Update on improved ATC?

[sirrah]

1 hour ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

The coolest ATC mod is to get a human being to act as your ATC. 

Sure, having a human to realistically do all this, would be awesome. This is however of no use to SP users.

Unfortunately many (my guess would be "most") DCS users are not retired yet, have limited time for this hobby and therefor are not in the position to properly commit to and plan for multiplayer groups. 

Personally I don't think we're asking for the impossible here. Having something similar to that old Viper sim would give all those full fidelity DCS module radio systems at least some kind of use. I get that you are afraid that DCS radio improvement could delay other DCS features, but surely you must admit that current DCS ATC is a laugh and not on par with the rest of what DCS has to offer.

[MAXsenna]

Guys! Dawger has a hard on for AI. His crusade against Jester is priceless!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, Gary said:

1 hour ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

The coolest ATC mod is to get a human being to act as your ATC. 

I'm sorry Dawger but you are again wrong!

I feel that they aren't wrong. When done correct, a human-staffed ATC is leaps and bounds above ATC. So yes, that's the coolest thing ever.

Now, how many of your friends are trained and willing to do that for you on a second's notice?

Ah, right...

[Gunfreak]

10 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Guys! Dawger has a hard on for AI. His crusade against Jester is priceless!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

Well, Jester got cancelled after some Metoo problematic photos showed up from his AI collage days.

[MAXsenna]

I feel that they aren't wrong. When done correct, a human-staffed ATC is leaps and bounds above ATC. So yes, that's the coolest thing ever.
Now, how many of your friends are trained and willing to do that for you on a second's notice?
Ah, right...

And that the SP community seems to dwarf the MP community?
What's the name of the ATC addon you can purchase? I believe the number of licenses sold will give a clear picture.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[=475FG= Dawger]

58 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Guys! Dawger has a hard on for AI. His crusade against Jester is priceless!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

I actually really enjoy the AI copilot in the Kiowa. It is very well done.
 

Jester in the Phantom is a clueless buffoon. 
 

And you will find that I am a frequent defender of the AI BFM if you care to look. 
Not that I think its perfect, but it certainly isn’t what many players portray it as. 
 

I bought the Super Carrier and found the whole ATC process quite tedious. 
 

I admit I am not a fan of linear gameplay and that is what ATC is. Jumping through hoops to get where you want to go. 
 

Not that it doesn’t happen that way in the real world. 
 

I remember a trip down to Cordoba, Argentina years ago.
 

At the end of an 8 hour leg, we had the airport in sight.
 

No other traffic on the frequency  

The controller  cleared us for a DME arc to the ILS.
 

We requested the visual. Denied. Straight in ILS? Nope.

 

So we flew the entire procedure, starting at the VOR, located on the airport out to the 15 DME arc and around to finally intercept the ILS. 

 

That is what I imagine DCS would be, based upon the SC implementation 

Pointless use of full procedures meant for worst case scenarios 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2024 by =475FG= Dawger

[MAXsenna]

18 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I actually really enjoy the AI copilot in the Kiowa. It is very well done.
Jester in the Phantom is a clueless buffoon. 

Yeah, I'm just making fun. I wish we could toggle off the banter for Jester. Star Wars and sexual innuendos gets tedious the second time.

18 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

And you will find that I am a frequent defender of the AI BFM if you care to look. 
Not that I think its perfect, but it certainly isn’t what many players portray it as.

Actually, when you remind me, I have noticed your positive comments.

18 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

remember a trip down to Cordoba, Argentina years ago.
At the end of an 8 hour leg, we had the airport in sight.

No other traffic on the frequency 

The controller  cleared us for a DME arc to the ILS.

We requested the visual. Denied. Straight in ILS? Nope.

So we flew the entire procedure, starting at the VOR, located on the airport out to the 15 DME arc and around to finally intercept the ILS. 

I knew It! Had a feeling you've come across some of those!  

18 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

That is what I imagine DCS would be, based upon the SC implementation 

Pointless use of full procedures meant for worst case scenarios 

You could skip it though!

Many users here, including me, that don't fly in the real world, want to learn. And cos play!  

Edited October 27, 2024 by MAXsenna

[Gary]

To be clear - I was not knocking human ATC slots or use....but,

Unless my mate doing this duty has some knowledge and understanding of ATC comms its likely to be a very non ATC type of conversation.

I could just imaging: Me "Viper 2-1 at Alpha requesting Taxi"

ATC response from "Dave" - "yeah, fill ya boots mate - nobody around apart from you and Steve at this base - I don't think anyones coming into land anytime soon"

You get my point I'm sure.

Also as mentioned above - even with a human ATC and a few mates on a server - the only comms you are going to experience will be between the human players and actually hearing AI comms interact with ATC and other agencies would be really helpful in a number of situations.

