agree, it’s eye candy but not quite for the serious simmer. Simming is a small market, gaming is a huge market. This explains…
It’s not eye candy when one is shooting an instrument approach in IMC as there is not much to look at on the way down. Again, I really don’t get these “not for the serious simmer” posts. No sim I have used in the past 20 years has had stellar ATC shipped with it. To criticize that MSFS has bad ATC is one thing, to completely frame it as a game because of this and not other sims doesn’t make sense.
Same in Europe. Still, for vectoring, speed restrictions etc. a basic understanding of aircraft performance requirements and limitations is important. Not saying controllers know every aircraft minimum clean speed and rate of climb. But no controller will clear a C172 to climb FL300 or a A380 to slow to 100 kts. Every controller knows an A320 will outperform an ATR.
This has not much to do with a controllers knowledge of aircraft performance or limitations. A controller obviously doesn’t know the exact effects of wake turbulence from aircraft X on aircraft Y. There is a program called RECAT (wake turbulence recategorization) which looks at the actual effects of wake turbulence of different aircraft and sort planes into category A to F. So not only based on weight.
ADS-B-out basically is a modified mode S ATC transponder and fully compatible with SSR. The only difference is the encoded GPS position info which may or may not be used by ATC. More complex ADS-B-out systems encode more info of course, for example the selected altitude. Looking at the FAA website, I think your info is a bit outdated.
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In my experience, when ATC tells you to climb to those unrealistic altitudes, it will deny you any lower altitudes until you comply with that original request. And since you obviously can’t comply when told to climb to FL200+ in a C172, ATC is basically broken for the rest of your flight.
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Because the ATC is atrocious? This is nothing new nor an inherent problem with MSFS. If you want better ATC at this very moment it’s out there. I remember prior to 2009 when I used stock ATC in flight sims, I was using it since 1997. I was so tired of lackluster and bad ATC that I decided to hop on FSX MP in search for better ATC and it wasn’t that much better.
One night when I was flying around Asheville Regional in FSX MP someone mentioned VATSIM. I made an account and did a few touch-and-go landings in the Flight Replicas J-3 Cub at a controlled airport and loved it.
If you honestly feel that the bad ATC is the qualifier of MSFS not being a true sim then you may not be as much of a simmer as you think you are. Working Title will overhaul ATC at some point and they do an awesome job (I love their G1000 NXi) but to think that MSFS is somehow going to go from game to real sim when this happens is like I mentioned odd. You want to know what will make a majority of simmers that take this hobby seriously happy first and foremost? Addons of high fidelity from renowned developers.
EDIT: I am just struggling as to why you feel that MSFS is just a game and not a simulator. You made this comment in reply to another user that said “…default ATC is useless.”. If you were to ask me personally I find the stock ATC in XP to be useless (it won’t think twice of plowing you into a mountain on approach) but somehow nobody is calling that just a game and not a sim. I really dislike this “just a game and not a sim” debate if I had to be quite honest. As I mentioned there is nothing I can’t do in MSFS that I can in P3D and XP. What I am waiting for to ditch those two sims are more addons I desire. Not for MSFS to become more of a “sim” because to me MSFS is just as much of a sim as P3D and XP although it does need more work to become a better sim. MSFS already exceeds XP in some areas in simulation.
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The ATC in previous versions of MSFS have always been limited and not completely true to life, but they weren’t broken in the way the current ATC is. The ATC in previous versions worked within their intended design specifications and was good enough to complete flights. That is not the case with the current ATC. ATC is a core flight simulator feature that should have been fixed right away. They keep saying that fixing these important core features is low priority because there’s ALWAYS some “big feature” they are working on that needs to take priority. What have those “big features” been? An xbox port and a racing DLC, meanwhile the core sim is still broken in so many ways. If you only factor in the flight simulator features that are fully working, MSFS is behind FSX.
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I really don’t see how this means that MSFS isn’t a sim though. You don’t need ATC to have yourself a sim. Ages ago I used to use a flight sim setup by ELITE and I didn’t use any ATC at all. I was still simulating. Again I hope that Working Title will make those that don’t wish to use third-party ATC happy but MSFS not being a sim because it lacks a good ATC? I don’t get it honestly.
I really don’t understand your point. There has been a working ATC in the flight simulator franchise for decades now. So your argument is that they shouldn’t fix ATC-breaking bugs because a space game from the 80s didn’t have ATC? That’s some very weird logic to me…
It lacks a WORKING ATC because of bugs that weren’t in the previous titles and can be fixed if they prioritize it, but Asobo considers it to be low priority, along with most of the other core flight simulator features that are broken. It’s just amazing to me that anyone would argue in favor of NOT fixing bugs that completely breaks core features.
The grounds on which MSFS stands when it comes to being a “game or sim” (which is often used in a derogatory manner) don’t make sense to me. I’m not arguing if past sims had better or worse ATC, that has not been the point of my posts.
To make things clear the point of my posts is the deciding factor of weather or not MSFS is a “game or sim” somehow is down to the quality of it’s ATC for some peeps and this I just don’t understand, you can have a top notch sim with zero ATC. I also once used a Gulfstream II sim at FlightSafety International, guess how much ATC there was in that? I have gave numerous examples of why ATC isn’t in my opinion as important as one might think when it comes to simulation as absurd as that sounds.
If that doesn’t clear things up let me give you another example. I love the VATSIM network, it’s something I have been using for a very, very long time and helped many get into it. If I couldn’t use VATSIM for like a week but used MSFS with no ATC I wouldn’t think of MSFS as not being a sim.
