ATC is a bust...

[eslader 1,824]

1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

90-95% of the people playing (yes, playing!) this sim are looking for a good time, not looking for a job.

And those people are just going to donk around and not use ATC at all, so why would we suggest that it be tailored for them?

 

[HiFlyer 9,431]

21 minutes ago, eslader said:

And those people are just going to donk around and not use ATC at all, so why would we suggest that it be tailored for them?

And that's not a self serving argument at all.......

Pretty much right up there with the one about regular people not being interested in aviation...... which might be interesting to the tens of thousands online at the moment, not to mention the ones currently denuding all sources of flight sticks, creating tons of "click bait" videos that we love to hate, etc.

In a year or so I think I would very much like to revisit some of the tropes about gamer's and their short attention spans, that will have everyone but card-holding enthusiasts getting bored and wandering off in a few months.

Edited August 25, 2020 by HiFlyer

[jabloomf1230 2,452]

I am just going to say again that at least two 3rd party developers are working on MSFS compatibility fixes for their ATC add-ons. Both use offline speech recognition and text to speech.

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

27 minutes ago, eslader said:

And those people are just going to donk around and not use ATC at all, so why would we suggest that it be tailored for them?

"Just going to donk around", please. 🙄

While large parts of AVSIM spent the weekend whining that the sim wasn't "study level" yet less than a week after release, the same people you think are donking around already created liveries and custom scenery objects. So get off your high horse.

[BIGSKY 317]

19 hours ago, Dillon said:

All my flight was with the CJ4, I wonder does that have something to do with it.  First it was the Longitude now this...

It is hit or miss,I flew the NEO from KLAS to KDEN,ATC brought me in on the SSKII1 STAR,and even gave me the step down altitudes on the ILS 34L extended centerline, no granite clouds this time,but you should always know where you are,and where you are going,and the minimum safe altitudes. ATC has allowed jets to fly into mountains in real life...

[Drumcode 1,915]

Once you get over the "oh, it's so beautiful and visually stunning" you get into how really buggy it is. Try starting at KBJC in Colorado, it'll call it Detroit-Metro tower. 😄

[thepilot 610]

Wow... so not only did Asobo not improve ATC/IFR functionality, they actually made it worse. Which is saying something, given that the old FS9/FSX/P3D ATC isn't great either. But at least it gets the job done, and thanks to Edit Voicepack, it sounds a lot more realistic than MSFS (more accurate phraseology, for instance). I heard you can even request baggage handlers via the ground com frequencies now... that probably killed the last bit of realism. 

Before the IFR preview episode came out, I had even hoped that there would voice recognition, IFR/Oceanic clearances via CPDLC, HF communication... oh boy, was I wrong. 

It seems for every step forward in visual display, we have gone two steps backward when it comes to technical and operational aspects. 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by thepilot

[snglecoil 1,829]

Who knows, maybe this is all like when my wife asks me to clean out the garage. About 3/4 though the job she’ll stick her head out the door and complain that I’ve made a bigger mess than when I started. Of course by the end of the day she’s very happy to have a clean and organized garage. 

[gnirtS 2]

ATC to me appears to be the worst feature - its a copy/paste from FSX with a few other things removed.

It seems to think the whole planet is north america regarding airspace, units, procedures.

Altimeter?  No.  I want QNH like the rest of the world.

Transition altitude? That's not 18,000 on the majority of planet earth.  I want to be able to fly and use FL80 (or whatever).

It doesn't seem to understand anything like stepped climbs or descents - you get "stuck" or adjusted clearance *just* after you've started to level out.  FSX did that badly too.

It often descends you 10s of miles too early and on crazy long winded vector paths.  No obvious awareness of descent profiles or options to request.  Nothing to do with SID/STARs etc.

Obviously they cant be aware of the intricate, especially low level ways individual countries ATC works but for the flight levels its standard and easy.  (Im sure you wont get CPDLC any time soon...)

The only thing they DID model correctly is the american based complete and utter lack of ATC (or pilots) using standard ICAO annex phraseology throughout with non-standard phrases, non-standard clearances,non-standard readbacks and everything else.  The things that cause much annoyance and confusion in real world ATC over there too!

Game options such as not being able to select QNH (which was previously available), fuel loads in pounds and gallons etc all make it appear as if they didnt consult a single pilot, controller or operator outside the USA when setting this up.

Hopefully this can be addressed and fixed or at least severely modded as the current implementation is basically unusable.  A few international accents for the rough region you're flying in would be nice as well.

 

[Ricardo41 5,965]

11 minutes ago, gnirtS said:

Hopefully this can be addressed and fixed 

The likelihood of me scoring a date with Rihanna is several times greater than the likelihood of Asobo fixing the default ATC. I suspect that the majority of flight simmers don't care much about ATC, so it's probably not a priority for them. 

That said, the ATC is functional. ATC won't vector you anymore to intercept the localizer, after you get your approach clearance, you're pretty much on your own. Sometimes ATC WILL step you down to the correct altitudes, but that seems to be hit and miss. 

At any rate, you'll need to load the procedure into your FMS and let the plane fly the route. 

It helps to select the approach BEFORE you take off. 

Btw, I'm surprised to see that many of the "top youtube flight simmers" fly without ATC. NOT flying with ATC is a huge immersion killer for me. If you're not flying with ATC, you're not really flying, and there are ways to work around the default ATC.

[gnirtS 2]

I find the ATC an immersion killer as opposed to the other way around.

Flying in say southern europe or Asia and being told Altimeter 2994 followed by "one five thousand feet" with a strong american accent with non standard phrases interrupted with the background chatter (i think since patch?) of "Generic 304 you are 20,000ft above assigned altitude.  Descend and maintain one one thousand".

