2 hours ago, Noel said:

I'm not part of an orchestrated attack, I have just have been surprised on a few issues with BATC and seriously, 'early access', over a year later?  Will it remain in 'early access' status for another year?  Some annoyances I find, and it's probably my lack of experience and understanding of how RW ATC should work is part of some of this:

1.  Rarely is an initial climb to given, it's almost always 'climb via SID'.   Or, in areas where it doesn't seem to make much sense it will say 'climb and maintain 4000' at a location w/o other air traffic, with mountainous terrain nearby, etc.  Routing into KSHR the other day it insisted I land on Rwy 24 which is short and entailed a x-wind that day, when there was no traffic and the usual runways used there for this level of aircraft would not be 24.  But worse than that was BATC told me to descend to 4000' from 100 miles out and the airport is above 4000'.  Plus, the approach into Rwy24 involved much more terrain issues than straight in to Rwy 33 which I'm pretty sure in the RW we would have been routed into 33, not 24.

2.  Using BATC's AI traffic I've had more taxi collisions (of course I stopped to avoid that, but w/o ATC telling me or its AI plane to hold) than I have had using FSLTL's injector.

3.  Performance impact is significant at the arrival end in particular when using its AI traffic.  That might have improved some not sure because I typically don't use BATC's injector now because not only is performance an issue but as mentioned often it's jerky, whereas FSLTL is always super smooth and w/ more AI traffic the perf impact will be maybe 40-60% less than when BATC manages traffic.  I think this maybe has improved some not sure, and one issue I have now is as I finally kissed Frame Generation goodbye I will often now run at 50FPS native, and that will contribute to stuttering when BATC is at 60FPS.  But even using FG at 60 I've had issues with stuttering AI traffic despite having super smooth stutter-free sim.  I'm fanatical about smoothness and I know others either don't have this, or haven't looked or noticed.  Cpt_Piett was not aware of this until I asked him to take a closer look and sure enough he captured this on video. 

4.  Vectoring for visual approaches is often a little too late.  So I'm finally realizing just follow my own navigation and do what I would do w/o ATC, which sadly makes ATC kind of a form of ambience thus using FSLTL's injector is every bit as useful as ambience.  It manages AI traffic just great, is very close to RW actual traffic, whereas BATC I think is using last week's actual traffic for its injection.

 

You realize that MSFS24 is still in early access?

Seriously, I take no issue with your criticisms as your are entitled.  My concern was it appeared to me some on this forum were actively trying to sabotage BATC.  And I take issue with that, if it is happening, because it (1) sets a dangerous precedent and (2) I support BATC in its efforts.  Again, I ask why does BATC exist, why does AIG exist, why does FSLTL exist etc?  I suggest it is because Microsoft hasn't gotten right what it has promoted since before the release of MSFS 20.  So..if there is ire to go around I suggest it be placed with MSFS not these developers who are trying to improve on a bad situation.  And btw I am very happy with MSFS24 despite its many issues yet to resolve.  I gladly paid for MSFS24 and would do it again.

The cost of BATC is about two Big Macs and fries at McDonalds.  It is laughable the attacks v constructive criticism. 

2 hours ago, mistolip said:

Topics about attacks on BATC being warranted or not...are they warranted?

Posts about topics about attacks on BATC being warranted or not...are they warranted?

Reactions to posts about topics about attacks on BATC being warranted or not...are they warranted?

Yes they are because if true they set a dangerous precedent.

These folks who create these addons in many cases do it to make a living.  Criticisms are fine but actively trying to sabotage a developer is wrong.  That was the primary reason for starting this thread.  

2 minutes ago, knich said:

The cost of BATC is about two Big Macs and fries at McDonalds.  It is laughable the attacks v constructive criticism. 

What I don't understand is why some continue to compare the $30 price of BATC to the $200 per year cost of SI.  I have read many screwups that SI makes too, so it isn't perfect either and certainly not worth  $200 a year. 

2 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

What I don't understand is why some continue to compare the $30 price of BATC to the $200 per year cost of SI.  I have read many screwups that SI makes too, so it isn't perfect either and certainly not worth  $200 a year. 

BATC even lowered its initial price at consumer request.  If someone wants to pay $200 for SI, you won't get an attack from me.  The market dictates prices.

26 minutes ago, knich said:

You realize that MSFS24 is still in early access?

Seriously, I take no issue with your criticisms as your are entitled.  My concern was it appeared to me some on this forum were actively trying to sabotage BATC.

Nope, MSFS was not EA, it was certainly released early, but no it was not EA because a bare minimum of EA is STATING THAT prior to one's purchase.

Just reporting my honest, unfiltered reactions from using BATC.  Yes, I have been surprised that something as important as giving ATC vectors early enough pretty much always with the rare exception would have been solved by now.   Even apologist Bobsk8 mentions this.  I've described in enough detail these things that again is kind of surprising given they seem to be working hard on LLM versus polishing some of these more basic functions.  I've also said I'm not very knowledgeable about RW norms for ATC, and also that I use BATC and overall like it.  I just don't use its traffic management which I find to be a lesser experience than not, not only performance-wise but otherwise as well.  For example, just now at KDEN after pushback w/ engines in PMDG 738 in 2024 running + SLC the native frame rate is 66-67.  When I launched BATC with only level 3 on all sliders the native rate went to 47.  For me that matters because since picking up 9900X3D I've been able to part with frame generation and aim to lock the rate at 50FPS-native, and like to keep at least 10% headroom above that.  So in this exact example the hit on frame rate is right at 30%.  The identical scenario w/ BATC doing ATC only, and FSLTL managing traffic, we're down to 58FPS-native, or around 14%.  If you're doubling frame rate with FG that won't matter, but here it most definitely does.  Plus, I see more air traffic w/ FSLTL than I do w/ BATC at Level 3 again because the impact is much less.

