I am fed up with these weather problems, when will you decide to open the code to third party developers? Active Sky could make the difference and instead we arrived at SU7 and still the weather went crazy. Stop!
9 Likes
The lenght of the server outage is simply unacceptable. Never had such an outage with Active Sky for example, in 10 years of flight simming.
And that’s not the first time from MSFS …
6 Likes
If you can’t guarantee the stability of the weather server, open the interface to a third party team to handle it!!!
8 Likes
I’ve ended up with REX because I was so fed up with live weather not there and advice from Asobo to use preset weather triggered me even more. I’m flying 99% time with live weather because this is simulator and I want to simulate real life weather. Only time when I’m injecting weather preset is for when I’m willing to do some weird/unusual stuff. But when I fly I usually stay connected to VATSIM then differences especially in temperature or pressure are pain in the ■■■.
At first I was not huge fan of opening weather system to 3rd parties since I’ve seen great potential with weather engine by Asobo. But after listening to Asobo saying for almost two years ‘we will fix weather system soon™’. I changed my mind. We need 3rd party software to inject weather. And I’m talking after one day of using REX Weather system. It is day to night when you compare metar with default live weather and REX live weather (like for example when I have OVC001 RVR 600m and default weather system gives me 9999 and FEW020 
REX (or guys from other simulators that are doing their job with weather systems like Active Sky) has a huge potential but to let them spread their wing fully they need options to do so. So for now they are unable to inject weather via planned route to have decent and nice transitions and while ActiveSky on XPlane had it so weather transitions were not that dramatic.
4 Likes
Dumb question: what’s the difference between “Implement weather and terrain APIs” which is under investigation and “Open up the weather system to 3rd party devs” which is not planned and I hope they will eventually change their mind?
The proposed APIs are to allow 3rd party apps to read existing terrain and weather data from the sim for things like weather radar.
What they do not intend to do is create an API that would allow 3rd party apps to set the weather.
1 Like
Ok, unerstood. Thanks.
This may seem a little combative but it is not meant to be at all; however I believe that just because you, I, or even 959 out of 1 million+ people want it doesn’t mean that you have a right to have it, and therefore their response is not contemptuous at all.
We are not the ones driving what happens in MS/Asobo, it is not our product to demand and get the changes we want - it is entirely theirs. They have opened up this forum and other channels to get feedback which will then be discussed internally. If they want to change something then that is up to them.
I truly believe they want to make this product the best it can be. They are refactoring code all the time and making the sim better at each iteration. Are the problems, of course there are, but if we stop and look back to where we were (FSX) to where we are now it is simply a massive step change.
Asobo/MS have made their decision, we should respect that decision and move on.
1 Like
I respectfully disagree, as they said, the community is directly helping steer the ship:
I see what you’re saying, but my interpretation is that our direct feedback helps inform their development decisions, it does not give us carte blanche to demand what we want, or expect that if we want it, therefore they must do it.
1 Like
Of course not, however a weather SDK is a reasonable request and something every serious flight simulator should have, don’t you think? If that is not possible, at least get someone with experience on board to help build the weather system.
2 Likes
I do agree with that, some sort of SDK would be good, certainly the ability to inject weather more than anything. Perhaps we need to start a new wish item with that specific in mind? But I must say I am overall very happy with the weather.
That way it potentially gets around the difficult nature of licencing weather data from meteoblue.
On your last point, we don’t know who is on the team and what experience they have. Reading between the lines it sounds like (to me at least) that Asobo are slowly refactoring the code base from FSX into the new code. Being a developer myself I know how difficult it is to refactor code once it is integrated with other systems. My only bug bear with a lot of these types of posts are that we should all be patient and enjoy the ride.
How does FSX come into the picture? MSFS is using a completely rewritten weather engine afaik. Lately it has been deteriorating rapidly for reasons unknown. Asobo might be struggling and need some help.
I do not agree. Weather is a fundamental pillar of flight and it should also be for flight simulation, otherwise everything becomes a kind of arcade. The request of nearly 1000 people to open the SDK to third-party developers who have always been respected in the weather industry for their professionalism is neither a joke nor a childish whim. It is the serious and thoughtful request from simmers who have years of experience not only in the simulation sector but also, like me, in real flight.
No one here argues that Flight Simulator users should be forced to purchase a third party product (weather injection software) but that at least Asobo/Microsoft provides this opportunity to those who want it.
The fact that a million people do not raise this issue does not at all mean that they do not feel it, it just means that those who post in this forum are the ones with the most sensitivity.
Do you want another example? How can you pretend to simulate a tens of tons liner in a decent way if you have not even provided a dedicated axis for the tiller?
Yet on this forum many people have asked for it but we have arrived at SU7 and still no axis for the tiller can be seen. Does it seem normal to you?
11 Likes
They probably aren’t gonna do this cause they have deals with the weather companies they get the data from. Once again money comes before the community. Shame
4 Likes
Or, you could develop for X-Plane? The current version of ASXP hasn’t been updated in a loooooooooong time.
I would also love to see them make some small adjustments to the ATIS to make it more like the real deal. I noticed that the ATIS loves to give you the exact wind such as 232@12 or 335@15G30 while in the real world ATIS would always report wind in the 10’s such as 230, 240, 330, 050, etc.
Small things like this make a huge difference.
2 Likes
This is mandatory. Actually simulator weather system is terrible.
6 Likes
I kinda chuckle at this. Very, very, very, few people in the the flight sim community use a hardware tiller. Virtually everyone just uses rudder pedals, even if it’s not strictly accurate to IRL. It would be waste of effort to work on something like this, for the small handful of simmers that might use it. The point is, don’t over estimate how many people want to buy an addon weather program. We buy them because sims like Ex-Plane 11 has dismal weather, and Ex-Plane 12 is going to have even worse weather, so we buy addon weather programs. I think Asobo should keep the weather engine locked down, and continue to improve on it.