First impressions of ASA with FS9

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Neil,1. For your icing issue: In the Clouds/Effects icing box place a 1 in the box and check the Apply........ box. Then try a cold flight and see what happens. Also, what is your maximum icing slider set to in ASA? Do you get icing just at 1% or can you slide that number higher?In the long run this still may be an issue with those models and the way they react to icing conditions.2. For the OVC situation: What is your FPS locked at in FS? If FS cannot keep up, the first graphical textures to be dropped are cloud layers. So try with a lower lock where FS can keep up. Your settings in FS are all good. In fact, you can even pull back the Cloud Draw Distance to 40 and gain some FPS.3. If you have other questions or questions you think I have missed after this, please re-post those.To everyone else, you are free to add your own suggestions and findings to this thread. If you have similiar issues, please start a new thread. It is impossible to keep track of everything in one thread.Thanks!

[jwood64 0]

I am running FS9 and I can also confirm the OVC issue. I don't know why but it is just not producing the overcast clouds. I have tried all the suggestions and nothing seems to work. Other then that this seems to be a nice add on. All the cloud layers are really cool. I have not had a problem so far with the upper level winds or the icing that people are reporting. I have just started messing around with it though.One quick question to confirm though. Has the green bar been eliminated from the top of the screen when ASA updates? I hope that we get a real service pack soon to fix these issues. Especially the overcast issue....

[NeilC 3]

Thanks Jim,I have tried you tips,I set Icing in FSUIPC to 1 (and ticked the box) and set max icing in ASA to the lowest (10 I think). The first flight was ok.Regarding the clouds. I set the Cloud Draw back down to 40nm and this gave me some FPS back (although it wasn't too cloudy today so this might be a coincidence). I have the FPS locked at 24 and it normally never ever drops below this. (I have a 5 month old computer which is stupidly fast, and doesn't normally struggle with anything I throw at it, so I don't think it is missing any cloud).I also unchecked the lock WX to destination airport. Is there no way of choosing the radius to set this to? 80miles is a bit to much as most alternates are within 80nm. Could you have a slider for the user to pick? 40 or 50 would be great.I just flew into EDOP, and it was giving BKN017. On arrival it looked like a nearly CAVOK day with just 1 layer of SCT cloud around at 1700. Please, Please, Please change the way you depict BKN. It should be covering most of the sky and when BKN cloud is around there are normally more than 1 layer of BKN cloud (even though lazy met reporters such as me normally only report the bottom layer). This gives the impression of OVC from the ground and sky!Could you not change your algorithms to display several layers of BKN cloud when it is reported?ThanksNeil

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Neil,Right now the Force Destination is hard coded at 80. You can make a feature request to tell-us(AT)hifisim.com and then we track those requests. I am not saying it is even possible, but that is the best way for a feature request.As you know a BKN cloud layer can be anywhere from 5/8 to 7/8 of the sky and if a station is reporting only one layer of BKN we can't say OK add more layers if they are not being reported by the station.A single layer of BKN will never look like OVC in FS!Good that your icing worked properly!Thanks,

[NeilC 3]

Final post on this subject, I promise.Have a look at these 2 images. I took them yesterday at work (sorry about the quality, used my Nokia phone).The weather was like this in London all day, and it was being put out as 9999 BKN024.The reason it is given as BKN and not OVC is that the bottom layer visible from the ground is not uniform.My point is this, I know that the text book definition of BKN is 5/8 to 7/8 of the sky obscured, but in real life I would say that at least 80% of the time it results in what most people would call Overcast.When met stations report BKN, what should be shown in FS is like the picture above, not what is currently depicted (lots of sky/ground visible and wisps of cloud in the sky).Thanks,Neil

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Neil,Thanks for the shots. When you get a chance, without ASA running, go to your favorite airport in FSX and set up a single BKN024 7/8 cloud coverage layer and see how that is depicted in FSX. Then post a screen shot.Thanks!

[NeilC 3]

Hi Jim,I think I see what you're getting at. I run FS9, but I am sure that if I set up BKN it would probably not look like my screen shot.But................with your brilliant programming skills which you have demonstrated time and time again, for example being able to put in high level cloud when CAVOK is being reported, I was hoping that you could somehow generate some extra BKN cloud to make it look more realistic.Thanks for all your help on this one,Neil