>What he means is that a better ATC/AI system would have>allowed him to fly where he wanted - with ATC and traffic on a>realistic scale - whenever, and wherever he wanted.>>Great post btw.I might just not have enough experience to speak on this issue, but it sounds a bit like a "quantity over quality" type of thing. If the concept is to be "As Real As It Gets", why would we prefer more of something fake instead of a smaller amount of something real?Am I completely off-base here?

Hi,My guess is that they sat down one day (or many days) and asked "What needs improvement the most in our next version?"Obviously the answer turned out to be:1. Graphic display (bump mapping, water reflections, etc.)2. Living world (birds, animals, more trees, more buildings, etc.)3. Busy airports/towns (moving gates, animated service vehicles, moving cars on roads, moving boats, etc.).Then they asked "What additions will result in the greatest increase in the number of people who will be interested in buying FSX?"This turned out to have two answers - missions and shared skies. These will expand the appeal of the sim from just hard core types who are into aviation to a much broader audience (you can call them "gamers" if you wish, but others will be interested too). This has the extra benefit that many missions will appeal to hard core simmers as well (i.e. replacing Adventures), and shared skies can be used by groups of them.Now what about ATC? How many people would buy FSX based on improved ATC, which would probably be a pretty big project, and likely would make FS2004 ATC and AI addons incompatible? My guess is very few. The hard core simmers will already be certain to buy it, and the non-hard core types don't know what real ATC sounds like (i.e. as stated above, the current ATC is good enough, and any attempt to improve it requires great effort for little gain). And they know that real hard core ATC types will buy RC anyway.This also allows them to keep current AI traffic addons pretty much compatible right out of the box, which will help the AI traffic community swallow FSX (lack of AI traffic utilities would really hurt if current addons were completely incompatible).So when they decided how to spend their valuable time and resources on FSX, ATC got left behind. Unfortunate, but completely understandable. Hopefully in the next version they will spare some time for it.Take care,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

There are three sides to the ATC discussion.One is the spoken system - which does not have words or trigger events for many key everyday aviation control terms - particularly the names of intersections and the names of STARs / SIDs.As far as the flying there is the User and AI aircraft systems.The user system has some sophistication, but also some missing components. It does require much more work than just load a flight plan and go. You have to understand approaches and how to ask for them, and how to follow them. The Flying Lessons are very good tutorials - but most "hard core" flight simmers never use them.We, myself included, often miss important changes between versions because we are "experienced" flight simmers. And just like the old farts in any organization always want to do things the old way.The AI system is pretty dumb and is really only setup to handle five incoming aircraft at a time at most airports, or less.When you put real world AI airline traffic schedules in to FS - the system is overloaded. When you try to have "As Real As It Gets" AI traffic - Delta, American, Southwest Airlines, etc - it don't work.The system works much better in IMC (Instrument Meterological Conditions) because AI aircraft will only use ILS and visual approaches in VMC. But in IMC they will do circle to land NDB or VOR approaches, RNAV approaches, offset LDA, etc.The key thing which we all recognize as a major issue with the ATC is that there is no mechanism to maintain separation. When traffic levels are at the 5 aircraft or lower point - the ATC system is very good at establishing the initial separation points.However, the whole system is based on the actual flight of the AI aircraft being controlled by the individual flight dynamics of each aircraft. Thus a B747 will come in at an approach speed of 155 kts and a B737 at 130 kts. The B747 will probably close the separation and may well overrun the B737 before touchdown.This can be particularly bad if the user tries to fly the vectors approach with the AI aircraft. One reason to never accept the default ILS approach with vectors.One of the ways we can mitigate the effect is to match the flight dynamics. All small twin engine passenger jets with the same flight dynamics - no matter if they are A320's, B737's, F100's or MD80's.That bothers some people and takes some very picky work to setup.It still doesn't resolve the issue of heavies and smaller planes, turboprops, etc.But I don't see how FS can maintain separation without a major redesign of the entire system.

And I think Reggie has nailed it here...Mike wrote that ACES had gotten to the point of "diminishing returns", which was taken by some to mean that their part of the community was less important to ACES than the casual user. But the reality was that Mike was talking about the point that Reggie just made...that any real improvement on the ATC system would require a redesign, and that would take far too long to make all the other necessary updates to FSX. It was just too large of a project to take on in FSX.As to ACES' decision making, you have to keep in mind that the decisions of what to work on for FSX were made 2 years ago with FS9 in all of its unmodified glory. What were people wanting out of Flight Simulator at the time? Little things, like roads. And rivers, and cars, and terrain resolution, and more aircraft parking, and better looking autogen. That was what we wanted, so that's what ACES started working on. And in the intervening time, so did a lot of other 3rd party developers. Fast Forward back to now, and I haven't heard a whole lot of praise for all the new roads in FSX. Haven't heard any oohs and aahs over the rivers. Not a peep about the amount of parking at the airports, and few enough comments about the coastlines. Of course, that's only natural...we've had all these features in FS9 for a while now, assuming you've plunked down a good $150 in payware and a significant amount of time in the AVSIM library. But not everyone has bought the payware, and not everyone visits AVSIM, or has the time to figure out how to install an AFCAD. For those people, and for all the new people who are just now discovering Flight Simulator, FSX is a fresh start, evening up the playing field. Starting October 3rd, everyone's copy of FSX will look the same (for .00006 seconds). This "FS renewal" has to be done every few years. We need to get back to a clean install, even if only until the next generation of payware is released. This is just another step closer to all of our goals, and even if the ATC system was just too big of a job to tackle over the last 2 years, it's ripe for an overhaul for the next version (current trends continuing). But I would almost put down money that when FS11 rolls around, we'll have loud complaints from people that want to know why ACES felt the need to work on the ATC system when we have a great payware product like "Real ATC FSX" that was released 1 year after FSX was. :-roll

