3 hours ago, Ron Lefebvre said:

BATC is amazing, but yes it does tend to put you straight into a mountain on descent at times.

I just use the charts and adjust the descent rate if need be.

 

IOW, you did what you would with w/o ATC.  Rather than work on LLM integration how about getting basic ATC fully functional first.

1 hour ago, Tuskin38 said:

How would the BATC devs get that kind of info? How would it know there is a mountain there?

IFR charts and approach plates all have minimum IFR altitudes for any given airspace. MRVA's would be harder to get a hold of, but they too are part of it in Terminal Control Areas and around busier airport areas.

2 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

 ATC would use IFR charts and approach plates as they all have minimum IFR altitudes for any given airspace. MRVA's would be harder to get a hold of, but they too are part of it in Terminal Control Areas and around busier airport areas. An absolute 100% must have if you ask me for any ATC program.

Opps.. meant to edit my last, not reply to it. 🤐

Edited February 23, 20251 yr by Dave_YVR

16 minutes ago, Noel said:

I haven't seen that language, 'if able' yet.

It was spoken, not an option. You only received that instruction if NOTAMS was checked for the relevant airport. Has BATC nothing to tell it an airport has high terrain and special procedures need to be applied?

Classic example would be Innsbruck - LOWI.

19 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

IFR charts and approach plates all have minimum IFR altitudes for any given airspace. MRVA's would be harder to get a hold of, but they too are part of it in Terminal Control Areas and around busier airport areas.

FAA has published MIA's and MVA's for all ARTCC and TRACON's

The info is publically available, how it would be incorporated into an ATC addon is above my knowledge.

13 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It was spoken, not an option. You only received that instruction if NOTAMS was checked for the relevant airport. Has BATC nothing to tell it an airport has high terrain and special procedures need to be applied?

Classic example would be Innsbruck - LOWI.

Yes and I said it I had not heard "not able" and it was you that called it an option.  I think BATC has a ways to go still, and I'm a novice at understanding how ATC works.

32 minutes ago, Noel said:

IOW, you did what you would with w/o ATC.  Rather than work on LLM integration how about getting basic ATC fully functional first.

I agree, but no software is perfect in the msfs world.

I am just saying there is way around it.

For the most part it works great and that is after over 50 flights.

None of them are prefect sadly.

But we have come a long way in the last 2 years with the different possibilities

 

3 hours ago, Ron Lefebvre said:

I agree, but no software is perfect in the msfs world.

I am just saying there is way around it.

For the most part it works great and that is after over 50 flights.

None of them are prefect sadly.

But we have come a long way in the last 2 years with the different possibilities

 

I agree, but TBH I came into BATC with a bit higher expectations on the things I mentioned, the failure to respond correctly to my request to change runways when BATC routes me into an odd choice of runways when there is no traffic anywhere nearby.  That just seems like bum logic is in play and somehow, this far into development, it's still there?  But I do like a lot of BATC already and find myself preferring it over FSHud which does seem better at ATC.  It's essentially the voices I'm drawn to and I really appreciate the ultra user friendly setup and UI.

6 hours ago, Noel said:

But I do like a lot of BATC already and find myself preferring it over FSHud which does seem better at ATC.  It's essentially the voices I'm drawn to and I really appreciate the ultra user friendly setup and UI.

Recently I've been comparing the various ATC addons - FSHud, BATC, SI. So far I think FSHud is the winner in terms of the ATC instructions. BATC has much more regional voices though. So I'm happy to use both, depending on the circumstances. 

I've been testing BATC on and off since purchasing it three months ago, but I too am becoming skeptical about the pace of improvements. After a six-week break, I revisited it with my usual KSEA-CYVR test flight in the PMDG 737, only to find things had worsened.

