ATC runway usage and taxi instructions that make sense.

[DmitriKozlowsky]

Need more detailedl in ATC messages as to runway usage and taxi , parking instructions.

[Tank50us]

This is already being worked on. ETA is obviously unknown as there's a lot of work to do, but when it's done, it will feel a lot better.

[Northstar98]

Like I've said before, they really need to implement a system with the same functionality and works just as well as the other F-16 orientated sim.

 

They can't really do anything less IMO.

 

It should include the following:

• Should schedule properly with aircraft (and we should be able to designate a planned takeoff time for all aircraft).
• AI aircraft need to interact with ATC, and follow their instructions.
• Should have multiple frequencies for ground, tower and approach/departure, if applicable.
• Should have multiple (and preferably a diverse range of voices - female and male, ideally with accents dependent on map).
• Should have ATIS/VOLMET, if available (perhaps there can be a weather station object to provide weather services for FARPs/FOBs etc).
• Needs to be able to handle at least 20 aircraft (if not more), obviously airbase dependent.

Ground:

• Should schedule properly with aircraft (so upon a request to taxi, it should give your position in the slot and tell you what to do, if it tells you to wait, ATC should give you the callsign of the flight to give way to and what the flight comprises of).
• Should give you directions to get to the runway and tell you to hold short at it.
• Should hand you off the tower upon reaching the hold-short position.

Tower:

• Should schedule properly with aircraft to get them airborne at their allotted time.
• Should tell aircraft to continue to hold short, position and hold or takeoff depending on the situation (so if there's an aircraft coming into land, the AI should hold short and not just taxi onto the runway, forcing the landing aircraft to abort their landing - I've had this so many times in the F-16CM IA missions and it's very frustrating).
• Should hand airborne aircraft off to departure after they're airborne.

Approach/Departure:

• Should provide departure instructions (eg. "depart heading XXX, resume own navigation")
• Should manage the airspace, particularly for landing aircraft
• Should support multiple approaches (straight-in, overhead break, VFR, instrument, emergency).
• Implementation of PAR (which should also be an object to place in the mission editor - the RSP-7 ["Two Spot"] is already present on the Caucasus map).
• Should provide vectors to approaching aircraft. Scheduling with them properly (i.e give instructions like "orbit for spacing")

 

DCS currently does none of the above, at best they give you an initial vector and tell other aircraft to hold position if someone else is taxiing.

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by Northstar98

[Lange_666]

On 7/6/2021 at 10:50 AM, Tank50us said:

This is already being worked on. ETA is obviously unknown as there's a lot of work to do, but when it's done, it will feel a lot better.

You better don't get your hopes up high because it's been anouced and re-anounced and re-re-anounced.

The system we have now has been around since Lock On so....I guess by now it's very low on the priority list.

[Weasel]

A new and much improved ATC (together with improved radio for AWACS, tankers and JTAC) will be developed after improved ATC for the super carrier. As already mentioned above there is still no ETA, so I wouldn‘t expect new airfield ATC and radio before 2022, maybe rather in 2023.

[Silver_Dragon]

8 minutes ago, Weasel said:

A new and much improved ATC (together with improved radio for AWACS, tankers and JTAC) will be developed after improved ATC for the super carrier. As already mentioned above there is still no ETA, so I wouldn‘t expect new airfield ATC and radio before 2022, maybe rather in 2023.

Quote

 

Air Traffic Control (ATC)

Over the past year, our primary ATC focus has been on the Supercarrier. Now that the Supercarrier ATC system is nearing completion, we will next move on to airfield ATC radio communications. Given the scope of DCS World, this is not a simple task, and it will require three separate ATC systems: Western Modern Day, Eastern Modern Day, and World War II. 

Because this effort will require a large amount of new radio voice overs, we will also take this opportunity to update the radio communications for other entities like flight members, other flights, AWACS, tankers, etc.

 

This will continue to be developed in 2021, but we do not have an estimated release date.

 

 

[FlankerKiller]

Nice, its being worked on. Its definitely needed. 

[Northstar98]

On 7/8/2021 at 9:24 PM, FlankerKiller said:

Nice, its being worked on. Its definitely needed. 

