The AI traffic injected by BATC is well done. I do actually like it very much (flying mainly IFR and bigger planes), since ATC handles all traffic then. The drawback here:
if you use the premium voices with BATC - what you should do, cause the default voices are crashing the immersion -  and have the AI traffic enabled, ATC talks to everyone in premium (not only just you e.g.). And since the premium voices come with a subscription, where you have to pay per character used, I would go up to €30,- a month. Which is actually more expensive than SI. Yes, I fly a lot, and I use buttons to talk (which would reduce the cost, if I would talk myself). But still...
So I have to decide to either deactivate premium voices or BATC AI traffic (and use FSLTL injection or someting). I decided to go for immersion > premium voices.

Edited February 11, 20251 yr by Watsi

Once SI get AI planes on the ground, as for right now all their AI stays airborne, I feel it will be hard to see BATC as the better option. BATC does AI great showing that it can be done. So if SI does the same and then we can compare Apples to Apples, SI will hold an advantage. I'm happy I have both giving me options and supporting those who are trying to make up for Asobo and MS short comings in this area. It seems like no easy task and these two companies are doing their best to enhance our experience.

2 hours ago, Watsi said:

The AI traffic injected by BATC is well done. I do actually like it very much (flying mainly IFR and bigger planes), since ATC handles all traffic then. The drawback here:
if you use the premium voices with BATC - what you should do, cause the default voices are crashing the immersion -  and have the AI traffic enabled, ATC talks to everyone in premium (not only just you e.g.). And since the premium voices come with a subscription, where you have to pay per character used, I would go up to €30,- a month. Which is actually more expensive than SI. Yes, I fly a lot, and I use buttons to talk (which would reduce the cost, if I would talk myself). But still...
So I have to decide to either deactivate premium voices or BATC AI traffic (and use FSLTL injection or someting). I decided to go for immersion > premium voices.

I have used default voices in BATC, since I bought it except the first day when I tried the free premium voices it came with. I think the default voices are fine, no problem with immersion, and I have flown in real life in the ATC system. 

I subbed for about a year and a half. What killed SI for me was...

 

Promising for months and months to have Traffic and then putting an experimental version behind a paywall, all the while as people are paying them a subscription.

 

All the promises and they just keep focusing on more fluff and adding more pay walls.

 

The sub should be $5 a month

 

My 2-cents

 

 

49 minutes ago, laserit said:

Promising for months and months to have Traffic and then putting an experimental version behind a paywall, all the while as people are paying them a subscription.

All the promises and they just keep focusing on more fluff and adding more pay walls.

My understanding is that BATC was 1st to come out as using AI to provide IFR ATC. When they decided to add AI traffic to the mix, they had to throw out pretty much everything that had achieved in the ATC side to focus on getting AI to work correctly. This showed us a very long production time with all these videos of it being used by testers but not being able to get the product.

SI at the time took a different approach. They started out VFR USA only for ATC and created a release version based off on that. Later they added IFR and continued to created features that expanded the platform beyond ATC. They are now trying to add AI planes to the mix without having to do a rewrite of the product. So here we are. Both are working to expand with BATC having an edge on IFR with AI and SI having an edge of VFR and more overall to an open sandbox to all airports, not just the departure and arrival ones.

We have two different ATC models with both being dumb in their own ways. BATC is dumb but it handles request that it doesnt understand with an Unable approach. SI is dumb in that it tries to appease all request but its 50/50 if its just lips service or fully understands the overall picture. Seems like for SI, they have teams working on various coding and just because they are adding fluff, doesnt mean that its taking away development for traffic. Just that getting traffic to work is a huge undertaking.

I'm happy that I picked up BATC as I now have options to play to the strengths of each depending on the flight that I am doing. For both products its really early days with both making some major improvements in such a short time since AI tools came on market. I have no doubt that both will succeed in creating two highly useful ATC and Traffic addons in the near future. They just have taken different approaches and business/marketing models is all.

Edited February 11, 20251 yr by Ident

Can i get a code please.