Realistic Environment Pro

Realistic Environment Pro (REP) (formerly Just More Weather) is a complete living environment for Transport Fever 3: real weather physics (snow, wind, temperature), seasons, heatwaves and very cold winters, 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: speed, passenger comfort, industry production and winter costs. It brings together Just More Weather and Better Clock in a single mod.

Fully customizable: every feature and every effect on the game can be switched on or off, when you create a game as well as when you load a save; presets in one click, and the weather can also be set by hand in game (see Customize REP 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.
• Physics: base game: none. With REP: three phenomena simulated all the time, snow (build-up, settling, melting), wind (strength, direction, gusts) and temperature (hour by hour), which influence each other.
• 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, exceptional heatwaves and very cold winters, 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 every transport mode, trains stopped by deep snow, a paralysed region, ships blocked by ice, seasonal industries.
• Economy: base game: the weather costs nothing. With REP: snow clearing, salting, switch heaters, aircraft de-icing and the extra cost of severe cold paid from your accounts.
• 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.

Real weather physics: snow, wind and temperature

• Three phenomena simulated all the time, which influence each other. Not just scenery: they change the speed and comfort of vehicles, the production of industries and your accounts.
• Snow: it builds up according to how hard it falls (from a dusting up to 1 m), settles as it gets thicker, only sticks in the cold (below +1.5 °C) and melts above 0 °C, faster in the sun and in the rain. The temperature decides whether it rains or snows.
• Wind: a real strength (up to 100 km/h in a storm) and a real direction (mostly from the west-southwest), gales more frequent in autumn and winter. It moves trees and grass, pushes the pollution and noise of your network in its direction (stronger in a storm), and hinders ships, planes and trains.
• Temperature: hour by hour according to the climate of the map (temperate, subarctic, arid, tropical), coldest at sunrise, warmest around 3 pm, softened by clouds and cooled by snow on the ground. It decides snow or rain, black ice, melting, ice on the water and the production of industries.

Dynamic seasonal weather

• Sun, clouds, overcast sky, rain, thunderstorms with lightning, snow and mist, drawn according to the season and the climate of the map.
• Rare snowstorms (one per winter at most), snowfalls from a light dusting to deep snow.
• The game's weather slider still works: you can 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 layer of snow that reaches the pavement from 30–40 cm; road markings and tyre tracks disappear under deep snow.
• Small plants are buried from 25 cm, foliage turns white.

Heatwaves and very cold winters

• Ordinary heat waves and cold snaps, about one season in two, lasting 3 to 10 days.
• Exceptional heatwaves: 2 to 3 weeks between June and August, 11 to 17 °C above normal, with nights staying at 25–30 °C. Rare before 1950, they become more and more frequent after 2000.
• Very cold winters: 2 to 3 weeks from December to February, 11 to 17 °C below normal, days without thaw, down to -25 °C in a temperate climate and -40 °C in a subarctic one.
• On your network: in a heatwave, old vehicles without air conditioning become unpleasant and the rails heat up (trains slowed down); in severe cold, everything costs more, black ice sets in and the water may freeze.

Seasons, sky and nature

• Autumn colours, falling leaves, bare trees in winter, fresh green in spring.
• Hoarfrost on clear cold nights, scorched grass after weeks of hot dry weather, heat haze from 35 °C.
• Moon phases and distance, shooting stars, blue hour (and sometimes an orange sky) at dawn and dusk, winter sky.
• Town lighting: until 2019, street lights glow with the warm orange of sodium lamps; from 2020 they switch to LED, pure white (no more of the game's bluish tint). Adjustable in the settings.
• Town glow: before 2020, on misty nights, the background and the low sky gradually take on the orange glow of sodium lamps as you get closer to a town.
• Dark nights: a much darker night sky and landscape, softer moonlight; town lights reach further, fade gently and keep their glow (vehicle lights unchanged). Adjustable.
• Colour grading: richer, natural colours and a gentle contrast (deeper blacks, crisper highlights), at no performance cost. Soft, Strong or off.
• Daylight and sky: a deeper blue sky, a slightly warmer low sun, distant landscapes with more depth and gently bluish shadows. Can be turned off.
• High-altitude clouds: a second layer of clouds, higher, thinner and more scattered, above the usual clouds (the same dynamic clouds as the game). Can be turned off.
• Shadows: smoother shadow edges, without the stair steps that flicker when the camera moves; on High, no more visible seam where shadow detail changes with distance. Game, Improved (default) or High.

