And, of course it'll have the Moon, with correct ephmeris...

[jcomm 5,923]

... proper daylight transitions based on perpetual callendar and location ( latitude ), etc...

All good stuff 🙂 to sum to the already many good news we keep getting from the MFS teams.

Wow - 2020 ! The Year Of The FLIGHTSIM !!!!

[jcomm 5,923]

Coupled with what appears to be the most advanced weather model available so far for any of the civil flight simulation platforms I know, excluding probably Aerowinx PSX and specially the upcoming update for the NG version of it's FMS + New Weather Injection System, this is yet an additional reason to feel so enthusiastic about MFS.

From the visuals, and the Weather Episode ( 2 ), we can get the idea that there is simply NOTHING comparable to what MFS is offering, unless some surprise happens with either XP, P3D or AEFS. Of course we can't really know if that will happen, but honestly and from the state of development and pace at which it progresses on those platforms, I seriously doubt it'll be the case.

So, again, MFS is going to be UNIQUE in terms of weather rendering AND weather effects.

Yes, I know thermals ( playground ) and slope winds have been available since fs9, xp has it too, but, honestly on both those simulators weather effects, even when pushed by the best available weather injectors, leave a LOT to be desired.

From what I have seen so far, in the videos and from interviews with the dev team, it really looks like this is yet another aspect where MFS will surely shine within the full spectrum of alternatives, and indeed weather is a must have in a flight simulation.

Weather is also particularly interesting from the modeling pov since as a glider pilot and also being professionaly tied to meteorology, I really tend to be picky about how it get's done in a flight simulator.

A good / sound physics model is, of course, mandatory too in order to make the end result as realistic as possible. In that area I confess my expectations regarding MFS FDM are also high at this moment, but of course, that's difficult to base on hands-on experience since I do not make part of the Alfa team.

I wonder how that area - weather - is going to articulate with 3pds after the release of MFS. Will it still be possible for the major, or other, players to offer their products with additional enhancements? Will the MFS SDK create ( unlike the alternatives we now have with the exception of FSX and P3D which both do a much better work than XP in terms of the access to weather modeling from external apps ) the necessary hooks for those 3pds to bring into that platform additional effects ? 

I would love to find frontal systems, breezes, convergence, gravity waves, geopotential height variation / non ISA pressure variation and other systems / effects making their way into MFS's weather. Just think about how great that would be for instance for soaring !

Edited January 4, 2020 by jcomm

[Christopher Low 5,353]

Accurate simulation of solar eclipses would be the real test of the relative positions and angular sizes of the Moon and Sun. That is way beyond the scope of a flight simulator, but maybe Microsoft/Asobo would like to impress me....

[Murmur 3,941]

I think the only simulator that correctly depicts eclipses is (understandably) Orbiter, which is not strictly a flight sim. IL2 (or was it war thunder?) depicts moon eclipsing the sun, but not the effects on ambient lighting I think.

If MFS depicts correctly the eclipses in all if their aspects, that would be a first!

[Dominique_K 10,138]

The MS/Asobo wonderful campaign has given rise a strange trend, some of us expecting now a life, planet or even now a celestial simulator 😂 !  As Murmur says there are good space simulators (Orbiter is a freeware BTW).  

If there was one thing for which Asobo could take in account the moon, it would be the tides which change significantly the coastline landscape, including to allow beach landing. I do not hold my breath, maybe for FS2030.

They also could simulate the exact  relative position of stars for navigation and bring a sextant as a DLC 😉. The market might be a little small though.

 

[Christopher Low 5,353]

The tides are also affected by the Sun (to a lesser extent), so we would still need super accurate calculations for the positions and distances of both celestial objects if we wanted to simulate tides correctly As for the stars, well.......stopping them from being visible when the Sun is above the horizon would be a very good start!

Edited January 4, 2020 by Christopher Low