Pilot 2 ATC vs. Beyond ATC vs. Say Intentions...

[techman 151]

SayIntentions own traffic injection is also planned for Q2 according to the dev on the discord right now - POC is already working he said.

[tup61 1,582]

15 minutes ago, techman said:

SayIntentions own traffic injection is also planned for Q2 according to the dev on the discord right now - POC is already working he said.

Main problem of SI remains the cost... and for me the need for voice. Hopefully the two new products will push each other to new heights. Although I don't have the impression they can be bothered with what the other is doing.

Edited March 13 by tup61

[robert young 2,897]

Whatever ATC system used, for me it is above all the quality and believability of the voices that counts. Many people knocked the old FSX ATC system but apart from a few syntax and procedural errors it still has the most believable voices. Such things are not that difficult to program but they take a lot of time and patience and you need to hire people with totally authentic voices who understand how to talk in ATC lingo, or you need an AI system that understands the same.

It's not just the syntax either, it is also getting the most natural sounding (and suitably lo fi) inflexions, cadences and flow that is important. I've heard a bit of Beyond ATC and to me the voices are still a bit too deadpan and lacking natural cadence. You can spot it a mile off. I still haven't seen in all these many years a single ATC program that demonstrates developers understand and can implement natural sounding voices. I don't think it is that difficult but it requires a lot of care and very long hours of testing.

Edited March 13 by robert young

[RALF9636 1,971]

1 hour ago, techman said:

SayIntentions own traffic injection is also planned for Q2 according to the dev on the discord right now - POC is already working he said.

Good to know.

It's great to see that most ATC addon developers finally realized that for an immersive product they need to control both the user aircraft and the AI traffic alike .

What surprises me though is that both BATC and SayIntentions seem to expect to be able to develop that feature within a few weeks. Looking at FSHud, they (and probably VoxATC as well) are now working on it for at least a year and while it basically works it showed that the devil is in the details. In particular airborne traffic separation and sequencing apparently proved to be a major task and they still haven't released a public beta version with a working airborne separation and sequencing yet (it seems to be imminent though).

Will be interesting to see how long it will take BATC and SayIntentions to really accomplish that and what they will come up with on release.

 

Edited March 13 by RALF9636

[JYW 2,984]

2 hours ago, SierraHotel said:

I suggest you read all the information on BATC, their AI will even argue with you depending on your replies! And yes, the base program is on your PC but the AI generated voices are on an AI server, hence all the worry over costs (which BATC have now resolved making it the best option bar none)

1). It's not released yet, so cannot be "the best option bar none".

2). Are you reading Tup61's posts in here?  An actual beta tester on BATC who is using the beta. He's certainly not being negative about it, but he's telling us how it is at this time.  You said BATC will argue with you.  He (who is using it) said that it will not argue with you.  Your enthusiasm is nice but you're discussing BATC as though it's already out there and a lot of what you're saying conflicts with what Tup61 (again who is using the beta) is reporting.

[Wothan 173]

It seems that PRO-ATC/SR has been forgotten by both the community and the developer himself.

[mmcmah 412]

As others have written, it seems like SI with traffic injected and an option to not speak to it would cover most of the "wants" here (except for cost, unless they can get it down to a more reasonable level).

BATC is way more than Q2 away if you read what the developers day. They are "hoping for" a 2024 release. There's so much that is still unknown about the final product and it does seem like it will be scripted (as currently envisioned), so maybe not an improvement in that regard over the current options.

VoxATC is just too silent right now fore to opine.

P2ATC will continue to be my choice until someone can inject and control traffic that mimics real life traffic with separation, correct arrival routing and can do it with/change with the weather conditions you set in the sim.

Until there's something better, I don't see the point in changing.

26 minutes ago, Wothan said:

 

It seems that PRO-ATC/SR has been forgotten by both the community and the developer himself.

 

Lol - all the warnings were there when it first came out.   

[Fiorentoni 4,253]

As for SayYourIntentions - I've watched this video:

And all I can say is... it's awful. It's even worse than default ATC, by a large margin. Early access or not, this will never even get close to useful, mark my words.

 

 

 

[tup61 1,582]

1 hour ago, RALF9636 said:

It's great to see that most ATC addon developers finally realized that for an immersive product they need to control both the user aircraft and the AI traffic alike .

LOL Yes, finally! I remember posting about FSHud that it was so great because it actually controlled traffic and a lot of people said 'Yeah, well, what the heck, I've got radio chatter files for that'. And mind you, BATC also started out as an old fashioned ATC tool without traffic! It took quite a few posts on Discord to persuade the dev to think again. This has set back the release of BATC but only for the better. What's the use of Air Traffic Control if it doesn't full control traffic?

[Fiorentoni 4,253]

1 hour ago, RALF9636 said:

What surprises me though is that both BATC and SayIntentions seem to expect to be able to develop that feature within a few weeks. Looking at FSHud, they (and probably VoxATC as well) are now working on it for at least a year and while it basically works it showed that the devil is in the details. In particular airborne traffic separation and sequencing apparently proved to be a major task and they still haven't released a public beta version with a working airborne separation and sequencing yet (it seems to be imminent though).

Injection isn't the same as separation and sequencing. Injecting aircraft is easy, as is making them stop at the hold short position for incoming traffic etc. Airborne separation and sequencing is a nightmare on the other side and that's why no ATC tool has even bothered with it yet. I think B2ATC won't either.

[RALF9636 1,971]

4 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Airborne separation and sequencing is a nightmare on the other side and that's why no ATC tool has even bothered with it yet.

FSHud is working on it currently and they hope for a public Beta version with airborne separation and sequencing within a few weeks. Let's see how it works out.

 

[tup61 1,582]

4 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Injecting aircraft is easy, as is making them stop at the hold short position for incoming traffic etc.

Even easy things can be quite hard to do. There is a reason the perfect ATC addon doesn't exist yet. And people should perhaps curb their enthusiasm a bit. Some people seem to expect utterly realistic real life ATC coming out of a box and that won't happen.

[tup61 1,582]

4 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

FSHud is working on it currently and they hope for a public Beta version with airborne separation and sequencing within a few weeks. Let's see how it works out.

 

Yes, I am also very curious to see what they come up with!

It's a shame all those ATC devs don't work together. Everyone is trying to invent the wheel from scratch again. Such a waste of precious time. Specially if some solutions aren't of similar quality.

Edited March 13 by tup61

[qqwertz 784]

4 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

When did you last use it? This has been improved some time ago. FSHud catches up with you even if you take a different taxi routing or skip waypoints in flight. At least that is my experience - I haven't had these issues for a long time.

 

The last time I used FSHud was about 1-2 months ago. As usual, I had to close FSHud after a deviation from the prearranged plan. I can't remember the details. 

2 hours ago, tup61 said:

  Why the heck is everything in flight sim land so focused on the US... So annoying.

One reason may be that it is the largest market, but I think there is something much more important: access to data. The U.S. have a freedom of information act, and stuff published by agencies like the FAA that are funded by the public is also publicly available. For instance, SkyVector has all U.S. charts, including VFR sectionals, available for free anywhere. We Canadians, on the other hand, have to purchase printed VFR sectionals from NavCanada if we want to have up-to-date information 😣. As a developer, I would for sure start in the U.S. for that reason alone.

[tup61 1,582]

Just now, qqwertz said:

The last time I used FSHud was about 1-2 months ago. As usual, I had to close FSHud after a deviation from the prearranged plan. I can't remember the details

Was that a Simbrief plan? FSHud often deviates from it due to weather changes/differences. That's a feature, not a bug. 😉