I hope they rework the ATC engine. It dates back to FS9 basically! Everything needs to be reworked, starting from ATIS and clearances right down to such things as local dialects...

On 5/1/2017 at 0:36 PM, thepilot said:

I hope they rework the ATC engine. It dates back to FS9 basically! Everything needs to be reworked, starting from ATIS and clearances right down to such things as local dialects...

Absolutely.  For a training platform that part is sorely lacking, and would be compelling enough to upgrade for if they did a decent rewrite of it.

I still believe that they'll add updated navaid databases ** AND ** sloped airport taxi / parking / rws....

Are there any statements from LM regarding the ATC engine?

On 1.5.2017 at 9:36 PM, thepilot said:

I hope they rework the ATC engine. It dates back to FS9 basically! Everything needs to be reworked, starting from ATIS and clearances right down to such things as local dialects...

I hope they don't waste their development time with things like that. To be honest, ATC is and should always be a field for 3rd party devs.

However I would be excited about a complete rewrite of the AI traffic handling engine, or at least more controls/possibilities for developers.

1 hour ago, fly_edds said:

To be honest, ATC is and should always be a field for 3rd party devs.

They have not delivered so far (except for EditVoicepack). Maybe because of technical limitations that would have to be adressed, too.

I think ATC is such a crucial part of IFR flying that it may well be an inhouse development. Just think how great it would be to have proper clearances, taxi instructions, transition altitudes, SIDs/STARs, etc. An a fleet of AI aircraft that actually acts intelligently.

 

 

On 4-5-2017 at 0:32 AM, thepilot said:

They have not delivered so far (except for EditVoicepack). Maybe because of technical limitations that would have to be adressed, too.

I think ATC is such a crucial part of IFR flying that it may well be an inhouse development. Just think how great it would be to have proper clearances, taxi instructions, transition altitudes, SIDs/STARs, etc. An a fleet of AI aircraft that actually acts intelligently.

 

 

The limiting factor for all ATC addon developers has always been the extremely limited possibilities to control the AI traffic. MS never anticipated on ATC addons and therefore did not develop an SDK for ATC.

Both the developers from ProATC as well as Radar Contacted repeatedly stated they have/had to use all kinds of hacks and workaround to at least have some limited interaction with the AI traffic.

So if LM could provide some nice openings in the ATC / AI traffic engine for 3rd party developers to make advantage of, I would welcome that very much.

That's because the sim controls both ATC and AI aircraft. All the addon ATC  apps except for one (VOXATC) just control ATC. Read any of the VOXATC  7 beta threads and one quickly sees how difficult  a task that is to do both in unison.

I've been flying  pretty much exclusively  with XP11 for the past few months and I really miss even the "weak" default ATC  and AI aircraft in FSX.

On 5/3/2017 at 11:32 PM, thepilot said:

Just think how great it would be to have proper clearances, taxi instructions, transition altitudes, SIDs/STARs, etc. An a fleet of AI aircraft that actually acts intelligently

Im still testing this but using Voxatc v7beta with up to date navdata and fsaerodata with the same airac cycle, Ive been getting quite accurate altitude clearamces through Vox.  The key is the combined use of vox, fmc navdata (vox uses levelD) and updated SIDS/STARS/airways/navaids etc etc.  (And no, since vox is the only atc addon to control AI, Herve Sors navaid updates dont uldate all the data needed in my opinion.)

13 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Im still testing this but using Voxatc v7beta with up to date navdata and fsaerodata with the same airac cycle, Ive been getting quite accurate altitude clearamces through Vox.  The key is the combined use of vox, fmc navdata (vox uses levelD) and updated SIDS/STARS/airways/navaids etc etc.  (And no, since vox is the only atc addon to control AI, Herve Sors navaid updates dont uldate all the data needed in my opinion.)

I wish more people would move to ATC environments like VATSIM.  It makes such a monumental difference to the overall experience which even the highest degree of canned ATC could never provide.  Real time flying with real people cannot be beaten.  We just need more people to do it.  Then all of this AI traffic and botched ATC frustration will disappear.

8 minutes ago, ErichB said:

I wish more people would move to ATC environments like VATSIM.  It makes such a monumental difference to the overall experience which even the highest degree of canned ATC could never provide.  Real time flying with real people cannot be beaten.  We just need more people to do it.  Then all of this AI traffic and botched ATC frustration will disappear.

Ive flown with vatsim and it can be great, its achilles heel is the lack of controllers in non huge hub airfields, and even where there is some level of control it rarely covers all freqs :(

4 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

Ive flown with vatsim and it can be great, its achilles heel is the lack of controllers in non huge hub airfields, and even where there is some level of control it rarely covers all freqs :(

Can't disagree there Kevin.  Definitely needs more controllers - which is why I'm considering doing ATC myself

17 minutes ago, ErichB said:

I wish more people would move to ATC environments like VATSIM.  It makes such a monumental difference to the overall experience which even the highest degree of canned ATC could never provide.  Real time flying with real people cannot be beaten.  We just need more people to do it.  Then all of this AI traffic and botched ATC frustration will disappear.

Couldn't agree more. 

4 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

Ive flown with vatsim and it can be great, its achilles heel is the lack of controllers in non huge hub airfields, and even where there is some level of control it rarely covers all freqs :(

I guess if there was lots of more online traffic that would also inspire more people to act as ATC so I think it's really a win-win situation - the more pilots the more ATC and vice versa.

Let me also add that switching from offline to online flying has without doubt been the biggest and most rewarding thing I did since I started simming where I've learnt lots of things!

So...for anyone with a true interest in aviation and how to operate in the same way as you would IRL I highly recommend taking your simming experience online. You'll learn lots of new things and at the same time have a much more alive and fun environment to fly in.

3 hours ago, ErichB said:

I wish more people would move to ATC environments like VATSIM.  It makes such a monumental difference to the overall experience which even the highest degree of canned ATC could never provide.  Real time flying with real people cannot be beaten.  We just need more people to do it.  Then all of this AI traffic and botched ATC frustration will disappear.

I flew Vatsim years ago all the time. For me a couple of problems with Vatsim made it something that I would not do any more:

1. First and foremost, I got tired of confining my flight schedules to the availability of controllers on Vatsim, both location wise and time wise. I usually fly in the morning, and then again in afternoon and possibly early evening. There are no controllers in the US, most of those times except possibly on the weekends. Flying using Unicomm with no other aircraft and controllers within hundreds of miles, is pretty boring

2. Another issue that I had was taking a multi hour flight, having a controller for takeoff and part of the cruise, and then the controller signs off due to another obligation, and you are back on Unicomm again for the arrival. 

Now I use one of a couple of ATC programs I have, and I have ATC from startup and taxi out, to arrival and ground control, just like in the real world, anyplace I want to fly 24/7.