There is a nice new interesting thread about weather in the General Discussion & Feedback forum.
Title: “Please don’t resort to paid weather addons. yet.”
Great idea OP. It never hurts to have more options. And if it’s in the marketplace, MSFT gets a cut.
i am amused that people rant against bloatware in operating systems and other software, but when you get to flight sims now people want everything built in and no choices. (?)
i dont care if msfs somehow ends up with decent weather (still a big IF). i want options. this is like microsoft not allowing photoshop or any other image manipulation software to run on windows because windows comes with MS paint. (btw the version of MS paint doesn’t really even work as advertised.)
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Asobo telling devs to leave the weather alone, is no different than Ex-Plane telling devs to leave the shaders alone.
The MFS weather feature is a big breakthrough in flight sims. I don’t blame them for not wanting to share that, or let a third party sully that feature.
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I believe the weather engine is a core function of the sim environment and should therefore work out of the box. I’m actually tired of buying programs to fix something that should work correctly as a basic function of the sim. If you want to open it so a 3rd party devs could provide historical weather ok but to have it open so someone can make it work the way is should. I can’t vote for that.
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I see that this topic has many votes but is also discussed very controversily. Honestly, I belong to those who do not really understand for the necessity for 3rd party weather. From the pre-release videos I understood that, beside others, weather was one of the key topics Asobo invested in to improve it?
So, I wonder if it makes more sense to start a weather-associated list of wishes or bugs?
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they’ve had at least 10 months. it still isn’t working as advertised, and even if it worked as advertised it wouldn’t have the all the features of 3rd party weather apps.
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Thanks for your good summary of “flying” and “feeling”. I only need the “feeling” part of weather. But for me the discussion is a little strange. If the weather engine has an API to 3rd party developers, what is the harm? FS2020 users that are happy with the stock FS2020 weather engine don’t have to pay a penny. Users like me who want thermals are willing to pay.
What is the point in this “I don’t need it, therefore nobody should have it”?
Can please the “say no” fraction tell me what they loose if there is a weather engine API? Again, nobody is forced in buying 3rd party software.
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For me the FS2020 weather engine IS the FSX weather engine. There is no break through. If you look at the nice clouds GRAPHICS, there is progress. But I talk about the influence weather has on the airplane. There I see no progress. Maybe progress is in the pipeline.
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Hello VeryOldPilot, is this your new account?
@ValleySimTec
Thank you for your opinion. I think someone is accusing you of being me to invalidate your opinion and get what he wants. Gives me the impression of being a cheap sales trick. See below.
@PaulFalke
As you are implying that I am using a second account, I suggest you report your suspicion/accusation to Forum Admin.
If opening a second account is possible, Forum Admin might want to check if it is also possible to do that to manipluate an upvote count when lucrative sales revenues for a 3rd party dev could be gained that way.
Helpful tip: With such a tactic, you might give readers the impression that there is a financial benefit for you if you get the weather system opened for 3rd party devs. The readers might then also questioned the validity/identity of other upvoters.
Not true in my opinion,
if you look to all settings/options and what MeteoBlue system offers, it’s different system.
That’s fine, I can respect that opinion completely.
But I’ll ask a few questions.
Have you every tried to fly during the day in sim, but it’s night in real life? Archived weather will make this more realistic, with correct temps, pressures, winds etc.
Have you ever tried to use flight planning software to create professional flight dispatch paperwork, with METARs, TAFs and most importantly, accurate enroute winds and corresponding cruise levels and fuel burns? Having a source of data for this, and ensuring it corresponds with what will happen in the sim is important for this.
Have you ever flown a study level airliner and needed the ability to uplink enroute wind data into the FMS so your fuel and ETA predictions are correct? Again, accurate data in the correct format for your aircraft is required.
Have you ever wanted to test your skills in specific weather, without having to try and build it yourself. The ability to search the world for things like fog thunderstorms, high winds etc, would help.
If the answer is no to all of these questions, that’s ok. There are however, plenty of people who do enjoy some or all of these features.
Now, I don’t actually believe that Asobo should include any of the above mentioned features in the default weather system. Their focus should be wholly on implementing the best, most complete weather simulation they are capable of producing.
However, these features have been available in the FSX/P3D space for the best part of a decade, and people will eventually want them available in MSFS too.
I’ll say it again because some people seem to miss this point entirely.
