FSUIPC7 and Sim Weather detection.

[Giorgio Macri]

Hello!

I'd first like to apologize for any sort of errors within this post, I am very much new to the inner workings of FSUIPC and have been trying to help a friend of mine (Garen Evans) with their ACARS software.

So Garen develops fsacars, an ACARS system for virtual airlines or individuals (Which we use in our Virtual Airline, FDXVA) and we've been having issues detecting weather and visibility with FS2020.

So looking through the offsets that FSACARS checks for we have found that EA4, E9C, E8A, F28 and E9E have either been deprecated or are no longer functioning as of FS2020/FSUIPC7. (As per the offset status document)

We have been using FSACARS to support FSX, P3D and XP11 (XPUIPC which I know is separate from FSUIPC) and this is the first time we've ran into this limitation.

What we need basically is a way to check for both visibility (Which I've been thinking we could use 2DF0 since that is, apparently, functioning) and cloud ceiling cover. However, as of right now, we have no idea how to check for cloud ceiling height/cover/other parameters.

Is this something we have to interact with the simulator's SDK directly for, or is there an alternative here we're not seeing.

Find attached a text file containing all the offsets FSACARS currently tests for.

I'd like to thank you all for your continued work in this wonderful piece of software,

Giorgio Macri

EDIT: After doing some more research I have come across another post mentioning the old SimConnect weather interface has been deprecated. So it is my understanding we would have to interact with the new FS2020 SDK directly. I have been reading through it, but have found the weather information you may gather from it very limited. Could you point us in the right direction for this? Appreciate the help.

offsetlist.txt

Edited April 13, 2023 by Giorgio Macri

[John Dowson]

4 hours ago, Giorgio Macri said:

EDIT: After doing some more research I have come across another post mentioning the old SimConnect weather interface has been deprecated. So it is my understanding we would have to interact with the new FS2020 SDK directly. I have been reading through it, but have found the weather information you may gather from it very limited. Could you point us in the right direction for this? Appreciate the help.

Yes, access to weather is currently very limited and I don't think there are any plans by Asobo to provide a new weather API, but you should check for this on the Asobo forums.
Currently, only ambient weather simvars are available:

John

[John Dowson]

Note that Ambient Visibility has also been reported as not working - see https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/questions/16304/bug-aambient-visibility.html

John

[Giorgio Macri]

8 hours ago, John Dowson said:

access to weather is currently very limited

This is pretty frustrating. It's hard to believe these people are trying to develop a simulator when it feels more like a game. The fact that they are not even able to provide you with a working visibility value tells you everything you need to know. I know they're pushing for new technologies, but I feel like they're worsening the flightsim experience in some areas.

We'll have to think of some other way to check for user weather, or remove the feature for the time being I suppose.

Thanks for your help,

Giorgio

 

[John Dowson]

Flight simulation is a pretty small market compared to xbox gaming....

A couple of other interesting posts on MSFS weather access:
    https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/what-weather-data-exactly-does-the-api-provide-precip-wind-turbulence/533447
    https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-query-the-metar-information-for-dest-origin-airport-throught-wasm-or-simconnect/562648

John