POLL: Should ED have an Auto Pilot?

[Kaltern]

I feel the need to jump in here. (see what I did there)

Could someone PLEASE explain to me how plotting a course from say, Maia to Ceos, jumping, waiting, jumping, waiting, jumping etc.. is in any meaningful way, flying the ship? You don't move any significant distance in SC unless the destination is behind the star, in which case you just fly 10 seconds to the right and then jump.

I don't think an autopilot from star to station is a good idea no. But a way to eliminate the tedium of having to manually jump from star to star? I fail to see how that is gamebreaking. No auto refuelling, no interdiction avoidance, no auto heat management. Just a mechanism to jump in, orient the ship to the next jump destination, wait for cooldown, and jump again.

I absolutely cannot see any problem with this.

 

[lysan]

So i'm guessing all the yes people would be fine not being able to gather exploration data,right?

unless you honk the horn in each system as we do now, yes! no automation here.

 

[Arkadi]

Really? So many people here don't want an auto-pilot?

I try to undertand the arguments and reasons but I fail to understand. No one is forced to use auto-pilot. It's only a quality of life feature to take away some repetitive and "empty" tasks in the game.

Time spent for the traveling will remain the same. We are only not forced to be glued with our hands to the controls in the time traveling.

What is there not to like about this option?

 

[lysan]

I feel the need to jump in here. (see what I did there)

Could someone PLEASE explain to me how plotting a course from say, Maia to Ceos, jumping, waiting, jumping, waiting, jumping etc.. is in any meaningful way, flying the ship? You don't move any significant distance in SC unless the destination is behind the star, in which case you just fly 10 seconds to the right and then jump.

I don't think an autopilot from star to station is a good idea no. But a way to eliminate the tedium of having to manually jump from star to star? I fail to see how that is gamebreaking. No auto refuelling, no interdiction avoidance, no auto heat management. Just a mechanism to jump in, orient the ship to the next jump destination, wait for cooldown, and jump again.

I absolutely cannot see any problem with this.

Too much logic here, overheating.......release heatsink!!!.....WOOOUUUUSH

 

[Vasea Azure]

I feel the need to jump in here. (see what I did there)

Could someone PLEASE explain to me how plotting a course from say, Maia to Ceos, jumping, waiting, jumping, waiting, jumping etc.. is in any meaningful way, flying the ship? .

It isnt flying, and no one will explain you that it is - saying that "oh you dont want to fly your ship" is just a word gimmick to dismiss idea of SC AP. Ther are no many reasonable arguments against it so some dense players will jump for easy copy paste "go play other game" or "ah you dont want to fly your ship", just ignore it.

 

[Lendri]

No. I like flying my spaceship in the flying-my-spaceship game. Plotting a course to Sothis (or wherever) and "manually" flying there and back again is the price I pay for 30m credits per run. It's not hard or particularly boring.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

You're doing it wrong. You should press H, not J.

See, I think you've gotten to the core of the issue here. I see so many posts deriding the J button, it's not the button's fault.

My solution, initiating a jump should consist of pressing 1 of a random choice from 10 keyboard buttons. Maybe tie it to the system state or star mass of the destination. No more boredom, hyperspace keyboard whack-a-mole!

 

[Vasea Azure]

No. I like flying my spaceship in the flying-my-spaceship game.

And you still would be able to do that because it would be a optional module. Also SC is not really flying, dogfighting in asteroid belt is flying. And no one wants to automate that.

 

[askavir]

Its the hyper jumps that bothers me, however if SC AP was implemented I would not protest. Regarding the reset every time you jump, that could probably be removed, aaand
nope still nope still no valid points to not have a AP, so there you have it

My point to not having an AP is very simple: its a waste of developers time, time that could be very well spent in adding new content and improving existing gameplay, instead of supporting playing AFK. Another point is that I want the travelling gameplay to be improved and made more involving, not less.

