Damian Clark

I'll take a look soon at that ticket if support department doesn't already handle, but this very common issue is essentially always because you're entering the wrong key at registration (you need to be entering your ASP3D key there). The ASP4 key goes in after when it asks for your eligible product license.

https://support.hifitechinc.com and we can directly assist you. We sold older last-gen products through: FSPilotshop (now closed), SimPlanet (now closed), SimMarket, Justflight, Flight1, Aerosoft and FlightSim.com store. EDIT: Also FSPS Store

I struggle with this logic. I agree it's important and integral, very much so. So are many other areas of the sim. But why can't it be important and integral and also allow third parties to use SDK functions to read weather, for example? Does PMDG for example ever want to be able to get the winds/temps aloft in the FMC in MSFS? Without SDK functions, they can't do it as they should be able to. They'll need something else, not official and not part of SDK (with all the downsides of that), or this type of realism won't ever be available. This is all moot though, they have already decided. I'm sure PMDG, just like us, will be forced to do creative things and they will make it work, somehow. It's just too bad simple weather SDK functions, available in all other sims, and previous in all MSFS revisions, are for the first time ever no longer part of the plan. We had such high hopes and dreams for MSFS in this department. But regardless we will work hard to bring out our take on advanced realism-based weather simulation features in MSFS with the unofficial techniques clearly accepted and encouraged by MS/Asobo, and our own tricks coupled with our 20 years of experience on the MSFS platform to make the experience the best we can. I'd like to clarify again however that we do not plan on fixing any issues or bugs in MSFS weather. We are working on our own thing. MSFS bugs will be resolved, and this is all independent of that. We are not trying to replace MSFS weather and not trying to compete with it. They've done an amazing incredible job. We are just trying to expand on unique advanced aspects of weather simulation that a certain percentage of simmers want, like we always have.

What is to be fixed? AS for MSFS is not planning on "fixing" anything. Instead we're trying to bring as many core AS features (and a few new ones), most of which are NOT included in MSFS (and quite probably will never be included), that users are asking for, to work within the new sim in the best way possible. AS is a lot more than live weather. In fact, MUCH of the feedback and demand we've seen is for other than LIVE weather! Of course we'll also support live weather, but this is just one thing in a sea of many. Of course MSFS bugs in many areas will be resolved and new features will be added, some enhanced. Still struggling to see why that has anything to do with 3rd parties doing their own thing to take things further in the way they dream of.

Too early to go into that. Most of the issues you see with the current add-ons will also affect our add-on, since these are "unofficial" very limited methods. It's about what we can do to tune, adjust, work around and improve issues using our talents and experience with things like this. As an active IFR pilot who's number 1 development goal is to make the product >I< want to use, proper IMC is very high on the list.

Great point. To be clear, we've always been hoping for/asking for SDK weather functions (get the weather conditions at a location, set the weather conditions at a location, most basically) and NOT any kind of opening up of Meteoblue internals or their IP. These BASIC functions CAN be done using non-SDK methods as there are already 3 add-ons doing this as everyone is aware. They are just not official nor supported and may not always work, and certainly won't be interoperable or compatible with other add-ons without specialized add-on to add-on integration. So it's a little bit messy, and certainly restricted in what it "could be", but it does work for the most part. Our original delay and reluctance to work on non-official weather interfacing was based on public videos from MS/Asobo developers during their developer chats, where they stated that they were not yet done with the weather system, would rather weather developers wait, and they didn't like the kind of unofficial interfacing that has been done in the past. So out of respect to them, we waited. Now they've officially killed this wish list item, setting this item to "Not Planned", so we are not waiting any longer.