 

I still find it kinda worrying though - in that newsleter they say that SC ATC is "nearing completion", when there's still a hefty amount wrong with it:

• They're all on 1 frequency, and marshal's pushbutton call (which tells you what channel preset the tower is on) is meaningless and doesn't correspond with anything.
• The AI doesn't interact with them at all. I'm not even sure the AI follows approach/departure procedures either.
• Marshal only has 1 callsign ("Courage"), when that only corresponds with CVN-74 - the USS John C. Stennis, which ironically, is the only Nimitz-Roosevelt subclass ship not presently included with the SC module (whereas all of the others are). The John C. Stennis is included in the base game, but with none of the improvements offered by the SC module (wrong size, no deck crew, no LSO view etc - just the ATC).
• Each only has 1 voice, and the pilot and tower sound very similar.
• The pilot has an inconsistent voice compared to all of the other voicelines. We have the standard male voice (though has a different voice when asking for air), and then puts on this incredibly deep, male voice when talking to the carrier. This is also the only voice(s) available for the pilot. 

Edited July 10, 2021 by Northstar98

[Nealius]

The one thing they need to fix before they can get ATC working is to dump all the Russian aviation conventions and get with the rest of the world:

 

1. Wind is from, not to.

2. Pressure is QNH, never QFE (exception to specific circumstances like the M2000's synthetic runway and Viggen's bombing computer, which aren't relevant to ATC).

 

The tricky bit is that we have aircraft whose altimeters run off of in.Hg, hPa, and Torr, and aircraft that operate in MPH, KPH, and KTS. There will have to be some kind of system where the ATC knows what the player/client's aircraft is to give him/her the pressure and wind speeds in a unit they can actually use.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Nealius

[Northstar98]

8 minutes ago, Nealius said:

The one thing they need to fix before they can get ATC working is to dump all the Russian aviation conventions and get with the rest of the world:

 

1. Wind is from, not to.

2. Pressure is QNH, never QFE (exception to specific circumstances like the M2000's synthetic runway and Viggen's bombing computer, which aren't relevant to ATC).

 

The tricky bit is that we have aircraft whose altimeters run off of in.Hg, hPa, and Torr, and aircraft that operate in MPH, KPH, and KTS. There will have to be some kind of system where the ATC knows what the player/client's aircraft is to give him/her the pressure and wind speeds in a unit they can actually use.

 

Personally, they should stick to the conventions and units used by the aircraft they're controlling, or use whatever the airfield actually uses (though the former should be easier).

 

One thing I forgot to mention is that ILS shouldn't be tied to wind speed and direction, requiring a wind speed threshold before they turn on - whatever the active runway is (the one the ATC currently chooses) should be the one with ILS. The same can be said for runway marker beacons (the NDBs at marker beacons work like ILS, but the marker beacons are always on, all of the time it seems).

[Nealius]

ILS should just be on all the time. It avoids the wind issues, and avoids extra workload on ED staff to research SOP for every airfield in the game. 

[Northstar98]

5 hours ago, Nealius said:

ILS should just be on all the time. It avoids the wind issues, and avoids extra workload on ED staff to research SOP for every airfield in the game. 

 

I don't see why it can't just be attached to whatever is the active runway the ATC gives you.

 

It shouldn't be on all the time for both directions, on applicable airfields.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Northstar98

[Recoil16]

40 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I don't see why it can't just be attached to whatever is the active runway the ATC gives you.

Because then, as previously stated by @Nealius, ED has to research procedures (i.e. preferred runway configurations) for all airfields in the game. It's not as simple as "just use the runway with the headwind". Many airfields (e.g. Nellis, Incirlik, Andersen) will use specific runway configurations, even if that gives slight tailwinds. It gets even more complicated when you involve airports like McCarran (I guess now Harry Reid) that have very specific configurations that are used depending on weather/wind. Unless ED is willing to do the leg work for that and make the ATC 100% realistic when it comes to local procedures for each field, lights and ILS should not be tied to the ATC, because that gets frustrating real quick for people who want to follow real world procedure.

[Tippis]

More to the point, it should be on for whatever runways (potential plural) you set as active, since if left to its own devices, the ATC is homicidal. And if anyone is dumb enough to listen to the ATC, they should at least be directed to whatever runway has been manually set.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Tippis

[Nealius]

Then if ED does set everything to follow real-world SOP, you'll get people complaining about getting the "wrong" runway because they haven't read the corresponding Air Force Instruction for that field. 

[Recoil16]

Ultimately, you can't win. So really, ED should just do either a 100% real ATC with local procedures or a "simplified" version that just picks based on wind. Either way, I think having the option to have a mission designer override ATC would be a great addition. Either in the ME or (even better) with scripting.