Dawger, I get and accept your concerns above about strict enforement but as can be seen with full start up procedures and such - ED can maybe include options that limit the extent of your need to engage with ATC and others?

Edited October 27, 2024 by Gary

[LeopardLenin]

Your right about alot of higher priority items. Was the Chinese meme helicopter one of them? Or the small Apache radar update one of them? 

I think 99% would agree ATC, Dynamic campaign, semi-decent AI (atleast) and actual improvements to ground AI and not just changing reaction times, is way more important than what ED is putting out right now.

Y'know, maps and modules that wont be finished for years but you can Pre-Order them.

Genuine question to you @rob10, what would you put as a higher priority than the things I mentioned?

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, Gary said:

To be clear - I was not knocking human ATC slots or use....but,

Unless my mate doing this duty has some knowledge and understanding of ATC comms its likely to be a very non ATC type of conversation.

I could just imaging: Me "Viper 2-1 at Alpha requesting Taxi"

ATC response from "Dave" - "yeah, fill ya boots mate - nobody around apart from you and Steve at this base - I don't think anyones coming into land anytime soon"

You get my point I'm sure.

Also as mentioned above - even with a human ATC and a few mates on a server - the only comms you are going to experience will be between the human players and actually hearing AI comms interact with ATC and other agencies would be really helpful in a number of situations.

Dawger, I get and accept your concerns above about strict enforement but as can be seen with full start up procedures and such - ED can maybe include options that limit the extent of your need to engage with ATC and others?

 

If ATC were to be “realistic” by geography, the parts of the world DCS has terrains for are not going to be exactly by the ICAO book or using English, except for NTTR, Channel and Normandy (if you were to play those with a more recent date than the 1940’s. )

There is pretty wide variation in ‘acceptable’ technique and some places are more compliant than others. 

Radar versus non-radar are completely different environments as well  

However, it would be quite funny to simulate Teterboro. Request engine start and they tell to expect engine start clearance in 2 hours  

In a lot of places in Europe, you get assigned a 15 minute departure window. Miss it and have loads of fun getting another. 
 

I also remember arguing with a Swiss controller from the time I switched to his frequency until I got into French airspace ( not very long really) because my flight plan had my callsign as Moonbeam 21 and the transponder was sending out 021. I explained the hardware in the plane required three digits and the filing system dropped leading zeroes.

He wasn’t having it but I am pretty sure all the Swiss controllers were robots even back then  

 

Edited October 27, 2024 by =475FG= Dawger

[razo+r]

39 minutes ago, LeopardLenin said:

Your right about alot of higher priority items. Was the Chinese meme helicopter one of them? Or the small Apache radar update one of them? 

I think 99% would agree ATC, Dynamic campaign, semi-decent AI (atleast) and actual improvements to ground AI and not just changing reaction times, is way more important than what ED is putting out right now.

Y'know, maps and modules that wont be finished for years but you can Pre-Order them.

Genuine question to you @rob10, what would you put as a higher priority than the things I mentioned?

You need to differentiate between the different teams. The gyrocopter was probably done by Dekka, not ED. And the Apache Radar was done by the Apache Team, while the core team works on other stuff.

[rob10]

58 minutes ago, LeopardLenin said:

Your right about alot of higher priority items. Was the Chinese meme helicopter one of them? Or the small Apache radar update one of them? 

I think 99% would agree ATC, Dynamic campaign, semi-decent AI (atleast) and actual improvements to ground AI and not just changing reaction times, is way more important than what ED is putting out right now.

Y'know, maps and modules that wont be finished for years but you can Pre-Order them.

Genuine question to you @rob10, what would you put as a higher priority than the things I mentioned?

Since it would likely be the AI team working on this, all kinds of AI enemy (and even wingman) behaviours.  As razo+r said, it's also not as easy as just moving someone from fixing a radar to this.  Those would take two completely different skillsets and the radar guy might decide to move on if you suddenly want them to make AI (assuming it wouldn't take them an extended period go get up to speed on doing that).
Coming from years of MSFS before DCS and having done BMS I can fully appreciate the value of a better ATC.  I'd love to have it.  But it's 10 min or less at the start and end of the mission.  For SP I miss it, for MP it would be a challenge to work around it, those are the reasons why it's not my highest priority.  Better AIC or GCI I could get more excited about, but I don't really lump them in with ATC

[SharpeXB]

Although this seems like a great idea and I know they’re working on it I can’t see the genuine need for this in DCS. Other than just added ambiance. Even the Supercarrier ATC I don’t believe actually separates and de-conflicts the aircraft, it’s just radio messages. The most you could ask for in DCS I think would be something akin to this which actually controls the aircraft and that the AI actually pay attention to and that has reasonably suitable languages or voiceovers. But a full on simulation of real world ATC just seems impossible and unnecessary. If you ask me such things are the realm of civy sims not make stuff go boom games. The DLC campaigns already seem to have nice authentic ATC and voiceovers which is where this likely belongs. The majority of DCS players can’t or don’t even cold start up their aircraft and if MP is any indication, pay any attention to ATC as it is.