10 minutes ago, Noel said:

Nope, MSFS was not EA, it was certainly released early, but no it was not EA because a bare minimum of EA is STATING THAT prior to one's purchase.

That was my attempt at humor.  MSFS was and is wrought with bugs and issues.  It is hardly a finished product was my point.  A core component The Marketplace wasn't even available for months.  

I’ll add my six penneth to this question. Twenty years ago I was on the Radar Contact v4 team. We worked very hard to eliminate as many bugs as possible. When the product was released our hard work paid off as the product was very well received.

Yes, there were a few bugs but nothing significant. The thought of selling an unfinished product never crossed the mind of John Dekker or Doug Thompson.

My take on early release for a reduced price is simply to get customers to test your product. In return they save a few quid on the final price.

On balance is it worthwhile doing? I’d say no as it appears to tarnish the product.

Put the effort in and make it robust. We had around 6-8 beta testers. They helped make Radar Contact a great product still in use today.

1 hour ago, eslader said:

It's pretty foolish to enter into an agreement in which you know you will be underwhelmed and then complain about being underwhelmed.

As I said, I waited six months before purchasing.  I watched reviews and read posts on here.  The product appeared to be in a state that was good enough for my (early access level) expectations to be met.  However, it was below those expectations.  I have been buying early access software for years, so I have an opinion on the features and operability I expect.  BATC hasn't met that.

Early access quality is a wide spectrum from deplorable to almost good enough for release - for me BATC is towards the low end of that spectrum.  If others have a different opinion then great, enjoy BATC, but I don't need teaching what early access software is.

2 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

As I said, I waited six months before purchasing.  I watched reviews and read posts on here.  The product appeared to be in a state that was good enough for my (early access level) expectations to be met.  However, it was below those expectations.  I have been buying early access software for years, so I have an opinion on the features and operability I expect.  BATC hasn't met that.

Early access quality is a wide spectrum from deplorable to almost good enough for release - for me BATC is towards the low end of that spectrum.  If others have a different opinion then great, enjoy BATC, but I don't need teaching what early access software is.

So which ATC program do you consider a "finished " product today?

1 hour ago, knich said:

So..if there is ire to go around I suggest it be placed with MSFS not these developers who are trying to improve on a bad situation.  And btw I am very happy with MSFS24 despite its many issues yet to resolve.  I gladly paid for MSFS24 and would do it again. 

Here, here.

3 hours ago, Ident said:

Thats the beauty of the SID, is it removes a lot of instructions that you have to repeat back and still gives you alt restrictions on the climb. I would much more prefer a Sid clearance than step climbs.

They also do that for busy airports with Taxi routes.

https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/regulations/what-you-should-know-about-standard-taxi-routes/

 

Most of the time, especially at international airports, they just clear you for a departure procedure without giving you an initial altitude. There’s no “climb via” or “climb and maintain” they literally don’t give any initial altitude at all until you contact departure. That’s been an issue since the program released. The feedback I’ve gotten from their team is to “just look at the chart.” That’s all fine, but when there is no initial altitude on the plate, it can be frustrating that there’s such reluctance to acknowledge it’s an issue.

13 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’ll add my six penneth to this question. Twenty years ago I was on the Radar Contact v4 team. We worked very hard to eliminate as many bugs as possible. When the product was released our hard work paid off as the product was very well received.

Yes, there were a few bugs but nothing significant. The thought of selling an unfinished product never crossed the mind of John Dekker or Doug Thompson.

My take on early release for a reduced price is simply to get customers to test your product. In return they save a few quid on the final price.

On balance is it worthwhile doing? I’d say no as it appears to tarnish the product.

Put the effort in and make it robust. We had around 6-8 beta testers. They helped make Radar Contact a great product still in use today.

I waited patiently for FSHUD & BATC. However, I needed an ATC add-on badly!

So I tried FSHUD @ v2 and it was a good add-on. I did not try BATC until it had traffic. BATC is not perfect, but good enough to bring me some joy every time I use it.

I'm glad that they made add-ons available sooner than later. They did not force my hand to purchase. I made that decision on my own.

6 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

So which ATC program do you consider a "finished " product today?

Do you consider there is such a thing?  What do you define as finished?  Is it when the developer releases it, or when every user request has been implemented and all bugs fixed?

I personally think software is never finished, because at some point the bug fixing and user requested features have to be discontinued or scaled back.  It is finished by the developers timeline, not perfection.

 

The problem he has had is that he has relied on the comments of the people and that today is a mistake because people think more with the heart than with the head in our hobby.

After the skypark fiasco I think a lot before entering an EA in simulation.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

What I don't understand is why some continue to compare the $30 price of BATC to the $200 per year cost of SI.  I have read many screwups that SI makes too, so it isn't perfect either and certainly not worth  $200 a year. 

You mean $5,000 if I had been paying for it over the course of the 25 years that I have been simming? Or $7,000 to add in the next 10 years I plan to continue to flight sim from now? Or more like .54 cents a day...Cheaper than the price of a coffee, soft drink or a single cigarette. 

My point is not directed at you personally just the idea of all poster who state an annual price of the membership like thats the price you pay often. I dont say my starlink cost $2000 since I pay $165 per month. 

I've done two flights today with SI so in a way, it cost me .27 cents for great ATC coverage per flight. I get that in at least the USA, theres been a major influx in tipping request for all kinds of services and it seems like everything is going to a streaming or subscription based pay as you go, but SI uses a service for its AI that cost them money. Even BATC charges for premium voices yet no one ever talks about that cost.

So if any wants to state a comparison it should be more like, BATC cost $30.00 for IFR with no premium voices where SI IFR and no premium voices is completely free!