It’s a pretty complex topic I think because there’s so many little details.
For me I still use SayIntentions at present due to some features I care about that BATC doesn’t have yet:
- full VFR implementaiton
- GA/VFR traffic injection, e.g. NPC planes doing circuit practice
- ATC gives altimeter information on center handoffs when flying below transition level, and generally tells you which airport the information came from (I recall it not always telling me which airport the info comes from, not sure of the rules on that.)
- completely customizable full and abbreviated callsign pronunciation
- tail registation callsign abbreviation for IFR, not just VFR
- weather diversions (You can fake this with BATC by creating a new flight plan mid-flight and starting a new flight in BATC)
- full COM2 support (in BATC COM2 can only be used for ATIS/AWOS/ASOS, not ATC commnications – rarely needed but comes up in planes with failure features where COM1 can fail. You can fake it in BATC by resetting the plane failure and pretending COM2 failed instead.)
- support for arbitrary radio stations in range, e.g. I can listen to ATIS/AWOS/ASOS from any airport close enough to pick up, not just my departure or destination
- single-radio communications support (e.g. you can tell ATC you need to temporarily leave the frequency to get ATIS) You can sort of fake this with BATC by simply leaving the frequency and coming back and re-announcing on frequency. (I may be mistaken in saying BATC still can’t do this – did the LLM feature they added enable conversing with ATC about this? I should test it…)
Some low-importance fluff features but ones I still appreciate:
- After landing IFR at an untowered airport, can switch frequencies back to approach and tell them to close my flight plan, and ATC actually tells you can do this before approving your change to CTAF. (I think in real life you’re more likely to call on the phone for this? I have a vague recollection the SI ATC says something like “call or report on this frequency”)
- Can request taxi to arbitrary locations like an FBO or a fuel box (though this seems to be LLM chatbot roleplaying so your taxi instructions may be questionable lol)
- Can request a fuel truck. In real life you’d probably text the FBO for this, but you can actualy kind of simulate that if you want to using SI’s Pocket Sky app on a phone. Just set the app to “ramp frequency” and then type in the communications box.
Something that isn’t specifically an advantage over BATC for me but some might appreciate:
- SI has a user-adjustable setting for “enforce strict readback” which corrects incorrect readbacks like clearances or frequency change instructions. You can choose either on (BATC-style) or off (FSHud-style). I always have it “on” which is the same as BATC’s behavior, so in that sense BATC is just as good for me. But for anyone who prefers the FShud-style of not forcing you to repeat yourself if the voice recogngtion doesn’t understand your readback, they may appreciate the option to adjust this. (SI default is actually “off,” so FShud-style.)