The devs would need to waste time implementing AP flight, would need to create an inteface to specify routes and destinations, and later waste even more time fixing bugs and fine tuning, plus having to deal with the predictable "boohoo my ship dropped into a quadruple star system an burned up / got stranded without scoopable stars in range / etc while I was on AP watching TV, want my ship back boohoo".

I am not fundamentally against having in the future some degree of flight automation (certainly not things like auto fuel scooping or pad-to-pad "no-hands" flight). But implementing features to support "playing the game while not playing the game" should be at the very rock bottom of the priorities list.

 

[Arkadi]

You still can fly your spaceship in the fly your spaceship game everywhere and everytime you like.

Autopilot is only a option if you have to travel a distance and don't want to "fly" around the star and watch the witchspace transition to "fly" around another star to watch the transition to "fly" around anohter star for a prolonged time.

 

[Lendri]

And you still would be able to do that because it would be a optional module. Also SC is not really flying, dogfighting in asteroid belt is flying. And no one wants to automate that.

Why not just angle for long-distance hyperspace jumps then? I can't help but think that if FD nerf SC and multi-jump long-distance travel, people will be clamouring "Why do I have to sit here and watch my ship fly itself for 20 jumps at a time? Why can't I just jump directly to Sothis? I have a wife and kids."

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

We're on page 26, and I see a number of posts asking people, why would you vote no?

Since quite a few people took the time and effort explaining why they did, would reading the thread and addressing the posts not be a way to figure this out?

 

[Kaltern]

No. I like flying my spaceship in the flying-my-spaceship game. Plotting a course to Sothis (or wherever) and "manually" flying there and back again is the price I pay for 30m credits per run. It's not hard or particularly boring.

The danger of using a jump computer is identical to that of jumping manually. More, actually, since there will no doubt be a longer wait between jumps, and the computer probably won't be (read: definitely won't be as that would be way OP for what is being suggested) clever enough to star-skim to avoid NPC interdiction.

Automation within the trip from star to station? No, that's going too far. Automated neturon star jumping? Nope. Autorefuelling? No, but the computer should cease jumping when the next jump would be terminal (it's up to you to double check your plotting - just like a real satnav).

And as mentioned previously, it will take longer. Jump in. Wait for drive cooldown. Fly towards destination at 1/3 SC speed. Wait till x Ls from star. Initiate jump. I guarantee that will take longer, and is far more open to interdiction. So encouraging the player to be watching at all times.

Automation is a good thing, as long as it doesn't become the BEST way to do something.

I should add I voted NO for the original poll question for the reasons given above.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

No, but the computer should cease jumping when the next jump would be terminal (it's up to you to double check your plotting - just like a real satnav

Disagree. We have been told, traveling is just pressing some button. So that is exactly what an autopilot should do. Travel the way it has been portrayed by the lesser lights.

If the autopilot autopilots you to the core of a happy F class star because it tries to reach the next jumppoint it is working as requested by the forum.

 

[SatansMittens]

Really? So many people here don't want an auto-pilot?

I try to undertand the arguments and reasons but I fail to understand. No one is forced to use auto-pilot. It's only a quality of life feature to take away some repetitive and "empty" tasks in the game.

Time spent for the traveling will remain the same. We are only not forced to be glued with our hands to the controls in the time traveling.

What is there not to like about this option?

Im trying to figure this out as well

 

[Lendri]

Automation is a good thing, as long as it doesn't become the BEST way to do something.

Eeehhh, it's too close to having a bot play the game for me. And it's about balance. Earning 30m cr per sothis run in my Annie is already pretty easy, there has to be a way of offsetting the easiness or it would feel even less earned. The fact that I have to consciously decide, right, I need some cr so I'm swapping to the Annie and setting aside the time to do a trade run. It's big money but it's not the most exciting activity (no kind of trading is!). Similarly, when I want some excitement I swap to my FDL and go pew pew, but it doesn't earn me big money so quickly. Every activity you choose in the game is a tradeoff against something else you could be doing, and there are alternative methods of earning rank/rep/credits in the Bubble if you don't want to do long-distance multijump trade or exploration. They just take longer or aren't so easy.

