Third party weather

[gassa 36]

@Damian Clark

As soon as you release Active Sky to MSFS i will buy it at day one.

I was using Active Sky for years in the other sims and for me it was always spot on. I was flying the aerosoft CRJ yesterday and the MSFS stock weather engine created an outside air temperature of +25°C at 29.000ft. Something like this has never happened with Active Sky 🙂

Kind regards

Martin

[MarcG 2,904]

6 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

Thanks for the perspective Jim.

What defines a complete and accurate weather system?  Where is the line drawn between the ultimate stock experience and what might be possible with 3rd party efforts?  The argument I'm seeing is that everything any add-on has ever offered (say Active Sky, for example) or has ever imagined, should be free and stock.  Why doesn't this same logic apply to aircraft, scenery, other utilities, etc?  Why aren't 3rd party weather add-on efforts considered valuable when the other categories are?  Just thinking out loud.

You're missing a key area, licensing. For all we/you know Asobo might have a specific licensed tied in with MeteoBlue that prevents opening up the weather system APK to third parties. Throughout my Simulation life I've seen many licensing debates and actual facts about what goes on behind the scenes that the community never get to see, so just throwing this possibility out there.

Also another one - and they've made this clear - is that they want to build the best (live) weather experience they can themselves and simply (read probably) don't want "competition" in this specific area. After all it's their Game, they can choose what they do with regards to opening up the APKs to third parties.

[Dominique_K 10,133]

I do not have any bad memories of AS at all, on the contrary it was my favorite utility addon in FSX and P3D.

Nevertheless, at this stage, I’d rather have Asobo work on their weather engine which is I understand very much intricated in their flight model architecture than on the SDK to accommodate third parties.

As an user, it is not a wish to see HiFi excluded from the market but to have Asobo to focus on what is important for me, to straighten up the buggy implementation of what seems their excellent weather model.

Besides that, I agree with Marc there are things we do not know about the constraints of their contract with MB. Their incomprehensible reluctance to historical weather is a hint.

[Jeeeno 314]

I've used ASN for FSX for years and it surely gave me plenty of fun. But now, even with some clear problems with Live weather in MSFS, I would never want ASN for MSFS. 

Meteoblue is a top-notch organisation for weather forecast, and when the Live Weather works in MSFS (excluding the last 24Hours where there's an evident issue with temperatures, especially at high altitudes) is a different beast from ASN and I would never go back.

Regarding winds aloft, I would say I had problems in the first six or seven months after release, where I had many flights with winds completely wrong. However since the last updates, winds in cruise are pretty spot on both with Simbrief and Skyvector forecast. 

The main thing missing atm is aerosol and heavy fog but I'm still confindent it will come at some point. 

The integration between Meteoblue and MSFS is something I think it's not been completely explored and there's plenty of room for improvements, but one year after release, I'm quite pleased. 

 

[Ricardo41 5,935]

Let's be honest here: the reason why we have such good memories of 3PDs for FSX and P3D is because the base sim was so mediocre. That's not the case anymore.

16 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

The integration between Meteoblue and MSFS is something I think it's not been completely explored and there's plenty of room for improvements, but one year after release, I'm quite pleased. 

I agree.

[jcomm 5,886]

ASOBO is being given an excellent source for weather and all they have done with it so far leaves a LOT to de desired...

Maybe they change their approach in the future. Maybe they can internally contract some good 3pd to help them, because as it is, it isn't good... 

And we still have to wait for a solution to the visibility settings which that "aerosol density" isn't able to cope with...

 

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by jcomm

[Slides 1,552]

11 minutes ago, jcomm said:

ASOBO is being given an excellent source for weather and all they have done with it so far leaves a LOT to de desired...

Maybe they change their approach in the future. Maybe they can internally contract some good 3pd to help them, because as it is, it isn't good... 

And we still have to wait for a solution to the visibility settings which that "aerosol density" isn't able to cope with...

 

 

It may not be purely in Asobo's hands depending on how the tech stack is built. I bet MS Azure team has some say in how good or bad the integration is.

[vcarlo 529]

12 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

...

The loud roar of demand for AS for MSFS, in any form, with any limitations, outside of any official API/SDK and support of MSFS developers, is getting louder all the time.... so despite all the negatives, all the risk, and the sometimes hard feelings, we are working on it and getting very close.  We know at least a few of you will appreciate those efforts and we thank you very much for your support in these very challenging times.

 

as one of the "few of you", and having supported and praised your work for over 15 years, I MUST "roar" again.  I anxiously await ANY form of HiFi Simulation Technology released for MSFS and I shall purchase it on the day of release ! 