I just love how you guys have an endless source of money... In fact I love how you just will spend it because you have it... I mean that's where you're going right? Buy add-ons, buy add-ons, buy add-ons right?

>I just love how you guys have an endless source of money...>In fact I love how you just will spend it because you have>it... I mean that's where you're going right? Buy add-ons,>buy add-ons, buy add-ons right?>>This is, by far, the main reason why I love FSX. Compared to my vanilla FS9, this is Glory Incarnate.

What could be more fake than logging onto VATSIM having no controller from where you are disembarking because the controller has "gone to bed" and then upon entering your arrival airspace on the same flight, finding out the arrival controllers have all signed off for one reason or another and abandon your flight, is that "as real as it gets?".... that's what I mean by the VATSIM downgrade. It downgrades or detracts from my attempt an a "real" experience by unrealistically not being there.Randy Jura, KPDX

Indeed. IMO, FSX makes GE, FE, and Ultimate Terrain obsolete. That's over $100 worth of addons. However, I am also confident that the authors of those programs will find ways to improve on what's already in FSX.

I like KrazyIvan's explanation of why AT and ATC probably didnt make it into FSX, that being the choices that had to be made early on in the FSX development cycle to the exclusion for others. Sort of squeeky wheels getting greased sort of thing and I would agree that a completely new rewrite of the AI/ATC subsystems would be needed to move the technology along and there simply was not time. Well good. Onto another development cycle and here's hopeing that AI and ATC get their time in the next round.Randy Jura, KPDX

Considering the minor uproar over the lack of ATC/AI improvements, I imagine that ACES will be taking a long, hard look at it for FS11.

The whole problem/issue here is coming down to a simple: Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Or what goes next. It sounds like a bad problem to have, but when you think about it, I'd rather have this problem, because it means we're getting oh so closer to that holy grail of FS'ing. You know what I'm talking about.We have an AI system now which borders on the really good (opinions vary). To modify more would take more than just a few modifications (which TDragger already said they made minor improvements)Having said that, I think to make it even more immersive or in depth would border on requiring to jump in full tilt and pretty much 'model' the entire flying environment because making computer airplanes do what they're supposed to (real flight plans or fake ones) would require an enormous amount of programming beyond what most of us can even comprehend. It's not really fair or possible to do this at this time given the release schedule for this version of FS, IMO, with all the other features that are going into this version.The other issue is whether or not to try and steer people towards what they really want anyways, actual interaction with people. The problem with that is that there are not enough people do staff every facility all the time. So a decision has to be made whether or not to side one way or the other. I don't think MS or anyone else can actually make up their mind, so what we get are small improvements to each area, the only reasonable alternative.When you think about it, it's not an easy solution either way. Personally I like the actual human interaction so I tend to steer people towards that area. I liked AI in the beginning also, but for some reason, there's nothing like someone on the other end of the line telling you or giving you a real world clearence then having to program it, fly, it, and all the other good stuff that goes with it. It's the most satisfying part of FS'ing when you get to that level. VFR or IFR it doesn't matter.The bottom line, is there's still some areas which will require improving on for the next version, and there's a lot in which 3rd party developers will be able to with this version. Then we have Vista and DX10 to look forward to.I think FSX will only be a couple features, maybe a few, shy of everything we want. Again opinions will vary, but we're getting pretty dog gone close folks.

<So what!? Having every feature you want, the way you want, is not an entitlement. If you believe it is, good luck waiting. Add-ons, SDK, APIs... works for me.

><>>So what!? Having every feature you want, the way you want, is>not an entitlement. If you believe it is, good luck waiting. >Add-ons, SDK, APIs... works for me.>I think he's just saying that some people can't or won't spend that sort of money on just one game, so we see each new version as an incredibly large upgrade.

>Considering the minor uproar over the lack of ATC/AI>improvements, I imagine that ACES will be taking a long, hard>look at it for FS11.Yes, just like FS7, FS8, FS9, FS10, ... ;)

Gotta love semantics... just because they look at it doesn't mean it'll be improved. Just like FS7, FS8, FS9, FS10... Don't let tdragger fool you into that.