Please vote for historic weather

[The Flight Level 2,114]

For what ever reason I decided to read this entire thread. I do see the point for those wishing to re-live the exact weather for a particular time at a departure airport. I have never been driven to match the weather exactly to a location in my 30+ years of flight simulation. I dial in the weather and time of day and off I go - usually good weather as I want to see the global scenery realism that this sim offers.

[Alvega 2,124]

1 hour ago, SN737 said:

Of course they are not flying accurately, if they want to fly in another timezone. You still don't get it.

Ok. 🙄

[JBDB-MD80 1,473]

57 minutes ago, Alvega said:

Ok. 🙄

Edit you are right NVM.

Edited October 27, 2022 by jbdbow1970

[RALF9636 1,966]

I think it has been made clear why many simmers need historical weather for their simming experience to be more immersive. 

Others don't need it at all for their way of simming.

Some don't even bother trying to understand the concept of historical weather at all.

All that is fine. We all use the sim in different ways. 

If Asobo can implement historical weather to improve the sim for those who want it they should do so. Those who are not interested in it can just stay with live weather or presets. Just like those who are not interested in fighter jets can stay with the A320 or the C172. The great thing about MSFS is that it caters for so many different ways of simming. Historical weather would just make it more complete.

I don't understand what the fighting is about. No need to get aggressive and personal.

 

[hansb57 493]

Although I have never seen the need for historic weather I find this discussion rather strange.

I hardly ever fly a jet liner. Mostly use single engined and make VFR flights.

But that doesnt mean I'm "against" very complex airplanes.

If a large group of simmmers find historic weather usefull, add it to the sim.

At this point I will not vote for it because it might draw attention away from items that are more important to me, but that non-vote is just out of (possible) self interest, not because I'm against it.

[guenseli 1,591]

2 hours ago, SN737 said:

people flying with fake time and wanting old weather are the ones who fly the most accurate way possible?

Ok,another try:

Storm Eucine, London, Feb, the 18th this year.
METAR EGLL 181350Z AUTO 26037G50KT 9999 -RA BKN030 BKN039 08/02 Q0990 

 

I want to recreate that flight to train my crosswind capabilities, to see how different addons behave or just for fun, whatever.

I dial now back to Feb, the 18th in MSFS, that day, that time.

What weather do I have there then?
 

I get the above with a self made preset: is it then more fake to use that preset or probably to have that accurate weather what was on exact that day at that time past then? And it could probably change an hour later ... because it was real.


I don't get it why people who do not use a certain feature try to defend that they do not use it. You are not forced to use it, if this will made it ever to MSFS. Why not simply ignore it?
You are even not forced to vote for it.

 

I just beg people to vote for it, because it is very important for me personally. And so far it seems, some others want it too. People who do not like it doesn't have the slightest disadvantage in their way of using MSFS. 

On the other hand, you do us all a favour to keep that discussion up, the more people will see it and vote hopefully. 😉 

Edited October 27, 2022 by guenseli

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

I would rather they focus on getting the wind effects to feel more accurate before they tackle another task.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

8 hours ago, Noel said:

Gee whiz Ray, in order to have "weather" be a priority it must include "historical" weather?  Why's that? 

I never said it must be a priority.

8 hours ago, Noel said:

Whether or not the weather is offset an hour or three has no bearing on how I use the sim.  It's the historical weather piece I don't have a use for. 

That’s fine. If you don’t want something don’t use it. Others have explained why they want it. I’ll leave it at that.

[abrams_tank 7,425]

FYI, you can get historical weather now with the new XEnviro add-on for MSFS. So for those who desperately want historical weather, XEnivro for MSFS can do it for you. Albeit, XEnviro isn't exactly the same as MSFS live weather, but it should be usable for those who don't mind how XEnviro works for MSFS, and also want historical weather.

Edited October 27, 2022 by abrams_tank

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 540]

Dealing with the MSFS target audience...

[ConstVoid 110]

The way I fly, it doesn't matter to me if the weather where I'm flying is totally accurate for the time of day, as long as it approximates the type of weather I'd see in that area.

Am I against the option of having historical weather in MSFS? Definitely not, but including it will have a major impact on the sim and lots of add-ons. MSFS currently does not provide a way for third-party add-ons to get weather information from the sim, so add-ons such as Little Navmap, aircraft such as the Fenix A320, and at least one of the ATC products, are forced to get their weather data from on-line real-time providers.

If MSFS gains the ability to use historical weather, then Microsoft/Asobo will have to provide the ability for these add-ons to get their weather data from the sim, and of course the products will have to be modified to do that, otherwise the mis-match between the weather 'seen' by the add-on and the weather in the sim will make the situation far worse than we currently have, and will mean that most people will be forced to ignore historical weather anyway.

[mrueedi 702]

2 hours ago, guenseli said:

I want to recreate that flight to train my crosswind capabilities, to see how different addons behave or just for fun, whatever.

See, thats one of the issues. Your requirement is "weather with crosswind". Imho it is very awkward now figuring out a timestamp in the past, when the weather matched your requirement best, going into the sim and dial in that date to get the weather you require. There is inaccuracy added up everywhere. First you add error remembering past weather, then the weather engine adds error when it tries to recreate that weather.