[Bobsk8 12,492]

25 minutes ago, vcarlo said:

as one of the "few of you", and having supported and praised your work for over 15 years, I MUST "roar" again.  I anxiously await ANY form of HiFi Simulation Technology released for MSFS and I shall purchase it on the day of release ! 

I have used Active Sky products forever , but I am going to stay with MSFS default weather from now on. 

[jrw4 623]

3 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Let's be honest here: the reason why we have such good memories of 3PDs for FSX and P3D is because the base sim was so mediocre. That's not the case anymore.

I may be wrong (yes, it has happened before, or so my wife tells me), but it's my recollection that P3D has no default real-time weather at all, while that of FSX stopped working many years ago due to incompatibilities with the NOAA system. So weather engine add-ons were required to achieve that functionality.

This subject has been debated endlessly on this forum. It appears that many MSFS users are reasonably satisfied with the default real-time weather system, while others have a different perception. I use the default system sometimes, and Weather Force others. Both are OK for what they do, quite acceptable for desktop simulation purposes. Some folks want MSFS to provide a real-time 3D atmospheric simulator. Maybe that time will come, but the computational resources required to provide such an environment will be extraordinary. In the meantime, we can expect the need for the usual kinds of engineering compromises to make the problem more tractable.

For those who are concerned about the impact on online flying of discrepancies between in-sim weather and that of the real world, be assured that controllers understand that everyone in their airspace has somewhat different in-sim weather. This is magnified in the enroute environment where upper level winds are quite inconsistent. This often requires some exciting, real-time airspeed adjustments that can make both controlling and piloting especially challenging.

In any case, have fun up there.

 

[vcarlo 529]

49 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I have used Active Sky products forever , but I am going to stay with MSFS default weather from now on. 

I support your choice, but I am a 100% VATSIM flyer. I am sick and tired of the "on again/off again" accuracy of default weather.   I don't see that changing anytime soon and I will gladly support HiFi Sim because of their track record even though ASOBO refuses to open weather SDK to 3PDs.  

[rstough 523]

16 hours ago, rwalls said:

My biggest problem with the default weather as well as REX is the inability to use historical weather. I often do my flying at night or after work and the is just not the same as I would experience on a flight during the day (especially winds).

Richard

We are working on the historic / archive weather as we speak.  Once we release a major update in Technical Update 1.5, that will be next. 

[cavaricooper 2,613]

15 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

Same argument over and over here, and it's already been decided long ago.  Many really feel that having any SDK access to weather will completely ruin their stock weather experience, for some reason.  Many disagree greatly with that.

Apparently many are very unhappy that they had Active Sky in the past and felt "forced" to use it.  To feel how you do, to want to keep us and other developers in our genre locked out forever, left only as a negative memory of the past, we must have really messed up somehow, and we're sorry.  We thought we were working so hard and offering so much, for so many years, to help improve your weather experience on all the different platforms you asked for, with so many sacrifices to do that, but I guess we were misguided.  We really do reflect on all that and as we say goodbye to (official) MSFS add-on development after 20 years of cooperation, as community proponents, we at least appreciate that you are happy with your MSFS new weather solution and hope that it bodes well for you now and always.  There's no doubt it's a really nice stock weather experience and getting better all the time.  

The loud roar of demand for AS for MSFS, in any form, with any limitations, outside of any official API/SDK and support of MSFS developers, is getting louder all the time.... so despite all the negatives, all the risk, and the sometimes hard feelings, we are working on it and getting very close.  We know at least a few of you will appreciate those efforts and we thank you very much for your support in these very challenging times.

 

Damien- I am a huge fan of your and Word Not Allowed's work.  Reading this is gratifying, as I am hoping that there can indeed be a work-around despite Asobo's recalcitrance.  That can only be a win-win. Good for those willing to pay, and good for those not, as it will force Asobo to increase the urgency of prioritizing this issue.  I look forward to what is to come, as Wx has been an Achilles Heel for this sim.

Best- C

Edited July 23, 2021 by cavaricooper

[vcarlo 529]

29 minutes ago, rstough said:

We are working on the historic / archive weather as we speak.  Once we release a major update in Technical Update 1.5, that will be next. 

Reed, I do appreciate the REX entry (Weather Force) into this simulation and I purchased it several months ago.  Unfortunately, NO MATTER what trouble shooting steps I perform, my sim becomes a slide show for about 1 minute every time REX updates the weather. I have followed all recommendations for settings and I have updated to the latest version with no improvement.  I now use the "Unreal Weather" add on and this has proven the be the best choice for my simming experience currently. 😉

Edited July 23, 2021 by vcarlo

[rwalls 25]

27 minutes ago, rstough said:

We are working on the historic / archive weather as we speak.  Once we release a major update in Technical Update 1.5, that will be next. 

Great news, I'm really looking forward to that.