Which selection should I use in Real Weather Connector?

[Cameron]

You need to be mindful of the available options in Real Weather Connector. Failure to understand them will result in situations you may not like. So, be sure you select the option which best fits the type of flight you are going to have/use weather data source from.

The settings and how/when to select them are as follows...

Automatic: RWC will only be active when X-Plane’s weather is set to “grab real weather from the net”. 

Use this setting if you fly with X-Plane’s built-in real world weather, if you use the FSGRW add-on, or if you use future weather add-ons that communicate with X-Plane using its METAR.RWX file. For most users, this is the best setting.

In this mode, if you set up X-Plane to automatically download METAR-based weather information from the Internet, RWC will use this detailed information to position clouds. When real weather is off In X-Plane, RWC will be automatically deactivated, and clouds will be placed using uniform cloud conditions specified in X-Plane’s weather dialog instead.

X-Plane’s real weather settings are found under X-Plane’s Environment menu. Select the Weather screen, and select “grab real weather from the net” to ensure RWC has the information it needs. For more information on X-Plane’s real world weather system, see http://www.x-plane.com/?article=downloading-and-using-real-weather

Always: RWC will always position clouds using downloaded METAR data.

Use this setting if you need to use an add-on that overrides X-Plane’s weather with uniform weather conditons surrounding the plane (using datarefs,) but you still want the benefits of RWC. Examples include XSquawkBox (used with VATSIM), IVAO, NOAA Weather, and EFASS. As of this writing, these add-ons disable X-Plane’s real world weather system, and inject uniform weather surrounding your plane that abruptly changes as you move.

The “Always” setting provides a work-around. In this mode, RWC ignores any cloud information coming from X-Plane or its add-ons, and instead downloads its own METAR data directly from NOAA to position the clouds with. This allows RWC to keep control of the clouds, while still using the other features of your add-ons (such as winds, turbulence, network flying, etc.)

Setting up specific cloud conditions via X-Plane’s weather dialog will have no effect while RWC is in “Always” mode, so be sure to set RWC back to “Automatic” if you want the ability to disable real-world weather later.

Never: RWC is disabled

Use this setting if you need to temporarily disable RWC, or if you want to use an external dataref-based weather add-on in its intended form. In this mode, RWC will be disabled, and SkyMaxx Pro will instead position clouds using uniform weather conditions specified in datarefs.

For example, if you are flying on a network that synchronizes weather conditions, it might be more important to see the same weather conditions other pilots see, even if it is less detailed than what RWC can represent. You might want to disable RWC while flying on a network, and re-enable it while flying offline.

If your add-on disables X-Plane’s real world weather system (most do), then RWC’s “Automatic” setting will automatically disable RWC while your add-on is active anyhow.

[Tom Stian]

Hi

So with NOAA plugin I should use "Always" ?

[sundog]

4 minutes ago, Tom Stian said:

Hi

So with NOAA plugin I should use "Always" ?

Yes.

[TimeTraveler]

31 minutes ago, sundog said:

Yes.

I thought I read somewhere that NOAA plugin did not work. Has this changed?

[sundog]

1 minute ago, TimeTraveler said:

I thought I read somewhere that NOAA plugin did not work. Has this changed?

Yes; if you set RWC to "always", then it will download its own METAR data and use it to position the clouds even if NOAA is present. That way you can use RWC's clouds together with NOAA's worldwide upper level winds.

It's a last minute feature we added; for awhile we were saying it wouldn't work with NOAA so you're not imagining things

Edited April 15, 2016 by sundog

[TimeTraveler]

1 hour ago, sundog said:

Yes; if you set RWC to "always", then it will download its own METAR data and use it to position the clouds even if NOAA is present. That way you can use RWC's clouds together with NOAA's worldwide upper level winds.

It's a last minute feature we added; for awhile we were saying it wouldn't work with NOAA so you're not imagining things

Ahh lol! Thanks for the quick answer! I'll reload it next time I fly. And yes, I thought I did imagine or dream that

[crisk73]

FSrealWX has it own plugin XPrealWX to inject metar & wind data, so as far as I understand it doesn't pass through the metar.rwx file. Should I use the option "always" also for this injector? This way I would keep wind and turbulence data from online servers, correct?

