I’ve had ATC ask me to climb, probably to avoid low terrain, but I was already cleared, and it directed me into a rain cloud. Had I flown lower, which would have been a bit unsafe, but definitely safe enough, I would’ve flown much safer because I could actually see where I was going, rather than flying blindly on ATC instructions.

The instructions during that flight were all spot on though, and I cleared the clouds well before the landing site was in visual range.

I thought there was something in there to be honest 🙂

In descending order of importance:

Always add a taxi network – that’s the invisible set of connections showing where planes should taxi, not visible polygons. And keep it simple, hundreds of tiny segments for smooth corners hinder rather than help.
Always add runway flows, and test them under various conditions to make sure they do what you think they do. Remember to add a ‘calm’ flow, that stops the active runway flipping around too much.
Add names to taxiways and parking spots if possible because these are now shown on-screen and spoken.

Julian Lockwood created a document about utilizing new features in XP12 for gateway airports. A design checklist in WED to makes airport ‘ATC friendly/compatible’ in that document will be valuable.

No, just the plain ol’ Log.txt . There is a lot of ATC stuff in there at the moment which would be nice to get separated out. No, all I meant was that in probably 60% of tickets, the Log.txt shows the sim being opened, getting to the main menu, and closing again.
If you just don’t have the log any more then I get it, the bug reporter does insist on a logfile being attached so you’ve got to attach something and I’d rather the bug was filed with an empty log than not filed at all. If possible though, please do either report a bug immediately (i.e. don’t run the sim again first), or copy/rename Log.txt so that you can attach the right one later. It really does make a huge difference to ATC diagnostics, that’s the reason the log’s so busy!

Is there a dedicated log file for ATC activities or is it the normal log file located in X-Plane 12/Log.txt ?

It’s always worth remembering that any simulation offers an approximation of what happens in the real world. That approximation may – and should – get better over time, but there will still be technical reasons or limitations that affect it. This does show how complex the problem is to solve, which is mostly what I was driving at. Many people would quite understandably ask “how hard can it be?” for what looks like a trivial issue. Well, as you’ve pointed out, it’s not that trivial after all!

It should be able to handle that situation and, even if not, a crash is never the right action. Do file it.

If you haven’t reported it, it’s not a bug 🙂

Please include the situation too. For example, depending on where you are in the flight it may be better to request a lower cruise altitude, for example. There’s no support at the moment for “unable” calls.