I’m confused - I thought ATC was a critical part of flight and flight simulation? Are people just not interested in having this working?
For me, I find this completely immersion-breaking. Am I off base here?
Not trying to be smart - I’m just a bit perplexed on the seemingly non-prioritization, of what, after testing again for the umpteenth time yesterday (after a LONG break), is still a pretty broken and anemic ATC system and AI.
ATC:
Flys you into mountains
Tells you to take off and land on runways clogged with planes
Gives you completely illogical approach altitudes
Asks you to climb and descend at rates that exceed the capabilities of your plane
Makes non-sensical vectoring requests up-and-down-and-up-and-down
Taxi’s you to the wrong runways for the weather
Randomly disconnects and becomes unusable
Can’t handle emergencies, on any other needed deviation really (e.g. weather)
Doesn’t follow or comply with countless internationally recognized ATC rules
Creates dangerous situations like bringing you in for approach and landing behind massive heavy aircraft with no separation
I’m sure I’m glossing over issues…but when I totalled the number of votes for ATC and AI related bugs, it totalled in the many many thousands…
But how do you monetize the development time needed to fix those issues. The state of ATC does not result in people not using the title or spending less in the marketplace so how does it make money for the MSFS program.
Really wish so much they would address it, the key advantage over in-game ATC over things like VATSIM or third-party ATC offerings is that in-game ATC is the only one that also controls AI traffic and I find that crucial for immersion. I would never want to give that up so I will keep using in-game ATC. But it is quite a mess at the moment.
I wouldn’t expect much to be done to ATC till Working Title starts overhauling it. If you’re willing third-parties such as VATSIM, IVAO, POSCON, PilotEdge and Pilot2ATC do exist. Personally I’ve been using VATSIM for over 10 years and use it all the time in MSFS, XP and P3D.
What I’ve done is remove live traffic from the equation and in doing so I’ve found it to be ok. I’ve come to the conclusion that true to life players are a presence but we’re spread thin in this massive world.
This is one area that baffles me, ATC, navigation, flight systems are the most important part of a sim, yet Microsobo seem more interested in making the game look nice, making clouds look better for example.
This may not be the case, but that’s what it feels like, because some major bugs keep getting overlooked every SU update.
If you use ingame atc or not … whats the most anoying point about the ingame atc is, that such a high-roller game using a atc system which is working worse as the FSX ATC does … a working ATC, when talking about a simulation and realisim, is a must.
At the moment, ATC is so broken that I don’t use it any more…
It is not even capable of following your filed flight plan, not giving you the FL you filed, telling you to climb when you start descent at planned point, and so on…
Lately, it asked me to climb to FL200 while on STAR to Barcelona at 9 NM of the airport though I was at the charts indicated altitude (using Navigraph for charts)…
ATC in MSFS is an immersion breaker and furthermore when you play in VR, you can not answer its nonsense
Too bad we have to rely on 3d parties ATC networks (though they are great, flying with VATSIM since FS2004…)
I am on XBox and try to use the ATC as much as it will let me. However at times I can’t ask for landing clearance. The only option is flight following. Earlier I tried to request takeoff clearance. It told me to hold short at runway 09. I waited for 2 minutes and finally decided to cross the hold short bars and take off. The ATC told me I didn’t have clearance. There was nothing on the runway and no planes in the air nearby. I wish I could use VATSIM, NeoFly, and SkyPark on XBox. Maybe with WASM.
It’s true that the ATC isn’t true to life, but within the context of the way it is in the sim, and not the way many would like it to be, I find it works very well. I use live traffic exclusively and don’t have any problems. No getting directed into mountains, no getting sent down to 2000ft when the next waypoint is 7000 (now that I’ve realised what I was doing wrong)…nothing.
In fact the only thing I’d like to be done is to have regional accents. At least let’s have a generic (say) European accent in Europe, etc.
But overall, it’s good enough. If you want perfection, go Vatsim or similar.
Saying ATC is broken would suggest it was working fine at one point. Which isn’t the case. I think ATC is the number 1 thing that needs upgrading. Make it work at least as good as FSX/P3D and MSFS would be a really good flight simulator. Until that happens, we only have a good VFR simulator.
Prior to SU8 I would often get loss of ATC in which I could not see or hear ATC instrucitons, but only my own. During my first fliught after installing SU9, I had the exact opposite issue. I could see and hear ATC responses, but not my own.
No he represents the vast majority of xbox players that purchased this sim and want a detailed and working sim, I’m sure there are some that just wanted to give it a go to look at their house and admire the nice graphical scenery via gamepass or xcloud, but there is an awful lot including me that want the core functions working correctly.
though I was at the charts indicated altitude (using Navigraph for charts)…