It would be helpful to have concrete dev-oriented information on the exact trajectory of thermals relative to the clouds in MSFS (i.e. not just look at the visualisation).
We’re grateful for the rising air that has been incrementally added to MSFS, but here’s feedback on the impact on gliding which is far-and-away the flying activity most dependent on the rising air - this post is an un-asked-for contribution in that regard which I hope is seen positively by the developers. Our Sim Soaring Club must be one of the largest and most active VFR multiplayer groups in MSFS for flying of any type and it feels a bit awkward we’re more nervous of changes Asobo might make to the weather than eagerly anticipating updates.
In the context of SU6 or future updates, the most important points for thermals/rising air are these:
The air rises essentially vertically with respect to the cloud at least for the upper half of its journey to cloudbase. It is best thought of in a cloud frame of reference. In a sim implementation this is easily implemented by thinking of the thermal as a vertical column centered on an appropriate part of the cloud (the center is the best guess, otherwise the part with the tallest development above it), moving at the exact same wind speed as the cloud. Evidence for this is the fact gliders circle in a vertical column beneath clouds. Asobo seems to focus where the rising air goes immediately after it leaves the ground and calculates using a ground frame of reference - there is very little data for the rising air movement in this lower layer as the thousands of gliders don’t thermal at low altitudes often. The challenge Asobo has faced with the ground-oriented ‘slope’ to the thermal isn’t the principle, more likely the issue is mismatching the speed and alignment with the actual cloud possibly because the graphic cloudbase is effectively higher than the metar cloudbase. However, it’s easier to consider thermals in a simulator working (vertically) downwards from the cloud as fewer mistakes will be made, perhaps with an upwind finesse for the less important bottom 1000 feet.
Real thermal strength is dominated by the strength of the sunshine, i.e. latitude and time of day, with the main meteorological parameter being the delta between the airmass temperature and the sun heating. A more complex model might include many parameters but in a sim that risks over-weighting each of those parameters. Asobo has always focussed on the air rising from the ground using the ground frame of reference i.e. with an emphasis on simulator ground class/trees with an inherently complex calculation of where does the rising are go as it leaves the ground. Water naturally cools otherwise warmed air, but other land types (urban, fields, desert, etc) are very secondary. Forests are interesting in that the lift tends to be a little smoothed and thermals gather later in the day (New England glider pilots will know better than me) but the lift can still be great. In MSFS for a given preset thermals will be (wrongly) weaker in Nevada and Texas than in France, presumably because of landclass differences.
we’ve become quite expert at creating sim-soaring appropriate weather presets driven by the demands of a very active sim soaring community. That work in MSFS is incredibly difficult and fragile to MSFS updates, because MSFS has odd parameters controlling the lift strength most significantly the wind speed - this doesn’t make any sense at all but we necessarily have to manipulate the wind speeds to tune the thermal strengths in our soaring presets. The other parameters are cloud density and air temperature which sounds reasonable but these have to be set to extreme values to get usable thermals unless we set high winds (we had work all this out from trial and error). Given the RL dominant factor is actually how cool the ambient airmass is (which doesn’t have a MSFS parameter) relative to the Sun’s heating effect, it would simplify things to have some parameter that more directly affects the thermal strength.
If rising/sinking is being considered for updates then ‘ridge lift’ is a factor that could be incrementally improved. The simplest, most important, adjustment that would radically improve the realism of the ridge lift in MSFS would be to limit the extent of the lift effect to e.g. 1300 feet AGL. (currently the ridge lift goes to 20,000 feet even from a 200-foot slope). Since MSFS launch we have necessarily used weather ‘AGL’ and set a wind speed of (say) 20 knots up to 1300 feet AGL and 3 knots above that. That doesn’t make sense but necessary to stop the ridge lift from tiny inconsequential slopes rising to 20,000 feet. A more complex improvement would be to sample the ground slope beneath the plane in more than just the single point immediately beneath the plane, which is blind to a massive mountain just upwind. The efficient solution in a simulator is sample (say) five points in increasing distances UPWIND so a higher ridge upwind (that would cause sink) can be detected. It is not optimal to extend this to 1000x1000 points to do a much more sophisticated CFD calculation, although that is routinely tried (and fails) in simulators.
Our passion is multiplayer VFR flying, in our case in gliders, and we have many folks joining our group surprise to find out how great that is in MSFS (so thanks!) - we do a good job at the moment of achieving some level of confidence that pilots are flying ‘standard’ planes in agreed weather, avoiding issues where someone accidentally or intentionally flies with enhanced performance. This is surprisingly important in multiplayer soaring, necessarily achieved in a very low-key way. In that context, something like a super-enhanced thermal visualiser may be a great debug tool but we need to be able to detect that to avoid misunderstandings during our VFR multiplayer flights.
Thanks again for the great work Asobo and colleagues have put in to make MSFS an awesome multiplayer VFR experience - I hope these gliding-related comments are interpreted in the positive light intended.
