THUNDER - EXPERIMENTAL WINDOWS X64 TEST BUILD

Extract the ENTIRE ZIP into a writable folder, then double-click Start Thunder.cmd.
Do not run inside the ZIP or directly from the read-only evaluation DVD.
No Rust compiler or installation is required. The build is unsigned.
Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64, a Direct3D 12 or Vulkan capable graphics driver,
and internet access for live radar, alerts, SPC and uncached map data.
Virtual machines may lack a compatible graphics adapter even with 3D enabled.

MAPBOX: No API token is included. Use your own authorized public token. Save it
as .mapbox-apitoken (not .txt) in your Windows user profile directory, or specify
its file in Map layers > Map studio > Connection and restart. Do not share tokens.
Without a valid public token, Mapbox is disabled and OpenStreetMap is used.
Choose OpenStreetMap or Mapbox in Map layers > Map studio > Map provider.
OSM Standard needs no account. Its roads/labels are baked into map tiles;
Mapbox vector style controls do not apply. OSM requests only on-screen tiles,
with local caching. Bulk/offline region downloads are not supported by this
public tile service. Attribution: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

LOCAL GIS (NO MAP ACCOUNT)
Map layers > Local GIS > Browse & import accepts extracted 2D line/polygon .shp
files and matching .dbf/.prj sidecars. GR .sty Color/Status rules are supported.
You supply the GIS datasets; keep them in a permanent folder. Toggle/style/zoom
visibility controls are per-layer. This is not full GR placefile compatibility.

Starts with live radar, not archived/synthetic warnings. Archive event datasets
are not bundled. Alert appearance provides clearly labeled Test selected alert.

Settings: %APPDATA%/thunder and %APPDATA%/chase-evaluation.
Telemetry: %LOCALAPPDATA%/chase-evaluation/telemetry.sqlite3.
Disposable map/radar caches: data/ in the extracted folder.
Error-only diagnostics: thunder-errors.log in the extracted folder (rotated).
Machine/GPU specifications: thunder-machine.json. Review before sharing.
Application > Settings > Application updates accepts your publisher's HTTPS URL.
See docs/Updates-and-error-logging.md for hosting and installation instructions.
Do not re-zip your used folder to share it: it can contain private configuration,
cached licensed data and diagnostics. Share the original clean ZIP instead.

CURRENT BUILD FEATURES
- Bottom-bar Search / Route; experimental GPS progress, ETA, off-route indication
  and explicitly requested rerouting. Provider permission is required.
- UDP NMEA GPS: use the computer's LAN IP and matching port in your sender.
  Thunder's listen address can be 0.0.0.0:10110 on a trusted/private network.
  Permit inbound UDP only from your sender. GPS settings persist when applied;
  Connect is still required after launch. GGA supplies altitude; RMC heading/speed.
- GPS top-bar fields and live nearest-radar following are configurable.
- Observations: independent RAP analysis and satellite layers, opacity, contours,
  inspector values and radar-time synchronization. Source archive limits apply.
- Storms > Event library: import NOAA tornado records by year. No personal database
  or radar corpus is included. Remote radar links are downloads, not automatic
  replay; Open cached radar frames requires separately prepared local research data.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS
- USB/serial GPS is unavailable; UDP NMEA remains available. No SDR integration.
- Windows timestamps use English month names, local time and an explicit UTC
  offset, with configurable 12/24-hour clocks. Full Windows locale formatting
  is not yet implemented.
- CPU/memory/OS diagnostics are collected with a background Windows system query.
- This is experimental software, not a sole source for operational warnings.
- Volume Sweep has a reported one-to-two-minute lag versus Sweep; investigation
  is deferred. Session-switch GPU device loss may still crash the application.
- This package was cross-compiled; a new native Windows runtime test is not implied.

TEST CHECKLIST
Report Windows version and GPU; whether first live radar loads; switching sites,
REF/VEL and tilts; Static/Playback/Sweep; maximize/resize; map pan/zoom; style
editing and persistence after restart; alert preview readability. Distinguish
download delays from graphics freezes. Review logs for sensitive information
before sharing. No telemetry is automatically uploaded.

Mapbox/OpenStreetMap attribution remains in the app. Third-party notices are
included under licenses/ and dependencies are recorded in Cargo.lock.

SOUND DESIGN
Bulletin Studio is bundled. Open it from Alerts > Sounds
or double-click bulletin-studio.exe. Product recipes save in %APPDATA%/thunder.
Export WAVs and attach them in Thunder. No personal sounds/recipes are bundled.