 

[Matt Harpring]

I voted for delayed ship transfer. I'm almost entirely for the slow burn approach the game takes, I love it! someone once suggested sarcastically that refuel/restock/repair should have a delay and I was all for it! But I'm totally for autopilot.

It's kind of disheartening to see people I recently agreed with insinuating that me and anyone who want autopilot is a spoiled petulant child. Maybe its my imagination, but a lot of the posts come off as self satisified or somehow equally off-putting. Can someone explain to me how wanting autopilot is an 'instant gratification' thing or an I-Win button or whatever? Maybe after 5 weeks of in-game time we finally discovered ED, a game I've loved for over a year, is the wrong game for me and I'm only in it for the wrong reasons? I've never felt more sorry for the instant transfer folks (still dont think it's a good idea, but I feel their pain), a lot of the opposition is incredibly dismissive without ever really participating in actual discourse.

I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling lots of people here are cool with ED being the video game equivalent of working in a coal mine. Or, perhaps more generously, it's a video game for people that hate video games (and maybe themselves?).

 

[DrugaRunda]

Most of the players who would have liked the autopilot do not play anymore, not surprised with the poll results, as mainly the audience who enjoys the current repetition of honk//track dot/wait/honk/track dot/wait/ x1000 remains.

 

[Lendri]

It's kind of disheartening to see people I recently agreed with insinuating that me and anyone who want autopilot is a spoiled petulant child.

I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling lots of people here are cool with ED being the video game equivalent of working in a coal mine. Or, perhaps more generously, it's a video game for people that hate video games (and maybe themselves?).

Complaining of having your point of view misrepresented while misrepresenting the opposing view isn't cool. There is a variety of things to do in the game, of which long-distance multi-jump trade/exploration is just one. Some things are more exciting than others, and there's usually a tradeoff between easy/profitable for all of them.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

I think one thing some players forget is just how many tasks that can be taken for granted in an AP that would require significant development time for FD.

It's like those task exercises I remember having to do in early programming classes on things like flowcharting. It quite amazing how many tasks we take for granted, just automating the making of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a major task when working with someone who literally did everything you told them and nothing that you skipped.

I watched the video of the AP add-on that a player created. It was interesting but I didn't see it do more than one basic system jump and a few in system jumps. I applaud the developer.

FD wouldn't be able to develop an AP that simple lined up with the next target and performed a jump. If it works in SC it will also have to make a lot of decisions for the player.

i won't try to consider all the possibilities that FD would have to program in an AP but a few off the top of my head are heat management, fuel usage, and target obstructions.

On some builds I've had to pause my jumps or risk overheating my ship. Waiting for the FSD to cool down wasn't enough. Each subsequent jump would, if I jumped immediately after FSD cooldown, start to cook my ship. Will the AP manage your heat too, will it have to wait for the ship to cool down enough before making another jump?

What happens if you jump between two close binaries and your ship starts to overheat? What should the AP do? Should it attempt to navigate away from the heat or will it drop heat sinks?

For fuel usage you might be able to plot a course that you know you can make since you know you can fuel scoop along the way. Will the AP have logic in it to accomplish this by dropping out at a scoopable star? What about knowing that if you don't scoop at the next star you might not be able to get fuel again before running out? Will the AP have to have those logical choices programmed in?

As far as target obstructions go, most of the time I doubt it's a significant problem but what if your next jump is obscured by another star and not just the star you jumped to? Will the AP make complex navigation corrections to align with the next jump point?

If the AP works in SC will it make course corrections if a planet or moon moves between you and your destination? What if your course takes you near a planet and significantly slows you down? Will the AP just maintain 75% throttle or will it increase thrust to maintain the target time of :07? What if the planet gives the ship a gravity boost, will the ship throttle down or is there a risk of overshooting?

TL;DR: If FD implements an AP or even an NPC AI, they will have to include a great deal more logic into the programming beyond simply align with target, throttle up and press J. It would have to mimic a flight management system with a lot of decision making and ship system inputs. I don't believe this is a trivial task.