Hi guys, I've been away from the scene now for a good 3 years, due to my little girl joining us in the world, so she's taken up my spare time. 

However with the release of P3Dv4, I've decided to try and get back into civilian simulation on the odd spare day I now get when she's in Nursery.

I was wondering what recommendations can you guys suggest so I can get the most realistic look and feel to my sim with regards Traffic and ATC. 

Aircraft wise, I only use A2A aircraft, primarily the C172, Comanche and Cherokee for my GA flying and PMDG 777 for my heavy metal. 

I tend to fly primarily around Europe mainly in the UK, utilising the fantastic Orbx scenery that is avalible for that area, as well as doing the odd Atlantic flight to the states if I have a lot of time 12hrs+ free, which sadly these days is very very few and far between. 

I have AS16 and asca for realtime weather and visuals, so I'm thinking that apart from traffic and ATC I'm pretty much sorted for the realistic feel of my sim.

Im looking for a program that is based as closely as possible on real world schedules and carriers, as well as providing believable GA Traffic and of course is compatable with any ATC program that is recommended and my other addons. 

ATC wise, I'm looking for something that's offline, due to the fact, with a toddler I can't garentee I will be able to complete the whole flight and not get disturbed and have to leave the PC, which I appreciate is frowned apon in the online ATC world, and preferably a program that will allow me to make realistic voice radio calls. 

Used to use VoxAtc many many moons ago, but no idea if this has been surpassed or bettered yet.

Of course compatibility or upcoming compatibility with P3Dv4 is required. 

 

Has there been any significant improvements in these areas in the years I've been away?  So please guys and girls, any recommendations would be greatfully received.

As far as ATC (not AI traffic) the least expensive payware is EditVoicepak (8 Euros).  It massages the P3Dv 2,3,4 native ATC so you can speed up the voices, use more realistic call signs, use ICAO terminology, more aircraft types and realistic call signs.  http://editvoicepack.com/ However, it does not utilize voice control like VOXATC.  VOX is still in Beta for P3Dv3, and I haven't tried it in v4.

ProATC/X works with P3D version 4 "out of the box".

http://www.pointsoftware.de/

 

For ATC , if you want something that is pretty realistic, Try PF3, A free demo is available. 

ivao -ivap 

For AI traffic I would recommend Ultimate Traffic Live.  It is still an early access release but I have it working fine in P3Dv4.  I was doing my own flight plans in V3 using AIFP plans and aircraft but the problem is many of those aircraft are FS9 and no longer work in P3DV4 so when I tried to import all of those half the airplanes were black and missing parts.  All aircraft in UTLive are upgraded to FSX/P3D standards so everything I have seen looks pretty good except for a few outdated liveries that may be fixed with the final version.  You can also replace their aircraft with whatever you wish via their control panel.

 

 

For offline flying, I highly recommend Pro-ATC/X and PF3.  They both have their pluses and minuses, and differ a bit.  Pro-ATC/X has the advantage of better voices/more realistic sounding as I notice some PF3 voices get rather robotic sounding.  The only thing I do not like about Pro-ATC/X is their choice of leaving out "Center" in the phrasing, such as "contact New York on ###.##" instead of "contact New York Center..."  Minor annoyance to me, as it is my choice at present.  

Do some research and hope you enjoy your choice.

I am also interested in UT Live.  Looking mighty good.  Wonder how much impact it will have on my system.

Cheers.

I've been a big fan of either UT2/MT6 for AI and Pilot2ATC.  Pilot2ATC gives me that feeling of speaking to a controller (as its voice activated) as well as has various other features.  I believe it has a trial as well.  I've also used Pro-ATCX which was excellent, I was just looking for a little more immersion by speaking the phraseology vs button presses.  P2A also works with XP and P3d which made it attractive as well.

I would try the VOXATC 7.3 beta, which is a time-limited  (60 days) full featured version when and if it becomes available for P3d V4. In my opinion it comes the closest to real ATC/AI, as it takes control of both from the sim. One still needs either MyT 6, UT2 or WOAI for the schedules, models and liveries.  The next best option (and it's very close) is Pilot2ATC, which works in both P3d and XP11. The only drawback of Pilot2ATC when compared to VOXATC is that it doesn't control the AI Traffic and hence a lot of the "chatter" is just that.

ProatcX works in Prepar3D v 3 and 4, it is ever evolving and updating, now more realistic with user voice sets. For even more immersion add background ATC chatter.

Steve s

4 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

I would try the VOXATC 7.3 beta, which is a time-limited  (60 days) full featured version when and if it becomes available for P3d V4. In my opinion it comes the closest to real ATC/AI, as it takes control of both from the sim. One still needs either MyT 6, UT2 or WOAI for the schedules, models and liveries.  The next best option (and it's very close) is Pilot2ATC, which works in both P3d and XP11. The only drawback of Pilot2ATC when compared to VOXATC is that it doesn't control the AI Traffic and hence a lot of the "chatter" is just that.

Wow vox came out with a new version?  I held on waiting for that for so long before jumping to Pilot2ATC.  I loved the way VOX controlled traffic!  Then the dev seemed to go missing after rumors of the new version "coming soon".  I may have to give that a test run once its released for v4.

The developer just wasn't responding to bug reports, but  there are a few people who post here (not me, though) who know him and they were confident that the add-on was still in development. The beta 7.3 works nicely in P3d V3.4, so it shouldn't be an insurmountable task to update the release version to 64 bit. Unlike a few of the V4 add-on "holdouts" that use nonstandard means to communicate with the sim, VOXATC does everything using SimConnect, so it is just a matter of the 64 bit conversion. That's not trivial, but I suspect it will happen at some point.

21 hours ago, Flic1 said:

I was doing my own flight plans in V3 using AIFP plans and aircraft but the problem is many of those aircraft are FS9 and no longer work in P3DV4 so when I tried to import all of those half the airplanes were black and missing parts. 

The good people over at Alpha India Group are working hard updating the majority of popular FS9 models. There are already a number of models, such as FAIB,  that were already compatible and further updates being released reguarly.

My opinion on ATC, having used default for several years, then ProATC and eventually VoxATC, is that the latter is superb! It is a little robotic, but it works exceedingly well most of the time. As has been already said, the fact that it controls it's own traffic is superb. Having said that, and I would hope the developer is reading this, but highly unlikely, is that support is non existent. I mean abysmal. I find that completely unacceptable for a product costing the money that it does.

Vatsim.