Multiplayer and ATC

Discussion Hub General Discussion
1

Apologies if I’ve missed the answer to this somewhere else, but I’m hoping someone hear might have more information, or it’s something the Devs have mentioned at some point.

When I’ve been playing with multiplayer and live traffic on, I’ve still been using the default ATC (despite its limitations at the moment). The ATC will direct live (i.e. AI) traffic, but there seems to be no interaction with other (human) players.

Am I just the only one using ATC? Or are other (human) players also interacting with ATC, but I just can’t see/hear that? It would be great if we could all see/hear ATC’s communications with other (human) players, particularly when, say, queuing up to take off. (At the moment, ATC will give me permission to take off despite a queue of other (human) players in front of me, while holding me if (AI) traffic is coming in to land.

Does anyone know if there are plans to make this work? (Or does it already, but I’m just not seeing it - or have I missed a setting somewhere?)

2

I would guess it causes too many “acknowledge, did you hear me”, “you weren’t cleared”, etc.

I have multiplayer off but I’ve wondered if airport traffic frequencies work at non towered. The real time AI traffic make reports.

3

@daedalus5968
Unfortunately, the current ATC does not share comm with live players. Obviously hoping they make ATC comms going to/coming from live players available at some point in the future.
You might check the wish list, and upvote anything you find there related to this issue.
Regards

4

Or you could try live ATC with real, human controllers using a third party comms system like Teamspeak. Try it. You might like it and if you want a good group to fly a real atc session with, then just give me a shout.

5

Not just allow comms. How about sharing aircraft like in FSX. How about being able to pick another airport after landing without needing to start over.

6

I did wonder about this - though I’m sure it must be workable. Reports at non-towered airports would be hugely helpful! At the moment it’s a bit of a free for all…

7

When in sim, each player is essentially in their own instance of the sim world. Your ATC has no awareness of other human-controlled planes you see in your instance. It only tracks you and the AI or real time online traffic you have running. Multiplayer traffic is just there for show.

8

Wondered if this was the case. I suppose that mean’s it would be quite a task to see/hear other players’ interaction with ATC. Would be great if they could achieve that though!

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9

In theory, it would be great if you could hear other players’ ATC calls. But it would likely end up becoming very problematic very quickly as you’d struggle to be able to get responses in to ATC due to 50 other human players always replying.

And of course, some folks would make it their game to make sure they spammed ATC as much as they could in order to mess up someone else’s experience.

2 Likes
10

No, it would absolutely not be great :smiley:
If you want that kind of experience, you’re better of connecting to Vatsim.

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11

I’m curious - what makes you think that? Where do you see the disadvantages?

12

I can see it might be a challenge in crowded airspace, though I’m doing a lot of flying in areas where there seems to be literally no-one else around.

Perhaps one option might be to enable that function for people playing in real-time/real-weather rather than for all players?

13

Strongly suggest you connect to VATSIM, been using the network for 12 years and it’s fantastic.

Just released for VATSIM…

14

People who will:

  • ignore ATC and get repeated calls
  • take-off at the wrong runway
  • not ask for taxi clearance
  • block or annoy ATC traffic
  • ask for landing clearance and don’t land
    And that’s just with giving it 1 minute of thought.

Using actual live services like VATSIM makes it controlled and punishable to fool around and hinder other people.

1 Like
15

I have to agree with @Pieter1982NL. Doesn’t take much in terms of mental gymnastics to find a dozen reasons why this would be a terrible idea.

16

You do kind of have all those joys with multiplayer at the moment, though, don’t you? Only you’ve no idea whether other players have asked ATC for anything or are just merrily carrying on.

I’m not really interested in making things ‘punishable’ as you put it, but I would love to have some idea - through hearing ATC - what the people around me are planning to do.

I don’t feel too strongly about this - but I don’t think it’s something that should be completely dismissed out of hand.

17

Would it be less terrible if it was on an opt-in/opt-out basis? (I.e. you’re not forced to listen to everyone else’s ATC if you don’t want to?)

18

That’s already the case on vatsim. Seriously, try it.

19

One of the reasons I love VATSIM is just how dynamic it is. One time I was flying east of the French Valley airport and someone said on 122.8 “French Valley traffic Mooney… just over the Railroad Canyon Reservoir 3,000 inbound 18 French Valley” and then I hopped on the frequency and said “French Valley traffic Cessna… is two east of the French Valley airport 4,500 VFR northwest bound”. We both said we would look for each other and we did. You will not get this sort of stuff in MP or with ATC shipped in MSFS. If you wish for good ATC and MP then VATSIM is the way to go.

20

it is not really a multiplayer, we can just see other players on screen, there is not any interaction, we don’t play “together”. no atc, no way to share anything.