Edited October 27, 2024 by SharpeXB

[LeopardLenin]

2 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Since it would likely be the AI team working on this, all kinds of AI enemy (and even wingman) behaviours.  As razo+r said, it's also not as easy as just moving someone from fixing a radar to this.  Those would take two completely different skillsets and the radar guy might decide to move on if you suddenly want them to make AI (assuming it wouldn't take them an extended period go get up to speed on doing that).
Coming from years of MSFS before DCS and having done BMS I can fully appreciate the value of a better ATC.  I'd love to have it.  But it's 10 min or less at the start and end of the mission.  For SP I miss it, for MP it would be a challenge to work around it, those are the reasons why it's not my highest priority.  Better AIC or GCI I could get more excited about, but I don't really lump them in with ATC

I agree, people have skill sets for them and cant just be switched from team to team. To me its worrying how slow the progress is being made, it almost feels like none but there is some of course. Some game companies realease multiple games in the time ED releases one big feature to DCS.

About enemy AI and wingman behaviors, 100% agree, this is extremely important, especially for the dynamic campaign. Same with AIC/GCI, but those are in a much better state than the ATC and therefore i think should be put lower on the priority list.
I ask specifially about ATC (just one that works, not one that is AMAZING)  as its needed if a Dynamic campaign is to happen.

[sirrah]

2 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

The DLC campaigns already seem to have nice authentic ATC and voiceovers which is where this likely belongs. 

I agree, most good DLC campaings do this excellent, but:

1. As I said in my previous post, this is a massive job. It's very cumbersome to achieve in a realistic way (especially when building in checks to see if the player actually tuned to the correct freq).
2. This would only be useful for SP
3. We would (still) be very dependant on good DLC campaigns for a nice DCS experience

 

I agree, 100% realistic/authentic ATC is probably not possible within our lifetime and I also wholeheartedly agree that AI should actually respond to ATC to make it at all usefull, but definitely some improvement can be made (again, look at how the 20yo Viper sim handles it). Perfect? No. Better than DCS? ohh yes...

Most of us are not real life pilots, so it doesn't have to be perfect. But having a few more callsigns, some land based ATC procedures (grnd, twr, dep, appr, arr.) and proper AWACS callouts can be achieved.. I'm sure of it.

[rob10]

11 minutes ago, LeopardLenin said:

I agree, people have skill sets for them and cant just be switched from team to team. To me its worrying how slow the progress is being made, it almost feels like none but there is some of course. Some game companies realease multiple games in the time ED releases one big feature to DCS.

The unfortunate reality is that DCS is niche market of a niche market.  It just doesn't have the numbers of users that a FPS type game has, which is where multiple game releases happen.  It also has a lot more complexity in what its doing.  Most of this type of game are actually a "side hustle" of the actual military side of the business (DCS and a certain tank simulator are good examples) or we likely wouldn't have them at all.  I'm actually amazed we get what we do for the price do considering the numbers.

The good news is that BIG features tend to get baked in the background with little fanfare or information to spring (maybe not quite) fully formed out of the blue some day.  MT was a great example.  There were a vocal number of people who were convinced ED had abandoned it, it was never coming etc, then suddenly it was announced as coming in the next update.  Sure somethings go by the wayside (i.e. the mid-level FC replacement), but mostly stuff they have talked about eventually does get done.

[Gary]

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Although this seems like a great idea and I know they’re working on it I can’t see the genuine need for this in DCS. Other than just added ambiance. Even the Supercarrier ATC I don’t believe actually separates and de-conflicts the aircraft, it’s just radio messages. The most you could ask for in DCS I think would be something akin to this which actually controls the aircraft and that the AI actually pay attention to and that has reasonably suitable languages or voiceovers. But a full on simulation of real world ATC just seems impossible and unnecessary. If you ask me such things are the realm of civy sims not make stuff go boom games. The DLC campaigns already seem to have nice authentic ATC and voiceovers which is where this likely belongs. The majority of DCS players can’t or don’t even cold start up their aircraft and if MP is any indication, pay any attention to ATC as it is.

 

SharpeXB,

You reference a number of things which have been mentioned previously and there seems to be a general assumption that extreme realism is being requested - which is not the case.

Firstly the SC comms is nothing more than a quick, poor (in my view) addition that was rushed for the SC specifically. It is not an improvement at all generally in relation to ATC and consists predominately of a list of scripted messages assuming the pilot does as expected. Do anything else and its redundant immediately.

You choose the word ambiance, my choice would be "immersion" - based on your interpritation why bother with clouds, rain, explosive effects, airport scenery and vehicles ets etc.

