PRO ATC/X

[wanabflyer 53]

I cant seem to figure out how or why an incomplete product such as ProATC which I have, will be any competition to PFE, great taxi guidance,

 

 

What is realistic about magenta or green arrows or lines popping up on the taxiways to get you to the assigned runway? Aren't we supposed to use the airport ground charts and follow assigned taxiways?

 

Regards,

[blueridgeflyer 1]

I choose not to use proATCX in its current development state as is lacks several essential features that are needed to fairly represent a convincing Air Traffic Control system. There are issues with basic functions that include among other things: initial clearance altitudes, phraseology, altitude management on SID and Stars, radar vectoring (specifically as it pertains to the segment after a Star which does not provide an approach transition), assignment of approach type and runway, and the naming of controlling authorities.

 

Hopefully the development team will provide further refinement and feature implementation (especially ground control) in future iterations.

[shivers9 1,174]

Sizel, on 10 Apr 2013 - 11:49 PM, said:

Fair point there Sam. But like Howard mentions above if the developer makes it clear that it is in fact ongoing development whilst its released then that is ok as the customer is informed and knows what he is paying for. But if not mentioned it might be somewhat wrong. I'm not sure if the Devs mention this with PROATC/X or not but i say this speaking generally to all products released. I do hope this product does indeed evolve into must have software of ATC goodness. :smile2:

You guys bring up an important point about this software as well as any that you find online. I really am not sure what the developer said on initial release. It is always good to spend time reading the forums before purchasing any software period. In this world we have that little thing called marketing and advertising. I don't recall ever seeing any product released that tells you what the product won't do! Just not the way this world works. I do know that in the case of Pro-ATC, it is impossible to read more than 5 min. in the forum without realizing that this is a work in progress. Same thing is true for OPUS weather. The neat part is that both developers are working 24/7 to fix, change or help. Why is that important. Just think of the other ATC programs. They have not been improved in years. Many people love RC4...yes a pretty good program, but for years they have been saying just buy version 4 because RC5 is coming soon! Now we find out that a decision to develop RC5 has not even been made! So before you throw rocks at Pro-ATC for not being truthful think about that! The Flight 1 Mustang is one of the best products out there but I bet I could write pages about the things it don't do if I just want to be negative.

[Jim Young 2,356]

For anybody needing great ATC for FSX, PFE has no competition. I cant seem to figure out how or why an incomplete product such as ProATC which I have, will be any competition to PFE, great taxi guidance, advanced configurable ATC, second to none regional voice sets.

 

Am I missing something here, or do folks really prefer beta products to working professional software.

I have owned PFE forever but uninstalled it as it didn't function the way I wanted it too.  I used Radar Contact instead and never jumped back on the bandwagon with PFE.  It had more functionality I think when it was ProFlight2000 but it wasn't included when it was upgraded to FSX.  That's a very old program and it probably was great for FS2000 and FS2002 users but not as good as RC for FSX and FS9 users.  ProATC is constantly being updated and, although you call it a beta product, I believe ProFlight2000 was like that too.  RC was like that too except that the developers of ProATC-X seem to want to continue to improve their product and they are constantly listening to their users.  For me, it is a very good basic ATC program that gives me some hint of realism.  The problem with any FSX product is that there are many users and each have their own likes and dislikes.  I occasionally have issues with ProATC but overall it is working well and it is getting better with every update.  I have some real life ATC chattering in the background too thanks to Ralph Zimmerman (and if you get that addon to ProATC, the products costs even more).

 

Best regards,

Jim

[wanabflyer 53]

If you pop over to the ProATC forum you will see exactly why many of us ProATC users are sticking with it.

 

Just a matter of a few days ago the developer released update 1.2.2.5 but still there was a problem to do with runway assignment. It was brought up in the feedback section of the forum. Hence today they just released v1.2.3.0 allowing us to change.

 

How's that for service?

[WotanUK 289]

Ultimately ATC is probably the hardest element of Flight to simulate within the FSX environment, most Flight SIms don't offer anything close to the Flight sim default ATC.

 

I tried RC4 for a while, didn't like it, went back to default; listened to the folks on here about using it for flight clearance, taxi, take off and then ignore all the way until established on finals.  I can fly SIDS, STARS everything and best of all no more 'spamming' handovers as you are passed from one control to another every 2 seconds.  With "Editvoicepack" FSX Default ATC is tolerable if not entirely competent.

[wanabflyer 53]

Ultimately ATC is probably the hardest element of Flight to simulate within the FSX environment, most Flight SIms don't offer anything close to the Flight sim default ATC.

 

I tried RC4 for a while, didn't like it, went back to default; listened to the folks on here about using it for flight clearance, taxi, take off and then ignore all the way until established on finals.  I can fly SIDS, STARS everything and best of all no more 'spamming' handovers as you are passed from one control to another every 2 seconds.  With "Editvoicepack" FSX Default ATC is tolerable if not entirely competent.

I must say that if not for ProATC and its potential, default ATC would probably be my next choice.

[Guest]

I must say that if not for ProATC and its potential, default ATC would probably be my next choice.

 

Well, imho it certainly is the best sounding ATC by FAR...! None of the other addons come close imho. I don't know why, really...

[WotanUK 289]

Well, imho it certainly is the best sounding ATC by FAR...! None of the other addons come close imho. I don't know why, really...

