2 hours ago, Simon_C said:

Hello,

been using BATC on last couple of flights. And while I said this might replace VATSIM for me, I am at kinda position where this opinion is shaken now.

I know BATC is coming with LLM, but right now, I don't see how some things might get fixed.

Right now, I am getting way too often "I didn't get that" or "Negative" on read-back. Sometimes I use the computer generated reply, which also happens sometimes to get rejected and it has to be done a 2nd time. Right now it happened at LOWW, as I was getting taxi instruction, even AI repeat had to be repeated the 2nd time.

Then, and this happened now twice, is that I get taxi instruction, but then an aircraft pulls in in front of me and stays there. Nobody is moving. BATC is saying hold position for traffic.

And finally, my last landing, I got a completely reasonless go-around. Nobody was on or in the vicinity of the runway. Weather was good. Absolutely no reason for GA.

It seems like voice recognition is the prevalent problem here. This can have various reasons like bad mic, low mic volume, strong foreign accent - or you might simply be reading back the wrong things. I'm not a native english speaker but BATC understands me very fine except for the odd case (like it still doesn't like "niner" that much in a callsign). If you look at your logs (or post them on discord so others can look at them), you will see what BATC understood. From there it's mostly very obvious if your voice is simply not getting to the AI (-> it understood only ghibberish) or if it's a recurrent special thing like a number or a frequency or a taxiway letter.
I know it can be frustrating to get this right (at the beginning in June/July BATC had really trouble understanding many things, we've come a long way since then), but I can guarantee you that's it's possible to talk normally with an average german accent like on Vatsim and have BATC understand almost everything. But for this you'd need to dig a bit deeper into what's wrong on the voice recognition side, maybe it's a learning process, maybe it's a small adjustment like microphone volume or lowering background noises etc.
Anyway feel free to come on Discord and tag me (same name over there) and we can look at a log together.

As for replacing Vatsim: With BATC it's more about quantity than quality. Of course if I have a fully staffed flight top-down I will always use Vatsim. There's nothing better than the human touch of it.
But e.g. last night I had to decide: Do I go with Vatsim at YMML with only a center controller and very little traffic (so empty airport) or do I go BATC with full traffic and fully staffed? I decided for the latter and it was great - very busy YMML and much movement, but all flowing well. Same at the destination: Do I go with ground-only at Singapore and only one aircraft at the airport or do I go BATC will the full experience? Again I did the latter and I more often than not find myself choosing BATC if I have the choice. I think that says a lot in itself. When everything falls into place, BATC is a fantastic experience that comes as close to real life as possible.

1 hour ago, mistolip said:

 

 

Not sure what you guys are expecting of the upcoming BATC LLM beta but as posted above: curb your entusiasm...! The upcoming LLM addition will be informational only. It will have absolutely nothing to do with ATC procedures. As such it will be, imho, nothing but a perhaps fun gimmick. It won't enhance the ATC in any way. You can ask BATC things that are (somehow) related to your flight or the current 'BATC world'. So things like 'what's the destination of the plane that's parked beside me' or (perhaps) 'what approach can I expect'. Informational only. You can't ask things like 'I'd like this or that runway, please' or anything else that's related to actual ATC.

I have to say I have my doubts about the realism of this LLM option... You can ask things you'd never (dare to) ask of ATC in real life. I doubt if I will use it.

The only interesting part of the LLM beta is that they said it's some sort of first step towards future VFR support... in some way.

Oh, never mind then. Early access and headed in the wrong direction. That's too bad. 

A lot of passengers would have died.

 

If I followed instructions 😉

 

This happens much too often. There are too many quirks and bugs to list. Improvements come at a rapid pace and the developer seems quite capable. 

 

It's definitely enjoyable and worth the price. I use for about 3/4 of my flights.

I bought it over the weekend and did a couple of flights. It's good, and definitely miles better than the default ATC. Without traffic injection I don't think it would be worth it, but just having realistic aircraft to the country/airport you're at adds a new layer of immersion.

For me too it had difficulty understanding "niner" - don't try and be too clever, just say "nine". I also was a little sad I didn't get vectors to final on either flight, it essentially just let me follow the STAR to the ILS and then cleared me to land.

It's not as immersive as VATSIM, but it does guarantee you'll have ATC for your whole route, and it's not as stressful or time consuming as doing a VATSIM flight - need to walk away for a while, no problem!

