Aeronautics: Winds & Weather

Adds realistic wind, evolving regional weather, sail-driven propulsion, and an actual reason to interact with the sky.

Wind is a thing now

Not just a number, a wind field with spatial variation, altitude gradient, terrain shadowing (mountains block wind), gusts, and thermals.

Regional weather that actually evolves

Weather isn't a global flag. Each region of the world holds its own state (clear, breeze, overcast, rain, storm, blizzard, sandstorm, …). Storm fronts drift in from off the map, evolve over time, and leave. You can see them coming from miles away as the clouds change color at the horizon.

Driven by a deterministic seed+time simulation, so it's identical on every client without network chatter.

Contraption physics

Sable sub-levels feel wind correctly:

Sail-equipped ships catch the wind and provide directional thrust meaning your sails actually do something now.
Bare hulls are barely affected: no sails, no thrust. Heavy things stay put, light things blow around.

Visual weather

3D clouds rendered in world space at Y=192, visible from the ground, tinted by weather type. Storm clouds are dark, snow clouds are white-blue, sandstorms are sandy orange.
Wind streak particles stream in the wind direction when the wind is up.
Lightning during thunderstorms targets contraptions first, then entities, then terrain. Sometimes spawns double bolts.
Real block placement in extreme weather: snow layers in cold biomes, sand from sandstorms, ice freezing water, water puddles during monsoons.

Sail force (the actual feature)

Sails compute their own catch of the wind and push the contraption. Set your course and the wind will take you.

Player & entity wind

Elytra flyers feel thermals (updrafts in hot weather), headwind lift, and storm turbulence. Items in the air drift downwind. Falling blocks slow down. Projectiles curve gently. Walking animals and creative flight are completely unaffected.

Configuration

Tunable via common config (wind base speed, max speed, terrain altitude friction, thermal strength, weather region size, sail multiplier, hull drag coefficient, etc.) and client config (particle density, fog density, camera roll, …).

Compatibility

Required: Sable (the contraption physics engine that backs Aeronautics and Create Aeronautics).

Plays well with: Create Aeronautics, Immersive Aircraft and Sable

Server+client required. The atmospheric simulation runs server-side and syncs overrides to clients; the wind ambience and 3D clouds render client-side.

"The wind was a living thing, wild and untamed, and it screamed and howled and sang."

Aeronautics: Wind and Weather