1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

Another question that comes to mind after watching these latest videos: Why don't you release it?! 😉

Apparently VoxATC is already at least on par with FSHud when it comes to reliabilty of procedures and phraseology, and obviously miles ahead of those so-called ATC addons that are primarily focused on the quality of voices.

 

Its a very complex app.  It does IFR and VFR integrated ops, even FSHud hasn't attempted that.  As a result there are infinitely more things that can go wrong with it!  So, requires extensive beta testing and fault finding before we're comfortable with it.  And there's a single dev, to fix all the bugs 🙂

1 hour ago, RALF9636 said:

Nice video. And what a great immersive ATC environment provided by VoxATC!

You used Active Sky Live Weather which lead to a runway change after your CTD - which is one of the reasons I always use historic weather. Doesn't VoxATC support Active Sky historic weather? That would be a dealbreaker for me.

What strikes me in your video is that you are very busy flying your aircraft in particular during the missed approach and setting up the hold and the new approach. Nevertheless you keep talking to ATC yourself at the same time. That is very unrealistic. It is the job of the pilot monitoring to handle ATC. Doesn't VoxATC has an option for a virtual copilot to automatically handle ATC? This would be a dealbreaker for me as well.

I do use Active Sky historical a lot, as I prefer the weather to match the sim time. Which often is not the same as real time (as I fly all over the world). I agree that being able to use historical weather with Vox would be awesome. Not at all a dealbreaker though IMO.

Ah yes, flying a complex airliner singlehanded whilst handling the comms… It’s what I’ve been doing since I started simming 25+ years ago. Of course it’s highly unrealistic. The workload is just unreasonably high. I think Kevin might have already answered the question though. 

I’m currently investigating using a variety of SAPI voices, might have a new video ready soon. Just need to get cleared for the RNP 27 approach into San Diego 😊 One feature of VoxATC is the ability to choose a different approach, which IMO is great 👍🏻 

Edited May 25, 20242 yr by Cpt_Piett

39 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I’m currently investigating using a variety of SAPI voices, might have a new video ready soon. Just need to get cleared for the RNP 27 approach into San Diego 😊

Looking forward. Could you show how the voices sound at a significantly increased rate? I found them very slow in your latest video. To me they sounded good when playing the video at 1.75 speed.

 

39 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

One feature of VoxATC is the ability to choose a different approach, which IMO is great 👍🏻 

Of course it is a basic necessity for any ATC software to be able to request a different approach and runway. I haven't expected anything else from VoxATC. FSHud allows that as well of course. I was surprised to see that another addon was released without such a basic feature.

 

6 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Looking forward. Could you show how the voices sound at a significantly increased rate? I found them very slow in your latest video. To me they sounded good when playing the video at 1.75 speed.

Yeah, apologies for that. I agree, some of the voices were way too slow. Especially the Gatwick ATIS, oh dear. I’ll increase the rate in my next video. 

6 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Of course it is a basic necessity for any ATC software to be able to request a different approach and runway. I haven't expected anything else from VoxATC. FSHud allows that as well of course. I was surprised to see that another addon was released without such a basic feature.

Agreed! It’s one of the many features I really appreciate with VoxATC. 

By the way - thanks for all the comments and suggestions, much appreciated! It’s nice too see interest and engagement, even though there are several ATC addons out there on the market. Personally I’ve used Beyond ATC and FSHud.

Edited May 25, 20242 yr by Cpt_Piett

55 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Looking forward. Could you show how the voices sound at a significantly increased rate? I found them very slow in your latest video. To me they sounded good when playing the video at 1.75 speed.

Yep 100% agree with you. Vox allows you to independently cary the volume and speech rate of every single voice it uses.

The thing I like most about VoxATC, is that it has history. 

1 hour ago, Rocky_53 said:

The thing I like most about VoxATC, is that it has history. 

Yes, it's been in development for nearly 20 years, and is a pretty impressive feat by one man, considering the combined multi-billion resources of Microsoft, Aces and Asobo haven't achieved as much in that timeframe!

4 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

Yes, it's been in development for nearly 20 years, and is a pretty impressive feat by one man, considering the combined multi-billion resources of Microsoft, Aces and Asobo haven't achieved as much in that timeframe!

Absolutely.

On the other hand being a one-man-project this makes the future of this addon insecure. If the developer for whatever reason is not able or not willing to keep working on it, the project will be dead.

 

1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

Absolutely.

