It has been a while since I have looked into my weather set up so I figured I'd check here to see what the latest is.  I currently own Active Sky, Rex Atmos Core, and Rex Weather force.   I haven't run Weather Force in a very long time.  Currently, i run live weather in Active Sky and then turn on Atmos Core but don't pick a weather setting in Atmos Core.  Is there a scenario where I should be using Active Sky along with Atmos Core but selecting the weather tab in Atmos?  Could I use AS, Weather Force and Atmos Core together?  Any settings in any of these I should be using vs. not? I have found that my current set up the clouds are visually lacking and I was looking to better improve my weather.  I fly IFR only.  Let me know what you all see out there and what works best.  If there are any other addons i should look into, let me know.  Thanks!

3 hours ago, Zimmerbz said:

It has been a while since I have looked into my weather set up so I figured I'd check here to see what the latest is.  I currently own Active Sky, Rex Atmos Core, and Rex Weather force.   I haven't run Weather Force in a very long time.  Currently, i run live weather in Active Sky and then turn on Atmos Core but don't pick a weather setting in Atmos Core.  Is there a scenario where I should be using Active Sky along with Atmos Core but selecting the weather tab in Atmos?  Could I use AS, Weather Force and Atmos Core together?  Any settings in any of these I should be using vs. not? I have found that my current set up the clouds are visually lacking and I was looking to better improve my weather.  I fly IFR only.  Let me know what you all see out there and what works best.  If there are any other addons i should look into, let me know.  Thanks!

I've been using for quite sometime preset from Andre Bennet, AB MSFS and it looks really nice with AS...

I disabled Typical Weather yesterday not because it is bad but because default MSFS weather is now so good.  

Now I use 1 preset I tweak alot and default weather which gave me awesome towering storm clouds to fly through over CYVR Yesterday.

dd

 

23 minutes ago, cyyzrwy24 said:

I've been using for quite sometime preset from Andre Bennet, AB MSFS and it looks really nice with AS...

 

6 minutes ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

I disabled Typical Weather yesterday not because it is bad but because default MSFS weather is now so good.  

Now I use 1 preset I tweak alot and default weather which gave me awesome towering storm clouds to fly through over CYVR Yesterday.

dd

 

So you guys are using a weather preset for Atmos Core and running Active Sky and don't have conflicts?  What about weather force?   

What do you mean by "typical weather"?  

25 minutes ago, cyyzrwy24 said:

I've been using for quite sometime preset from Andre Bennet, AB MSFS and it looks really nice with AS...

Are these weather presets or the other ones?  

I don't use any of that stuff.  I just use the default weather.  But it really, truly, needs a Service Update of its own.  Generally speaking, the MSFS 20/24 weather system is reasonably good.  If users aren't that familiar with real world flying they probably wouldn't be able to discern a poor representation of MSFS WX vs a good one however.  We really lack cloud structures and specific cloud types in msfs.  XP12 is vastly better for this kind of thing.  But it has its own shortcomings as well.

But as a irl pilot and ATC I can tell there is a big discrepancy in MSFS, especially at airports with ATIS/AWOS/ASOS.

My main issues with MSFS weather are:

1) Clouds still far too transparent.  Sadly it seems with the current "voxel" method of rendering clouds we can't get truly opaque ones anytime soon because it takes a lot of processing power.

How frequently are you excited to fly your airliner or prop down to LIFR minimums only to easily spot the approach lights/runway environment much sooner than you anticipated?  I almost always see it way too far out... boring!  Or you can see through an OVC layer to the ground with ease.  LAME!

2) MSFS does not seem to render specific visibility or Runway Visual Range (RVR). 

In fact I just flew the C750 from Omaha to Duluth today.  Duluth (KDLH) was getting some snow and low vis with poor RVR (in the 3000's).  I looked up from my panel (and hand flying for fun today) and the runway was easily visible for its entirety.  DLH's main runway is almost 2 miles long.  So I probably had at least 3 SM vis.  I think even without voxel clouds they could code some way to inject a low visibility situation depending on RVR decoded from a METAR.  It looks like this:  R09/3000V5000 (Runway 09, 3000 varying 5000 ft).  At larger towered airports, ATC can read out the RVR on takeoff and landing - actually they are required to.  It sounds something like this:  "N12345, runway niner R-V-R 3000, midpoint 4500, rollout 5000, turn right heading 180, cleared for takeoff."  I then flew a quick local flight in XP12 in the Aerobask Phenom with the same exact METAR string.  I'll show you the difference below

3) We need more reason to look/plan for the weather.  TimHH and I were discussing this topic this morning.  

