BeyondATC Voice Tier

[RALF9636 1,990]

7 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

None of that money goes to BATC, it goes to their voice provider.

I know that. But what difference does that make? I never said they were greedy. I just think that it is ambitious to expect a large amount of users will be willing to pay such a price to be able to fully use their product.

Reminds me of the discussion that comes up about PSXT from time to time, where people claim PSXT was free, but in the end you have to pay a pricy subscription for Realtraffic to be able to use it.

It doesn't make a difference for me as a user who finally gets the money.

Edited February 20 by RALF9636

[Tuskin38 6,634]

26 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

can you easily switch between offline and online voices during a flight?

They confirmed in the video comments that you can.

Edited February 20 by Tuskin38

[Tuskin38 6,634]

7 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

I know that. But what difference does that make? I never said they were greedy. I just think that it is ambitious to expect a large amount of users will be willing to pay such a price to be able to fully use their product.

Reminds me of the discussion that comes up about PSXT from time to time, where people claim PSXT was free, but in the end you have to pay a pricy subscription for Realtraffic to be able to use it.

It doesn't make a difference for me as a user who finally gets the money.

They did post a video showing off the offline voices, and they didn’t sound terrible 

[Cpt_Piett 4,808]

3 hours ago, anden145 said:

Anyway, I'm glad they're giving us the option of having a free alternative. It sounds a little bit too expensive for my taste, so I think I'll just stick with the offline voices. 

Agreed. I'll probably not use the PTT feature, and based on their videos I'm very impressed with the base product. It'll be good though to try out the different voice packs and then make a choice from there. Listening to the examples on their webpage, the medium quality one sounds good enough for me. If it's possible to switch to offline say during cruise, I'll probably do that. 

If they deliver what they promise, I'm 100% in. AFAIK it'll be the only 3rd-party addon with realistic control of AI traffic. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. Their recent videos on this are hugely impressive. 

Atm I'm using FSHud which most of the time works - I wouldn't say well, but perhaps good enough, and certainly much better than default. 

Edited February 20 by Cpt_Piett

[F737MAX 5,737]

42 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

But what difference does that make?

 

The way you are phrasing your comments makes it appear you hold devs responsible for expensive pricing, whereas both developers are bound by whatever prices their data providers charge them. They are middlemen obtaining the data and passing the cost onwards.

Ultimately, like in any market, it comes down to 'can I afford it and is it of value to me?' RealTraffic (via PSXT) definitely is for me. BeyondATC's base program appears that it might be. The AI voice packs? Not at all. But then, at least the choice exists.

The great thing about MSFS is that its popularity means there is plenty of choice. Don't like one option? There is (or soon will be) another option to look into to see if it meets your wants.

[Redge 243]

I've been looking forward to BATC for a long time. I'll wait to see what people's first impressions are of the service before I jump in.

That's mainly because for the last few weeks I've been enjoying using SayIntentions (SI) a lot more than I thought I would. Brian, of SI, has been adding new features at an astonishing rate (multiple improvements per day) and has already added the first steps for IFR support, even though that was meant to be months away. The biggest thing it is currently missing, compared to BATC, is traffic injection, but that is somewhat offset by the multiplayer aspect where you can (optionally) transmit to and hear other pilots on the network.

Judging by the activity on the SI Discord, it is proving to be a very popular service, albeit with a high price tag currently ($30 p/m) but he's said he fully expects that to reduce over time as these AI services become bigger/cheaper to run.

 

[Bobsk8 12,843]

3 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

I came to the same result of an average price of around 4$ per flight if you want to use BATC to its full extent. And the initial 60 $ are good for only 5-10 flights.

I thought I must have missed something but they seem to be serious about that.

That pricing seems quite ambitious.

 

$4 per flight, and I fly about 15 flights per week, so that is $60 per week . I think I will stick with the 100+ voices of my PF3, cost, zero. 

[Luis Hernandez 583]

12 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Pricing of the initial add-on and AI voice top-ups has been released:

https://www.beyondatc.net/pricing

A bit expensive for me, but I can manage. I'll definitely forego the AI voice top-ups; I'll do with just the offline voices. I find they are not bad at all.

However, I hope two things:
1) Low CPU impact: I got FSHud 3 months ago, but I just ditched it because I could no longer tolerate its heavy CPU consumption and FPS impact (for the little traffic it generates).

2) I hope I can use BATC with the latest AIRAC I paid for, without forcing me to keep a current Navigraph subscription (as FSHud subtlely does).

Edited February 20 by Luis Hernandez

[JYW 2,989]

17 minutes ago, Redge said:

price tag currently ($30 p/m) but he's said he fully expects that to reduce over time as these AI services become bigger/cheaper to run.

They'd be impressively unusual as a business if this actually happens. (Versus the business temptation to keep pricing the same as wholesale prices reduce, increasing profit).

I don't want to be cynical but I'm tempted to say I'll believe it when I see it. 😄

[Tuskin38 6,634]

27 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

$4 per flight, and I fly about 15 flights per week, so that is $60 per week . I think I will stick with the 100+ voices of my PF3, cost, zero. 

There's also a zero cost voice option for BATC

No idea if it can do regional accents or not though.

[Redge 243]

1 hour ago, JYW said:

They'd be impressively unusual as a business if this actually happens. (Versus the business temptation to keep pricing the same as wholesale prices reduce, increasing profit).

I don't want to be cynical but I'm tempted to say I'll believe it when I see it. 😄

Yeah, I know what you mean, and I thought that as I wrote it, but... The market for AI ATC solutions isn't huge (especially if MSFS enters the fray with 2024) so I expect that they'll be forced to remain competitive in the face of the likely stiff competition from BATC. 

[thepilot 591]

I am actually more interested in the flight guidance capabilities than the voices. For example, will BATC be able to vector me proficiently? Maybe add a 'goof leg' when there is too much other traffic? Squeeze me in between other aircraft, using speed restrictions? And so forth. If it can do that well, then so much has been achieved. And what kind of voice you're ultimately hearing would become a side discussion.

[F737MAX 5,737]

3 minutes ago, thepilot said:

will BATC be able to vector me proficiently? Maybe add a 'goof leg' when there is too much other traffic? Squeeze me in between other aircraft, using speed restrictions? And so forth.

That sounds complicated for what is supposed to be a supplementary add-on. I'd worry it would consume a lot of PC resource to perform calculations of less structured traffic flows.

Personally, I'd prefer to see designated holds used (just as they are meant to be), which (in theory) would be less complex.

[ConairMSFS 28]

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

There's also a zero cost voice option for BATC

No idea if it can do regional accents or not though.

I've been following their discord for some time, and they stated that "The offline still have accents. US and UK are the only ones supported atm."

As far as I understood anyway, I dont see such a hassle with paid premium voices. I't will work the same also with offline voices, they dont sound so bad.

 

[Bobsk8 12,843]

1 minute ago, ConairMSFS said:

I've been following their discord for some time, and they stated that "The offline still have accents. US and UK are the only ones supported atm."

As far as I understood anyway, I dont see such a hassle with paid premium voices. I't will work the same also with offline voices, they dont sound so bad.

 

How many voices do the offline voices have?