Thanks for the support, and even the criticism - it is very motivating either way! It is very much understood by us that a decent amount of MSFS users in the community are against weather add-on developers having SDK access or any support from MSFS. They seem to want MSFS weather only, no add-ons with weather (but any other add-on/category is OK and encouraged) and think that any kind of extensibility (like allowing an advanced 3rd party airliner to access wind data via FMC) is against the vision of MSFS and MeteoBlue and will only hurt development. They may be looking back at previous FS versions and wondering why wx development stopped, and have blamed that on third party developers like us. We disagree with this thinking, but we can understand and respect that this perspective is out there, and it's popular. We don't want to see MSFS weather development slow or stop either. We want to co-exist, and interface with official SDK functions that permit easy interoperability, backwards compatibility, etc. We want to work on things that MS/ASOBO DO NOT want to or CANNOT work on. In the thread that was quoted, I've brought out examples from FS9... when that came out, it was a similar deal with a brand new weather system and was great, but within a few months the MS developers decided they were "done" with it and the community wanted more..... so as add-on developers, we worked hard, for a long time, and brought out many features that our customers wanted. It is also very much understood that another chunk of users fully support our competitors and others bringing our weather add-ons, they just don't want HiFi getting involved at all. We understand this is mainly just a competitive thing, they are trying to protect the developers they support and don't want them to have any competition. We also disagree with this, as competition has done amazing things in weather and all things in our hobby. It pushes everyone forward. As a matter of fact, I wonder, in all the years of Active Sky, have any of our features influenced any other sim or other add-ons features? I'm thinking we've influenced at least a few. Finally, we know there is yet another group of users who realize that Asobo/MS can't do everything they've come to expect or have wishes for, despite any intentions they have, and have come to respect our approach to weather simulation development and perhaps our marketing and support style, and despite not having official support, would like to see us do what these other developers are doing to bring an even better weather experience, in our style, despite the challenges against us. We have not formally announced our development efforts here, that is all coming later. I responded to a MSFS forum thread that suggest that REX and perhaps other developers be "shut down" by Asobo/MSFS since we haven't been given "official support". I disagreed and tried to set the record straight and mentioned we will be doing similar things as REX/Orbx/Unreal. I think ALL DEVELOPERS should be given a fair chance, and of course that means our competitors too.

I think the darker cockpit/lighting in general is specific to the current EA mode lighting and there are options and add-ons that can help here. This is not caused by any wx add-on.

With ASP3D in non-EA, there should not be a noticeable difference in radar returns/API compared to ASP4. With ASP3D in EA, we are looking at the cloud models/cloud positions that would be displayed as if you were not in EA mode. So in this respect, ASCA or any other cloud model add-on would have an effect here. And as mentioned, these cloud positions won't match what is actually visually depicted in EA mode since those cloud positions aren't known. There could also be a bug or tuning issue, so please do provide info to us in our own forums if you can't get expected results given this info. Thanks.

We have had very positive feedback regarding non-EA performance with P5.1+HF1, due to both HF1 changes and improvements in ASP3D backend systems. Hopefully customers with direct experience can chime in. We've also had similar feedback with EA but non-EA has been noticeably improved from previous versions based on feedback.

These highlights and features from the product page pertain to both versions of P3D: New P3D add-on specification design with all items installed outside of the P3D folders New Universal XGauge design that works for all aircraft at any time without requiring panel additions New networking design that eliminates the need for SimConnect configuration or use between clients and server – Just install ASP3D on the client, the included AS P3D Connector Installer on the server, make sure your networked shares are configured, and go Wind smoothing redesigned for higher frequency force actuation and organic feel Major enhancements to the data network, weather synthesis, interpolation, and other core weather simulation and depiction technologies – now with much increased performance, stability and availability Includes the most advanced version of our award-winning core weather engine and weather data services, being refined now for over 20 years To expand on the above, the general incremental improvements that pertain to P3Dv4 focus on synthesis, depiction, logic, fixes, tweaks, adjustments and tuning that is typical through approximately 70 tested iterations/builds of our product over about 3 years. So things like changing how elevation at airports might effect ridge lift in certain circumstances, how to deal with Canadian Auto METAR maxima if it's not listed as 9sm as expected, how to deal with new /-character type unknown data in METAR strings, processing server-based data differently for more stability and quicker downloads, are examples of changes made (and there are hundreds if not thousands similar to this) that go into our latest product like ASP3D, vs older products where we have stopped adding this kind of forward development. Our focus on this new product has always been P3Dv5 and EA, while also providing P3Dv4 integration, so there are more features and certainly things will look a lot more different in P5/EA compared to ASP4, but there are improvements throughout and we think we've priced this right and are providing great value given all the work put into this. But each can make up their own mind... if there aren't enough features listed and/or you don't care to upgrade to the latest version, there is no reason you can't stay with your current version. We'll also be adding quite a few new things that may interest you moving forward so you may want to stay tuned to our feature list/product info as we go along. Thanks!

We will continue working on dozens of areas of EA and other things, and pretty sure LM will keep doing what they do improving things constantly.

Thanks, by using our product and giving feedback that is more than enough and we are grateful. Your beta participation is also much appreciated.

No, with EA the options are not relevant in same way. Our EA adjustments for better accuracy, Volfog and smoothing are automatic.

Incorrect. There are numerous benefits, just not as many as compared to P3Dv5/EA related use. Please check out the product page, the main points are all listed there.