Currently, the weather system is in lockdown, and unable to be accessed by 3rd party devs. Please open this up, so features that Asobo aren’t willing to develop can be created by the likes of HiFi etc.
Some of us want things like archived weather, or TAF/forecast based weather generation. Even just the ability to set the weather by writing a METAR. This is extremely valuable when training for specific scenarios.
I think that would be mandatory
I would prefer MSFS itself to provide all the basic features of Active Sky we are used to for years like historic weather, extensive custom weather settings and METARs.
But if MSFS does not, then yes, at least it should be possible for 3PD like HIFI to deliver.
No, thanks. In two weeks the weather will be fixed. I understood that you meant in special the archived weather, but look at the price + TAX/VAT 
How about having both options… fixed default weather AND the ability for developers to interface with the weather, for all sorts of things, like providing CDU weather access, weather reports/information in other ways, providing advanced aviation-weather based tools, maybe some things that the default experience is really not focusing on?
Or should it really be that there is no other option than default, and weather should be the only category of the sim that can’t be interfaced with?
Genuinely interested in your answers. Thanks!
-Damian @ HiFi
My opinion,
I expect weather functional inside FS as mandatory. If someone isn’t satisfied or need any other features, option need to be existed as 3-rd party product. As in my times with XP11 f.ex. where internal weather was great (in my opinion due check everytime), 3-rd party weather engines was outside my requirements. I think MeteoBlue system is better and if I compare it with XP11 weather (I must also say that some problems was also inside with not realstic patches of thunderstorm elements, looking very line-up in XP11), simply if Asobo will solve that issues (now existing) I don’t see reason to step to 3-rd party weather system.
Some people (a lot given previously successful products) want features that are beyond what any simulation will provide by default.
Features such as archived/historical weather, TAF based weather generation, direct control with MATAR text etc, are all features I don’t expect Asobo to provide out of the box. We have however been accustomed to 3rd party devs having the required access to develope these products on their own.
However, if Asobo perhaps does update the weather system in the FS it could be great & we wouldn’t have a need for 3rd party developers to create more software that the flight sim community wouldn’t need/have to purchase.
Maybe I put here opinion that most of users share with me,
to be satisfied with weather inside my flight, I require +/- real weather as is in reality, now I see +/- that MeteoBlue did good job with it’s system if I check that in it’s web and Asobo need only somehow update to be fine. from my long time in sim never did some historical flights, I fly at day I want and not need return to history. Simply if I can say standard simmer 
Regardless of price, I wish I could use a resource from a developer that I trust. Each one will thus be able to use the resource they want, whether from Asobo or HiFi or etc.
So I also like that Asobo opens this resource in its SDK so that other developers can present their resources to us and give us the opportunity to choose.
I do agree that the weather system should be allowed to be opened up to 3rd party devs so they can create apps like ActiveSky and REX Weather. It’s up to the user if they want to keep the default weather or invest in a 3rd party app to be honest.
I’ll concur what is the best is to open up the APIs so that they can do work with this new platform.
Even if it was just the archived weather that’s an incredibly usefull feature to fly in previous weather.
Same argument can be made for aircraft addons, airport packages, etc… By going down that road you will end up a closed simulator that lose community support quickly.
If they open up that just allow the use of other tools with the sims. It’s not a bad thing. If you do not use them you just don’t purchase them and use the weather provided by MSFS.
There is a lot more than just archived weather. It’s also a lot of work on smoeething the changes, good turbulences representation and so many tings that are not really visible. Even interpolating weather for places where you don’t have actual data sources.
What makes a great sim is for it to be completely opened to thrid parties so they can bring in more stuff that the sim developer can. For example no matter how good Asobo are they will never have a jet as close to the real thing as PMDG, FSLabs, Majestic, and so on. Simply put Asobo can’t spent years on a single aircraft model, while those compagny can and really pushes what our sims can do.
I agree with you, the weather system should be open to 3PD
For me weather is a core feature of a simulation platform itself.
I don’t want to invest in a 3d party product weather tool, when it is such an important core feature.
But I am confident that Asobo will fix the remaining issues with the weather system.
Looks like it’s already opened up.
I wouldn’t bee so sure. The “inter-process communication” sounds like the run-time injection that HiFi was previously talking about. Basically using brute force to inject your content over the internal weather. Not a genuine API data exchange type interface of any kind.
I would like to to see this… I upvote this.
The problem I have with the current weather system is real weather is tied to real time. A do a lot of my flying after hours when my family is asleep. I prefer to fly in North America / Caribbean. The way it is now, I will always have to fly after dark if I want RW weather. Doesn’t really work for me, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Furthermore, many times I want RW weather, but I want AI traffic density and composition tied to a different time of the day (morning rush, for example).