Temperature and thermometer

• Realistic monthly normals per climate, a real day/night cycle, wind chill.
• A thermometer next to the date: low and high, feels like, seasonal normal and current warnings.

Ice on the water

• From −1 °C, the faster the colder it is, 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.
• The ice slows ships down, then stops them when everything is frozen.

Vehicle speed and the weather

• Each transport mode reacts in its own way (the game's official modifiers): road vehicles slowed down by snow on the ground and above all by black ice, trams by deep snow, trains by deep snow and heat (expanded rails), ships by storms, wind and ice, planes by fog, snow, storms and wind.
• Snow on the tracks: trains limited to 120 km/h from 10 cm, 100 km/h from 20 cm, 80 km/h from 30 cm.
• Black ice: a wet road that freezes again; it takes about 6 hours to get wet and a day and a half to dry.
• The strongest condition counts in full, the others for half, and a floor always keeps a vehicle moving.

Passenger comfort and satisfaction

• The comfort of your vehicles drops in bad weather: rain, snow, storms and black ice on the road; deep snow on the rails; storms, wind and ice on the water; storms and wind in the air.
• Air conditioning and heating: in a heatwave, a vehicle from before 1970 loses up to 35 % comfort, one from 1970 to 1994 up to 15 %, a recent one only 3 %; in severe cold, from 15 % down to 2 %. Modernizing your fleet pays off.
• Under deep snow (45 cm), residents stay at home; at 60 cm, full lockdown, shown in the town windows.

Economy: what winter costs you

• Winter costs are added to your accounts (line "Upkeep Other"), in proportion to your network: they follow its real upkeep, inflation included.
• Snow clearing of roads, tram tracks, railway tracks and airport runways: paid for every centimetre of fresh snow; a heavy snowfall costs a lot, a snowstorm even more.
• Salting of roads and tram tracks in black ice weather, switch heaters on the railway when it freezes with moisture, aircraft de-icing on days of snow or freezing rain.
• Severe cold (below -8 °C): extra operating cost for all your vehicles, road, tram, rail, water and air.
• The Harsh preset raises these costs by 50 %. The winter total starts again from zero every 1 July.

Seasonal industries

• Production depends on the day's temperature, rain, storms and wind:
• Farms and crops: 30 % of their production in cold weather (2 °C and below), full production from 16 °C, lower in a heatwave; tropical crops from 40 % to 100 %.
• Livestock less productive in severe cold and heatwaves; fishing down by up to half in storms or strong wind; offshore platforms down by up to 40 % in storms.
• Forests (thaw and rain), quarries and sand pits (frozen ground, down by up to 40 %), mines and oil wells (severe cold), cement and brick works (65 % in freezing weather), breweries (people drink less beer in winter).
• Processing factories do not depend on the season. During a snow paralysis, all industries stop.

Deep snow: a paralysed network

• Trains stop at 40 cm of snow and start again below 35 cm; if the snow lasts 4 days, they go back to the depot.
• At 45 cm, the region is paralysed: road vehicles, trams and ships stopped, residents at home, industries stopped; everything starts again below 40 cm.
• At 60 cm, full lockdown. A vehicle you restart by hand is not stopped again before the end of the episode.

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).
• Length of a game year: 365 days, so about 146 hours of play at normal speed with the default 24-minute days (73 h with 12 minutes, 292 h with 48 minutes, 584 h with 96 minutes). The game's faster speeds shorten it in proportion. Setting Day length; Off: the game's own fast Continuous cycle.
• 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.
• French legal time (off by default): Summer and winter time as in France (+1 h in winter, +2 h in summer, changes at the end of March and of October, from 1976) and the sun of France in the temperate climate: in summer the sun sets around 10 pm. Service hours, peak hours and the residents' daily rhythm follow the legal time, with departures to work from 5:30 to 9 am. Reload the game after changing it.
• Peak and off-peak hours: With the daily rhythm, following the time of day (legal time if on): on weekdays, departures to work mostly from 6:30 to 9:30 am and returns from 4:30 to 7:30 pm, a little less traffic in the middle of the day; at weekends no rush hours, more shopping in the afternoon; at night fewer and fewer long journeys, livelier on Friday and Saturday nights.
• Night transport: With the daily rhythm: passengers already on board or waiting at a stop finish their journey, and long journeys (5 km and more) are still allowed at night: night trains, night buses. Short walks and drives are still cancelled.

