FSX Default Weather

[Abidad]

First of all, kudos to Dan for the development of FSP, brilliant add on, truly the best around. Even the utilities included are superb, the
voice pack editor is great and makes creating your own voicepacks really simple. Anyway, enough brown-nosing!!! :-)

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I have a question about FSX default weather:

If I select a default weather scheme, lets say Major Thunderstorm for arguments sake, with the rate at which weather changes over time
set to maximum, I see no weather changes at all, regardless of the length of my flight. I have tried short European Flights and flying from
Heathrow (EGLL) to Darwin (YPDN) and the weather stays the same throughout. This is obviously detracting from the realism as it would
have to be a pretty serious weather front that created a thunderstorm lasting from England to Australia!!!

Does anyone else have this problem? I wondered whether FSPX has any weather parameters that could be effecting things? Failing that
can anyone explain why my weather isn't changing?

Thanks

[whiskey-zulu]

FSPX, to my knowlege, only reads from the weather being generated by FSX, so if there is turbulance, then you'll get the pax screaming and happiness
drop and so it should not affect what is being generated by FSX.

Have you looked through your scenery settings, namely the weather gen ones, to see if there are any tweaks you can make?

[Abidad]

No, I havent tried that, presumably the weather autogen is in the root:

C:\Programme Files\microsoft games\flight simulator x\autogen ???

or

C:\Programme Files\microsoft games\flight simulator x\scenery

Are there obvious files or folders called "weather" or similar that I need to look at?

I have renamed the deaful xml file in the autogen folder to defaultold to assist with FPS having read on several sites that this is a "tweak".
Could this possibly have an effect on the weather set up or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[whiskey-zulu]

I was thinking more along the lines of the scenery settings accessible from the main FSX menu screen.

[Abidad]

Ah, I see. If I remember the only tab that effects weather in the settings is the weather tab. I think the scenery tab deals with buildings,
trees, mesh complexity etc. I will check again though for my sanity.

Thanks Whiskey Zulu.

Anyone else got any ideas?

[Jason]

The rate at which weather changes over time I believe is only applicable to using real world weather updated every 15 minutes. All other
settings, the weather will stay the same as it's set before the flight is started, no matter where you are, or how far you go.



Post Edited ( 08-11-10 18:22 )

[whiskey-zulu]

Not entirely correct, at least that isn't my experience of FSX using the 'default' weather settings and having the rate of change fast - i've seen it
go from thunderstorm to clear in 60 NM from the airport. However, I tend to use the real world, no update, as I don't really want to mess around with
my system and configuring FSUIPC

The other way to do it, which is far more convoluted, is to program the weather by individual weather station.

[DavidK]

My reading of FSX's weather options is to use "Real-world weather (updated)" (or possibly "Custom" weather) if you're after weather that can change,
otherwise one of the weather scenes to practice (or simply go) flying in particular unchanging conditions.

If you want to set up some starting conditions which may then vary in certain ways, perhaps "Custom" weather is what you need to look at. I can't say
for sure, though, as I haven't done so myself.

David K

[Abidad]

All - thanks for the replys. I got in touch with one of the guys frmo Aves Studios and the answer is as listed above:

If you use FSX default weather then the themes are just that, themes. There will be no change.

The way to do this is to use a default theme for all stations. Then using custom, customise the weather at the stations you wish to
change (you can select multiple by the way), now when you set the slider to high change rate of weather over time, it changes.

Be warned, if you do set it to high weather can change completely in the space of 5 minutes.

Thanks to everyone.