Nobody who is arguing for a weather API, wants to absolve Asobo of the responsibility for creating a suitable, complete weather simulation.
We’d just like the ability to allow developers to develop the additional, advanced features we’ve enjoy for years.
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The Problem here is that the weather in FS2020 looks good out of the box - so I don’t see the need to play with the weather engine as such. However, the functionality is realy bad. Active Sky has soo much functionality besides just generating weather that the lack of this is painstaken.
I’d like to see 3rd Party dev and/or FS2020 native support for these functionalities (wether map, flight planning with best weather, functioning altitude winds, weather radar, get weather for specific locations for planning purpuse, weather reports etc.) What I personally don’t need is other textures etc.
So dear Asobo - PLEASE either improve FS2020 to allow for a/m things or let 3rd party Devs do it. The way it is right now is simply put not acceptable. But this is true for basically any part of FS2020.
Flight Planning: not really nice - ok for gamers, not soo good for simmers 
Weather: looks wow! - functionality 
Aircraft: looks nice… System depth especially the garmin is no way close to real life…
Scenery: overall impressive with some glitches - but still needs 3rd party improvements…
System over all: pretty unstable - hope it gets better over time 
Any how - just my 2 cents
liketofly
Please answer my question: Is ValleySimTec your new account?
Please answer my question: Are you a forum adminstrator? If not, who the bl**dy he*l do you think you are to make such accusation and ask such rude questions.
How would you feel if I asked you if your wife was sleeping around or do you have paid trolls here to bump up the upvote.
If you have a suspicion, inform Forum Admin. Please do that.
Very nice explanation, changes my mind. I fully understand your points and agree. You concentrate on missing functions and I also believe that these functions are more interesting than the 100% solution for the look like the last reflection on a wet surface etc.
With this, it may be that MS focused a lot on the look of the weather but not so much on functionality? I also wonder if MS would be willing to take up all the functionalities you listed? The whole concept of 3rd party solutions is based on some workload distribution between MS and 3rd parties with MS providing a framework/core acceptable for many players but deep-level extensions provided by 3rd parties for more specialized solutions like airplanes etc.
So, it seems that MS needs to understand what exactly users want (like your list) and then reach out to weather providers to clarify where exactly the split should be and what is still on the task list of MS? I think they did so for the airports?
Yes, this is the sensible thing to do. And Microsoft did this work-sharing in the past, because we have a lot of 3rd party stuff in FSX. New in the picture is Asobo. What do they want? Do they want to share? The future will tell.
I’m no admin. Now please answer my question: Is ValleySimTec another account of you? It is a simple YES or NO question.
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OK, I assume you are only trying to be amusing and funny. I’ll play along because this could bring some humour into this boring and dying thread.
I am assuming you only want to invalidate negative posts.
Before I answer your question, please assume I did actually ask you the two ‘how would you feel questions’ in my previous post and first answer them, not with a simple YES or NO, but in extreme detail. Audacity can work both ways. 
Before I answer your question, please report your suspicion to Forum Admin. A second account may be against the forum rules and Forum Admin could perhaps check the forum registration data and the used IP address.
Please explain first in detail why you are not asking the ValleySimTec poster who he is and if he has a second forum account. I am assuming you are trying to be funny because you are not doing that.
And please first answer these questions too: Is it possible to open another forum account?
Can that be done, or could a single account be opened, merely to upvote this thread and could that be done by, for example, by someone who has a direct or indirect financial interest in getting the weather system opened up? Assume ‘Indirect financial interest’ covers owners/employees of a 3rd party weather addon company/supplier and relatives and friends of such persons. or someone who wants e employed by such company/supplier.
Have you upvoted and do you have such a direct/indirect financial interest?
Why do you think someone who does not want to upvote would open another account just to not upvote? I can’t see your joke yet but that seems a little silly to me.
If you suspect I would open another account merely to not upvote, why do you insult me by underestimating my intelligence and suspecting that I would then open only 1 other account instead of 5 to 10.
I will be pleased to fulfil your humorous and audacious request and give you a Yes or No answer after you have adequately answered my questions first and, in view of your self-appointed investigate role have also asked every poster in this thread and everyone who has upvoted if they have a direct or indirect financial interest in getting the weather system opened up.
Alternatively, although much less amusing, simply assume that it will easier for you to ask ValleySimTec. I would love to read his response.
Thanks for your humour and the opportunity you have given to play along. Looking forward to seeing how this will proceed.
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