5 months later … weather not fixed so we need 3rd party devs.
Still waiting for the best weather engine “Active Sky”.
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Beyond the commercial commitment there is a bigger issue with this. All 3rd party devs what they do is crunch the METARS + some wind data and the rest is interpolation. Whilst this may show “accurate” information at airports is not fully realistic for any real pilot as METAR is observation and varies from reality. I have never found that the wind reported 165 at 10kts matches exactly what I experience at the airport, so you WILL experience variations.
MeteoBlue model is based on fronts, this is much more realistic at the macro level, you can see that on the planning map. What needs work is the microlevel and the asobo team is focusing on that so is closer to the METAR.
There is no 3rd party today that can offer a full fronts model unless you are meteoblue, weatherchannel, etc. So what we have has a lot of potential.
Is the first time that you can fly VFR around a front, impossible to do this with just a METAR. So the 3rd party involvement needs to be different here, not the traditional models used in previous versions Prepar3d or Xplane.
my 2cents
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Yep, just need to get the sim to tie up it’s weather with what is actually on the Meteoblue prediction maps at the correct time… Hopefully… please…
I agree with you. Having weather that is “correct” all over the place is much better then weather that is only “correct” at the airports - like the METARs are.
But I can understand everybody who wants both !
Summary: Wish Asobo/Microsoft luck with MSFS 2020 on Xbox and Playstation. Because until this most important task for Asobo/Microsoft in 2021 is done, nothing substantial else will be done.
Like they devs say, weather should be a core product of the simulation and I as much I loved Hifi and what they brought to FSX/P3D, we shouldn’t have to require such a program to have correct weather. I really hope they fix the actual bugs and maintain an elevated level of standards in that regard.
Whilst i would love to see what the likes of HiFi do with this technology, i agree with this. In theory, the weather model used by FS should be head and shoulders above anything ActiveSky has ever been able to reproduce. The only thing is making it work properly. Right now the most annoying issue i have is with sudden pressure changes occurring over less than a second.
Should be, but nowhere near what ActiveSky offers - Historic weather, the ability to set wind/visibility limits, ability to set manual weather areas and even weather that’s roughly accurate rather than from a forecast.
Would also allow the likes of LNM and other applications to read the weather present in the sim, which they can’t at the moment.
LNM can actually get wind data from the sim.
It can only get the wind data at your current location, whereas P3D or FSX it can give you data for any point in the sim - most usefully your destination…
Well… about that… I think FS doesn’t yet work with local weather. I think weather depiction is local, but temperature, wind, and pressure are the same everywhere. So right now it would be pointless to get the weather at your destination because FS would report the weather at your current location. Listen to how the ATIS changes as you’re approaching an airport.
If you want the weather at your destination in LNM, read the METAR. Technically, it should be pretty accurate. Still, i really do hope they improve this cause ATIS in game is next to useless.
That would make sense, actually just come back to FS (again) from P3D - to see if it had improved. Have found mods to make it more impressive (Working Title etc) - but have mostly been flying in clear skies to admire the visuals !!.. Will be turning weather back on for the next one I guess…
Definitely try it. Been flying around Hawaii for the past two days and the weather looks amazing. Very realistic cloud formations. Today i did a very low visibility approach into Hana airport. Was really cool to see the approach lights coming out of the rain.
Well, tried it before I finished up (weather was bad last night) - effects look amazing, but reminded me why I want ActiveSky !!
Conditions pretty much unflyable, howling wind, pouring rain and in the clouds up to 20k. First two were accurate though, can’t comment on the 3rd.
Using AS the wind would have been moderated automatically, as would low visibility (although don’t mind a bit of that if I am going somewhere IFR) and since I was flying the TBM I would have thinned the cloud a bit as well.
Of course the need to do it is entirely my fault, since I start where I left off and pre-plan my routes rather than jump in and fly !! Over the years AS has allowed me to do that with weather “roughly based” on reality. Option at the moment is go live or choose a theme, would really like the ability to go live and edit the weather to create your own situation- don’t mind too much if it’s via 3rd party or in “game” though … …
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Hopefully, when this thing is finished, they’ll have a weather editor where you can paint weather on a map. Would be even cooler if you could paint the weather and then the sim would model it realistically and let it develop.
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It is hard to understand why this wish is neglected. It is #7 in the wish list and still not planned.
Asobo has listened their customers, so why not with this wish.
What the reason might be?
To me it looks like Asobo want to have strict control over every single aspect of the simulation. They don’t want developers having their way with the sim any way they like, as it was with FSX. Furthermore, because they want the XBox version to take the spotlight since it is the very first flight simulator for console (as far as i know, at least in the last decade), what kind of a message it would send if XBox users would be stuck with hit and miss default weather while PC users could enjoy accurate, reliable ActiveSky weather? Doesn’t really encourage you to choose XBox over PC, does it?
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I think you’ve nailed it actually.
Preserving the XBox experience, and ensuring it is equally as functional as the PC version may well be the overriding priority.
Can’t believe this topic is still active. They made it clear they are not going to open up the weather to 3rd party devs. For a very good reason as Jörg explained.
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We have to keep pushing
Keep pushing for what? A situation like with P3D or X-Plane where you need a 3rd party program to get realistic weather is the last thing we need. Year after year people have said they wanted the default weather system to be able to replace any 3rd party app. And now that they are making it that way you guys are pushing them to make things just as they were before. Really seems stupid to me sorry!
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