, falling leaves, bare trees in winter, fresh green in spring.
• Hoarfrost on clear cold nights, scorched grass after hot dry weeks, heat haze from 35 °C.
• Moon phases and distance, shooting stars, blue hour (and sometimes an orange sky) at dawn and dusk, winter sky.

Temperature

• Realistic monthly normals per climate, a full day/night cycle (coldest at sunrise, warmest around 3 pm), wind chill.
• Ordinary heat waves and cold spells, plus exceptional heatwaves (2–3 weeks between June and August, more and more frequent after 2000, nights staying at 25–30 °C) and exceptional cold spells (December to February, days below freezing).
• A thermometer next to the date, with min/max, wind chill, seasonal normal and current warnings.

Ice on the water

• From −15 °C, the water freezes from the shores outwards into a smooth, glossy navy-blue ice sheet, translucent enough to see the water beneath; it holds while it freezes and melts above 0 °C.

Weather that affects your network

• Speed and comfort of road vehicles, trams, trains, ships and aircraft depend on rain, snow, fog, storms, wind, black ice, heat (rails expand) and extreme cold; vehicles built before 1970 have no air conditioning.
• Deep snow: trains stop and go back to the depot (from 40 cm); from 45 cm the region is paralysed (road vehicles, trams and ships stop, residents stay home); from 60 cm full lockdown, shown in the town window.
• Ice on the water slows ships, then blocks them when everything is frozen.
• Industries follow the seasons (farms, forests, quarries, fishing, building materials, breweries…).
• Winter costs in your accounts (line “Upkeep Other”): snow clearing, salting, railway switch heaters, aircraft de-icing, extra running costs in extreme cold, proportional to your network.

7-day weather bulletin

• The "View weather bulletin" button of the Weather and Time panel opens a bulletin in the style of a phone weather app: current conditions, warnings, hour-by-hour forecast and 7 days with temperature bars.
• Click a day: a bubble shows its hours, precipitation, wind and gusts, sunrise and sunset, snow on the ground, frost, ice and warnings.
• The forecasts come true: the coming weather is decided in advance, and the bulletin simulates it with the same rules as the game.

Time of day

• The time of day and the day of the week next to the date (real Gregorian calendar).
• Longer days: one day of 24 minutes at normal speed, the date changes at midnight (the Continuous cycle of the Weather and Time panel).
• Service hours for lines and vehicles, with a calendar of the services: each line or vehicle gets a start time, an end time and the days of the week when it runs (outside these hours, it waits in the depot). This is not a timetable by station like Timetables: REP does not set departure times at the stations of a line, it decides when a service runs.
• Daily rhythm of the residents (experimental, in the Continuous cycle with REP's longer days): morning rush hour from 6 to 9 am (residents leave home for work), a normal day, evening rush hour from 6 to 10 pm (shopping, then home), and at night, from 10 pm to 6 am, everyone goes home and stays there: much less transport demand at night.

Settings: keep only what you want

REP has its own settings in the mod list (⚙ button of the mod), when you create a game and also when you load a saved game: each feature and each effect on the game can be switched on or off, so you only keep what you like.

• Mod settings (⚙ button of the mod, On or Off): Snowfall and snow cover · Seasonal landscape · Exceptional heatwaves and cold spells · Ice on water · Weather affects traffic · Wind carries pollution and noise · Deep snow stops the trains · Very deep snow paralyses the region · Ice blocks ships · Industries follow the seasons · Winter costs · Weather sounds · Weather bulletin · Thermometer · Time of day and weekday · Service hours · Residents' daily rhythm, and the length of a day (12, 24, 48 or 96 minutes).
• Presets for the effects on the game, in one click: Custom (the settings one by one), Scenery (the weather is only visual), Realistic (all the effects), Harsh (all the effects, stronger: vehicles slowed down more, winter costs +50 %).

Platforms

• PC only: Windows, Linux and macOS. Works with every launcher: Steam, GOG and Epic Games.
• Not available on consoles. The snow, sky and water effects need modified game shaders, and on consoles mod.io does not allow mods to modify the shaders. This is a rule of the platform, not a choice of the mod.

