56 minutes ago, Egbert Drenth said:

Tiny update... Made a 2nd flight and I have given up.

LFPO to EDDL, 2 large airports.
- Initially cleared to 4000ft, which is pretty low. SID indicates initial climb to FL80
- Stuck for a while at 4000ft
- Then instructed to "climb via the SID". I never heard this kind of phraseology
- When I was at FL80 (according to the SID), again I had to ask for higher myself.
  Then I was cleared to altitude 'Foxtrot Lima 200'.... That was the moment I gave up.

I appreciate that this is an application in early access, no problem.
Apparently it needs a lot of work, which is fine. I'll try again (much) later.
(BTW: I'm not asking for help/support here, just ventilating my experiences)

Thank you - was a good help !!! Not going to spend my money in it 😕

2 hours ago, Farlis said:

The biggest flaw is the unfocused development. The guy adds all kinds of features before making sure that the core program, the ATC is rock solid. 

No one needs an entourage before ATC is not at least 90% reliable, and following correct procedures.

Disclaimer: See my signature, I'm not neutral in this. I do post here as a private person though and without any consent nor approval by anyone.

That's because they cannot ever make their ATC "rock solid". An LLM is not able to do these kind of operations reliably, it's a language model. It can do all crazy stuff with languages (coding entire websites and apps, writing books, creating text for cabin crew addons), but it's unable to do proper mathematics and even more so in 3d space. It can not even do states (like current state: "aircraft is in cruise and not yet reached TOD") reliably, which is why it will sometimes simply forget you.
They've reached their limit pretty early in development (mid last year) and consequently turned onto monetizing other things a LLM actually *can* do (cabin crew, grumpy tour guides, ground crew etc. basically anything that's more communication than mathematics), which is why you still see and experience the same ATC errors and failures from a year ago, at least judging by my subscription from mid last year and the current videos of SI in action.

To improve upon their ATC they'd have to resort to classical coding and scripting (like BATC), which they apparently have no interest in so far.

15 hours ago, Juan LLobera said:

Once BATC launches its VFR

Is this ever going to happen?

It's the only reason I didn't bought it yet.

14 minutes ago, Rimshot said:

Is this ever going to happen?

Yes, from their Discord: "The next major feature to come, VFR. We are starting to frame up behind the scenes how we plan to undertake VFR, it is highly likely we will deliver it in chunks with more depth being added over time. More on this when we have something more concrete to share."

I use BATC on every flight . The only thing I do not like is when my flight plan either has a direct route to the arrival runway, or a Star with a direct route to the arrival runway, and they start giving me "visual" vectors. After a few months of this, I just ignore the arrival vectoring instructions, follow the direct route to the runway, and 99% of the time, it works out great, with a landing clearance. 

Edited June 1, 20251 yr by Bobsk8

5 hours ago, Farlis said:

The biggest flaw is the unfocused development. The guy adds all kinds of features before making sure that the core program, the ATC is rock solid. 

Yup.  I see there are still the same issues now that I reported to them over a year ago when I tried it for a couple months.  They claim to fix stuff but same stuff is always broken.  All the "AI fluff" was added to make up for the fact they will never be able to get the structural ATC to work all that well (IMO).....

Edited June 1, 20251 yr by Flic1

I own both BATC and FSHud, but I'm flying with SI+PSXT only now. My sim world has literally changed. Flying airliners IFR, large taxi-tuned airports. No issues.

For departure, if SID has a fixed altitude then yes - ATC might hold you until next WP. However, you can always ask DIRECT-TO WP and altitude constraint would be removed. You can also request departure vectors during initial clearance.

And they have fully functional CPDLC for Fenix and PMDG 777

 

 

 SI is constantly developing. I don't know how it would end, but so far I like it and prefer over BATC and FSHub.

For traffic injection they all are pretty bad now and SI hasn't even released their traffic injector to public.

11 hours ago, Egbert Drenth said:

Thanks for all the replies.
I guess the conclusion is that it is a mixed bag. 
I am not a big fan of Discord, but I might post my experience there

Be a fan or not a fan, it doesn't really matter, just know that support for this product is via Discord, as are many other products. Post here all you want, but you're not going to influence the development or get your bug heard by anyone who matters, unless you post in Discord.

Equivalent of going to the post office to complain about the coffee shop.

1 minute ago, mspencer said:

Post here all you want, but you're not going to influence the development or get your bug heard by anyone who matters.
Equivalent of going to the post office to complain about the coffee shop.

As stated in a later post, I'm not looking for support of trying to complain.
Just sharing my experiences and asking others if they encounter the same.
So I'm not going to the post office neither to the coffee shop...

23 hours ago, b1bmsgt said:

Ahh, if only we could use Radar Contact in MSFS...

And now you know why I still use P3Dv5. Given 95% of my flights are IFR it remains the sim of my choice for obvious reasons.

Perhaps all of you could have a whip-round for the SI author and buy him P3Dv5/6 where he can use RC4 gratis to learn how IFR flights should be controlled.

Just a reminder to those under 35 RC4 was the standard in ATC twenty years ago. Real world AT Controllers from the US and England ensured correct procedures for FAA and ICAO were followed.

By the sounds of things it remains the one others should aspire to.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

By the sounds of things it remains the one others should aspire to.

I keep the manual for reference, almost 300 pages.

One thing RC did that BATC doesn't do is complain when you bust a speed or altitude, or were too slow to react to instructions. Then there was being given a phone number to call after you landed 😞

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Perhaps all of you could have a whip-round for the SI author and buy him P3Dv5/6 where he can use RC4 gratis to learn how IFR flights should be controlled.

 We all know it's easier to market and hype a product by just putting 'AI' in the title and in all the marketing content while not having to worry about all those niggling details...such as how ATC and IFR flight actually work!🤣

Edited June 1, 20251 yr by Flic1

1 hour ago, Flic1 said:

 We all know it's easier to market and hype a product by just putting 'AI' in the title and in all the marketing content while not having to worry about all those niggling details...such as how ATC and IFR flight actually work!🤣

I’m not sure I get your point. AI is useless. What works is trigonometry. We had a mathematical expert on the RC4 team.