On the other hand being a one-man-project this makes the future of this addon insecure. If the developer for whatever reason is not able or not willing to keep working on it, the project will be dead.

 

True, but I think that goes for almost ALL addons, freeware and payware. I think most of not all MSFS addons are there thanks to one person and even if he or she has made a (usually very small) team to work with the project may stop once the initiator drops out.

4 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Absolutely.

On the other hand being a one-man-project this makes the future of this addon insecure. If the developer for whatever reason is not able or not willing to keep working on it, the project will be dead.

 

I think the fact Tegwyn has been on this for the last 20 years demonstrates a degree of commitment!  This is his baby and I think only death will separate him from it 😄

17 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

By the way - thanks for all the comments and suggestions, much appreciated! It’s nice too see interest and engagement, even though there are several ATC addons out there on the market. Personally I’ve used Beyond ATC and FSHud.

I'm quite happy with FSHud at the moment. But competition is always good and the scope of VoxATC looks a lot broader than FSHud at the moment (of course FSHud also plans to integrate VFR flights and voice recognition later but that will take its time for sure -  and FSHud also seems to be basically a one-man-project btw). So I am really looking forward to VoxATC to release.

That said VoxATC should of course at least provide the features of FShud which includes support for Active Sky historic weather and optional button control for those who don't want to wear a headset and talk to their computer all the time.

And even though I fully agree that the basics of ATC and AI traffic control should be covered first before the quality of voices is taken care of, inevitably VoxATC has to do something on the voices. The currently used SAPI voices just can't be the way to go into the future, listening to them rather feels like going back to FSX-times. Something at least on the level of the FSHud voices or the basic voices of BATC should be integrated soon. On top of that premium voices could be added for a subsription. I will certainly not pay 30 dollars a month to use premium voices with any half-baked addon, but if VoxATC keeps what it promises right now and will provide a complete immersive and reliable ATC environment I would happily pay a subscription at a reasonable price to enhance it further with premium quality voices.

 

Edited May 26, 20242 yr by RALF9636

1 minute ago, RALF9636 said:

I'm quite happy with FSHud at the moment. But competition is always good and the scope of VoxATC looks a lot broader than FSHud at the moment (of course FSHud also plans to integrate VFR flights and voice recognition later but that will take its time for sure). So I am really looking forward for VoxATC to release.

That said VoxATC should of course at least provide the features of FShud which includes support for Active Sky historic weather and button control for those who don't want to wear a headset and talk to their computer all the time.

And even though I fully agree that the basics of ATC and AI traffic control should be covered first before the quality of voices is taken care of, inevitably VoxATC has to do something on the voices. The currently used SAPI voices just can't be the way to go into the future, listening to them rather feels like going back to FSX-times. Something at least on the level of the FSHud voices or the basic voices of BATC should be integrated soon. On top of that premium voices could be added for a subsription. I will certainly not pay 30 dollars a month  to use premium voices with any half-baked addon, but if VoxATC keeps what it promises right now and will provide a complete immersive and reliable ATC environment I would happily pay a subscription at a reasonable price to enhance it further with premium quality voices.

The aim of VoxATC is to provide a gold standard realistic ATC addon - in that respect, it's raison d'etre is to provide voice control.  That's what it will do.  No guarantee of button control within any timeframe.  Either the immersion of a full SATCE will suck you in, or it won't.  😄 

Historic weather I agree with, the dev already did it in the old FSX/P3D version.  It's on the radar.

Voices: inbound, some options being tested by the team now.  You'll be able to listen to some and provide feedback very very shortly....

9 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

 No guarantee of button control within any timeframe. 

So how does the First Officer option work? I guess he will automatically respond to ATC. But how to make any requests like for initial clearance or ready for departure with the First Officer? Maybe the functionality of the First Officer could be demonstrated in one of the next videos.

 

Edited May 26, 20242 yr by RALF9636

Just now, RALF9636 said:

So how does the First Officer option work? I guess he will automatically respond to ATC. But how to make any requests like for intial clearance or ready for departure with the First Officer? Maybe the funcitonality of the First officer could be demonstrated in one of the next videos.

That's a very fair request.  I'm sure @Cpt_Piett will take note 😉

1 hour ago, kevinfirth said:

That's a very fair request.  I'm sure @Cpt_Piett will take note 😉

Wilco, I’ll make sure to include that in my next video! 

Edited May 26, 20242 yr by Cpt_Piett