This sim has not proper simulation of visibility

Well you wouldn’t be able to see the visuals, but you could feel comfortable in the knowledge that they are there if you could. I think that I am going to get into the shower too.

EDIT: Actually bra you might be on to something; that is pretty brilliant. We could develop a game together that has the best ever graphics - you just can’t see them because let’s face it, in actual reality you can’t see the graphics either.

1 Like

That would be cheating. I can’t stand for that. Even flying above a thick layer of clouds I need the assurance the planet - in all its Asobo glory - is still underneath it.

No… give them that finger and before you know it they’ll have us only fly at night… over the Sahara!

Oooh, can’t they?? Have you missed how they can?

“That’s just a bug, we’ll fix it in patch 3948. Enjoy the dessert [sic].”

1 Like

I saw those exact conditions the last two times I took off from Burbank, Cal.
While the weather was clear in Burbank, over the mountain Downtown LA was covered in fog/smog, depicted by a layer of low level clouds, where only the tallest highrises would stand out. Just like in that picture.

Not possible?

What is this then?


Also not possible in Live weather? I beg to differ:

This is above San Francisco right now.

that’s not the conditions showed in the pictures of real life. I know this sim can just put a normal cloud layer down to the ground but thats not the same.

1 Like

I think those conditions are not the same. These are layers of “hard edged” limits clouds in the upper side and the bottom side, they are very thin and thus when going through them, they will produce a somehow not too dense fog (as would happen in other layers of clouds with higher thickness) creating a very short field of reduced visibility BUT, once below or above them, you can see they are normal clouds, which is not the same kind of condensation I’m talking about or the one showed in the pictures. I’m not an expert in this by any means, but if you look to the pictures, these hazes/fogs are much higher and have bigger thickness imo.


As you can see in the pictures, there is not any top layer over the foggy zone, so not exactly a cloud so to speak, but a bank of “smooth” condensation, different of a clearly shaped cloud as the ones in your pics. Look at the massive thickness of that bank, not possible to create anything like that in FS now.

As I said, Im not an expert on this so Im sorry for my vague descriptions, but hope you can understand what I mean.

1 Like

The discussion is about “fog”, this is by no means fog, the definition of fog (at least in aviation terms) is a relative humidity of 100% with visiblity of 1000 m or less. In FS2020 the visilbity never comes down to 1000 m or below. Even with aerosol density set at 100%, visibility is still more than a mile, for simulating instrument approaches pretty useless. Aerosol is a weird term anyway, have never seen it being used in aviation before. So no, FS2020 can’t simulate “fog” layers, maybe mist or haze at best.

1 Like

Looks to be about 5 to 8 miles visibility. Much of the concern is from people who want to do instrument approaches down to minimums, and break out of the clouds and see the runway lights. So a 1/8th or 1/4 of a mile visibility, 800’ RVR, Fog, etc. And the need to set it specifically and not rely on the weather model to sometimes generate it.

1 Like

Actually I’m not only concern about the ability to efectively decrease the visibility to real minimums, but also the ability to have very light fog but along a huge area and wide range of heights (a thick but low density fog).

So you are not talking about fog then, but rather mist or haze? I assume this can be easily fixed with the introduction of visibility layers. Regarding higher altitudes, FS2020 is looking at Upper Wind and Temperature charts and therefore must be able to determine the altitude of inversion layers and place a visibility layer with a visibility corresponding to the inversion strength? Its not 100% accurate but I don’t expect FS2020 to ever have a accurate weather model determining atmospheric stability, environmental lapse rates, dewpoints, calculate dry / wet adiabatic lapse rates etc. It will always be an imported METAR or weather chart which the sim tries to display as accurately as possible opposed to relying on weather models and calculations. Regarding fog they are technically right, in both cases the airmass has reached its dewpoint and therefore a relative humidity at / near 100%, so yes fog is generally a (stratus) cloud at ground level but obviously the density / visibility is not the same for every cloud / fog layer so we need some way to adjust this accurately. As for mist or haze its a little more complicated as it can be caused by water evaporating or solid particles in the air (or both). Also the more solid particles the more the water tends to condense as water needs “condensation nuclei” to do this. So it is all pretty complex and not an exact science, I’m curious what they will come up with…

The simulator gets its weather from a gridded numerical forecast model generated by Meteoblue. All of these parameters are already produced by their model. The simulator only has to grab them and draw the weather based on them. There’s no need for the simulator to try to create its own visibility model based on where the inversion layers are, it can use other precomputed variables in the model like relative humidity, precipitation and particulate density.

Sounds good in theory, but so far its not doing so well. Hopefully they will get things sorted and give us more options to control the weather outside the model.

We need upper layer haze as well. Only on very special cold winter nights can you see so many stars in the sky. If they are truly using an accurate atmosphere model. Then they should factor in pollution affects and upper atmosphere particles

2 Likes

Yeah, the weather is just missing features, I’m guessing because the simulator was rushed out the door and they just didn’t have time to finish it.

This topic has been kicked around for a few months. Boiled down, what I can gather is that parts of the weather engine are simply missing or not implemented yet, such as the ability to produce a wet boundary layer haze.

Other parts are highly simplified, where a generic cloud model is used to represent multiple facets of weather including fog, stratus, convection, and cirrus. These all have different processes behind them that produce different properties. The generic clouds’ properties can be changed to approximate these, but the control isn’t there to give cirrus its proper wispy texture or produce radiation fog that’s dense enough to obliterate visibility.

2 Likes

I could not agree more. Not being able to simulate true IFR conditions is a HUGE problem in my mind. I wish Asobo would take this seriously and at least acknowledge that it is problem and that they will work on resolving it.

1 Like

There is a thread in the “Self Service - Bugs and Issues” category that is titled “Weather - Visibility Control”. It has a few votes, but if all of you can also up-vote it by clicking on the little “vote” box at the top of the thread, it will help get Adobo’s attention. Please do so if you feel as strongly as I do about this.

2 Likes

Probably needs a ’ Bump ’ so we can net more votes.
I’m holding off on investing in a Decent ( Force Feedback Joystick ) or indeed any other peripheral until MSFS2020 becomes at least as functional from a ’ Pilot ’ perspective as literally every other Sim out there. I am still shaking my head in amazement that the product got through Alpha and Beta testing without a custom visibility setting for IFR approaches.

3 Likes

I would like to hear something else about this.

Well in a previous interview with the developers (not the last one but the one before) one of them said “below 3 km you won’t fly VFR anyway” so apparently IFR simulation does not have priority.

Also this is incorrect as VFR flight in class F and G, below 3000 ft is possible down to 1500 m at speeds providing sufficient time to avoid other traffic and obstacles.

As well as SVFR.
Very baffling responses to the request of a very basic sim feature simulated in many & very much older sims.

3 Likes