Can we have a weather Atmosphere and Environment update only please?

[dectenor1]

@TomL7753

Imho a proper flightsim has four main components: core functionality, Aircraft, Scenery and Environment. Three of those are rightfully covered with dedicated regular updates, personnel (I assume) and timelines, while the environment (seasons, weather, physics, snow coverage, accessibility of weather data for wxRadar and so on…) seems to be treated as an accessory in some SU’s.

Consequently core sim, aircraft and scenery are making huge progress, while the environment falls behind significantly.
Hence the petition for an Atmosphere, Weather and Environment (AWE) update category.

It’s about balance, because flying a sophisticated airliner with all bells and whistles avionicwise, but without a proper WXradar (because accessing the weather data seems to be a complex task) into (non existing) Thunderstorms - that would have no consequences anyway- and then land in Innsbruck with a solid snow cover at 19 degress Celsius is somewhat arcade.

100% agree, they really should do it, but are always silent in the Q&As.

[Jingle1966]

@DementedCorn327

I think people that enjoyed the sim at launch because the weather was astonishing and revolutionary are getting frustrated that after the Live weather big downgrade (between SU5 & SU7, back in 2021) the sim is not back yet to the level how it should be.

I’ve been using FS 2020 from day 1 and I honestly can’t remember the weather being better before SU5.
(at least not in VR)
Is there perhaps any footage on youtube or something that shows this.

Actually I think weather has improved drastically (at least in VR) with SU12.
The one thing I do notice atm are the misty/foggy clouds that have become real frame rate killers.

btw: I don’t really pay attention to how accurately live weather is in the sim. (just the graphics)
But I do consider that a nice to have in the long run.

[wolfenwingman]

just scroll up mate

Can we have a weather Atmosphere and Environment update only please?

We need one more Update category: Atmosphere, Weather and Environment (AWE) August 2020: When MSFS came out I was stunned! The aircraft were underwhelming from a accuracy standpoint, workers all over the place, vehicles on taxiways, my beloved planes not yet available, the UI - well - I got used to it. But I loved it! The main reason: Live Weather! After decades of clouds synthesized based on METAR data, somehow merged to an unsatisfying whole, there finally was a weather system that - nea…

and if they close this topic you know why

[Jingle1966]

@wolfenwingman

just scroll up mate

Thank for pointing out the link.
To be honest again, that really looks better than what we were seeing the last 1 or 2 years.
(but SU12 looks like a step in the right direction again, compared to SU 11, 10 etc.)

[dectenor1]

I mean look at this, clouds have been downgraded so much since release of the sim. This is on ULTRA settings, it needs an update to be put back to how it used to me, just ugly now and ruins the immersion.

How people can say there has been no downgrade is beyond me.

[Jingle1966]

That doesn’t look good. Is this 2D?. I only fly VR which seems to look better than this.

[Jingle1966]

@wolfenwingman

if we dont comply we get the boot

Is this clouds on ultra??

[wolfenwingman]

of course its ultra

[Jingle1966]

Wow, that’s bad. I can only say ultra looks better in VR.
I would probably judge that picture as lowest cloud setting in VR.

[dectenor1]

@Jingle1966

That doesn’t look good. Is this 2D?. I only fly VR which seems to look better than this.

Yes non-VR and ULTRA. Never used to be like this.

Used to be like this, ignore the lack of cockpit, was a bug with aircraft, hence why I took a photo to try and work out what was wrong.

SO much nicer than now. And the lighting was way better and they downgraded that too. Now the atmosphere is more flat and dead.

Needs and Atmosphere and Environment Update to restore the sim to how it was on release, and if possible make even better.

[Jingle1966]

@dectenor1

SO much nicer than now. And the lighting was way better and they downgraded that too. Now the atmosphere is more flat and dead.

Your pictures seem to resemble more what I’m seeing in VR. The others are indeed terrible, given that is clouds on ultra.

I 'll see if I can post some VR shots here tonight just to compare.

[dectenor1]

@Jingle1966

Your pictures seem to resemble more what I’m seeing in VR. The others are indeed terrible, given that is clouds on ultra.

I 'll see if I can post some VR shots here tonight just to compare.

Do you use Live Weather or Presets?

