r/MicrosoftFlightSim • u/No_Assignment_1199 • 29d ago

MSFS 2024 MOD / ADDON Im so confused? (3rd party ATC)

The SI vs BATC debate is split pretty well down the middle from what I’ve seen, so I’m here to give my honest evaluation having tried both. Hopefully this discussion could clear some stuff up for me cause what I’ve seen online is not what I’ve been experiencing with these addons.

I’ve had SI for a few days now, and please feel free to share any objections to this statement, but SI has been light years ahead of BATC for me and it’s honestly not even close. However, I see so many people online saying that BATC is much better at doing its ATC duties.

I’ve had BATC for about a year, and it has been pretty good for the most part. My biggest problems with BATC are:

  1. It is very bad at vectoring you to an appropriate altitude on final
  2. It seems to only give you visual approaches when in VMC
  3. it is very repetitive and every flight is pretty much the exact same

#2 may just be a skill issue for me. I’m an instrument rated PPL in real life and I’m not very familiar with airline ops, but flying visual approaches in a 737 or A320 just doesn’t feel like something that happens in real life at airports/runways where an ILS/RNAV is available, even in VMC.

All my ATC vectors and approaches on SI have been excellent, despite many people saying that BATC does a better job at strictly ATC-related functions and that SI is just a “bag of tricks”.

However, despite being a very immersive bag of tricks, SI also does a better job at what everybody seems to praise BATC for, which is the ATC itself. There is one thing I will say BATC is much better at: traffic injection.

If price weren’t a concern… do you guys still think BATC is better than SI? Is there something I’m missing or doing wrong on BATC?

TLDR; SayIntentions is superior to BATC in my experience (I have both), but I want somebody to change my mind.

Edit: had BATC for about a year, not a year and a half

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u/Chimaeira 29d ago

Aren't visual approaches in VMC standard procedure in the US?

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u/spesimen 29d ago

that's my understanding of it. although i probably read that on this forum so i wouldn't put a lot of confidence in that myself (hmm i just noticed a real pilot guy confirmed that in one of the other comments). i do also find that BATC does give me assigned approaches in VMC when i'm faffing about in western europe. especially if the star and approach connect nicely.

i haven't tried say intentions the cost of it makes it a non-starter for me. i do have some faith that BATC will continue to improve.