This time, I received a vector toward YVR after passing PAE, and was told to expect vectors for ILS 8L. I had to request descent myself which was still a long time coming and then, all at once, to 3000 feet (the altitude for intercepting the glideslope). Rather than receiving the expected turn downwind after YVR, I was left on a 310 heading until far north of the airport and dangerously close to the mountains north of Scechelt before finally being turned west. I was then vectored straight toward an oncoming aircraft at the same altitude, triggering a TCAS alert and near midair — but BATC gave no traffic advisory. I was then told to contact the tower when established, but had yet to receive a vector inbound (still heading away from the airport at this point) forcing me to self-vector. There was absolutely nothing realistic about the guidance I received during the descent and approach portion of this flight.

Previous flights at least followed a somewhat reasonable pattern, although I was consistently vectored to intercept the localizer too far out to capture the signal, so still had to self-vector at the end. 

The BATC traffic behaved well with minimal inpact on my overall performance, but the AI aircraft themselves are stuttery even at taxi speeds, which I do not experience with FSLTL alone.

If I have to ignore ATC to complete a flight, there's little point in using BATC. Despite its flaws, the default ATC with FSLTL still gets me through the entire flight and provides traffic advisories. Given the early marketing videos and their sarcastic portrayal of the default ATC, I am disappointed with BATC's progress so far, but yes, it was clearly sold as early access. 

10 hours ago, Noel said:

Yes and I said it I had not heard "not able" and it was you that called it an option.  I think BATC has a ways to go still, and I'm a novice at understanding how ATC works.

I’m struggling to understand your reply. I asked “Has BATC nothing to tell it an airport has high terrain and special procedures need to be applied?

Classic example would be Innsbruck - LOWI.”

You didn’t give me an answer. Plan a flight from Munich to Innsbruck (EDDM-LOWI) and see if you see any options in the arrival airport for telling BATC is in a mountainous area.

The question is less relevant with more modern ATC add-ons, which generally read details of scenery and navdata, so are aware of SIDs, STARs and Approaches. The ATC program itself should therefore be able to determine if there are altitude restrictions and so an option for the user to tell it that shouldn't be required. If it issues descent clearances or vectors which result in a CFIT then it must be regarded as a bug in the program and should be reported as such.

Mind my signature - but that said, I've never ever been vectored into a mountain by BATC. In the past 7 months or so it was maybe 2 or 3 times that it was too close for comfort, but I would have never crashed.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m struggling to understand your reply. I asked “Has BATC nothing to tell it an airport has high terrain and special procedures need to be applied?

Classic example would be Innsbruck - LOWI.”

You didn’t give me an answer. Plan a flight from Munich to Innsbruck (EDDM-LOWI) and see if you see any options in the arrival airport for telling BATC is in a mountainous area.

If I may answer - BATC reads the terrain map from the sim, so it will - in theory - not give vectors leading into terrain below a minimum height. LOWI however is really difficult, that's why it doesn't have vectors in real life either. Unfortunately their procedures (like that circle to land) are not something that exists in a navdata format (approach-wise), so BATC cannot give you such an approach. This would have to be added manually in the future, which might even happen for LOWI since it's such a special case

Not a bad topic. I've just noticed that during the weekend, when going to a more unknown airport next to Milan, right after the mountain range ends, it gave me some bizarre arrival/approach indications , with the weirdness starting all the way from my takeoff in Sweden, lol, "vectors for the approach" while telling me to climb to my cruise altitude. 

And one thing it does recently, is it gives me STAR arrival and approach, and then just as you get close to your final waypoints, it starts giving "vectors for the approach" that simply go on the pretty much published route. 

As others have mentioned, the right thing to do here is to ignore BATC and just go with the chart whenever it doesn't make any sense. 

 

BATC itself goes up and down in quality between releases. Sometimes I get amazing flights, sometimes it's all over the place. 

I think IFR flying, with minor tweaks, is good overall in BATC. I've had more issues with SayIntentions back in December when I tried it again, than with BATC, again on the arrival/approach.