Hi,Is Active Sky 2 compatible with squawkbox (using VATSIM or IVAO)? That is, is it capable to get the weather from VATSIM servers? Would the generated weather be visually different than the one currently created in the standard multiplayer environment?Thanks for some clarifications.Eric.

VATSIM, yes. Visually different, honestly not sure!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Support

Hi Eric,As Jim pointed out, yes, VATSIM is supported. IVAO is not due to their policy of no payware application compatibility.With VATSIM Online mode, your departure and destination airport METAR data will be downloaded from VATSIM and used for processing. All other stations, TAF data, and aloft data are still downloaded from HiFi DataNet. When using Route-based wind smoothing, your departure and approach and landing winds will be consistent with the VATSIM downloaded METAR information, making pilot and controllers wx match up.I am still trying to get IVAO to reconsider letting AS2004 access their server... apparently, the "other" add-on was never given permission either, but somehow they claim to now support IVAO server downloads. Last I was told, IVAO is investigating the matter and there would be NO WAY any payware application would be granted access. Quite confusing.I continue to ask all IVAO members to please write the management and request they reconsider letting AS2004 access their data (this is a very small bandwidth requirement). Perhaps if enough users demand it, they will reconsider.In the mean time we continue to fully support VATSIM. Also note that 99% of the time IVAO or VATSIM will match the same data used by HiFi DataNet, so technically there is not a huge need to have VATSIM/IVAO downloads... only when their servers are having trouble (and the worst thing is you might have a bit of a tailwind on landing). Note that AS2004's TAF PROCESSING is not compatible with VATSIM online mode.Hope that helps!Thanks!-Damian

Thanks Damian for this detailed answer.What about the visuals generated by AS2004 compared to those made by squawkbox (or whoever makes them in the MP mode)? In other words, would AS2004 bring me a better experience than the standard stuff? Why would I need AS2004 if I mainly fly online?Note that I'm not an IVAO member right now, so I can't help on this side. I also find this war going between the two a total waste. If only they would join, what a good network that would make...Eric.

The only caution that you could have is about TAF processing. The SB weather interface is way back in the past, doesn't use any new features available in FS2004. I'm not sure but I think that it still uses the FS98 or FS2000 possibilities.In fact AS provides a better visual description of the metar and the controllers usually only have access to the metars assuming that you have some weather. This could be specially important in visibility.Jos