Is Lightning Still a Thing?

[tepiksi 34]

3 hours ago, DaveS said:

Apparently most people are more concerned with being able to see a tree 40 miles a way than this

10 nautical miles of trees would be enough. 😉

I've had a couple of lightning after SU4 but not nearly as much as a way before when it was really intense. If it's a problem, just report it via Zendesk every day (copy-paste) and write about it at the MSFS Forums. I think there is no other way to get your messages in the right direction.

Edited May 28, 2021 by tepiksi

[Snuffleupagus 327]

Flew into Puerto Rico the other day and experienced this too. Few clouds but one heck of a lightning show. Ruined the immersion for me honestly. 

[Tuskin38 6,520]

3 hours ago, marsman2020 said:

Lightning is an accessibility issue.  Some people have issues with flashing lights.  There should be a way to turn it off entirely.  There is also no flashing light warning anywhere in the sim.

As far as I can tell the lightning doesn't flash at the frequency that would effect people with photosensitivity issues..

Edited May 28, 2021 by Tuskin38

[fppilot 4,371]

9 hours ago, kiwikat said:

I've not been a fan of the weather system in this sim since the tech alpha. If they can't figure this thing out soon they need to open it up to devs who can.

Yes!  Weather and cloud textures both!  And avionics included as well!  

[Tuskin38 6,520]

Pretty sure The clouds don’t use textures, they’re procedurally generated or something like that using shaders.

And I’m guessing there’s likely some sort of legal reason they can’t open up the weather because of the Meteoblue integration.

They also said a couple Q&As ago that they’re going to revamp the weather system.

Also how are the avionics not opened up?

Edited May 29, 2021 by Tuskin38

[mikeklimek 151]

I think this has gotten worse somehow.  If I select 'Live Weather', anything short of clear skies is automatic lightning and thunder.  😒

[Weatherman 193]

Can confirm. I also run into this issue the other day flying from Porto to Lisbon. Scattered (flat) cumulus clouds, some light rain shafts here and there but lightning everywhere. Completely unrealistic. Never had this before the sim update. There is definitively something wrong.

[Fiorentoni 4,231]

I only had that once in the last couple of weeks, but there was a thunderstorm (on the weather radar) like 40nm away, so I thought I was just seeing the flashes from over there, like it happens in real life (on the ground) sometimes. Everything else, even heavy rain, has had no lightning for me, so it seems to be working fine on my end. I am only using live weather.

[eslader 1,783]

On 5/28/2021 at 8:53 PM, Tuskin38 said:

The clouds don’t use textures, they’re procedurally generated or something like that using shaders.

Which is nice, because even the best 3rd party clouds in the previous sim would spin around when you got close to them.  I find the clouds in MSFS to be even better than those in Active Sky / Cloud Art.  They're not perfect, and I certainly hope they improve at least enough to get rid of that weird cross-hatch texture they sometimes get, but compared to every other sim out there, they're pretty freaking good.

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

No lightning issues here anymore. Not for maybe a month or more.  Perhaps it is to region related and to do with where people fly ? No idea why it is fixed for me.

If anything the sim is running too well. It i sort of getting boring now you can just log in and fly without weird bugs and issues and have a wide choice of aircraft.  I sort of miss the old days where every new plane was met with anticipation and every time you logged in it was a lottery as to what would go wrong next 😄

[Blueline308 127]

On 6/14/2021 at 10:11 AM, mikeklimek said:

I think this has gotten worse somehow.  If I select 'Live Weather', anything short of clear skies is automatic lightning and thunder.  😒

Same for me.  I think it might be because it is summer in the Northern hemisphere.  From launch until Winter last year I had this problem, during Winter it went away (only to be replaced by the terrible icing).  It is almost as if whenever the games sees clouds, heat and a certain humidity, boom, thunderstorm.  I wonder if the people in the Southern hemisphere have noticed a decrease in the lightning and thunder.

[UAL4life 239]

On 5/28/2021 at 8:12 AM, kiwikat said:

I've not been a fan of the weather system in this sim since the tech alpha. If they can't figure this thing out soon they need to open it up to devs who can. Active Sky has been a staple of our community for ages, let them at it.

Which they have stated they won’t. 

[Weatherman 193]

I have to agree and to disagree. In general I think the weather system is absolutely outstanding. It is far better than everything we have seen so far in a sim, including add ons. The downside is - and that's where I can partly agree: it's obviously still buggy in several ways. I still have the issue with live weather not correctly loading (just clear skies) when visiting a certain location the second time. Even though they have stated that this should have been corrected a while ago. It's still there for me. Thankfully there is this workaround (select a preset weather scheme first, load the flight and then select live weather in flight, which always works for me). Then we have the lightning issue. Cumulonimbus clouds (showers and thunderstorms) are way too flat in live weather mode in many cases (this might not be a bug but sort of a shortcoming when transforming the weather model data into the actual weather simulation within the sim).

If they get these things sorted out the weather system is the one I have always dreamt of. Only thing I am really really missing is: Cirrus clouds. And by that I mean cirrus and not some fluffy stretched altocumulus layers that are meant to be "cirrus" in the sim currently.

 

[Dominique_K 10,149]

15 minutes ago, Weatherman said:

I have to agree and to disagree. In general I think the weather system is absolutely outstanding. It is far better than everything we have seen so far in a sim, including add ons. The downside is - and that's where I can partly agree: it's obviously still buggy in several ways. I still have the issue with live weather not correctly loading (just clear skies) when visiting a certain location the second time. Even though they have stated that this should have been corrected a while ago. It's still there for me. Thankfully there is this workaround (select a preset weather scheme first, load the flight and then select live weather in flight, which always works for me). Then we have the lightning issue. Cumulonimbus clouds (showers and thunderstorms) are way too flat in live weather mode in many cases (this might not be a bug but sort of a shortcoming when transforming the weather model data into the actual weather simulation within the sim).

If they get these things sorted out the weather system is the one I have always dreamt of. Only thing I am really really missing is: Cirrus clouds. And by that I mean cirrus and not some fluffy stretched altocumulus layers that are meant to be "cirrus" in the sim currently.

 

I agree. The depiction of weather in MFS is the closest to the real thing I've seen in any sim so far and that includes the excellent ASN that I had enjoyed for many years with FSX and P3D. The lightnings, the absence of decent weather briefings, the incomplete weather loading are really frustrating but the base is here. 

[fppilot 4,371]

8 hours ago, UAL4life said:

Which they have stated they won’t. 

And so here we are.....