[SeedyL3205]

Hello folks,

What @N316TS wrote above is correct. Within the MSFS development team, different devs are working in parallel on different areas of the sim (e.g. Graphics Rendering, Flight Model & Physics Engine, SDK, World Hub, Weather, GIS/Scenery, Navigation/Traffic, and more). All of these areas are equally vital to making MSFS the best it can be. Each developer has his or her own skillset and area of expertise, and it would be counterproductive to re-assign a dev who is a specialist on 3D graphics to work on improving AI Traffic, for example.

With this in mind, releasing a “weather only” update by definition would exclude the ongoing work from other teams, even if they have completed important fixes that are ready for release. It’s a better player experience to include all available improvements for flight model, graphics rendering, stability, performance, weather, traffic, general bug fixes, etc. in a single Sim Update rather than hold back items that are ready for release just because they’re not related to weather.

With regard to improving the weather system in a general sense, we are always monitoring your feedback, bug reports, and wishlist items on the forums. Last month’s release of Sim Update 12 included 15 patch items related specifically to improving the weather, and of those 15, seven were in direct response to user reports posted here on these forums. I do not yet know exactly what will be included in Sim Update 13 (tentatively targeted for August per the Roadmap below), but it’s a safe assumption that the weather system will be among the items seeing improvements in SU13.

Please keep your constructive feedback coming, and if there is a specific weather-related issue you would like to see addressed, the best way to bring it to the devs’ attention is to create a topic (or upvote an existing thread) in the appropriate area of the forum.

Thanks,
MSFS Team

[wolfenwingman]

@SeedyL3205

With this in mind, releasing a “weather only” update by definition would exclude the ongoing work from other teams, even if they have completed important fixes that are ready for release. It’s a better player experience to include all available improvements for flight model, graphics rendering, stability, performance, weather, traffic, general bug fixes, etc. in a single Sim Update rather than hold back items that are ready for release just because they’re not related to weather.

By now this has been proven false by the fact that we have a separate AAU. No one is being held back by world updates, city updates or aaus.

@SeedyL3205

Each developer has his or her own skillset and area of expertise, and it would be counterproductive to re-assign a dev who is a specialist on 3D graphics to work on improving AI Traffic, for example.

and why would it be if there are different teams? it all sounds very hand wavy in order to keep weather updates to a minimum

[TomL7753]

@N316TS

The team that deploys those AAU changes, Working Title, is an outside separate development group.

@SeedyL3205

Each developer has his or her own skillset and area of expertise,

The paradigm not to open the weather system for third parties seems to be carved in stone.
However, the WT example (integrating a third party in the development process as a contractor) has shown huge benefits for the development of Aircraft and Avionics.
I’m sure there’s companies out there that could do great things with suitable contracts and access to the Weather data - as a first party.

[dectenor1]

And live weather still does not match METAR or Meteoblue forecast.

Live weather is still not accurate at all and neither matches Meteoblue forecast nor METAR. I am approaching Queenstown from Sydney, just hitting the coast of New Zealand.

Meteoblue shows this, where the weather is supposed to be coming from, 95% cover low clouds, and 95% cover high clouds.

Sim, not a cloud in sight.

And then you just get that horrible obvious area of snow, when it is 15 degrees C down there and no snow in real life.

Where are the areas of low visibility?

It is just not accurate at all.

Please, what is going on with live weather, why does it not match the data that is supposed to be being generated from? How are we supposed to do flight planning? Please we need a dev to explain what is happening and however many years and live weather still does not work properly. It needs a massive focus from the developers.

[Jingle1966]

@dectenor1

Do you use Live Weather or Presets?

Always live and always VR.

[wolfenwingman]

I wonder how vatsim copes with such accurate weather - this was all for them or so they say.

[dectenor1]

I just don’t understand, why the weather has not been a massive focus, the skies are where we spend time in aircraft, and however many years in, it is still completely inaccurate. I know a sim will never match exactly what is out of a window, I don’t expect it to, but surely it should match the where it is supposed to be getting the data from.

There is clearly something going completely wrong with how the weather is working, and total silence on that front from Micrasobo.

[Jingle1966]

@TomL7753

I’m sure there’s companies out there that could do great things with suitable contracts and access to the Weather data - as a first party.

This could also trigger the “danger” that we end up with MS/asobo dropping weather dev. and users ending up with a 3rd party paid subscription in order to get decent weather. Kinda what’s already happening with Navigraph.