Towns by day and by night

• Home windows lit by the hour: Fewer lit windows in homes: about a third in the evening, then they go out one by one (a few at the heart of the night), and they light up again from 5 am.
• Town shops and workshops closed at night: In towns, shops open from 7 am to 9 pm and workshops from 5 am to midnight: when closed, no lit windows, no smoke, no noise and nobody inside.
• Industries closed at night: Industries, farms, mines and factories work from 5 am to midnight: from midnight to 5 am they almost stop producing, their lights go out and they no longer smoke. Their stock can still be loaded (night freight).
• City sounds by day and night: By day the sounds of the town (and of the crowd up close); at night a calm night ambience, with a slow change in the evening (7:30 to 11:30 pm) and in the morning (5 to 8 am).
• Weather sounds: Snow, thunder and storm wind.

Shadows on the tracks and shelter from the snow

• Shadows under trains: A shadow under every train, laid on the ballast, the rails and the wheels, so that trains no longer seem to float above the rails (also mod trains, day and night, even under station lamps, in tunnels and on bridges).
• Shadow at the foot of the rails: A soft contact shadow at the foot of each rail, on the sleepers, the ballast and the side of the rail, makes the track stand out (all tracks: game and installed mods). It uses the game's ambient occlusion (SSAO): keep it switched on in the game's graphics settings.
• Snow sheltered by roofs: Platform canopies, station halls and glass roofs (game and installed mods, found by their shape) keep the snow on top: no snow layer underneath and no flakes falling through.

Customize REP: keep only what you want

REP is set up the way you like, before the game and during it: you can keep the weather as simple scenery, or on the contrary everything that weighs on your network.

• Mod settings (⚙ button of the mod, when you create a game and also when you load a save): each visual feature and each effect on the game can be switched off separately.
• In game, in the Weather and Time panel: weather slider (from sun to snow), Dynamic or Custom cycle, "next weather" button, mist, wind direction and strength, choice of season and date, 7-day bulletin.
• Mod settings (⚙ button of the mod, On or Off): Snowfall and snow cover · Seasonal landscape · Exceptional heatwaves and cold spells · Ice on water · Sodium street lights before 2020 · Dark nights · Daylight and sky · High-altitude clouds · Snow powder from trains (experimental) · 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 · City sounds by day and night · Home windows lit by the hour · Town shops and workshops closed at night · Industries closed at night · Weather bulletin · Thermometer · Time of day and weekday · French legal time · Service hours · Residents' daily rhythm · Night transport · Peak and off-peak hours · Shadows under trains · Snow sheltered by roofs · Shadow at the foot of the rails, and the length of a day (12, 24, 48 or 96 minutes).
• Presets for the effects on the game, in one click: Custom and Realistic (the effects set to On, one by one), Scenery (the weather is only visual), Harsh (the effects set to On, stronger: vehicles slowed down more, winter costs +50 %). An effect set to Off always stays off.

Platforms

• PC only: Windows and Linux. Works with every launcher: Steam, GOG and Epic Games; on Linux, natively or with Proton.
• macOS: not supported for now. On a Mac the game can crash with REP; until this is fixed, please do not use REP on macOS.
• 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 systems), the window shows the paths of both folders: open them with your file manager. With Proton, the drive Z: is the root / of your system.

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/…) (Steam installed as a Flatpak: ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/…)

shader_cache: on Steam it is in Steam/userdata/(your number)/3493540/local/shader_cache (on Linux: ~/.local/share/Steam/userdata/…, or ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/userdata/… for the Flatpak); with GOG and Epic Games, in the game's local folder next to your saves. If you cannot find it, search your disk for the folder named shader_cache. 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.
• FPS Booster: More frames per second with exactly the same image and the same simulation: the mod does less work behind the scenes.
• View distance: How far the world is drawn, for the low, medium and high graphics quality (not the cab view nor the camera tool), from 2 to 30 km. Shorter: more frames per second. Longer: wider landscapes, more demanding. Game: the game's distance.

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.
• Road mods: the roads, crossings and markings of other mods get the snow like the game's roads.
• 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. Then put back the game's original shaders (see Going back above) and delete shader_cache.

Languages

English, French, German, Spanish and Russian: 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).
• Roads and crossings of your mod: REP covers road materials with snow. So that yours is covered like the game's roads, give it fade_out_range with fadeOutStartDist = 0.6875 (carriageway, crossings, junctions) or 0.4375 (sidewalks and other parts) and fadeOutEndDist = 0. Without REP it changes nothing visible (the fade only acts closer than 35 cm from the camera).
• 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.