It's been half a year since 5.3 came out

[dave2013 1,130]

31 minutes ago, StAgre said:

Generating weather from METAR and Winds Aloft data only gets you so far. If you fly over the ocean or other remote areas of the world, there isn't information about cloud cover, for example. You also don't experience real world weather phenomena that are related to geographic features, such as turbulence caused by mountains. Now, you may not care about these things, but they are real phenomena that pilots experience and Activesky cannot simulate them with the data it has available to it.

OK, I can see your point about mountain air currents and such.

As far as the oceans, Meteoblue would be faced with the same limitations on data as any other weather simulation, that is, lack of weather stations.  How do you know that Meteoblue weather conditions in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic are accurate?

Have you tested Meteoblue's weather accuracy in multiple locations over multiple dates and times to see if it's accurate?

Dave

[Stavros 295]

4 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

OK, I can see your point about mountain air currents and such.

As far as the oceans, Meteoblue would be faced with the same limitations on data as any other weather simulation, that is, lack of weather stations.  How do you know that Meteoblue weather conditions in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic are accurate?

Have you tested Meteoblue's weather accuracy in multiple locations over multiple dates and times to see if it's accurate?

Dave

They use live satellite cloud data, among other sources. In general, I find it's pretty accurate, but I haven't conducted any scientific testing - though I did once have an issue at Windhoek where the weather didn't match my simbrief output. But it turned out Windhoek didn't have a weather station and the only wind data I could find was google weather's little wind arrow.

Edited September 1, 2022 by StAgre

[Sparkrite 188]

40 minutes ago, StAgre said:

Even real pilots enjoy looking out the window 😉

Indeed they do, and quite a lot too, sunrises, sunsets, long haul over vast continents, even unusual cloud formations are all enjoyed by a lot of RW pilots.

[d.tsakiris 418]

1 hour ago, StAgre said:

cloud cover, for example. You also don't experience real world weather phenomena that are related to geographic features, such as turbulence caused by mountains.

I read somewhere AS does simulate this stuff...

[SimeonWilbury 220]

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

During a flight sim session in P3D...

1. How much time do you spend looking at the scenery?
2. How much time do you spend monitoring the aircraft systems?
3. How much time do you spend away from the sim doing other things?

I fly a lot of long-haul cargo-flights in the 747-400, (typically 6-8 hours) so for me the average flight would look more or less like

1. 10%
2. 30%
3. 60%

Very rough estimate of course, but the point is that I usually only monitor the flight heavily during beginning and end portions of each flight. I spend the majority of the flight either away from the PC or doing other things.

I don't have a lot of third party scenery outside the actual airports themselves, though I do make a point to look around the window more when I'm in an area with nicer scenery. Even without any custom scenery I still enjoy looking out the window when flying in Alaska in and out of Anchorage. But the majority of my attention usually goes to what the aircraft is doing and where I am, including the relevant flight planning. I prioritise airport scenery and the area immediately around the airport usually.

I've generally considered P3D Scenery to be 'good enough' if not amazing. It's certainly better than what I used to have in FSX, and my current PC setup currently limits the amount I can get graphically out of the sim anyway. I'll happily take an upgrade in time, but the aircraft always come first.

Effectively my standards are relatively low on the scenery so long as the Aircraft and the Airports I'm flying into look good.

Edited September 1, 2022 by SimeonWilbury

[d.tsakiris 418]

Sorry, double-post, please disregard/delete...

Edited September 1, 2022 by d.tsakiris
Double-post

[IanHarrison 522]

1 hour ago, Sparkrite said:

Indeed they do, and quite a lot too, sunrises, sunsets, long haul over vast continents, even unusual cloud formations are all enjoyed by a lot of RW pilots.

Of course they do. There is nothing else to do. That doesn't apply to sim pilots, who can go to the shops, pub, take the dog for a walk etc.while the sim carries on.

[Christopher Low 5,359]

I am not sure why anyone would want to complain about Paul's post, other than because it has the term "MSFS" in a P3D thread. For the sake of informed discussion, can we please refrain from criticising anyone who even vaguely refers to another flight simulator in the "wrong" forum? It is getting a bit silly.

[Nocturnal 117]

I am a little lost about what the current topic of discussion is, pilots looking out during cruise? reporting posts? scenery?

[sdirand 247]

After 34 pages we can clearly affirm that no one has a clue about a possible new version, either 5.4 or 6.0

It's not even about "When will it happend?", it's more about "will it ever happend?".

