It looks like we may need to post our views on the official MSFS forum and the dev website and also try and bring it up in the next Q&A as they have marked "Implement Weather and Terrain APIs" as fixed in the yesterdays dev update post. When we all know developers such as Fenix, PMDG, FlyByWire (and others) need more than what they have implemented so far to bring the weather radars we all want to see. 

We can all post our thoughts in these areas: 

MSFS Forum Thread: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/implement-weather-and-terrain-api-s-for-aircraft-developers-to-implement-accurate-radar-predictive-windshear-egpws-and-metar-wind-uplink/442016/119

Dev Site: https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/questions/11218/will-we-ever-see-full-weather-radar-compatibility.html

If it's not possible to do because of the weather data they get or a licensing agreement then they should tell us this instead of leaving us in the dark. 

 

Edited September 30, 20223 yr by Zangoose

I really wish MS/Asobo would stop kneecapping their own sim. 

2 hours ago, Zangoose said:

When we all know developers such as Fenix, PMDG, FlyByWire (and others) need more than what they have implemented so far to bring the weather radars we all want to see.

It's not Asobo's main job to satisfy the demands of niche developers.

4 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

It's not Asobo's main job to satisfy the demands of niche developers.

Dude, what are you talking about? How is PMDG or FBW "niche"? Asobo was talking to PMDG about their development needs long before MSFS was even released...

I was about to ask the same thing but @Chapstickyou beat me to it. How the heck are the main stream aircraft developer niche?!

Just now, Chapstick said:

Dude, what are you talking about? How is PMDG or FBW "niche"? Asobo was talking to PMDG about their development needs long before MSFS was even released...

from what I know by now about Ricardo41 this was meant sarcastic and he just forgot something like 😉 

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

It's not Asobo's main job to satisfy the demands of niche developers.

I hope this was indeed sarcastic 😛

From a product management perspective, you never know what's going on behind the scenes. In agile development, which it appears they are doing, features/defects are broken out into chunks through out product increments and sprints. What you are seeing/posted is possibly one piece of the overall puzzle to provide a feature. You are not seeing what enablers are needed to support that main feature. On a good note, Asobo is showing you their product increment schedule and feature/defect backlog. What you don't see is the results of their PI/sprint planning so that you have an idea of what work is slated for each sprint/PI. They do show you when something is started.  

1 hour ago, DAD said:

from what I know by now about Ricardo41 this was meant sarcastic and he just forgot something like 😉 

Actually, knowing Ricardo, I think he was being serious in his usual defence of Asobo - a valid point of view of course.  

Yeah, it's disappointing. Our beautiful 3rd party aircraft are lacking a proper weather radar. The writing was on the wall. It was known for quite some time now that the first iteration of their so called api consists of bitmaps only. Lol

Matt responded in this thread saying the current weather API is essentially good enough as is and there are no further plans to enhance it.  The thread link is below.  There seems to be a wide disconnect between aircraft developers and Microsoft/Asobo on what’s really needed here.  So either a) aircraft developers (PMDG, Fenix, FBW) collectively do not understand the capabilities of the current API, or b) they do understand, and are stating it’s still significantly inadequate enough to be useful.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/official-discussion-september-29-2022-development-update/546318/8

That's really annoying. WX radars are super important for the type of flying I like to simulate. This whole debacle really does take MSFS down a huge notch for me.

Bummer. 😕

33 minutes ago, Gilandred said:

Matt responded in this thread saying the current weather API is essentially good enough as is and there are no further plans to enhance it.  The thread link is below.  There seems to be a wide disconnect between aircraft developers and Microsoft/Asobo on what’s really needed here.  So either a) aircraft developers (PMDG, Fenix, FBW) collectively do not understand the capabilities of the current API, or b) they do understand, and are stating it’s still significantly inadequate enough to be useful.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/official-discussion-september-29-2022-development-update/546318/8

His post does actually say "basic" which probably is part of the issue here.

For easier reading his reply to the thread is:

Quote

 

The provided APIs are sufficient for building a basic (but very useful) accurate weather radar with fixed tilt and variable gain. There are no present plans that I’m aware of for going beyond these graphic APIs.

Raw access to the weather data is not planned.

 

So does that mean they could technically bring a WXR radar to their addons but it would look nothing like the 737 radar? For example this is how it looked in PMDG 737 in P3D. 

 

if its a no - Then I can see why developers don't want to add it if its nothing like what the aircraft should have. (I'm no developer so I'm just going off what people are saying in various locations). 

 

Edit: Update - Just saw a additional reply from Matt on that thread:

Quote

I mean, you can’t do predictive windshear or lightning detection or that kind of advanced stuff, but for the core of what pilots really need, i.e. what is a reasonably accurate representation of the precip levels in front of my aircraft, the current graphic APIs work just great.

I guess really its down to the addon devs if they want to bother with the current implementation or not. Sadly I don't think many will unless this is a firm NO from Asobo and we won't get anything further. Shame really. 

Edited September 30, 20223 yr by Zangoose

Not sarcastic at all. It's the avsim filterbubble at work again.

Hardcore simmers who care about weather apis are a small minority.

Jorg/Asobo: “Weather is a core part of our simulator, and we will strive to make it as accurate as possible.”

Also Jorg/Asobo: “We are going to limit the weather API to rain intensity only.”

Not exact quotes, but that’s what I’m hearing.