[Cameron]

29 minutes ago, crisk73 said:

Should I use the option "always" also for this injector? This way I would keep wind and turbulence data from online servers, correct?

That's correct!

[MercuryMat]

Hi, Did you test RWC with FSrealWX plugin? For me it is not clear what option should be better to use. Auto or Always? Any advice?

[sundog]

8 minutes ago, Mad Mat said:

Hi, Did you test RWC with FSrealWX plugin? For me it is not clear what option should be better to use. Auto or Always? Any advice?

No, we don't have FSrealWX here. Pretty sure people are using it with RWC. In general, if it writes its own METAR.rwx files to X-Plane (like FSGRW,) use "automatic" mode. Otherwise you're probably best off with "always". Not sure if FSrealWX writes its own METAR.rwx but I think I've heard that it does. Hopefully others can chime in here.

[MercuryMat]

Seems that FSrealWX does not write any METAR file in X-Plane folder so I suppose it injects weather using datarefs. But using it flying online in IVAO I think the solution is to put RWC in auto mode even in this case. Am I correct?

Edited December 18, 2016 by Mad Mat

[sundog]

13 minutes ago, Mad Mat said:

Seems that FSrealWX does not write any METAR file in X-Plane folder so I suppose it injects weather using datarefs. But using it flying online in IVAO I think the solution is to put RWC in auto mode even in this case. Am I correct?

Depends what you want. If it's injecting weather via datarefs, "automatic" will honor what FSRealWX is sending to X-Plane, but datarefs can only represent 3 layers of cloud conditions that are uniform around the plane. I'd rather run in "always" mode in that case, so SMP can use METAR data to place more complex cloud formations that you can fly into without any sudden changes. So in that mode, you'd be using raw METAR for the clouds through RWC, and FSrealWX for other aspects of weather.

 

[MercuryMat]

Ok thanks, I'll try more deeply the two configurations.

[MercuryMat]

OK, seems FSrealWX writes the METAR.rwx after some time.

I tried RWC in always mode and seems that it reads the most recent metar it finds in the 2 files (metar.rwx and maxx_metar.rwx) and apply it to clouds. Is this correct?

What is strange between the two files is the maxx_metar data are all one hour back compared to FSrealWX metar file, so I'm expecting RWC will read metar.rwx all the time instead maxx_metar.rwx.

By the way it works in both modes.

For future development you could consider to put different metar sources in RWC, like IVAO and VATSIM, for use in online flying.

[Cameron]

3 hours ago, Mad Mat said:

For future development you could consider to put different metar sources in RWC, like IVAO and VATSIM, for use in online flying.

The Always option was created with these networks in mind.

They do not write to a METAR format, so this was the solution.

[sundog]

13 hours ago, Mad Mat said:

I tried RWC in always mode and seems that it reads the most recent metar it finds in the 2 files (metar.rwx and maxx_metar.rwx) and apply it to clouds. Is this correct?

That's how SMP3 worked, but in SMP4 it will always use maxx_metar.rwx if "always" mode is on.

[Angelique-van-Campen]

UPDATE:
Ignore this posting, although it could help other too.

I had besides SMP and RWC also installed the XP NOAA script, and the Ventura Sky lua script. All these additional add-ons don't allow me to do anything thing anymore in the XP default weather tab. After I removed the Pythonscript and lua file from Ventura Sky, issue was solved. Sorry for the trouble.

 

I've got a problem since i've installed RWC in combination with SMP 4.0.1.

For a specific reason I have set the RWC to "Never" and was hoping that I would adjust the X-Plane 10 default weather, but for some reason I can't control the X-Plane default weather anymore. Uninstalling RWC isn't an option, but what to do. I thought that when I've disabled or set RCW to "Never" I could control XP weather.

 

What do I do wrong?

 

Greetings,

Angelique

Edited March 10, 2017 by Angelique-van-Campen
Found the issue!