I’m not arguing that past sims had better or worse ATC either, I’m arguing that they had WORKING ATC within the intended limitations - the point you keep missing. The ATC has always been limited, it hasn’t always been completely broken because of bugs that can be fixed if they were prioritized. Again, what has taken priority over these core flight simulator features? A racing DLC and an xbox port. What conclusions should one draw from that when basic features like flight saving and loading and ATC are completely broken, and have been for going on 2 years now?
Cool, then make a thread requesting that they completely remove the ATC instead of fixing the bugs because a space game from the 80s and a Gulfstream II sim doesn’t have it. Just realize that most people will disagree with you and would prefer that they just fix the bugs, especially people who fly ILS and don’t just look at the scenery in easy mode.
I’m not missing out on that point, lol. You’re bringing in something unrelated to what I am talking about.
Why? Again you’re talking about something unrelated. I want the ATC to be fixed for my fellow simmers but that isn’t the point of my posts. The point has been debating “game or sim”.
I’m trying to make a point when it comes to sims and you’re missing the point. Also it wasn’t some space game, it was a King Air flight sim setup, I used to do a whole bunch of stuff with it but interacting with an ATC wasn’t one of them.
I’ve flown a bunch of different instrument approaches with equipment codes from all over in a variety of sims without ATC. The weather isn’t always going to call for VMC and sometimes you’re not going to see anything and end up needing to go missed. Scenery? What scenery, you have a panel to look at and that’s about it.
I’m not saying that ATC shouldn’t be addressed (it should be), all I am saying is MSFS can still be sim material with the current state of ATC (it might as well be turned off).
Once again I do feel that ATC should be improved HOWEVER I disagree that MSFS is to be thrown into the “game bin” and not the “sim bin” (for lack of better way to describe) because of the state of ATC.
I really hope I have cleared things up.
Would you have any links for that information Maki ? I tried to find some info, but the Working title website does not mention it. I’d love to follow this up, it certainly will be a great addition to the sim.
I’m a bit scared when it comes to using VATSIM, so I’m using the stock ATC (when using ATC at all) since none of the alternative solutions look appealing to me.
To add to this discussion, the developers thought it to be a good idea to have pushback steering instructions run via the tower. They thought icing conditions in-flight look the same as a frost covered car in the morning. They thought correct localizer courses for offset approaches were no priority. Receiving radar vectors (which worked in any previous version just fine) is not important, instead you need to ask yourself for a new vector. And I can continue like this for hours. Some design choices have absolutely no basis in reality. I will leave in the middle whether this makes this product a sim or a game (or both), I can only say that I was deeply disappointed when this sim was released, it has improved since but still the only real area this product beats the rest are the graphics.
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I would have to dig and find it, I also know they’re also working on the flight planner.
I still can’t believe that y’all are failing to understand what I am getting across, it’s almost as if it’s being done on purpose. Please focus on the context here. There are areas of concern when it comes to the quality of MSFS (and I have read your posts in the past, great work) however weather or not MSFS has a competent ATC isn’t one of those “game not sim” decisions in my opinion and I have given you my reasons why I think this. I’m getting tired of explaining this and I’m not going to any further for fear of becoming opinionated.
All I’m saying is that they haven’t always had pure realism in mind looking at those design decisions. Which is not what I would expect from a “simulator developer”. I leave in the middle if that makes MSFS a game or a simulator. It has definitely improved since release.
Could also be that the devs simply don’t know better, the experience within the Asobo team is / was limited… They see frost on their Citroen/ Peugeot in the morning and think, that’s what in-flight icing looks like 
.
In any case it’s sad that MSFS is a downgrade when it comes to FSX or even FS9. In both versions vectors for approach worked, it was less bugged, it was limited but at least working. Also AI worked in both previous versions while all my AIG traffic is now drifting donuts at the holding point 
.
And then there are loads of small (easy to fix?) bugs which can instantly improve user experience. The jumping weight sliders when using KGs for example due to a conversion error, ATIS reporting wind in ft / sec, etc…
So yeah, long story short, I don’t think ATC in it self makes MSFS a game instead of a simulator. Everything combined you might come to that conclusion though.
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I remember the days of FS9 and FSX (I got both sims the day they were released and had to buy a new PC to be able to play FS9) and I currently have P3Dv4/v5 and XP11 installed. If it wasn’t for the massive amount of addons I honestly don’t think I would be using P3D and XP these days and I’m done investing in them. PILOT’S FS Global Ultimate and the Airfoillabs Cessna 172 NG are and will be the last two addons I have bought for them respectively.
My recollection of ATC in both of them is that they’re not all that great, they may have “worked” though. It’s something that I haven’t visited in over a decade. I gave up and moved to VATSIM ages ago.
All in all if a bunch of addons from P3D and XP were to drop today for MSFS I would uninstall both of the former sims in favor for MSFS despite issues in MSFS. While issues can be annoying (and one of the reasons I still have P3D and XP installed) it’s not the main reason. The main reason is I’m still waiting for some of the addons to come.
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Off topic maybe but another argument you could use in the game versus simulator discussion is the lack of proper training material. The MSFS lessons / tutorials are lacking, they have definitely not been put together by a flight instructor and are not to the level of the lessons available in FS9. And while not always realistic (intercepting an alien spaceship with a F18 for example) those missions were soooo much fun and sometimes informative. The latter is a big miss. I wish someone could port the original MSFS missions over to MSFS somehow. Collecting those “rewards” was also more of an addiction than those weird XboX accomplishments or whatever they are…
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That is an absolutely valid point, the training material in previous sims was very helpful. I remember the training material back in Pro Pilot. The days of swapping discs back and forth, lol.
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No, you’re wrong, it’s not a game, it’s a simulator! It’s a sim for simmers. Jorg said so explicitly the last Q&A (and many times before).
And here’s another proof: games don’t take five minutes to load…
So it must be a sim!
You simply acknowledge the instruction without actually carrying it out, then request lower. It then assigns the lower you requested.