Eagle Dynamics reports ATC milestone, looking for real world controllers to assist

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Getting the core of DCS World up to modern expectations is taking some time but its always good to see progress and according to Matt Wagner from Eagle Dynamics, the team have hit a key milestone in their process to upgrade the sim’s ATC system.

Looking for real world controllers

A post by Matt Wagner on the DCS World forums indicates that the team is actively looking to engage with some subject matter experts (SMEs), retired or active military controllers specifically, to assist with the implementation of the new feature.

Here’s what Matt had to say in this post on the Eagle Dynamics DCS forums,

Dear all,

We’ve reached a milestone developing the new ATC system for DCS, and we now require a small group of miliary ATC to consult with and help provide voice over support. If you are an active or retired military ATC controller and wish to assist, please message me.

Best wishes,

Wags

Not too many people out there in the DCS community fit that category but I’m sure some do. For the rest of us, however, it gives us a tantalizing nugget of information about how this long awaited feature is progressing.

17 responses to “Eagle Dynamics reports ATC milestone, looking for real world controllers to assist”

  1. butcher75 Avatar
    butcher75

    I’m Genuinely exited for this. If this is done properly it will be great for emersion.

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  2. felcsarbr Avatar
    felcsarbr

    If they are going with the recording route, I hope them to manage a lot of different voices or a system that can ‘generate’ somehow different voices from a given recording. It is been so long that we were hearing the same voice coming from different AI aircraft and towers.

    I suspected ED were going on the AI generated ATC voices like what the Azure does on MSFS, but even that has its issues and lack of variety.

    Fingers crossed for a great execution. DCS needs it a lot.

    Great news.

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  3. Popsypops Avatar
    Popsypops

    If DCS ever will be taken as a “serious sim”, it for sure needs to step up in the ATC/Airspace/avionics/procedures department. Immersion will increase for each step in that direction, but I’m not entirely sure if that kind of immersion actually is needed to create/preserve the fun of gaming. DCS is first and for all a game. ATC has to be more than chit chat in the background.

    This is a difficult thing IMO. Including these things has to be done realistically, or it will just be silly and confusing. Today it is very much in the “silly and odd” department with no effect on gameplay. Too much “seriousness”, and it will be a hurdle that has to be overcome. One that could potentially hamper the fun. I have no clue where the balance is though. It will be interesting to see how ED choses to do it.

    Another related thing is AI aircraft. They also have to start behaving like there are real pilots in those cockpits, not like the complete braindead moths they are today regarding ATC, airspace and normal aviation procedures.

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  4. DdayWarrior Avatar
    DdayWarrior

    As a beginner, I was always frustrated with ATC because I figured I must be doing something wrong. Until, I figured out to just ignore ATC in DCS. Yesterday, for some reason I tried again to use the ATC with no results. If implemented, I hope we have the following: 1) good training, 2) consistency, 3) variety (which seems contradictory to the previous), and 3) ability to ignore.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Oh yes, I tried to follow it in the early days too but they I found out that it was just not working.

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  5. CanadaOne Avatar
    CanadaOne

    Very cool. I look forward to getting yelled at by the ATC. 🙂

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Yeah the ATC and my procedure work is a bit iffy still. X-Plane’s ATC yells at me all the time! 🙂

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  6. Braul Avatar
    Braul

    I hope it turns out better than the save feature, but not holding my breath.

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  7. Jizo Avatar
    Jizo

    I’d rather they focused their energy on making AI aircraft that can fly in 3 dimensions. More formation flying missions and getting the dmmned Corsair and Hellcag finished. As an airline pilot, I listen to ATC for two weeks every month. It doesn’t add much to a military flight Sim. If you want to practice being “cleared to land” or cleared for the approach then play Microsoft flight simulator.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      I hear you. ATC can be a very procedures based thing that some virtual pilots will love, others will avoid. The other thing to consider, however, is that this update is likely linked with their efforts on the dynamic campaign and the ATC also needs better logic to handle large flight packages departing and arriving. So there’s a core piece here that is going to be useful beyond just the talking part.

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  8. PHANTOM1 Avatar
    PHANTOM1

    Best I’ve heard so far for DCS is from campaigns done by Baltic Dragon; realistic enough, informative and an actual enhancement rather than robotic. Might be tough to integrate that into AI or similar but seems like it’d be a good baseline to follow.

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  9. Gretsch_Man Avatar
    Gretsch_Man

    This is certainly exciting news!

    I’m hoping this ATC update will also include better communication between members of the player’s flight, AWACS etc.

    And I’d also like to see all these new voices made available in some sort of a TTS (Text-to-Speech) app, so that mission and campaign developers can use these voices to incorporate more dialog into their scripted missions. That would make life sooo much easier for campaign makers.

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  10. Bob Oliver Avatar
    Bob Oliver

    ATC phraseology varies somewhat across the world, as do processes and standards. Military and civilian process and phraseology also varies.

    This makes it a very hard to incorporate into a game other than just adopting one variation or the other.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Yeah that is a challenge. No sim has been able to tackle all of the variations. Sometimes I think we have to embrace the artifice of flight simulation and make a good effort for an authentic if not perfectly accurate experience.

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  11. Peter B Avatar
    Peter B

    This is good news. Current ATC is basic at best. I’ve dabbled with Falcon BMS and the ATC there feels realistic enough that it seems like there’s an intelligence to it and it’s not all (badly) scripted like in DCS. I think BMS added some AI generated lines to the existing system as it’s grown over the years but I might have made that up.

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  12. Joshua Robert Avatar
    Joshua Robert

    I’m former USAF ATC/current USAF pilot. I haven’t messed with DCS in years, but still stay more or less up to date on the updates. I reached out to Wags and he had me recorded approximately 10 mins of generic ATC comms. As military controllers, we deal with civilian and military traffic. Most of the comms are the same (all from the JO 711.65), but there are usually some local base-specific “isms”. I’m curious to see what comes from this used with AI technology.

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    1. ShamrockOneFive Avatar
      ShamrockOneFive

      Hi Joshua. Really interesting! Also very curious to see how that all might work with some AI technology.

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