Installation of the shaders (one minute, once per version)

Snowflakes, snow on the ground, lightning, mist, the snowy sky, ice on the water and wind in the grass use game shaders that a mod cannot install by itself (mods may not run programs). REP shows a window that guides you:

• Click Open the shader files: the folder Shader files/base/content/rendering/programs of the mod opens. Select everything and copy it.
• Click Open the game's shader folder (or open it yourself, paths below), paste and replace the files.
• Click I have copied them, close the game, delete the folder shader_cache (see below) and restart the game.
• If a button does not open a folder (some Linux or macOS systems), the window shows the paths of both folders: open them with your file manager (macOS Finder: Go › Go to Folder…, Cmd+Shift+G).

The mod's shader files (Windows, mod.io): C:\Users\Public\mod.io\10640\mods\6415745\Shader files\base\content\rendering\programs

Default game folders (if you installed the game elsewhere, use your launcher: Steam › Manage › Browse local files; GOG Galaxy › Manage installation › Show folder; Epic Games › Manage › installation folder)

• Windows, Steam: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Transport Fever 3\base\content\rendering\programs
• Windows, GOG: C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Transport Fever 3\base\content\rendering\programs
• Windows, Epic Games: C:\Program Files\Epic Games\TransportFever3\base\content\rendering\programs
• Linux, Steam: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Transport Fever 3/base/content/rendering/programs (or ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/…)
• macOS, Steam: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Transport Fever 3/…/base/content/rendering/programs (if the game is an application: right-click › Show Package Contents)

shader_cache: on Steam it is in Steam/userdata/(your number)/3493540/local/shader_cache; with GOG and Epic Games, in the game's local folder next to your saves. The game rebuilds it by itself; the next start just takes a little longer.

Going back: to restore the original shaders, verify the game files (Steam: Properties › Installed Files › Verify integrity; GOG Galaxy: Manage installation › Verify / Repair; Epic Games: Manage › Verify). Everything else in REP works with or without the shaders. On a game version REP has not been tested with (preview, newer update…), the copy is still offered with this explanation.

Performance

• REP is made to stay light: no extra rendering pass, no heavy texture, the weather is computed a few times per second. The visual effects add calculations to the game's own shaders, and the effects on the game act on every vehicle.
• On huge games with a very large amount of traffic, the game can show slight lags. On such games or on a modest PC, keep only what you like: the Scenery preset switches off all the effects on the game, and each visual feature can be switched off in the settings.

Compatibility

• Can be added to existing games. Better Clock is now part of REP: nothing else to install.
• Other mods: REP replaces the date display and the Weather and Time panel of the game; mods that replace the same elements may conflict.
• Timetables: compatible only if the Service hours setting is Off (otherwise both mods hold the same vehicles).
• Removing REP from a game in progress: first load the game with the Scenery preset, Service hours set to Off and Day length set to Off, play one minute and save; then remove the mod. Otherwise vehicles stopped by the snow, the ice or the service hours can stay stopped.

Languages

English, French, German and Spanish: the whole interface, including the weather bulletin.

For modders

You want to make a mod on the same theme (weather, seasons, time of day, timetables), or make yours work with REP? Here is what REP touches, so that our mods work together:

• Weather script: REP wraps the game's weather and time script (game_time.gs) with its own. Another mod that replaces this script cannot run at the same time as REP (REP writes a warning in the game log).
• Interface: REP replaces the date display (CalendarDisplay), the weather and date controls of the Weather and Time panel, and the time of day control. It adds its buttons after the last statistics button and chains with what other mods already added there.
• Shared values that your mod can read in the interface: game_bar_widgets.weekdayText(date), game_bar_widgets.timeOfDayText() and game_bar_widgets.weatherParalysis().
• Weather state (read only): the table neige in the state of game_time.gs (snow depth in mm, snowing, wind, temperature, season…).
• Vehicle speed and comfort: REP uses the game's official modifiers (event VehicleModifier / ChangeModifier, source just_more_weather) and stays out of the way when another source already slows a vehicle down. Please use this event too and keep the total above zero: a speed at zero or below crashes the game.
• Shaders and rendering: REP's shaders replace game files in base › content › rendering › programs; another shader pack that changes the same files cannot be used with it. REP also stores its data in the decimals of the atmosphere values (cloudBase, cloudTop), in the lowest bits of cloudScattering and in dayOfYear: please do not write these values.
• Mod settings: REP's settings use keys that start with rep_ (for example rep_snow).
• Questions, or a mod to make compatible? Contact me on Discord: lorenzo.sbr.

Thank you

Thank you for downloading REP, for your feedback and for your patience while it grew. Have fun with your network, in sunshine and in snow!

Found a bug or a crash? Please report it to me on Discord, where I answer faster: lorenzo.sbr.