 

Synth speech, they all sound like "Say" on the Amiga, even with 20+ years of development.  You can buy / download things to make them sound better, personally i don't hear a large difference. 

[tf51d 284]

Ultimately ATC is probably the hardest element of Flight to simulate within the FSX environment, most Flight SIms don't offer anything close to the Flight sim default ATC.

 

I tried RC4 for a while, didn't like it, went back to default; listened to the folks on here about using it for flight clearance, taxi, take off and then ignore all the way until established on finals.  I can fly SIDS, STARS everything and best of all no more 'spamming' handovers as you are passed from one control to another every 2 seconds.  With "Editvoicepack" FSX Default ATC is tolerable if not entirely competent.

 

In general I agree with you about FSX default ATC, I even made my own modifications to the phraseology (Available in the library.) . It can handle SIDs (although not actively) if defined in the flight plan. Allot of people don't realize it, but it can also handle STARs, including altitude restraints, if they are defined in the airports AFCAD. Unfortunately most developers don't include them in their scenery. One that does is Jim Vile's AFCAD's. There are also approach procedures defined in a number of default airports. Try the one into KEGE, it follows it pretty close to what is in the charts. They don't use the normal STAR naming convention, so it takes a little work to identify them. You have to request them on initial approach. People think many of it's approach vectoring is all over the place. In fact it is quite logical. It will set you up on a parallel cause to the runway. Unfortunately ATC vectoring doesn't account for wind, so as you drift off course after about 4nm, it will vector you back on course, usually a 30-40 degree bank, followed up with another one in the opposite direction. It is this that gives people the impression it' vectoring for no reason. At the approach  usually around 27nm from the runway it will vector you on crosswind, followed by final approach usually about a 30 degree approach to the ILS.  

 

It does have 2 problems that for me make it less desirable then PFE (One PFE also  has, but is tolerable) One is mid flight vectoring which PFE does too. This is because the FSX AI system vectors it's traffic, as well as the wind issue as above. They should be flying by their own Navigation just as you are. The other more annoying issue is traffic alerts which in the R/W should be less then 1000ft separation, In FSX it's at least 4000ft separation, so you get allot of unnecessary warnings. Not a problem if you use limited AI, but when you use 100% AI like I do, can be quite annoying. In PFE this is user adjustable, as well as the distance, you get them. So you get them at a more realistic level     

[WotanUK 289]

In general I agree with you about FSX default ATC, I even made my own modifications to the phraseology (Available in the library.) . It can handle SIDs (although not actively) if defined in the flight plan. Allot of people don't realize it, but it can also handle STARs, including altitude restraints, if they are defined in the airports AFCAD. Unfortunately most developers don't include them in their scenery. One that does is Jim Vile's AFCAD's. There are also approach procedures defined in a number of default airports. Try the one into KEGE, it follows it pretty close to what is in the charts. They don't use the normal STAR naming convention, so it takes a little work to identify them. You have to request them on initial approach. People think many of it's approach vectoring is all over the place. In fact it is quite logical. It will set you up on a parallel cause to the runway. Unfortunately ATC vectoring doesn't account for wind, so as you drift off course after about 4nm, it will vector you back on course, usually a 30-40 degree bank, followed up with another one in the opposite direction. It is this that gives people the impression it' vectoring for no reason. At the approach  usually around 27nm from the runway it will vector you on crosswind, followed by final approach usually about a 30 degree approach to the ILS.  

 

It does have 2 problems that for me make it less desirable then PFE (One PFE also  has, but is tolerable) One is mid flight vectoring which PFE does too. This is because the FSX AI system vectors it's traffic, as well as the wind issue as above. They should be flying by their own Navigation just as you are. The other more annoying issue is traffic alerts which in the R/W should be less then 1000ft separation, In FSX it's at least 4000ft separation, so you get allot of unnecessary warnings. Not a problem if you use limited AI, but when you use 100% AI like I do, can be quite annoying. In PFE this is user adjustable, as well as the distance, you get them. So you get them at a more realistic level     

 

Interesting, thanks.  I wasn't aware of this.

 

There is a bad approach into Jersey (UK), within the space of about 5 minutes it swapped me between two controllers around 20 times.

[HighTowers 1,434]

It is this reason that FSX AI chatter sounds great the ProAtc should incorporate it somehow. Yes you can get external 3rd party chatter like Ralph Zimmerman which I bought for PATC, but the chatter is still irrelevant to your environment  That sucks rocks. Example , cleared to land XX runway when there is no such runway at your position. 

So I use fsx AI background chatter. They are speaking exactly whats going on in my airport enviroment and it sounds pretty darn good.  The caveat to that is you will get double speaking when communicating with PATC at times. If PATC could use the chatter but block it when communicating with us guys, it would be a big step to immersion. But maybe this all changes when they incorporate controlling all AI and speaking with them. Im not sure. 

[virtualstuff 758]

Well, imho it certainly is the best sounding ATC by FAR...! None of the other addons come close imho. I don't know why, really...

Not if you are flying in Europe B) Hence it's so off lol

[XPX64man 130]

Yes you're right Simon. It would be an easier pill to swallow if this was brought to customer's attention before parting with their money!

 

I believe it would be brought to their attention if they would read the full software description before clicking on "Buy"

[Rocky_53 1,579]

I believe it would be brought to their attention if they would read the full software description before clicking on "Buy"

 

Hi Rob, do you mean.......... "we are continiously adding more and more features requested by users."