I’ve been away for a year and read elsewhere that there are no improvements expected to the ATC for 2024… is that correct? If so, I’m pretty shocked. The ATC in 2020 was horrible… essentially unusable for IFR. It had me flying into mountains or making sudden altitude changes on approach that were nonsense. But maybe they addressed this in the last year? Please tell me that’s the case 😊

There's "plans" to improve it, when that happens nobody knows.

BeyondATC will come to the rescue. It's already so good at this point even though it's only in Alpha.

FSHud, BeyondATC, and SayIntentions are the most popular ATC developers, although none of their products are considered to be complete. There are plenty of posts comparing those.

 

I too was expecting ATC to be improved in the new sim and have been sadly disappointed.  As Marc has said, MS did allude to improving it in an update at some point but when that will be, nobody knows.  IFR needs a big improvement and even FSX was better for VFR in some respects.  Regional voices are needed, or at least a few more different voices and options for pattern rejoin procedures would be great too.

I know there are external options for voice recognition, but these are fairly expensive considering there current limited functionality.  I would have thought that a company with the resources of MS could produce something worthwhile by now.

Based on what I have seen during my very limited experience with AI and ATC in MSFS 2020, it is light years behind that in P3D. I landed at IniBuilds EGLL London Heathrow a few days ago, and AI planes were departing on 09L/09R/27L, and landing on 27L/27R. Not exactly realistic! There also appears to be a grand total of one voice for the ATC controllers and pilots. Again, way behind the situation in P3D.

I really hope that this can be vastly improved in MSFS 2024.

Hello to you all,

I have accepted that all my flights will go from IFR (ATC controlled) to IFR cancellation before the end of the flight. Please note that I am generally using GA aircraft in these instances.

For example, I do not know how many times I have been at 5000 feet, 10 NM from my destination and ATC tells me to climb to 10000 feet. I have also arrived overhead destination at 5000 feet before being advised to descend for approach. 

I simply cannot remember the last time I had an IFR flight to conclusion using standard ATC. When planning a flight I use NAVLOG to set my cruising height and this is never complied with in IFR ATC. It is so annoying. When all these anomalies happen, I simply cancel IFR and carry on without ATC until about 30 NM from destination and then I use the nearest airport route.

I think it is important to recognize that default ATC has never been more than barely adequate in any Flight Simulation product. Third party devs may well be the answer here but I have no personal experience with them so I am unable to offer an opinion.

It is what it is guys and I have no real expectations that MSFS2024 is going to be any different. That is NOT going to stop me enjoying 2020 or 2024. My cup is half full

Regards Tony

 

I really think they have a team getting ready to work on this and it will be an update sometime after 2024 launches. I’m speculating here, but I think they want the new EFB/flight planning ironed out before they start work on the ATC. Supposedly there are small improvements in the ATC in 2024 but nothing like what everyone is hoping for.

 

Time will tell of course.

2 hours ago, cianpars said:

I too was expecting ATC to be improved in the new sim and have been sadly disappointed.  As Marc has said, MS did allude to improving it in an update at some point but when that will be, nobody knows.  IFR needs a big improvement and even FSX was better for VFR in some respects.  Regional voices are needed, or at least a few more different voices and options for pattern rejoin procedures would be great too.

I know there are external options for voice recognition, but these are fairly expensive considering there current limited functionality.  I would have thought that a company with the resources of MS could produce something worthwhile by now.

ATC from a sim program will always be third rate, has been this way forever, and I doubt if it will change. Use ATC from an ATC developer.

 

Microsoft has been producing flight sim products for over 30 years. If the default ATC has not significantly improved during that time it’s extremely unlikely it will in the foreseeable future. It’s simply too complex.

Third-party programmes have always been the solution and in my humble opinion none have bettered Radar Contact v4 for IFR flights. That was for another sim.

It needs the next generation to step up to the plate and grasp the nettle. Some appear to be making good progress but the key is being a global solution with FAA and ICAO regulations and enunciations.

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Microsoft has been producing flight sim products for over 30 years

The Microsoft developing previous flight sim products is vastly different to today's, the numbers of users have grown exponentially as has the Sim itself since 2020 allowing more staff to come onboard alongside a wealth of Partnership programs the likes of which never happened with previous Microsoft flight titles.

If they were ever going to get ATC "right" then that time is now/near future, distant history is pretty much meaningless compared to what they've got going on with the current and soon to be released new Sim, therefore it's fair to expect significant improvement with ATC as they'll have already alluded too.

1 minute ago, MarcG said:

the numbers of users have grown exponentially

But the number who want proper ATC remains very small. Hence why they’ve never improved it. I’ll watch with interest.

4 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I’ve been away for a year and read elsewhere that there are no improvements expected to the ATC for 2024… is that correct? If so, I’m pretty shocked. The ATC in 2020 was horrible… essentially unusable for IFR. It had me flying into mountains or making sudden altitude changes on approach that were nonsense. But maybe they addressed this in the last year? Please tell me that’s the case 😊

Get Beyond ATC. They even have traffic injection for Beyond ATC now, albeit, it's in testing mode for their higher tier version of Beyond ATC at the moment. But when it's stable and they feel a lot of the bugs have been worked out, the regular version of Beyond ATC will get traffic injection. Plus, you can use your voice in Beyond ATC, so it's great to use for areas that VATSIM doesn't cover.

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But the number who want proper ATC remains very small. Hence why they’ve never improved it. I’ll watch with interest.

Arguably with the growth of flight simulation (thanks largely to this very product) the number of new users wanting to learn the basics of ATC and improve knowledge of it has grown, therefore providing a better default experience is of great benefit to the title.

18 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Arguably with the growth of flight simulation (thanks largely to this very product) the number of new users wanting to learn the basics of ATC and improve knowledge of it has grown, therefore providing a better default experience is of great benefit to the title.

Experience has taught me to be very sceptical this will happen.