There are well over 100+ weather bug reports and threads on live weather and radar and weather in general…but forgive me for creating a new thread. I’m not here to debate if live weather is perfect or not (I actually love it), but I have noticed more and more customers who are now flying airliners like PMDG, Fenix, FBW. etc. are asking the same question: when will Asobo provide its weather radar data to 3rd party developers?
It’s been well over 2 years now and the sim is getting better and better, particularly with decent study-professional level aircraft from FBW, PMDG, Fenix, etc. – but none of these advanced airliners have a working weather radar in their planes because they say Asobo hasn’t shared the proper weather information needed.
Can we bring this topic up in our next Q&A? Even if it’s a “we don’t know” or a “we’re never sharing our weather info” – at this point, anything would help us customers know if we will ever have a working weather radar in a “study level” aircraft or any 3rd party aircraft for that matter.
I know a TON of people interested; I hope they’ll show some interest after the holidays are over.
To me it feels like they should really fix their weather first. Even if those complex airliners gets the radar working it will look strange with those circles of METAR rain around the airports as an example. We can see those circles with the nexrad feature. And to me it feels pointless if their is no point avoid the weather that the radar shows. It’s no dangerous conditions in the sim weather at the moment. Dangerous weather is why those radar exists.
To me it’s more important they get the weather back to atleast the quality we had pre su7 first that were seamless without those METAR bubbles and stuff.
I agree with you. My main point was why 3 major airline companies say they can’t use the info Asobo provides in the SDK. Then someone else told me that Inibuilds’ A310 that was released as the 40th anniv of MSFS - their airliner uses radar, so what am I missing as to why Fenix, FBW and PMDG have all said they’re waiting on Asobo?
can i ask, how can I understand that I have weather radar in my Carenado Seneca from +/- release date and is functional? Is this other implementation from other data not from sim???
The “weather radar” provided by the sim to display in those airliners in which it works is simply a static 2D representative bitmap image. It is is no way the type of image that would be displayed by a real aircraft weather radar. Aircraft weather radars have for decades had the ability to tilt and in some cases pan the antenna to get data from various points in 3-dimensional space ahead of the aircraft and provide imagery that more accurately represents rain and moisture content at various altitudes and bearings from the aircraft. Modern radars can do the same with a phased array antenna and limited if any physical antenna movement, and their electronics can process the reflections back from the radar to create a very detailed 3-D “map” of moisture and in some cases also wind and aerosols in the air.
There is nothing akin to this level of detail provided through the sim to aircraft displays. It is hoped that at some point in the coming year, MS/Asobo will have some discussions about this limitation with MeteoBlue, the sim’s weather data provider, so that some reasonable semblance of this kind of data can be presented for those aircraft that could make use of it. If that occurs, aircraft developers like PMDG, Fenix and others could then access the data and use it to create aircraft weather radar simulations much more akin to those available in the real things.
First up there is info being shared in the SDK because other devs are using it for weather radar implementations. If the devs mentioned here don’t want to use it that’s a different issue and a question that needs to be asked of them not Asobo. Could the current implementation be better and more complete, well yes absolutely it could but that could be said for most things in this sim.
Yes, but they are using the 2D data. And it is not what the more high-fidelity 3rd parties, who want to model the aircraft systems as close to reality as possible can use. I had this exact discussion on both Fenix and FBW discords few months back. Suffice to say I thought as much as you, a 2D weather radar is better than no radar at all. They do not agree, and want to push Asobo and Meteoblue to provide the data they need.
I’m all for realism and better systems I truly am but if you have something as a starting point you should really use it now and improve it later. If they want to be stubborn and deny their customers something that is their choice alone.
You must of missed the video Q and A or the myriad of posts where it’s been discussed and repeated many times that they plan to talk with MB mid January regarding data sharing/access and API. So there you go. The next Q and A should hopefully give an answer and if not I’m sure in March we’ll get our final answer.
LOL, for being an Alpha Tech Insider, you’re very out of the know. The A310 radar has been reviewed by an actual airline pilot and it’s not the radar you want. It’s pretty much just a top down view of the weather in the sim and the titling and angling doesn’t work the way it should and is anything but realistic. Fenix, FBW, and PMDG are waiting on Asobo because they want to do it correctly and use the data from it’s source and be able to model it the way the actual radar works and not just simply slap on a quick fix.
It’s not what I want. If you don’t take what there currently is and then seek to improve you might never get what you want or have at least to wait a while for it. There are many things in this sim like this. The G1000, the GNS units, The flight model. Should we of all said from the start that these are useless and won’t develop around them until they are what we want. No we make do until they improve. Weather radar doesn’t have to be any different.
Development time costs a lot of money. If they developed around the currently available data they would spend a lot of money for a system that wouldn’t even remotely come close to what could be done with correct data. Working in circles is a waste of money that can be spent for other things that can be right from the start. The Garmin units have been reworked primarily by freeware groups before they were employed by MS. It doesn’t matter how long and how often they do it, they do it in their free time. If there were someone doing that for a free wxr the situation would be different but a commercial company can’t work like this.
You could make that argument for every dev. You can’t keep waiting for things to be perfect in this sim because even when it is perfect for a moment it can be broken again soon after. They made a choice and other devs have made theirs. It’s not easy developing against a moving target but if you want to develop for this sim it’s a harsh reality that you will have to do things over as the sim changes. That is my point. There is no right or wrong in this just a point of view.
In my view, I would rather wait until the weather radar reached a certain point, where experts who know about these system consider it ready to be released and before this state; have it in testing - there are so many items released in a mostly unfinished states that one is using work arounds for aiming at realistic simulation.
I think in study level aircraft - I would rather not have illusions that can create confusion, while trying to simulate procedures.
A problem with buggy, unfinished features, is that there is a lot of obscurity created in the forum, Discord and elsewhere because it’s not clear wether the feature is not working as intended or the user is not operating the feature as intended. With developers and authors often not having time to engage here, this confusion is left to the users to work with - often quite well but many times it would be a lot easier when developers could explain why certain things don’t work yet.
I think if something is not finished and the aim of FBW, PMDG, Fenix, etc. is to enable a realistic simulation, it would be better to wait until they think MSFS’s weather features are ready to be used.
The current implementation of the weather radar is a relatively simple 2D projection of precipitation.
Some third parties want access to a full 3D representation of the precipitation all around the aircraft (so that they can implement stuff like tilt, angle etc). From what I gather this is not something that’s currently available, and I would assume it would require a lot of effort / dev time from Asobo/MS to create this. It’s not simply a switch they’re refusing to flick for third parties.
