Afterburner

Even though the clouds on your picture are just 2-D sprites used in a simulator from seven years ago, I find them more fluffy and natural than the volumetric clouds with EA on in v5 and the blobs and volcanic ashes in the other popular simulator...

And some people claim that MSFS' own live weather is good enough and that there is no need for 3rd party weather add-ons live Active Sky. There is still a lot of potential for improvement. Just sayin'...

I would not worry about v6 not being in works. Remember three years ago when P3D v4.5 HF3 was released alongside v5?

Yes, that's the typical cruise speed of the ATR-42. What did you expect?

Do you have "Triple Buffering" activated?

At the bottom of the main ASCA window, you can see information about the mode/themes being used, such as "Last Activated Theme = Full Dynamics, Sky = Envtex 12, Cirrus = Nautical, Clouds = Multiple". If ASCA uses Envtex sky colors, you see Envtex and a number behind it next to "Sky".

Don't you need to use ATC in MSFS for that as well? After all, the ribbons need to know where you want to park or take off, and the ATC is the one who assigns them to you.

In FS2002/2004/FSX, it was so simple and intuitive: You could toggle "Progressive Taxi" in the ATC window before takeoff and after landing with one click, and you could see the arrows on the ground. This is why it was called "Progressive": It was ahead of its time compared to a simulator that came out 20 years later. 😁

I also like to use EA on during daytime because it gives me a natural, blueish haze (that comes closest to the pictures I posted) with a warm glow from the sun. The color of the sky looks also quite realistic. Could you post a picture that shows the constant layer of very light fog, so that I can compare and see if a solution can be found?

I don't know of any official limits in Envplus. It looks like it's open-ended. The default value is indeed 1.0.

Have you flown in the real world lately or viewed a landscape from a high altitude? If you pay attention to the horizon, you will notice that the tint becomes "bluer" for more distant objects in clear weather. I took a shot of Prague in an afternoon, where you can see that: Notice that the leaves on the tree and the buildings behind them have vibrant colors, while the objects further out have a blueish tint. And we are talking about altitudes of just 500ft and short distances between 10-20 km. As you climb up higher, you will see something like this from a typical Boeing cruising altitude. Here is a shot I took myself while flying over the southeast U.S. Note that the visibility is very clear here, yet there is still some haze: The pictures I showed from my simulator above aren't even that blueish, but a bit more greenish (I set it up to compensate for the more blueish tint during sunset/sunrise). Allow me to compare these pictures with one that you posted on the Active Sky forum when you addressed the banding issue at high altitude: To me, the environment here looks like there is no atmosphere at all... As if you are flying through a vacuum. To an extent where it's not clear whether the white patches are clouds or snow on the ground. The ground looks the same whether you fly at 30,000 ft or at Concorde supersonic altitudes. Beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder, but I don't see any realism in the atmosphere, do you?

Sure, here you go: Envplus settings: Lowering the "HDR tint" value makes the atmosphere look more blueish, increasing it more greenish. HDR settings in P3D: In ASP3D, I use a maximum surface visibility of 40mi, and a maximum upper visibility of 200mi.

With the help of Envtex, Envshade and Envplus, I have been able to generate a good looking and (in my mind) realistic atmosphere in P3Dv5 with EA off. This may be interesting for those who want to bypass the disadvantages of EA (dark cockpits, flawed sunsets), yet see a realistic atmosphere. I like what I saw on my today's flight over Germany (with ORBX GEN). I use ASP3D for weather:

When you used HDR, did you uncheck the box "Autoexposure"? This is the one that is responsible for the whitening out that you describe. If bloom is too high, the respective slider can be reduced. You can use the "Live Graphics" option to make adjustments while seeing the results in real time. That way, it's not difficult to get a decent compromise. I find the overall brightness with HDR off a little bit low, and activating it can correct that.

I understand that EA is tied to HDR, but I am wondering what is so bad about HDR? I have been using it for years since P3Dv3 (it was badly implemented in v2), and it allows you to adjust brightness, bloom and saturation. One may not need it, but how does it make the simulator graphics look worse?