...how is that unfair? This person is asking for a product improvement. There's been talk that the ai system is cpu intense, well if that's true, doesn't Microsoft expect the min specs to go up on this release? Is it too big a jump to say that if the specs go up, the proportion of cpu used for this system should be lessened? So why not expect them to design it to handle "100 planes" now? I'd say the 3.x dual core needed to run this smoothly at the moment could probably handle it.My 2.6 does well at KDFW with 6 runways active and my gates constantly being tuned over, albeit with accelerated ATC provided by EditVoicepack.

It's never unfair to ask, but that doesn't mean the request will be satisifed. Ask away--we take every comment seriously.

Our multiplayer design is really optimized for groups of users who play regularly. That's why we've implemented things like a "friends" list. For example, suppose you and your friends like to get together every Wednesday night for some towered airport practice. You agree on an airport(s) and set up the session and off you go. It's not designed to just "fly around" hoping there's a controller nearby (a la VATSIM). Sure, you can pop on line to see what's available but--at least at first--that might be a small list. Of course, if this really takes off and there are lots of sessions to chose from, that would be a very good thing.

Interesting addition to the series and has definite possibilities, especially if organized groups spring up. Ian.

Thinking even more on the possibilities you could have not only virtual airlines, but also create virtual controller groups for certain areas of the world and have a rating system etc. for how well you do in a certain time period. Imagine controlling at O'hare with about 50 people online approacing or departing the aiport over an hour or two. Many questions come to mind such as can you switch airports? Do you control just one aspect such as approach or can one control approach, departure, ground, clearance etc? Can you hand off to AI center? Despite the negativity about ATC, having a vatsim type feature within the sim itself (depending on the details) seems to be something I had not thought I'd enjoy. I use ATC Simulator 2 and love it, if this comes somewhat close to that experience then this could be a very fun feature indeed.Ian.

So, with all that discussion in mind, will the AI planes stay separated (5 miles) or not? This is a huge problem with FS9 (yes, I know, it wasn't designed for that) and go arounds, and makes for a highly unrealistic busy airport environment. The AI frenzy started 3 years or so ago, and IS a big issue to alot of us, who have some crazed fascination with having every possible real aircraft, airline, or GA that flies in our virtual skies. With the ease of use installers provided by Project AI, World of AI, etc, or those who still do it the most detailed hard way with MRAI and other tools, it is not that difficult to achieve for even the casual user who lurks on these sites. I just hate the fact that after three years, it sounds like (I hope I am wrong), that it is business as usual, broken. I can't stand it when you see the first group of aircraft coming in altogether, like a bunch of Huey's coming in for a landing in Vietnam, only these are large commercial planes that look like they are doing a Red Arrows impression. :)I'm sorry to be complaining, and I look forward to all the improvements, but to me, the ATC/AI is as vital as any issue in making the environment come to life in a realistic way.I know, limited resources, improved or fixed a lot of other major issues, its all good. Even if they would consider just fixing the sepeartion issue as part of the patch (if this is an issue) when the DX10 patch comes out, (it's probably way more complicated than what I said, but I can dream can't I) you would win over your customers in a big way, otherwise, it will be another 2,3, maybe 4 years before we can ask again? Ugh!Thanks for listening.Brian S.

The possibilities seem to be endless and open for all kinds of creativity provided by the community. Seamless intregration, VoIP, one technology - I think there's a huge room for user-inspires content creation and ultimately a lot of fun.Pat

See my earlier/other posts about ATC.

Only those folks who have not been listening to what the MS folks have been saying.I would like to see improvements to ATC, but imagine that to get it I will be getting either Radar Contact or Vox ATC.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

Are you kidding? I think I'd cry (in happiness) if that happened.Of course, I'd probably only do it once or twice :-) But it would be a thrill.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

If you want good AI seperation and ATC then I'm afraid you need to buy a good ATC programme, such as RC4. Which I can recommend from using it. Very rare are go-arounds and weather holds are implemented, though rare.

If we virtual airline captains are such a small minoruity in the FS community then why........are there so many airliner add ons, and how come they are so successful in sales. See PMDG,PSS,LDS,Captain Sim,Feelthere. etc....are there so many virtual airlines, most of which fly jets....are there so many succesful softwares that enchance the virtual airline captain experience. Ex. FSPassengers, FS2Crew, Radar Contact....So many sucessful softwares of high detail representations of international airports where of course 95 or more percent of the traffic is jet and turboprop airliners. See Fly Tampa,Imaginesim, UK2000, Aerosoft/Simwings, Flight zone and others.Clearly there is a large sector of the FS community that not only are FMC junkies but also track a VOR once in a while. Seriously I actually love to fly VFR and IFR, Jets and Props, Military I'm not big on but even these get the occasional spin. However the planes I fly the most are airliners. Yes I am an FMC junkie and I want better ATC, Sids and stars, improved AI, etc. and I really feel that Microsoft has alienated us to an extent. Having said that I have no problem with the eye candy if it is possible to actually run it at 20 fps minimum on a good gaming computer and they didn't just pause the sim with 5 fps to take the screenshots.My 2 (copper colored coin with Lincoln on the front face),Carlos

Again,Neither RC not any other program can do anything about AI separation alone. RC can separate user-plane from AI, but not AI from AI.Let's hope that new SDK will be more detailed about AI-operations and some talented ones could do something about it.

>>Let's hope that new SDK will be more detailed about>AI-operations and some talented ones could do something about>it.Anen to that. Yeah, I have radar contact and it's great (except it freezes the AI planes in the air at 6 knots when there is a conflict with your aircraft, a bug), but I am referring to the AI planes themselves being seperated from each other, that is the BIG issue. Brian S.

Carlos,I think that the reason that the airliner simmers have so many products geared towards them is simply that they need that many products to really get involved in FS. If you really look at it, an airline pilot needs a whole lot more support than a GA pilot does. What does a GA pilot need to be happy? Good weather simulation, a photoreal scenery area, and a decent GA plane model. They don't need to calculate complex loadout figures, deal with ATC much, worry about airport traffic (besides deer ;) ), or AI accuracy. There is a real possibility of them enjoying Flight Sim right out of the box...especially if FSX lives up to the preview screenshots.Airline simmers simply need a lot more items to make their experience an immersive one...consider how many individual people it takes to make each airline flight a success in the real world. Fuel, baggage, ramp agents, aircraft marshallers, controllers, flight crew, mechanics and passengers all come into play in every flight. Simulating this through FS is simply going to involve a lot more, and it's going to mean that more has to be added onto FS to really make airline simmers happy.Does this mean that people flying the big iron are more numerous? I don't think so. I think that airline simmers are more vocal and more demanding than a GA or bush simmer, but I don't think that automatically makes us the majority. ACES put out surveys...right after FS9 launched. They asked a wide range of players what they liked and didn't like about FS9. The responses were used to plan the list of upgrades in this version of FS. The upgrades may look out of whack with our priorities now simply because most of our biggest issues were fixed by 3rd party payware (mapped roads come to mind here). I'm sure that ATC was pretty big on that list even then, but when you take the entire community into account, I get the impression that the autogen, coastlines, roads and traffic beat out the ATC.I hope that the ATC gets upgraded soon too...I deeply enjoy being the bus driver. But if it can't be done just yet, then so be it. There's still a lot of things that can't be done just yet in the sim. Both ACES and the 3rd party community will keep working at finding a way. Computer power keeps ramping upward. Bandwidth gets larger. Rendering power goes up. Sooner or later we'll have the power for the sim to do all that we want it to...the demand hasn't gone away in 25 years, and I don't foresee it going away anytime in the near future.