+1 for a professional ATC simulation including both (voice) interaction with the user and routing/separation of AI aircraft.

 

There are several ATC addons for P3D but they all have their weaknesses. And as far as I can see they are all one-man-shows with limited ressources. I wonder why there never was a larger addon company developing a really professional ATC addon. Was it because there is not really a market for an ATC addon or because it is just not possible because of the limitations of FSX/P3D?

19 minutes ago, 188AHC said:

Actually it's "their" but it's off topic anyway. 

 

 

Good to have you in the left seat 188 - I blame a surfeit of beer for my upset.

Now, where's the runway?

Second thoughts: I think probably better to stay airborne on AP.

2 Litres of water and a strong cup of coffee and I'm back on the case.

Edited August 2, 20196 yr by Guest

Just remember, " A drink in 8 will seal your fate ". Safe landings.😁

I think we should just get rid of ATC altogether. Pilots can just wing it.

1 hour ago, ganter said:

Good to have you in the left seat 188 - I blame a surfeit of beer for my upset.

Just avoid the "surfeit of peaches" which is the bane of many a monarch.

As for ATC, yes a comprehensive system is needed.  I'm not sure I expect it to be with the base product though.  My best hope is that the sim is open enough / SDK robust enough to allow the 3rd parties to work their magic.

What I need now, after a long work day, is surfeit of flight sim.

It would be great to have a realistic ATC system but I don't think that something of that complexity is in the purview of a PC/Xbox simulator.

FSX and P3D both have a somewhat acceptable rendition but it is far from realistic.

(Ganter - you see where I went back and edited my post don't you?) 😁

 

2 hours ago, 188AHC said:

Just remember, " A drink in 8 will seal your fate ". Safe landings.😁

"What happened to 'Eight hours bottle to throttle'?"

"Around here it's more like eight feet." --  Alaskan bush pilot

The default ATC only has to be "good enough."  For those who want more, they can support the payware community.  Is FSX ATC "good enough"?  Well maybe...

Hook

The original FSX ATC was actually very well done and I would be ecstatic to have a similarly capable system in the new MSFS, as long as it came with a few improvements.

FSX ATC's most obvious shortcoming--lack of separation--didn't reveal itself as a problem until we wantonly overloaded the system with far more traffic than it could possibly handle.

I imagine that 13 years later, it's quite possible we end up with an ATC implementation which meets the vast majority of user's desires.

Personally, I'd like to see:

Voice recognition and Text-to-Speech. The tech has matured nicely and can sound very natural. It also removes the necessity to record tens of thousands of sound clips while being limited to a handful of voices. Also solves shortcomings involving pronouncable fixes/airports, flight numbers, and changing phraseology.

Leverage AI and other modern tech to improve separation at dense traffic levels. Thankfully, real ATC is so procedural that creating algorithms to simulate the processes is relatively easy.

Edited August 3, 20196 yr by Noodle

Putting aside the eye candy brought by AI aircraft, it seems to me that there are  two different issues :

- the interactions of your aircraft with the ATC ;

- the interactions of the ATC with  a world of AI aircraft (pun not intended) and your aircraft. 

This is a simulation. This is all about pretending. You can very well imagine that you interact with an ATC which simulates that there are two aircraft in front of you, asking you to reduce speed for instance or hold when you don't actually have any AI aircraft in the sim. It pretends that there are two aircraft. This is what I meant by throwing a curveball. Put you in a position to have to do something unexpected. I would very well welcome a minimal approach of that kind. 

For eye candy sake, it  also could inject two aircraft models in the air. He doesn't have to manage 60 others around, for you to feel that you have something unexpected to do. 

 

 

Edited August 3, 20196 yr by domkle

voice recognition is a disability friendly service.

 

the deep irony for me though is that I cant really understand what is being said to me so I need to see what ATC says written down and then I read slowly and then with hands that don't always cooperaste I have to press the right keys quickly enough to interact properly with ATC.

If I could read what was written and then talk to ATC?

Edited August 3, 20196 yr by sightseer

2 hours ago, sightseer said:

voice recognition is a disability friendly service.

 

the deep irony for me though is that I cant really understand what is being said to me so I need to see what ATC says written down and then I read slowly and then with hands that don't always cooperaste I have to press the right keys quickly enough to interact properly with ATC.

If I could read what was written and then talk to ATC?

This is super important, by the way.

Voice to text and text to voice are very helpful for accessibility. You can take a look at what they did with the Battle Royale game APEX Legends for a good example of making voice chat/UI messages work for everyone.

FSX had text from ATC and your response.

But I understand.  Speech to text would be very helpful.