There's no punishment for flying through a supercell or thunderstorm.  There's no hail, there's barely an icing simulation.  IRL you could easily get inverted (or worse) by accidentally flying through a storm.  Not always but it happens irl.

4) Icing, we need the types and better representation of intensities.  Rime, Mixed, Clear (very dangerous for how heavy it can get).  Trace, light, moderate, severe.  This should physically affect the airframe and should cause major issues depending on type and how fast it builds.  We should also be able to shed ice by climbing sometimes into a temperature inversion, in between layers or descending to get out of it.  There shouldn't be random ice building up the windscreen in clear skies with freezing temperatures.  Sometimes I wonder if Asobo actually knows anything about real weather in aviation.  Ice should visually build in the areas it does irl like pitot probes, antennas, leading edges, and not randomly in places like the body of the fuselage... makes no sense!

This is just the tip of the iceberg!  Being that it is a flightsim all of these things should be present in 2024.  But also it should be a toggle so that if people don't want the realism they don't have to use it.

Lastly... here's 2024 and XP12 with the same metar I flew into Duluth this morning.  XP12 certainly has its own issues but it easily wins the 1/2SM and R09/3000V5000 representation here.  It was honestly boring seeing what I saw in MSFS.  They need to do better!

FlightFX C750 (excellent aircraft btw)

Aerobask Phenom 300 (decent payware for how old it is)

 

 

 

22 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

I don't use any of that stuff.  I just use the default weather.  But it really, truly, needs a Service Update of its own.  Generally speaking, the MSFS 20/24 weather system is reasonably good.  If users aren't that familiar with real world flying they probably wouldn't be able to discern a poor representation of MSFS WX vs a good one however.  We really lack cloud structures and specific cloud types in msfs.  XP12 is vastly better for this kind of thing.  But it has its own shortcomings as well.

But as a irl pilot and ATC I can tell there is a big discrepancy in MSFS, especially at airports with ATIS/AWOS/ASOS.

My main issues with MSFS weather are:

1) Clouds still far too transparent.  Sadly it seems with the current "voxel" method of rendering clouds we can't get truly opaque ones anytime soon because it takes a lot of processing power.

How frequently are you excited to fly your airliner or prop down to LIFR minimums only to easily spot the approach lights/runway environment much sooner than you anticipated?  I almost always see it way too far out... boring!  Or you can see through an OVC layer to the ground with ease.  LAME!

2) MSFS does not seem to render specific visibility or Runway Visual Range (RVR). 

In fact I just flew the C750 from Omaha to Duluth today.  Duluth (KDLH) was getting some snow and low vis with poor RVR (in the 3000's).  I looked up from my panel (and hand flying for fun today) and the runway was easily visible for its entirety.  DLH's main runway is almost 2 miles long.  So I probably had at least 3 SM vis.  I think even without voxel clouds they could code some way to inject a low visibility situation depending on RVR decoded from a METAR.  It looks like this:  R09/3000V5000 (Runway 09, 3000 varying 5000 ft).  At larger towered airports, ATC can read out the RVR on takeoff and landing - actually they are required to.  It sounds something like this:  "N12345, runway niner R-V-R 3000, midpoint 4500, rollout 5000, turn right heading 180, cleared for takeoff."  I then flew a quick local flight in XP12 in the Aerobask Phenom with the same exact METAR string.  I'll show you the difference below

3) We need more reason to look/plan for the weather.  TimHH and I were discussing this topic this morning.  

There's no punishment for flying through a supercell or thunderstorm.  There's no hail, there's barely an icing simulation.  IRL you could easily get inverted (or worse) by accidentally flying through a storm.  Not always but it happens irl.

4) Icing, we need the types and better representation of intensities.  Rime, Mixed, Clear (very dangerous for how heavy it can get).  Trace, light, moderate, severe.  This should physically affect the airframe and should cause major issues depending on type and how fast it builds.  We should also be able to shed ice by climbing sometimes into a temperature inversion, in between layers or descending to get out of it.  There shouldn't be random ice building up the windscreen in clear skies with freezing temperatures.  Sometimes I wonder if Asobo actually knows anything about real weather in aviation.  Ice should visually build in the areas it does irl like pitot probes, antennas, leading edges, and not randomly in places like the body of the fuselage... makes no sense!