Now, people still use P3D 5.3 or a lower version, most of them has a valid reason to keep using this software and it is perfectly fine. You won't convince them to switch to another sim and there are no reason to convince them anyways. Each to his own.

Anyway, you have to be realistic: the good old days are far away and P3D is fading days after days. And there will be no coming back. It's hard to imagine that a 5.4 or a 6.0 would lure back users away from msfs or XP12. Despite a few projects still in progress, we all know that new projects for P3D will be less and less. P3D is still working today, it will still works three years from now but those users need to understand that they can't ask the editors for the moon.

In one hand, it even remains to be seen if a 5.4 or 6.0 would be a good thing in that state. I'm not even sure that most editors would adapt their products to a new version.

 

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 541]

I only want LIRF, the A320neo from FSLabs and maybe the Concorde. Ah, and ActiveSky!

[ZLA Steve 375]

31 minutes ago, sdirand said:

It's not even about "When will it happen?", it's more about "will it ever happen?"

Anyway, you have to be realistic: the good old days are far away and P3D is fading days after days...

Sadly, this is a harsh truth, and one can even speculate the LM may have little desire to keep investing deeply into the platform since there is a case to be made that FS has negated the need to maintain a consumer grade tier for the general public.

Personally, I doubt the intention of LM was ever to fully compete in the space from the start and more of "well, we offer this to contract clients, but we can make revenue from lower tiers too since no one else really is in the market" (Obviously paraphrasing but you get the gist) Very much doing this because they can, not because they need to.

Edited September 1, 2022 by ZLA Steve

[Nocturnal 117]

20 minutes ago, ZLA Steve said:

Sadly, this is a harsh truth, and one can even speculate the LM may have little desire to keep investing deeply into the platform since there is a case to be made that FS has negated the need to maintain a consumer grade tier for the general public.

It's weird if anyone thinks that a defence and space research organization would stop doing what they are doing and start concentrating on a VERY tiny population of users who play flight sims. I've mentioned it here from time to time that P3D was never targeted to us casual users. The only reason why it "started" gaining popularity amongst us 0.000001% users in the world was since there was nothing out there and we as regular sim users should be thankful for that. Imagine after the abandonment of FSX had P3D not happened? Will we still be flying the beautiful planes that we currently have in sims? Will PMDG and FsLabs continued to be in existence? I use xplane too but I can see a lot of shortcomings in that sim mostly regarding the weather/scenery/lighting.

Also I don't understand why is everyone (not everyone but a select few of course lol) is actually angry that LM is quiet about their plans? When were they even vocal about it? I've been using P3D since v3 and they never revealed their plans to us. Remember the v5 release post? Just one week before the release BAM, "We're releasing v5". They were always like this, not sure why would a new game in the market change anything in their agenda or make them stop manufacturing F35s and start concentrating on P3D game. The world doesn't revolve around gaming, there's a lot of other things out there too. 😄

Regarding future updates, I am pretty happy with how 5.3 works. It's stable, perf is excellent, all my addons work in v5. What else one can ask for? I still use P3D for long hauls (I use all sims :P) So as long as it works, its good for me. Even if there's no update (which is very less likely), I am still happy since we just don't have ONE sim now. 😉

Edited September 1, 2022 by Nocturnal

[F737MAX 5,621]

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

During a flight sim session in P3D...

1. How much time do you spend looking at the scenery?
2. How much time do you spend monitoring the aircraft systems?
3. How much time do you spend away from the sim doing other things?

1. 55%
2. 35%
3. 10%

Obviously, the first number in that list is much higher if I'm flying a sightseeing trip or a VFR cross-country schlep.

Doesn't matter if I'm in MSFS or in P3D, looking out the window at a photoreal / orthoimagery ground in the sim is incredibly important to me.
I've had that need for recreating a real-looking world ever Horizon Simulations released their VFR Photographic Scenery add-ons way back in FS9. Pancake flat or not, those occassionally mismatched tiles beat the uncanny valley of landclass for me every time.
 

(Pulls helmet on and expects incoming from someone who thinks displaying more than four colours is a waste of developer resources)  😅
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qYJo9DeST5o/maxresdefault.jpg

[JesC 88]

3 hours ago, Nocturnal said:

I am a little lost about what the current topic of discussion is, pilots looking out during cruise? reporting posts? scenery?

No, it's about 2D cockpits (I think). Please pay attention. 😃😃

And while you are away from the cockpit could you please make some more popcorn?

Lotsa Smiles,

Jesse