27 minutes ago, JYW said:

If they did though, I'd guess even a NASA computer would be brought down to it's knees.

Not necessary. PSXT perfectly emulates commercial traffic in NYC area without performance issues. The same is true for London, LAX and NoCal 

45 minutes ago, JYW said:

If they did though, I'd guess even a NASA computer would be brought down to it's knees.

The one that was on the Apollo spacecraft, for sure!

having used both, they're both excellent tools/addons and do what they're supposed to for the most part. if you fly XP as well as MSFS, then SI is the no-brainer choice since it works with XP (although it doesn't have injected traffic... yet.) once SI has traffic in XP12 i'll consider it a MUST HAVE tool for flying in XP.

both tools can be pretty buggy at times, but SI can be a bit moreso. that being said i consider it an acceptable tradeoff because SI is a lot more advanced in terms of features and the flexibility you have in communicating to ATC (or your copilot/cabin crew etc.)

the voices in both (using "premium" in BATC) are quite good, but i would definitely give the edge to SI. a lot of times it doesn't even sound like AI in SI, but BATC tends to have a strange cadence with stops and pauses that don't make sense and make the speech sound stilted and robotic.

Edited January 15Jan 15 by molleh

3 hours ago, JYW said:

If they did though, I'd guess even a NASA computer would be brought down to it's knees.

No, not any more. The new engine is able to handle large amounts of traffic with no major performance issues. It’s not like it used to be. 

I use Say Intentions every flight, and I like it for the most part.

But sometimes I feel like a paying Beta tester. There are so many things going right but also many things going wrong especially in the ATC part.

Then it is like send in a ticket but hello I am a paying customer. That is what I don’t like,  I mean if it was a free open source software ok but I am paying so please fix it. I don’t want to send in a ticket every flight. I could if you pay me for it but in this case I am the paying customer and it is also the most expensive software I have for my flight simulator. So you should fix it not me!

Edited January 16Jan 16 by rob0203

I regularly watch A330Driver on youtube (please don't hate me for it!) and he is sponsored by SI, which means he uses it all the time. It actually seems like SI is not getting anywhere in terms of *actual* ATC stuff, e.g. in the latest video (MD11 flight from EHAM to KORD) it ended up hallucinating the runways and approaches and he finally ended up just closing the app. I remember 2-3 years ago when I tested SI for a month, the same issues were happening. I'm pretty sure it's all related to letting a language model doing the core ATC stuff (which is mostly geometry and maths), that's not what LLMs are made for.

On the other hand the fact that BATC is entirely scripted (for the core ATC stuff at least) is what makes it so reliable. The reliability, the constant improvements over time, the great voices (using premium) in many different accents all over the world and finally the very good looking AI traffic is what makes me use BATC at every flight and be happy about it (I'm usually someone who will stop using tools if they detract more to the immersion than they add).

Keep in mind I'm part of the BATC community team by now, so I'm biased, but I'm writing this as a simmer and as a paying customer of both tools (SI in the past and BATC now).
 

Interesting. I have never closed the app. If I feel that SI is kind of thinking too long, I'm asking for Direct-TO. Or just say "ready for vectors" and it will respond. I know that it's semi-realistic, but we are not in the RL either - it's just a sim. 

I use both - BATC for medium/small airports in Europe, SI - for USA and large EU hubs, as BATC cannot (yet) reproduce the amount of traffic present in large hubs and I totally understand why.

I'm kind of puzzled.

For 25 years of flight simming, we were begging for reliable ATC program. Now we have at least 3 reliable products and people are still complaining. Amazing. 

SI user here,  I am not an Airliner flyer, So being i only fly GA, I don't see the issues alot of users have. I may get the occasional repeated reply or mis-step on active runway, but for the most part its been relatively close to real life flying for me. Its not perfect but, NONE of them are. ALL the ATC apps are constantly getting improvements etc....  There are pro's and con's to ALL of them. Pick your poison. Just like FS2024, they are ALL UNFINISHED products that are constantly being improved. Enjoy the ride, Thats what you signed up for.

Just my .02

Beautiful day here in So. Cal.  Take advantage of it!

Just now, G-YMML1 said:

I'm kind of puzzled.

For 25 years of flight simming, we were begging for reliable ATC program. Now we have at least 3 reliable products and people are still complaining. Amazing. 

Complaining? You  mean in this thread? I don't see that, in fact it's quite a good thread reading all the experiences. Hard to keep track of all the latest updates, so it's nice to read from other people how the programs have progressed. 

Used: SI (won't deal with that company anymore, the months with SI were, all in all, extremely...unpleasant. And: I now avoid anything with 'AI' slapped on it like the plague...)

I have and am not using it for various reasons (anymore): PF3, BATC, FSHUD. 

I am using (if, at all): Stock ATC.

My bottom line: The perfect ATC still needs to be programmed.