This is just the tip of the iceberg!  Being that it is a flightsim all of these things should be present in 2024.  But also it should be a toggle so that if people don't want the realism they don't have to use it.

Lastly... here's 2024 and XP12 with the same metar I flew into Duluth this morning.  XP12 certainly has its own issues but it easily wins the 1/2SM and R09/3000V5000 representation here.  It was honestly boring seeing what I saw in MSFS.  They need to do better!

FlightFX C750 (excellent aircraft btw)

Aerobask Phenom 300 (decent payware for how old it is)

 

 

 

Spot on with the above Ryan.

 

You forgot one thing though, weather radar !

 

Weather is such a massive part of flying and yet it’s one area where MSFS is really lacking, you don’t even have to bother planning for it when flying this Sim.

 

They seem to be more concerned with ‘pretty rocks’ and missions rather than get the basics right, which is why I look at it more as a game than a Sim.

7 minutes ago, pan pan pan said:

 

 

You forgot one thing though, weather radar !

 

We do have some form of it in both sims but there's really no reason to avoid it because you don't fall out of the sky like you might in real life.  I wonder how many simmers actually deviate left or right for a radar return.  In real life if you're above the layer some pilots will still deviate for "buildups" but as we don't really have cloud formations or specifically, towering cumulus, there's no reason to avoid.

15 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

We do have some form of it in both sims but there's really no reason to avoid it because you don't fall out of the sky like you might in real life.  I wonder how many simmers actually deviate left or right for a radar return.  In real life if you're above the layer some pilots will still deviate for "buildups" but as we don't really have cloud formations or specifically, towering cumulus, there's no reason to avoid.

You’re right, i don’t think Ive ever deviated left or right of track due weather because i know i’m not going to get punished, don’t even plan for it.

 

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

3) We need more reason to look/plan for the weather.  TimHH and I were discussing this topic this morning.  

There's no punishment for flying through a supercell or thunderstorm.  There's no hail, there's barely an icing simulation.

This.  A thousand times this.

18 minutes ago, pan pan pan said:

You’re right, i don’t think Ive ever deviated left or right of track due weather because i know i’m not going to get punished, don’t even plan for it.

I still use the radar and deviate as I would IRL based on the returns, but yep.  I know I don't really have to.  

Same with icing.  I don't take planes that aren't FIKI where I know there's a good chance of getting into icing conditions, but... in this sim right now it rarely matters. 

I try to "do the right thing" anyway, but I sure wish all of these things mattered a whole lot more.

 

Scott

Right now I have Active Sky on with Atmos Core flying from KDTW-KORD.  There are storms all in the vicinity of chicago but I don't see any storm clouds.  It is one layer of overcast.  Is that a MSFS/AS fault or are my setting off?

4 hours ago, pan pan pan said:

They seem to be more concerned with ‘pretty rocks’ and missions rather than get the basics right, which is why I look at it more as a game than a Sim.

Before saying stuff like that, you should probably go read the changelog of the latest SU5 beta build.....

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

Before saying stuff like that, you should probably go read the changelog of the latest SU5 beta build.....

To be fair, I'm using SU5 beta, and none of things I mentioned here are in it.  There are some decent improvements though like obstruction lighting, prop modelling and ATC fixes.  I didn't mention weather radar but there are some changes to the radar I think coming... they added variables for tilt finally.

8 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

I don't use any of that stuff.  I just use the default weather.  But it really, truly, needs a Service Update of its own.  Generally speaking, the MSFS 20/24 weather system is reasonably good.  If users aren't that familiar with real world flying they probably wouldn't be able to discern a poor representation of MSFS WX vs a good one however.  We really lack cloud structures and specific cloud types in msfs.  XP12 is vastly better for this kind of thing.  But it has its own shortcomings as well.

But as a irl pilot and ATC I can tell there is a big discrepancy in MSFS, especially at airports with ATIS/AWOS/ASOS.

My main issues with MSFS weather are:

1) Clouds still far too transparent.  Sadly it seems with the current "voxel" method of rendering clouds we can't get truly opaque ones anytime soon because it takes a lot of processing power.

How frequently are you excited to fly your airliner or prop down to LIFR minimums only to easily spot the approach lights/runway environment much sooner than you anticipated?  I almost always see it way too far out... boring!  Or you can see through an OVC layer to the ground with ease.  LAME!

2) MSFS does not seem to render specific visibility or Runway Visual Range (RVR). 