In essence, you wanted to use historical weather as a preset, you wanted the weather to match your imagination. So, there is a shortcut for that available right now: go into the sim, select the preset screen and set the weather that perfectly matches your imagination. That way, you accomplish a perfect fit for your weather requirement.

Be aware that the following thoughts could come across a bit philosophical:

Imho there are generally two valid ways how the weather should be in a flight sim:

Imagination Follows Weather: that is live weather. Choosing that you have zero choices. It is how it is. The weather is a complete surprise when opening the sim at another continent. There is no expectation.

Weather Follows Imagination: Starting point is your idea how the weather should be. You want to exert influence on the weather. You are not fine with it how it is. You want to remove the surprise that comes from live weather. You now have an expectation.

The thing is, the moment you want to influence the weather the tiniest bit, we are actually talking about a preset in the truest sense of the meaning. That is why historic weather is a kind of a weather preset. Our imagination is first, the weather should follow. It is an awkward way to the tell the sim, I want it like this or that. Going back on the time axis, I can preset my weather in any possible way. And going to the preset screen, I can recreate any moment on the time axis. You see the two things are the same or at least very similar semantically. Presets and historical weather are variations of Weather Follows Imagination.

@RALF9636 has posted the best list of use cases for historic weather. Basically all his points are cases of Weather Follows Imagination, so simply using a preset might do the job in many cases. If you consider presets not as flexible enough, maybe the preset feature is lacking and should be extended? Configuring preset weather transitions would be a possibility. Dont forget, we are in the Weather Follows Imagination camp.

Besides that, there is an addon available now, that offers historical weather. Whether the value of historical weather exceeds the price of that addon is your choice! But everybody has that choice and nobody needs to miss that feature if he likes it.

[guenseli 1,591]

1 hour ago, ConstVoid said:

but including it will have a major impact on the sim and lots of add-ons.

No, they recieve weather from a database now and historic weather recieves its data also from a database. Why should the database of the psat be different to the sim or addons as the current database. With Active Sky, you haven't also any difference if you fly current live time or fly in the past. Same database.

so, no this is completely wrong to say it has any impact on the sim on or any addon.

 

56 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

See, thats one of the issues. Your requirement is "weather with crosswind"

No, that is not the issue. you picked now ONE single example. I covered a dozen example over the time.

The crosswind example was just ONE to make it easy to comprehend, because here are several people who have not the slightest idea why someone could need HW.

I have already said, why a preset does not fullfill the need of having accurate HW and philosophy is also nothing I want to deal with in a sim, sorry.

 

I'm out now of this discussion.
Still do not understand why people get upset about new features they can use or not use.
No one has the slightes disadvantage if Asobo one day implements HW. 🙄

 

[F737MAX 5,608]

1 hour ago, guenseli said:

Still do not understand why people get upset about new features they can use or not use.
No one has the slightes disadvantage if Asobo one day implements HW.

Because there are some very selfish 'gatekeepers of the correct way to flight sim' on here.
It's a case of 'but you're asking for something I don't need, so it's wrong...'

There are many good reasons for historical weather.
The major one is people living in different parts of the World trying to sim in a certain location whose time zones don't match, e.g. a long-haul departure from Dubai if a European flight simmer only has time to sim in a morning, or a flight from San Francisco or Seattle if an Australian/N.Z. flight simmer can only fly in the evening.
Both of those cases wouldn't work by just changing the time of day. The live weather conditions would be too hot in Dubai for a long-haul and too foggy for any take-off in certain Pacific Coast cities in the USA at those times.

Given the displeasure some of the same people have described the limitations of current weather add-ons displaying weather on a global representation, it's unfair for them to say to people looking for historic weather, 'just use a preset or make your own theme.'

What's interesting is how many of these gatekeepers say that historical live weather is 'not flying accurately' or 'fake'.
Well, interestingly, these types don't fly accurately and that's not only limited to using the wrong weather for the time of day.

If they have ever:

• changed the time of day in the sim away from the actual live time
• flown into or too close to a CB
• continued an unstable approach
• failed to go-around
• left their flight in the background to do another task in the real world
• landed below legal fuel limits
• taken too much fuel
• landed outside of cross-wind limits of their aircraft
• busted an altitude
• failed to respond exactly to ATC instructions
• allowed an errant AI aircraft to pass through their own
• allowed errant ground vehicles to pass through their aircraft
• used the drone cam or outside view during flight
• deliberately or accidentally made an airspace incursion
• failed to follow current NOTAMs along their entire route
• flown the Darkstar
• flown the Halo Pelican
• flown VFR illegally, whether due to visibility, distance from objects or at an incorrect altitude
• in fact, flown any aircraft in the sim without holding the appropriate licence in the real world,

then they cannot claim to be flying accurately and should just delete their copy of the sim. Because otherwise it would just be hypocritical to say that trying to fly accurately on a different day/at a different time with the weather conditions for that time is somehow 'fake' compared to anything that they may have done.
 

Edited October 27, 2022 by F737MAX

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 540]

3 hours ago, Juliet Alpha said:

Dealing with the MSFS target audience...

.