Heh, not much reaction i dare say.Let me rephrase a bit: Is there a technical reason the current 3rd party solutions has little or no AI traffic awareness? I'm using Radar Contact 4 myself and, while that product is aware of AI traffic, it wasn't so before its fourth iteration. There are other products that are aware of AI traffic but the other ones concerned with ATC, that I know of, (VoxATC and FSCOM, and I'm sure there's more) has no AI traffic awareness at all. The guys who wrote these products isn't "technically challenged" so I'm suspecting the FS API could use a re-visit to make it easier to write "AI traffic aware" modules/add ons.No?

OK, lets try again and see if TDragger or Pixelpoke care to comment: I would have assumed that voice recognition would be a natural step to increase the value of the 'game', expecially since Microsoft would be able to include an existing, MS proprietary, technology into their own product. If this is not the case, is it a tehnical (would be too complex to make it i this iteration) or marketing (let's leave something for the 3rd party crew) decision?From your silence I'm nurturing a quiet hope it will be a surprise for us later this year... :-badteeth

Hey guys,Not sure if you are aware but there is already a fantastic freeware program called Shoot 1.6. http://clans.gameclubcentral.com/shoot/Obviously you need a mic or headset with mic. It uses XP's speech recognition software to learn the quirks of your voice and works by sitting in the background in windows with whatever profile you pick - much like the saitek x45/52 joystick profiles. You can have a different profile for a different game and I was really surprised how well it works. I use it in both FS9 and Falcon 4 Allied force and the level of immersion is fantastic! (be warned though. If you use this product in the company of the wife and or other family members... be prepared to be ridiculed!!!)The program itself is coded in xml so its easy to assign phrases with a particular set of keystrokes. and it even comes with a few profiles already setup for you to use as a template (fs9 is one of them I believe) Obviously for the atc in FS9 multiple different replies are assigned to the 1,2,3,4 etc keys depending on where you are and who you are talking to so replying with the correct phrase at the correct time is important. But with a bit of trial and error you can get some stock replies set to how you like it. Good news is, seeing as it's just basically a speech to key assignment program and is not loaded into the game itself, it should be fine for FSX!It really does add lots to the realism of the game to hear atc respond to your commands, requests etc, and is also good if you fly some of the big birds as you can set all manner of commands e.g "flaps 5, 15 etc" and having the sim change the flaps as if you are giving orders to your co-pilot so I would def recommended anyone giving it a try.CheersRoss

Yes, there are several solutions for speech recognition, most are payware but a few, like Shoot, are free. I've been using Game Commander myself to great satisfaction (mainly with Falcon 4.0). I never got around to test Voice Buddy, which seems to be rather popular to the FS crew (not sure what it offers that other VR solutions doesn't).However, the speech recognition I'm talking about here is not just to map static phrases to key sequences. Instead, what I would love to see is what VoxATC and FSCom attempts to solve, which is to dynamically recognising my ATC requests and replies. Likely, this would have involve some level of AI or it would be far too rigid. For example, I would like to be able to say just press the send button and say "Boston, request flight level two seven, Beach two niner zero" and have the ATC voice recognition system interpret my request correctly and send a proper response back. That would be impossible with pre-recorded phrase based packages like Shoot, Game Commander and (I think) Voice Buddy.Thanks for the tip though! :-)

Yes, I echo your whishes, but I think a feature like that, natively supported by FS is not gonna make it to the next version. Maybe FS11-12, it does not seem to be that easy to tackle though, and I wonder how would a feature of this kind include support for all the available languages FS is published on, as far as I know only international flights are controlled in english in my native country, maybe I am wrong.

Including this feature would not be trivial task for sure. Speech recognition already exist but to integrate it with ATC and write a decent AI is another story of course. As far as languages are concerned I can definitively live with a 'basic Engish set' at first. Not having studied the problem, mind you, I believe a good approach would be to build a good API, allowing 3rd party studios to extend the SR feature with additional languages and extended/more realistic/localised phraseology after release. Maybe MS should even consider "extension packs" for their product? That seems to be a winning concept for alot of other game studios...I would gladly pay more to see this happen! :9

Might get difficult, I've trouble understanding myself more often than not, especially when I'm tired.I wouldn't expect a computer to do better :)

There was a good book (or was it an article??) published a couple years ago called "It's Hard to Wreck a Nice Beach" on some of the challenges involved. The title of the book is an example...