Hi MSGamerTag01,
I had just posted something about live weather here on the forum and then found out about this post on Discord.
First of all, kudos for all the effort you put into creating this post. It really shows how much we care about making FS glider-friendly.
Whether I’m a fan of weather presets or not doesn’t really matter right now. Improving the weather physics improves both aspects anyway.
I don’t doubt that no one here will read this, but I do question how much weight it’s being given.
So here’s a request, along with a question I asked before: Why are there only 27 likes and 24 votes here (at the time and not counting my own)???
Please, please, please get organized so that this post gets flooded with likes and votes—from as many SSC members as possible.
And create a post in the wish list for glider-friendly weather physics so that the votes come pouring in.
I still have Mr. Wlochs’ statement in mind regarding the improvement of weather conditions and how important that is amid all the other problems and requests—it makes me feel quite queasy.
When it comes to the view from the cockpit MSFS 2024 is without doubt outstanding. However, will Asobo please give full consideration to the very valid and important comments made in the authors post regarding how the MSFS2024 simulates thermal conditions, and the associated formation of clouds as a direct result of thermal activity.
And as large as the single Sim Soaring Club is, let’s also add that it’s not the only MSFS soaring club out there. There are several others that are ALSO clearly on the lookout for weather changes going in the right direction. Proper syncing of weather conditions based on local date and time set is also a major problem that we’ve been able to circumvent for the moment by having all participants launch MSFS at the same time, but that’s truly inconvenient and annoying.
I hope the MSFS/Asobo team will really consider what MSGamerTag01 (B21) suggests in this original post.
Hi Ralf - points well taken - I agree an atmosphere physics simulation more closely aligned to the actual physics of the atmosphere would be a great direction of travel. I don’t blame Asobo for looking at the Metars and starting with “wind physics”/“cloud graphics” given those parameters - the challenge is where practically to go forwards. Asobo are clearly willing with incremental improvements to what they have. Should we ask for “please cap the ridge lift at 1300 feet AGL”, or "please build a selectable multiplayer ‘modern weather system’ ". IMHO if we’re unlikely to get the former then an aspiration to the latter might be a fantasy.
I think you’re probably most keen on improvements in live weather? Sounds good to me and totally agree the idea that those improvements in weather physics should benefit everyone. Our regular gliding meets at 1845UTC might work in Eastern USA which would be fun to try - live-weather flying limits our scope to fly anywhere in Europe though (hence the importance of WPR’s)
I probably sound hopelessly unambitious - if there was a way to get a great “modern weather system” I’m all for it.
Thanks for the feedback,
I’m not expecting miracles, and I realise it’s a step-by-step process – with a bit of progress and a bit of a setback along the way (we’re familiar with that) – and that’s fine. But nothing has happened for a long time, and up until now it’s always looked as though it was being put on the back burner.
As for the live weather, there used to be a problem where it was difficult to fly live on the other side of the world. However, that’s been sorted with this time slider, and I’m very happy with that.
But I also fully agree with you that if you’re planning a route for a group and then the live weather’s rubbish on the day of the flight, you’d need to have five alternatives lined up and let everyone know. That’s no fun.
But I think we all agree: when it comes to weather for gliding, the FS has some catching up to do, and it’s about time they got started.
So let’s all vote for it.
That’s a nice list! TBH, there should simply be one item: “Dedicate development resources for improving the weather system”. It’s one issue, and it has an objective truth/target. The divided focus and attention to particular details, like “increase cloud density “ are a dead end.
Whilst it is technically possible to consolidate the wishes, and so get a higher single-topic vote count (some votes from the same user(s) will be discarded as duplicates, though), we generally don’t do this for a number of reasons, for example:
Users feel their wish is lost amongst all the others.
It is easier for the development teams to track, schedule and assign individual items to the appropriate teams than a consolidated set of wishes.
Fantastic work @MSGamerTag01. There’s a lot of insight that you seem to have gained throughout your endeavor to improve an aspect of flying that is very dependent on the kinds of details you laid out. I hope that your group is one that is heavily consulted with if/when weather ever gets addressed.
The 20,000’ thing got my attention - I’ve suspected it all along, and it’s really an annoyance.
I’m wondering if you all have noticed the difference in tapering of surface winds between live and preset/manual weather.
Thanks for following up. I think we should appreciate though that the simulation weather is a comprehensive, interconnected system of components which needs a holistic treatment driven by objective goals.
Add to existing bug reports (or create new bug report if no pre-existing one exists) in Bug Reporting Hub > Weather & Live Weather , if an existing weather feature is not working as expected.
and / or:
Add a post to [Polls] Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Sim Update 5.1 Feedback (PC/Xbox/PS5) with a link to this topic. At the end of this beta, this category will be archived (though still available to be read by Microsoft & Asobo), so linking to this topic in the Polls feedback topic - which is not archived - will ensure your comments can still be referred to the Microsoft / Asobo team.