It has it's place for me as a good intermediate between having no ATC for a flight and going all the way and flying on VATSIM.

ok  batc  was working  flawlessly  before  the  last update  now im  getting  the  same  as the  op, was  behind  2  aircraft now  twice  and they didnt  move  had to restart batc( posted on  the  discord found  a  easier  way to restart it  than actually  closing  batc  itself, just change  the sliders or  turn off  and  on  the  traffic option)than lately  now  i get  the spinning  wheel where iam waiting  for  a response etc. Hopefully  it  was  just a gliche on the  last past flights hopefully the next update will solve it

Taxiing along Victor after exiting 18R at EHAM I had an interesting experience. ATC had me hold short of 18C at W13 which is normal for that section. A minute later the following Easyjet was also holding behind me. ATC was busy shuttling aircraft around from the gate etc and after a couple of minutes I was beginning to think there was a bug and he had forgotten about me (there was no action on 18C). I contacted again and asked to move from the hold point, "Negative hold short 18C". The weather was really bad with low lying clouds and heavy rain. I was thinking, the taxi ways are virtually empty in front of me and I've been sitting here for 5 minutes, there must be a bug!

Sure enough, out of the clouds came a burst of landing lights and an aircraft coming over the threshold, followed by another 777 and then a KLM ERJ, as soon as the ERJ had exited the runway "KLM934 continue taxi, cross rwy 18C". That level of immersion, especially at an airport like EHAM is worth the fee for the app alone. Great stuff. To be held that long even when there was very little movement in front of me was very realistic.

12 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

lately  now  i get  the spinning  wheel where iam waiting  for  a response etc.

Yes, I've had to reload 4 or 5 times during a flight with this issue. All since the update.

I use BATC on every flight , and for the most part, it does a good job. I used Vatsim years ago, and after a year or two of having no controllers within 1,000 miles of where I wanted to fly, controllers that signed off to watch a football game, when I was halfway through a flight, and talking to myself on Unicomm, I never flew Vatsim again. 

Edited January 3, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I use BATC on every flight , and for the most part, it does a good job. I used Vatsim years ago, and after a year or two of having no controllers within 1,000 miles of where I wanted to fly, controllers that signed off to watch a football game, when I was halfway through a flight, and talking to myself on Unicomm, I never flew Vatsim again. 

My same sentiment. I could never find peeps online when I was ready to fly. Lets all make sure we are reporting the problems we encounter.

21 minutes ago, G550flyer said:

My same sentiment. I could never find peeps online when I was ready to fly. Lets all make sure we are reporting the problems we encounter.

Same here. How good it would be if there was an application capable of handling ATC for multiplayer on a server, would make up for there being limited controllers available on vatsim, but probably completely different ballgame to develop.

Edited January 3, 20251 yr by AlexMD11

2 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

like it still doesn't like "niner" that much in a callsign

Or in any readback. Any frequency readback that includes a "niner" will be a 75% fail for me. Same as asking for FL190.

2 hours ago, pete_auau said:

ok  batc  was working  flawlessly  before  the  last update  now im  getting  the  same  as the  op, was  behind  2  aircraft now  twice  and they didnt  move  had to restart batc( posted on  the  discord found  a  easier  way to restart it  than actually  closing  batc  itself, just change  the sliders or  turn off  and  on  the  traffic option)than lately  now  i get  the spinning  wheel where iam waiting  for  a response etc. Hopefully  it  was  just a gliche on the  last past flights hopefully the next update will solve it

Oh yes, completely forgot about the spinning wheel. Got that also couple of times. Same as Pete, I believe it was something that was introduced with some update, because after I bought it, I was very excited how good it was. I believe it was some update that introduced these problems.

Niner might also be the issue, I will try to consciously avoid saying "niner".

Edited January 3, 20251 yr by Simon_C

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I use BATC on every flight , and for the most part, it does a good job. I used Vatsim years ago, and after a year or two of having no controllers within 1,000 miles of where I wanted to fly, controllers that signed off to watch a football game, when I was halfway through a flight, and talking to myself on Unicomm, I never flew Vatsim again. 

Spot on Bob! For me, BATC is a work in progress, but it's the best $30 I've ever spent on a work in progress for msfs 2020.

3 hours ago, chapstick said:

and headed in the wrong direction.

Nah, no it isn't.

15 minutes ago, CFIJose said:

Spot on Bob! For me, BATC is a work in progress, but it's the best $30 I've ever spent on a work in progress for msfs 2020.

Oh, I tought you said default ATC is good enough, and then it turns out your using BATC yourself:p. Seems like you have an agenda against SI for some strange reason…