Does AS display lightning strikes in thunderstorms?
In North America were I usually fly, I haven’t seen a lightning strike in years even though I have flown thru some monster storms.
Yes - thunder and lightning are working just fine in any TS depiction - using AS weather, not MS Sim Live WX though.
The bolts were too fast for me to Set Pause the sim and get a screen cap. That is lightning inside a cloud bank.
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One of the most easily noticeable improvements AS brings is OVC depiction. It’s very layered and subtle - this one’s at 3,400.
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One weird thing the Active Sky Depiction Mode does is override my ATC Agent Phraseology changes. I know for a fact that my ATC Agent will not read Altimeter settings above Transition Level, it will simply end with “…radar contact.” Yet when using ASDM, it does.
Yes, it does.
I have experienced lightning twice in ASFS flying through storms.
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That may have sealed the deal for me.
Thanks
Can someone give feedback about the effects AS is promising like turbulence, wake turbulence?
From my point of view MSFS visuals are much better than AS. But the passive mode of AS is still to be reviewed in more detail
Yup, I wonder if passive mode is worth it. Anyone tried it?
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Hi,
I think it’s brilliant we finally have thunderstorms working again, I think it’s brilliant we have different cloud types including flat layers just real life, I enjoy playing with the Historical Weather options that we finally have and finally turbulence just simply feels better.
This is everything MSFS live weather should be.
Thanks
I think I’ve read just about every thread there is on this and still can’t make up my mind whether this is better than default or not.
I’m intrigued with the option of using MSFS weather with the extra clean air effects of AS but have Real Turb anyway so wonder if there is much point. The money is not the issue here at all (seems quite reasonably priced tbh) but not wishing to disgard yet another addon I will never use again.
So … I still remain on the fence personally FWIW. In all fairness I think MSFS live weather is pretty good already and that’s what I always use when simming.
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SCT depiction is beautiful compared to Asobo, but again, it’s a tough choice. For short flights within a relatively uniform METAR reporting area, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
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AS sounds intriguing, but I know the first time I’m flying along and go from overcast to clear sky all of sudden, I’ll quit using it, just like I quit using REX AccuWeather after few days. I wasted money on that one, and I don’t want to waste it on AS, despite all the good things it seems to offer.
With REX AW, I just couldn’t get past the lack of weather continuity as I flew. I know weather changes, but sudden transitions are a no-go for me.
So here’s the dilemma: BKN at 6400’ or so.
Sim Live WX:
Active Sky Depiction:
You know who the winner is there. But it’s only good for the METAR sector you’re in.
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I bought it for the historical weather so that I can do my APL 2 flights at the scheduled time with the correct conditions.
My flights are short (60-90 minutes) and for me it works just fine. Additionally, it works with P2A and FSHUD both of which I own, and I’m hoping it will work with Say Intentions soon. For me it was worth the $35 (CAD).
This continues to be a conundrum, but I sincerely hope everybody understands why. I’ve never been one to think “the sim needs to match the METAR exactly,” but I can see why people do because it’s all they know, the most accessible point of comparison they can make.
Rather, I’ve always looked at it as “why is the sim weather sometimes so radically different from the METAR?” And the answer pretty much boils down to: there’s too much chaos inherent in how weather actually works and the specific spatiotemporal initiation of certain types of weather is too unpredictable. Even the vaunted surface observations are too slow and physically far apart to pick those up.
There was a forecaster here in a US weather forecast office that just retired and did a little send-off speech as part of his final forecast. As I read it, it struck me how germane it is to the conundrum in the sim.
I still don’t have a solution (that kind of dev work is not my wheelhouse), but I can tell you pretty much everybody’s expectations (in all camps) regarding live weather are still too high, for several reasons.
Yet, the live weather we have in the sim is about the best reconciliation you can have between wider, forecast weather, and specific, observed weather (which will continue to effect future, downstream weather, so you can’t just ignore it). The biggest things that can be improved are the cloud types and blending, and maybe a little faster refresh via radar observations when you’re dealing with initiation of convective weather, specifically.
Active sky could provide an additional enhancement, a bridge to better depiction, but until/unless MSFS opens up a direct API, it’ll likely be a stopgap.
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Is there an open beta ?
I don’t have AS and from reading dozens of posts now I can’t honestly say it’s some sort of must have, killer app.
I’ve seen plenty of video and screenies and sometimes it looks great, sometimes less than great.
I’m still confused as to whether or not it’s able to inject turbulence effects into weather systems in live weather or that’s just a pre-set option
By turbulence, I don’t mean the clear air turbulence that is available in the sim already but turbulence encoutered during thunderstorms.
Also, I live on the coast and do a lot of my sim flying around my own location. In Asobo’s live weather you get to fly along and around a lot of moving weather fronts.
I’m not keen on loosing this to weather based on a metar report from my local airport.
At rhe moment I’m sitting this one out until at least MSFS2024 is released and then make a decision.
Yes it definitely can. They have scenario based missions that feature heavy turbulence and down drafts during storms. It was actually one of the first missions in a long while that wasn’t really very survivable unless you either used a lot of common sense or got really gutsy (i.e., not particularly smart 
).
Those also appear during generated Enroute weather.
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Hello all,
I was many years AS customer on more sim versions (FS9, FSX, XP11) and in that times all was about depict METARs correctly and do interpolation between stations as real as it can be. Really I don’t know what new system can Team bring to MSFS but if this is same then no, thank you. In sim weather is still the best option and in case this product can offer only same or similar system like previous METAR systems then it isn’t worth to buy, sry my opinion.
Sry for update. Yes I see some potential for historic weather loading for some pilots with specific requirements but really I don’t care about that definitely also. It is only static snapshot at specific time with no other progress with future time of weather.
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