Issue Syncing and SayIntentions.AI compatibility

[Silicus]

I have been a long time supporter of AS since the FS2004 times.
I was really excited when ASFS came out in April for MSFS. While I like the weather depiction, I am disappointed with the on route weather.

I built a Airbus A320 home cockpit running MSFS over a network. Since ASFS is not network compatible I am running 2 copies of ASFS independently on 2 PCs. While the departure airport are mostly depicting the same weather, on route weather is always different, so is the arrival airport. There seem to be different depiction of weather, sometimes completely different. One has overcast weather, the other has partly cloudy skies, for example. No and it is not because of different download cycles, I make sure the download cycles are pretty much synced (within a minute or so). There is a constant different depiction on both machines for the entire route.

It seems that AS is more or less 'guessing' on route weather for the exact same location.
Tonight I found out that I am not the only one.

SayIntentions AI ATC dropped their support for AS finding out pretty much the same thing, I quote from their Discord:

As of today, we are dropping OFFICIAL support for ActiveSky weather. There are several reasons.

We've discovered critical flaws with the way AS reports / manages en-route weather, that are resulting in significant support and accuracy issues, and there are no options available to us to overcome the problem. End of quote.

For now I stopped using AS and went back to MS default live weather.

 

[Bond]

It'll be interesting to know if both have the same briefing.....

 

[mmcmah]

I too was coming to inquire about the logic in ASFS which led to SayIntentions dropping support. As I was thinking about it this morning, I realized that the interpolations that ASFS does likely don't make it into the weather file that SI or other programs are reading. Consequently, anyone trying to match/report on the weather being experienced is going to be somewhat off based on the interpolation.

I don't know if this is correct, but it makes sense logically. As a result, I have cancelled my SI subscription, as there were simply too many times that the weather shown by ASFS didn't match the weather being reported by SI. I would rather have continued to use both.

That said, the end result might have to be discontinuing the use of ASFS and the use of default weather, as it seems like Fenix hasn't started using ASFS as a weather source (and would likely run into the same issues as SI).

 

[damian]

That's very interesting. Does this also affect passive mode? What are the flaws or accuracy issues? Is there any actual information provided? Is this only referring to historical weather and custom weather, or live weather too? I assume this affects all weather add-ons since they all use preset weather? So this should confirm that passive mode is not affected and thus ASFS is in fact not incompatible or problematic when using passive mode?

This is the first we have heard of a problem and as always we are interested in working with developers. Update 08/31/24: We have since made contact with the developer and are working on a potential solution. Thank you!

As to issues with sync between two different copies of ASFS, this is expected as we have not yet established synchronization within this preset weather depiction mode. Of course, this only affects preset depiction mode and not passive mode.

 

[damian]

It seems that AS is more or less 'guessing' on route weather for the exact same location.

How do you figure? There is no guessing in the design and implementation of ASFS weather. There are very technical considerations however when attempting to depict expected weather for everyone within a preset/global weather environment. But please let me know more about what you feel AS is doing wrong?

As mentioned in the previous response, there is no current support or compatibility for synchronizing multiple ASFS instances. It's something we're working on but not a feature in current versions and not indicated as such.

 

[jcomm]

Good luck for them....

After trying SI during the trial period I decided to go BATC, and I am more than fine with it, alternating with FSHUD which also fully supports ASFS...

 

[ha5mvo]

I am a long time supporter of AS (FS2004) and I'm more than happy to keep supporting it. However, I find myself in the same paradigm as the OP.
There seems to be either a "lag" of sorts or some other issue that causes a discrepancy between the reported or predicted weather and the way it's been depicted in sim.

It's best seen when comparing the in-sim clouds, for instance, with what you see in ASs map mode. It's very apparent also when hitting the refresh button in the debug tab. It is not uncommon that a refresh will change the scene from partly cloudy to a thick overcast for example.

It's possible that there's something wrong with my settings but I suppose that settings are just a fine tune and shouldn't cause any major discrepancy

 

[Silicus]

Thank you for supporting my findings as it was somewhat dismissed by the developer.
A very simple test will make the problem obvious.
Do two parallel flights with the same destination and the same arrival on two separate PCs. Preferable in an airliner/jet.
Start AS at the same time with settings the same.
See the different weather depictions that AS creates once you are somewhat out of the departure area. I can recreate it every time. I am not talking about 100% 'synced' weather, I am talking generally the same weather depiction....

 

[damian]

Update 08/31/24: We have since made contact with the developer and are working on a potential solution. Thank you!

 

[damian]

Thank you for supporting my findings as it was somewhat dismissed by the developer.
A very simple test will make the problem obvious.
Do two parallel flights with the same destination and the same arrival on two separate PCs. Preferable in an airliner/jet.
Start AS at the same time with settings the same.
See the different weather depictions that AS creates once you are somewhat out of the departure area. I can recreate it every time. I am not talking about 100% 'synced' weather, I am talking generally the same weather depiction....

The reason you get different depictions on any two instances is due to some randomization that is not kept consistent with the current version in two ways. First, some random seeding is not occurring fully based on lat/lon seeding (this is in progress, about 90% complete and has been in work for several years). Second, due to the nature of our weather updates, with periodic theme reloads, the theme reload can occur at different times and a period theme reload rescans and re-interpolates everything. This is good for keeping things up to date and dynamic, but bad for syncing multiple instances. This is also in progress and tied into some other things we're doing to improve overall depiction.

As mentioned we're working on providing an official sync feature once the above two main issues get worked out.

 

[Porthos]

@damian good morning. I know this is an old thread however since it relates to network (OP) I thought I would ask when ASFS will have network capability?
I run ASXP12 and have run all other variations of AS subscriptions on a client computer.
I only purchased ASFS yesterday and love the look of the weather so far.
BUT I was a little surprised to find no network capability - as yet. So any idea when we might get network capability please?

Thanks for the great product.
Regards
Robert

 

[Daveo]

@damian good morning. I know this is an old thread however since it relates to network (OP) I thought I would ask when ASFS will have network capability?
I run ASXP12 and have run all other variations of AS subscriptions on a client computer.
I only purchased ASFS yesterday and love the look of the weather so far.
BUT I was a little surprised to find no network capability - as yet. So any idea when we might get network capability please?

Thanks for the great product.
Regards
Robert

Please see here:

https://forums.hifisimtech.com/threads/development-status-and-roadmap.15201/