Frankly, I believe that only a large company (cough cough) would be able to eventually solve this enormously complex task satisfactorily.  We'll see and use what's available.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by MaGer1965

22 hours ago, G-YMML1 said:

but BATC has always claimed that their traffic representational, i.e. they are not trying to emulate the RL world of AI. In other words, KORD and ESSA might have the same amount of active traffic movements in BATC universe.

D a m n thats really disappointing 

Edited January 16Jan 16 by simsuper80

8 hours ago, rob0203 said:

I use Say Intentions every flight, and I like it for the most part.

But sometimes I feel like a paying Beta tester. There are so many things going right but also many things going wrong especially in the ATC part.

Then it is like send in a ticket but hello I am a paying customer. That is what I don’t like,  I mean if it was a free open source software ok but I am paying so please fix it. I don’t want to send in a ticket every flight. I could if you pay me for it but in this case I am the paying customer and it is also the most expensive software I have for my flight simulator. So you should fix it not me!

The way SI choose to develop the software, you are essentially a permanent beta tester, in my opinion.  There's no option to 'opt out' of the 5 - 25 live changes made per day (that they like to boast about).  You've hit the nail on the head and this is why I reached the point of frustration with SI. Around 4 months ago, it was the best ATC software I'd ever used in any sim.  Then they just got ridiculously carried away with constantly fiddling with it and adding bloated, non-ATC features. Soon, I was having major issues with it on every flight, then you think (as you said).. I am paying for this and you're making it measurably worse every day!   

The change they made last week, where all settings apart from 3 moved to the (web-site) portal was the nail in the coffin for me.  Want to change your call sign? .. bring up the UI, click the portal button, wait for your web browser to pop up, log in, find the right page, then make the change.  Now multiply the need to do that by 4 or 5 in a flight, and it's just not fit for purpose.   

I'd load up a flight and be ready to begin the pre-flight, then realise that, although I'm still on my 777 'profile', I'm now flying a cargo DHL aircraft... so into the web portal to change my call sign.  Back to the flight.... the cabin crew starts talking (even though it's a cargo flight).... back to the portal and another 2-3 minutes to turn off the cabin crew.    Repeat x another twice.   Just unusable IMHO.

From Day 1 to the present day (well, the start of the week, when I was banned!), I honestly think they are slowly killing what could have been an outstanding product - due to "it's never finished" syndrome.   Instead of fixing genuine bugs and maintaining some sort of stability, they just can't stop the 'blue sky thinking' and scope creep, and they are feeding too much garbage into the AI every day.  The daily changes they make interact with the present code and et voila, you have a new bug or a new irrational behaviour by ATC.   And they are utterly deaf to their user base.  "File bug reports" - for everything.   Go onto their Discord and you'll be laughed at or trolled by their admins.  I've experienced all of this.   They feel that AVSIM is toxic.  The truth is, there is nothing more toxic in this hobby right now than the Say Intentions team.  

PS... I discovered who has been forwarding every post I've made about SI, that are non-abusive but critical, to Brian.   It's a user here called @AverageJoe  He has only 10 posts - all of them promoting or discussing SI features.  In one post, he declares himself "SayIntentions Admin", yet his AVSIM profile is not disclosed as a "Commercial member".

And they think AVSIM is toxic?

Edited January 16Jan 16 by JYW

1 hour ago, G-YMML1 said:

I'm kind of puzzled.

For 25 years of flight simming, we were begging for reliable ATC program. Now we have at least 3 reliable products and people are still complaining. Amazing. 

Because there are some aspects of atc that are still not as good as they were even in FS9. There were free tools out there and things you could do to help with runway usage, and separation on landing. Not perfect obviously, but still all for free.

 

Default ATC is somehow way worse. And even with the 3rd party add-ons, ai traffic movements on the ground are a lot worse than in FS9. Beyondatc's traffic doesn't have any inertia. The aircraft stop instantly and taxi into the gate at 20 knots. And they take sharp turns extremely quickly.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by simsuper80

1 hour ago, G-YMML1 said:

I'm kind of puzzled.

For 25 years of flight simming, we were begging for reliable ATC program. Now we have at least 3 reliable products and people are still complaining. Amazing. 

 

1 hour ago, JonathanC said:

Complaining? You  mean in this thread? I don't see that, in fact it's quite a good thread reading all the experiences. Hard to keep track of all the latest updates, so it's nice to read from other people how the programs have progressed. 

To some people, daring to discuss areas for improvement, is "complaining".

And so what if people are complaining?     AVSIM is provided for us to discuss our hobby. You think that should just be the nice stuff?   You think we shouldn't point out areas that need work? 

Can you imagine a forum that consisted only of "PMDG is amazing", "Yeah, PMDG is amazing", "Fenix is brilliant too", "Yeah, it is".   "I'm so glad we have 3 x ATC programmes now", "Yeah, I'm thankful for that too".....  

No wonder you're puzzled.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by JYW