Yes, the most we could ask for is ATC that deconflicts, provides safe, taxi, take off, vectors and other flight comms - which in itself could add significently to a players SA and sense of being part of the whole task involving others (human or AI) - all of which another F16 sim provides for already and which is some 20 years old now. (albeit code which probably looks very differant today to that when it was foirst released of course)

I am not asking for super realistic comms to be added. I'm not sure I want to be doing DME arch approaches and such either (but I'd wager there are users who would absolutely love this to be included too!) - I just want something semi realistic, believable and something which would add to my personal enjoyment of the software.

Regards,

Gary

[LeopardLenin]

3 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Sure somethings go by the wayside (i.e. the mid-level FC replacement), but mostly stuff they have talked about eventually does get done.

Maybe i havent been around long enough to witness most of this (3 years). To me i just dont have the trust in them to do the right thing, due to the sheer amount of things that they bake, and dont finish (wont for a long time). You bring up some great points and i hope you are right and im wrong, time will tell i guess. 

[Northstar98]

26 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I can’t see the genuine need for this in DCS. Other than just added ambiance.

How about this?

If this mission was in reduced visibility, the current ATC's complete uselessness would've resulted in a collision with departing aircraft.

And this is in a single player mission.

28 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Even the Supercarrier ATC I don’t believe actually separates and de-conflicts the aircraft, it’s just radio messages.

Yes - which is a bad thing.

As it stands, the current supercarrier system breaks if you so much as bolter, there's no interaction with the AI at all, it uses the wrong callsigns when using the Forrestal and it also doesn't support ziplip operations.

31 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

If you ask me such things are the realm of civy sims not make stuff go boom games

The other, F-16-orientated sim, begs to differ. Its ATC system allows for things that are straight up impossible to do in DCS (especially in single player) without causing utter carnage.

32 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

if MP is any indication, pay any attention to ATC as it is.

Like I said before, ATC being fundamentally not worth using beyond turning on lights and receiving a single vector is probably contributing to that being the case. I ignore ATC completely in DCS because it's so limited. In the other sim though, I pay attention to it, because it actually works more like the way it should and I don't encounter the same annoyances using it.

[MAXsenna]

53 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Better AIC or GCI I could get more excited about, but I don't really lump them in with ATC

What's the difference?

25 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Most of this type of game are actually a "side hustle" of the actual military side of the business (DCS and a certain tank simulator are good examples) or we likely wouldn't have them at all.

Well, both om them didn't start out as "side hustles". Fun fact I won a copy of that tank sim at SimHQ when it was first released. I still have the CD somewhere.

[SharpeXB]

I would be happy if ATC just did the following:

- Encourage aircraft not to crash into one another. 
- Give you something fun to do with your radio. 
- Sounds reasonably authentic. 

[Gary]

Just a comment regarding DLC content creators progress regarding ATC.

I have previously acknowledged some of these are really good - but heres the thing.

Mostly they restrict me to drive the aircraft they have crafted the mission for. If it was designed for the F18 or F16 simply swapping out those planes for my preference in the ME breaks everything - I assume because the "triggers" are looking for cockpit button states that completely differ in each airframe.

I end up having to do what the mission designer wants - not what I want to do! - are their missions good? - absolutely - but are they the same things and missions I want to do? - rarely.

Now consider if the below was a thing in DCS:

ATC that actually works as intended? (none of this cleared for take off - not cleared for take off - oh go on then, cleared for take off!

ATC that was seperated to specific freq for each controller (ground, tower, app/dep etc)

AWACS that didn't spam you every 3 seconds with anything at all - let alone details of some banits 200 miles away

New voices to replace the existing (with some minimal effects)

The ability to hear these agencies interacting with other flights on the same freq locally

Would not the above alone improve the experience?

 

You are quiet hard pushed nowdays to see a video on YT (even ED's own) that don't include some type of "canned chatter" - probably because comms is a very big part of the flying experience - be that civy or military.

Regards Gary

[rob10]

7 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

What's the difference?

If I have my terminology correct (which I won't guarantee ) one is primarily concerned with air targets, the other with ground targets.  If I'm wrong, someone will no doubt correct me shortly

[MAXsenna]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

But a full on simulation of real world ATC just seems impossible and unnecessary.

You never fail, do you? At least two sims does this already. Just Google that Viper sim for ATC videos. This is all AI, and we know about that priority...

I see @Northstar98 already points you in the right direction, which he has done before. I assume you didn't bother to watch.

@Gary this is Sharpy for you...

[MAXsenna]

6 minutes ago, rob10 said:

If I have my terminology correct (which I won't guarantee ) one is primarily concerned with air targets, the other with ground targets.  If I'm wrong, someone will no doubt correct me shortly

Hehe! My point is, that it's all AI and somewhat related in how one could achieve it!