I only do this for "fun" so not dedicated simmer but i can kind of see if you're after total realism in terms of a flight you'd disable the ATC.  Things like proper top of descent calculations, profiles, holds, SID/STARs and planning you'd do on a proper flight on the real aircraft break or just aren't compatible with the current ATC.

So immersive flight world maybe yes its on, detailed actual simulation you'd need it off.

 

 

[Moria15 950]

ok maybe it's me, but I haven't had any problems loading an IFR flight and having ATC correctly step me up in altitude on my selected departure, follow the route planned and step me down at the far end and stick me on the ILS approach that I setup in the flight plan before handing me over to the local tower.  (have had a couple of times when I got stepped to the next level before fully levelling out, but it was after the auto-pilot had regesterred the new height, even though the levelling wasn't completed, so that might be ATC being a little premature.

I also haven't had any problems with flying at FL250 and having ATC say FL250.

I know the " you are 20,000 feet comment", but that only seems to happen in live traffic mode when the ATC is (I assume) trying to interpret what real world a/c are doing..  I certainly haven't noticed it in AI traffic mode.

I did notice, before I got used to it that just setting up a direct route with no departure and no arrival did sometimes just take me to the airport and then leave me on my own, so I had to cancel the IFR and contact the local airport to get approach details.

What I DO have a problem with, however, is the chronic handling of pushback which has to go through Ground control rather than direct to the pushback operator, and what ( to me) is a difference in understanding of push left and push right.

Yeah, I think it needs some improvements, but for me and my flying, it's done pretty well so far for as delivered.

Graham

[gnirtS 2]

28 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

ok maybe it's me, but I haven't had any problems loading an IFR flight and having ATC correctly step me up in altitude on my selected departure, follow the route planned and step me down at the far end and stick me on the ILS approach that I setup in the flight plan before handing me over to the local tower.  (have had a couple of times when I got stepped to the next level before fully levelling out, but it was after the auto-pilot had regesterred the new height, even though the levelling wasn't completed, so that might be ATC being a little premature.

I also haven't had any problems with flying at FL250 and having ATC say FL250.

 

Fair enough but try anything from FL55 to FL180...  As in the rest of the planet.  The sim only does US altitudes and FLs start at 180.  Below that it just gives a height in feet on the regional altimeter.  Very unrealistic and distracting. (As is altimeter generally).

The actual flying you mentioned like a route, step down to ILS etc might work fine but real world you'll have a meticulously planned approach/top of descent to a known SID/STAR and everything planned down to the second for fuel efficiency.  That isnt modelled in the ATC at all.

Pushback is an issue yes.

[Moria15 950]

3 hours ago, gnirtS said:

Fair enough but try anything from FL55 to FL180...  As in the rest of the planet.  The sim only does US altitudes and FLs start at 180.  Below that it just gives a height in feet on the regional altimeter.  Very unrealistic and distracting. (As is altimeter generally).

The actual flying you mentioned like a route, step down to ILS etc might work fine but real world you'll have a meticulously planned approach/top of descent to a known SID/STAR and everything planned down to the second for fuel efficiency.  That isnt modelled in the ATC at all.

Pushback is an issue yes.

well actually to be specific, the ATC should have various levels in them...  in the US & Canada it should be over 18,000 ft,  in New Zealand it should be over 13,000 and in Europe it should be dependant on region with some being as low as 3000..   However, my post was responding to a statement that implied that FLxxx wasn't working...  Not that FLxxx was working but only on a US scale??  Thats why i was confused..  and yes full nav by SID/STAR may be lacking, as is the ability to change your approach on the fly at this stage, but as you confirm..  Step down is working when within the remit of the program at this stage,  not missing and useless... 

Oh yes, and were also missing Pascals etc as well,  but in inches it still works..    however, I still think it is an improvement on what was delivered with FSX when it came out, but for real accuracy and truth, I suspect an AI system will never replicate a human system  and that (I believe) is why many users use VATSIM or equivalent, so they can get that realism which for them is so important, but I do believe that in the fullness of time, some things can be ameliorated, but they will never get to Real World Accuracy with AI.

Regards

 

Graham

Edited September 4, 2020 by Moria15

[canuk_22 24]

6 hours ago, Moria15 said:

ok maybe it's me, but I haven't had any problems loading an IFR flight and having ATC correctly step me up in altitude on my selected departure, follow the route planned and step me down at the far end and stick me on the ILS approach that I setup in the flight plan before handing me over to the local tower.  (have had a couple of times when I got stepped to the next level before fully levelling out, but it was after the auto-pilot had regesterred the new height, even though the levelling wasn't completed, so that might be ATC being a little premature.

I also haven't had any problems with flying at FL250 and having ATC say FL250.

I know the " you are 20,000 feet comment", but that only seems to happen in live traffic mode when the ATC is (I assume) trying to interpret what real world a/c are doing..  I certainly haven't noticed it in AI traffic mode.

I did notice, before I got used to it that just setting up a direct route with no departure and no arrival did sometimes just take me to the airport and then leave me on my own, so I had to cancel the IFR and contact the local airport to get approach details.

What I DO have a problem with, however, is the chronic handling of pushback which has to go through Ground control rather than direct to the pushback operator, and what ( to me) is a difference in understanding of push left and push right.

Yeah, I think it needs some improvements, but for me and my flying, it's done pretty well so far for as delivered.

Graham

For pushback I still use the old "shift P" works for me.  The little man looks kind of stupid as he often ends up half way under the aircraft, but hey if that was only issue!