In fact I just flew the C750 from Omaha to Duluth today.  Duluth (KDLH) was getting some snow and low vis with poor RVR (in the 3000's).  I looked up from my panel (and hand flying for fun today) and the runway was easily visible for its entirety.  DLH's main runway is almost 2 miles long.  So I probably had at least 3 SM vis.  I think even without voxel clouds they could code some way to inject a low visibility situation depending on RVR decoded from a METAR.  It looks like this:  R09/3000V5000 (Runway 09, 3000 varying 5000 ft).  At larger towered airports, ATC can read out the RVR on takeoff and landing - actually they are required to.  It sounds something like this:  "N12345, runway niner R-V-R 3000, midpoint 4500, rollout 5000, turn right heading 180, cleared for takeoff."  I then flew a quick local flight in XP12 in the Aerobask Phenom with the same exact METAR string.  I'll show you the difference below

3) We need more reason to look/plan for the weather.  TimHH and I were discussing this topic this morning.  

There's no punishment for flying through a supercell or thunderstorm.  There's no hail, there's barely an icing simulation.  IRL you could easily get inverted (or worse) by accidentally flying through a storm.  Not always but it happens irl.

4) Icing, we need the types and better representation of intensities.  Rime, Mixed, Clear (very dangerous for how heavy it can get).  Trace, light, moderate, severe.  This should physically affect the airframe and should cause major issues depending on type and how fast it builds.  We should also be able to shed ice by climbing sometimes into a temperature inversion, in between layers or descending to get out of it.  There shouldn't be random ice building up the windscreen in clear skies with freezing temperatures.  Sometimes I wonder if Asobo actually knows anything about real weather in aviation.  Ice should visually build in the areas it does irl like pitot probes, antennas, leading edges, and not randomly in places like the body of the fuselage... makes no sense!

This is just the tip of the iceberg!  Being that it is a flightsim all of these things should be present in 2024.  But also it should be a toggle so that if people don't want the realism they don't have to use it.

Lastly... here's 2024 and XP12 with the same metar I flew into Duluth this morning.  XP12 certainly has its own issues but it easily wins the 1/2SM and R09/3000V5000 representation here.  It was honestly boring seeing what I saw in MSFS.  They need to do better!

FlightFX C750 (excellent aircraft btw)

Aerobask Phenom 300 (decent payware for how old it is)

 

 

 

Ryan,

I know you say you don't use any of the after-market add-ons, but except for the fact that Active Sky doesn't show fronts due to the limitations of the sim weather injection, I have generally found ASFS to be MUCH better than the sim weather depiction. With your METAR information, I was able to get close in terms of the METAR that I could pull up and here is the weather depiction from the drone camera coming in over the lights into Runway 09 (your shot looks a bit different, so you might have some scenery that is different than the stock):

https://imgur.com/a/EiQVD8E

 

The METAR represented is:

KDLH 021655Z 08021G30KT 1/2SM R09/3500V5000FT SN BLSN OVC008 M02/M03 A2989 RMK AO2 PK WND 07036/1609 SLP143 SNINCR 1/4 P0004 T10221033 $

Decoded textual weather for KDLH

Wind: 080 at 21 knots gusting to 30
Visibility: 0.9 SM (1524 m)
Clouds: Broken at 8427 feet

Temperature: -2.0C
Precipitation: Moderate snow 
Altimeter: 1012 mb (29.89 inches)

This station includes complete surface weather information, interpolation disabled.

 

Original metar of the stations: 
KDLH 021655Z 08021G30KT 1/2SM R09/3500V5000FT SN BLSN OVC008 M02/M03 A2989 RMK AO2 PK WND 07036/1609 SLP143 SNINCR 1/4 P0004 T10221033 $

 

Edited April 3Apr 3 by mmcmah

There is also a setting in ASFS which allows you to make Cloud Density Adjustments. Here are two shots just a few seconds apart from the lowest setting, followed by the highest setting. I feel like the highest setting is generally more representative of the clouds I see in real life.

https://imgur.com/a/fJBfgWy

11 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

To be fair, I'm using SU5 beta, and none of things I mentioned here are in it.  There are some decent improvements though like obstruction lighting, prop modelling and ATC fixes.  I didn't mention weather radar but there are some changes to the radar I think coming... they added variables for tilt finally.

He specifically mentioned weather radar and finally getting tilt and the other additions is a pretty big deal.