BeyondATC grabbed our interest after FlightSimExpo 2023 with its promise to revolutionize the Air Traffic Control functionality in Microsoft Flight Simulator with the power of AI. While its known capabilities were already quite promising and interesting, the developers have raised the stakes with their latest announcement, which came live during a stream with our friend twotonemurphy: BeyondATC will go beyond managing ATC and will also take full control over AI-generated traffic in MSFS!
BeyondATC has been under development with the aim of completely overhauling the ATC experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Utilizing advanced AI technology, the software was initially designed to provide real-time, voice-controlled interaction, offering an intuitive and user-friendly ATC experience. However, the software was limited to mirroring the default traffic in the simulator, meaning it could provide traffic callouts but not control the traffic itself. This limitation was a significant point of discussion among the community, leading to a clamor for more control.
The developers behind BeyondATC heard the prayers and took the only logical step: BeyondATC will also have full control over AI-generated traffic. This includes all aspects of aircraft behavior, from takeoffs and landings to taxiing.
BeyondATC will employ a unique and efficient method of injecting traffic into the flight simulator. Unlike other traffic injectors that often cause a massive FPS drop, BeyondATC will handle all calculations, thereby offloading the computational work from the simulator. This approach aims to optimize performance and ensure a smoother experience for users.
BeyondATC will employ a “frame-by-frame” method of traffic injection into Microsoft Flight Simulator, effectively injecting the airplane’s position in XYZ space every single frame, thereby having direct control over the aircraft’s behavior. The software will use whatever AI aircraft models simmers already have installed.
This exciting new capability in BeyondATC is made possible thanks to an important new collaboration: the lead developer of FSLTL, the popular AI traffic utility, has joined the BeyondATC team. This developer brings a wealth of experience in traffic injection and data sourcing, enabling BeyondATC to become an even more comprehensive utility.
With all of these capabilities, BeyondATC will become its own traffic injector, eliminating the need for other injectors like FSLTL or FS Traffic.
Obviously, such development will have an implication on the planned release date for BeyondATC. While the initial aim was for a 2023 release, the addition of this feature is likely to extend the development timeline. However, the team remains optimistic. They had to rewrite the whole software from the ground up to accommodate this new feature but have already made significant progress, with almost 40% of the work completed in just one week, so things are still looking good. They do note, though, that a release date may slip into early 2024 given the new capabilities of the software.
BeyondATC is promising a lot and, if all goes well, is shaping up to be a revolutionary addition to Microsoft Flight Simulator. We’ll continue to follow this project very closely, hoping it manages to meet all the expectations it’s setting. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!
