1 hour ago, Watsi said:

In another words, BATC is standing still for years now (at least in this regard).

I've had a few complaints about BATC—it feels like a bit of a blind answering machine. But if I remember correctly, you were the one who jumped on me for saying it wasn't great. Karma's a funny thing, huh? 😁

3 hours ago, Watsi said:

You fly 320s, don't you. Try a vectored descent / approach (no STAR) with a PMDG 737. Or another 'more slippery' plane. You'll see what people complain about...

I was so glad when 1.8.14 came out. The descent instructions came earlier. The controller was more flexible, had more of a 'situational awareness'. And for the first time ATC monitored your descent not only at the next waypoint but through the whole route/process of descent and gave you the next, lower alt at any point. And you didn't have the constant feeling of, how should I get my plane lose alt and speed in time. You didn't have to use full spoilers for nearly the whole descent. Even descents direct to a rwy heading (when you already came in around the same hdg the landing runway is) worked kind of.
And then came 1.8.18. And all is back to bad. ATC asking you, if you're ready for descent, you say yes, and then... nothing, no descent instructions. Initial descent is way too late. Most if the descent phase is 4000, 6000 feet or even more above. RIght now, I get speed instructions to slow down to 250 right after initial descent on every descent (a new one, so it is actually getting worse). And no time and space to get settled with your aircraft before final approach. If you actually would follow BATCs instructions you would have to fly one or two racetracks before final to get your plane to the correct alt and speed.

If there's some development in that matter and it get's reverted back to the old... (yes I know, 'word not alowed' 🙂), you get frustrated. Why not keep the good move and work forward from that on... (and don't tell me some developer babbel-buzzwords. I'm in that business myself for living)

You said earlier, sometimes it is two steps forward, and one step back. Well, I understand that. That's how developing works sometimes. But regarding the non-STAR-approaches (vectoring), it is actually one step forward and one step back.

In another words, BATC is standing still for years now (at least in this regard).

I actually fly more Boeing than Airbus, mostly the PMDG 737 and 777 in fact :)

And I absolutely have perfect descents 100% of the time, except for arrivals without a STAR (which I rarely fly), as you said yourself, they can sometimes still get buggy. Devs are aware, believe me. I hope all the constant work will eventually get vectors locked in for good. It‘s about time now, especially with dynamic shortcuts inbound soon.

Edited Saturday at 11:17 AM4 days by Fiorentoni

2 hours ago, Claudius_ said:

I've had a few complaints about BATC—it feels like a bit of a blind answering machine. But if I remember correctly, you were the one who jumped on me for saying it wasn't great. Karma's a funny thing, huh? 😁

I actually can't remember. Can you show me that? For sure I didn't "jump on you".

38 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

I actually fly more Boeing than Airbus, mostly the PMDG 737 and 777 in fact :)

And I absolutely have perfect descents 100% of the time, except for arrivals without a STAR (which I rarely fly), as you said yourself, they can sometimes still get buggy. ...

Even when flying in ICAO land most of the time, I like to leave the STAR 'open' and get vectored into the approach from time to time (about half of my flights). So these bugs appear very clearly to me.
Using STARs, yes I agree (I said that all the time), this works much better. At least most of the times. Still, also with STARs, I would say the initial descent instruction is too late for the 737 (with the latest BATC EA version again).

SayIntentions does vectoring better than BATC now. I rarely got vectored too high (though it does still happen), and the program can even tell if you might be too high and extend your approach. You can also ask it to extend your approach.

Edited Saturday at 03:35 PM4 days by Tuskin38

19 hours ago, Watsi said:

Even when flying in ICAO land most of the time, I like to leave the STAR 'open' and get vectored into the approach from time to time (about half of my flights). So these bugs appear very clearly to me.
Using STARs, yes I agree (I said that all the time), this works much better. At least most of the times. Still, also with STARs, I would say the initial descent instruction is too late for the 737 (with the latest BATC EA version again).

What's your typical cost index on the 737? A 3 degree descent path (assuming average weight and no winds) should be around a CI of 20-25. If you have a lower CI (most airlines, especially low cost, have a much lower cost index), your descent path will be significantly shallower, meaning your calculated TOD is earlier. ATC is using a default 3 degree glide path for its calculations instead.
If you don't call in yourself for descent in these cases at your TOD, you will be chasing the path for the rest of the flight.

2 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

What's your typical cost index on the 737? A 3 degree descent path (assuming average weight and no winds) should be around a CI of 20-25. ...

You're right. That could have an effect. I fly with a CI between 24 and 36. Depends on the airline I fly ...and also on my mood. 🙂

The low cost world isn't mine...
Yesterday I had a pretty good descent (with STAR), also a quite in time initial instruction (LICR). I don't mind if BATC isn't 'by the book' all the time. In the real world, controllers tend to not care about your spoilers 😉 and respect their airspace-traffic first. That's ok. But with BATC it is kind of intentional / programmed and all the way.
Today I had a flight into EDDM (without STAR). I tried again, for testing reasons, to do exactly what ATC tells me. Was too high all the way down. I even 'spoilered' all the last third of my descent to get ready for approach. But then, BATC actually kept me on 6000 until after the turn to final on 26R (which was very short to GUDEG). Had to intercept the 26R ILS too high and deep dive under the slope.

EDIT: and yes I do call for descent where it fits me. But all I get from BATC is a runway and no descent instructions. That happens also often, even when BATC already told me to call, when ready for descent. When I then call ready, I only get the runway but no descent. That was also 'fixed' with 1.8.14 and came back with 1.8.18 (and later).

Edited Sunday at 11:14 AM3 days by Watsi

With SI i get vectors even with a STAR. Mostly shortcuts, depending on the traffic. In the last 2 months i can't recall a single flight where i was vectored in to high.

Yeah I just had a BATC flight where I started getting vectors 145 miles from the airport. And they were ping-pong vectors; turn left heading 045… turn right heading 070… turn left heading 050… every 30 seconds. You should see the zig zag on Volanta before I ignored them and went back to following the flight plan 🤣

On 8/29/2026 at 9:33 AM, Tuskin38 said:

SayIntentions does vectoring better than BATC now. I rarely got vectored too high (though it does still happen), and the program can even tell if you might be too high and extend your approach. You can also ask it to extend your approach.

That just seems so apropos, to request to extend approach etc, and it is surprising BATC has not got there yet. That said I do notice some things are improving in BATC. AI traffic animation is a bit better than it was last time I used BATC's injection, I'm having more smooth animations now than jerky, and just avoid staring when it's jerky. It's adjusting approach speed which is probably a good thing. It will permit me to Direct to Fix more often than in past tries. And the dynamic auto-respond controller voices are decent enough so I will buy less Premium voices. And for vectoring, it does seem to be improving overall.

I find BTAC's traffic injection eats more of my FPS than SayIntentions' despite not rendering as much traffic as they do.

14 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

I find BTAC's traffic injection eats more of my FPS than SayIntentions' despite not rendering as much traffic as they do.

I Find SayIntentions eats into my wallet far more than BATC :-)

18 minutes ago, c912039 said:

I Find SayIntentions eats into my wallet far more than BATC :-)

Oh yeah, that's why I stopped using it.