Weather and Terrain APIs - Marked as "Fixed"

[Tuskin38 6,635]

IIRC the reason raw access isn't planned is because of how it ties into Meteoblue. I guess there's legal issues there.

[Zangoose 1,633]

1 minute ago, Ricardo41 said:

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

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

Not really - WXR is important in a flight sim but ok.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Zangoose

[Matchstick 1,902]

4 minutes ago, Gilandred said:

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.

I believe you meant "limit the weather to a bitmap of rain intensity only"

[Matchstick 1,902]

Double Post

Edited September 30, 2022 by Matchstick

[Matchstick 1,902]

7 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

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

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

The apparent sales numbers for the Fenix and PMDG 737s suggest there might be more of those than you think.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Matchstick

[rick celik 1,251]

20 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

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

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

But the guys at Asobo did say it’s a sim for simmers and that they strive to make this the most realistic simulator possible…. So they should have a weather radar, something we had in older simulators. 

[jarmstro 2,405]

36 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

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

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

I agree with this. It's a sim. No one's going to die if the green, yellow and red blobs aren't 100% accurate. But the planes will feels more complete if these Devs would just swallow their pride and get it implemented in their planes as is. Maybe it's just that they can't be arsed to do it? And if you couldn't stand to see it as it is then don't turn the weather radar on.

Edited September 30, 2022 by jarmstro

[WestAir 2,530]

If Asobo won't let 3PD's make a proper weather radar, then Asobo should direct WT to make a proper weather radar that 3PD's can put into their aircraft.

Edited September 30, 2022 by WestAir

[mamu82 278]

5 hours ago, Zangoose said:

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. 

 

I was waiting for a proper terrain API too to fix my addons, but I saw ,lot of time ago, that they would have released only an API to the bitmaps, and not to the raw data. 

So, I consider the "fixed" status as a correct one, considering that we known since a long time , from the Dev blogs that the API would only be related to the bitmaps.

 

They clearly stated that they won't open the weather system to anyone. This is a clear statement. No one but they knows the exact terms of the contract with meteoblue. 

But every medium to advanced developer knows that API have a cost. Maybe fraction of a penny for each data.

But when dealing with LOTS of data , the overall cost skyrocket. How anyone can think that meteoblue is agree with sharing the raw data that Microsoft is buying ?? 

Meteoblue sells its data, if a developer wants it he can buy. (The actually popular fsltl is not using LIVE fr24  because of its cost, pstx users knows!)

 

The reason why msfs can't share the meteoblue data can be because of the license agreement they have with them, 

Maybe

Because an API via MSFS can lead to malicious use of the data, maybe for a commercial weather website, or a plug-in for other simulators!

 

So likely, until the data is pulled via meteoblue, it is not likely that we can access RAW meteo data. 

 

Just my two cents 

[evaamo 549]

I’ll never understand why some “simmers” are just conforming to whatever bone Asobo throws their way, also then becoming strong defenders of Asobo’s own conformism.
 

Fortunately there are many who push for realism and we can be a loud bunch to force some changes to these half-baked decisions.
 

There are genuine use cases for a well implemented wx radar and for other things such as historic weather. I understand this is something that many won’t find useful, but, I honestly fail to understand why for these people asking for a realistic feature (it is a simulator indeed, not a balsa wood model toy video game) is a sacrilege against Asobo.

[Jeeeno 314]

Another example of Asobo incompetency. Nothing new.

They are becoming word not allowed also at making sceneries now looking at how bad is WU11 ... 

[WestAir 2,530]

10 minutes ago, evaamo said:

(it is a simulator indeed, not a balsa wood model toy video game)

Exactly!. People are quick to say "Well airline simmers are a niche market" as if Flight Sims themselves aren't a niche market. 99% of people find this game to be boring.

Edited September 30, 2022 by WestAir

[mwilk 1,107]

3 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

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

You don't think accurate weather radar is important in a flight simulator?

[Tuskin38 6,635]

2 hours ago, Jeeeno said:

Another example of Asobo incompetency. Nothing new.

They did exactly what they said they were going to do with the API, provide the weather bitmaps.

It was people not reading properly and getting their hopes up for something Asobo said they'd never do.

  

2 hours ago, Jeeeno said:

They are becoming word not allowed also at making sceneries now looking at how bad is WU11 ... 

They don't make the scenery. They buy the photogrammetry data from third parties, the airports and landmarks 99% of the time are made by Gaya.

[Jeeeno 314]

28 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

They don't make the scenery. They buy the photogrammetry data from third parties, the airports and landmarks 99% of the time are made by Gaya.

Worse. They don't check the quality of the stuff they buy.