Federal cutter?... sounds fun 
E3 2014: Elite: Dangerous Developer Demo
- Thread starter Tinman
- Start date
Adam is flying very well !
He keeps over-shooting in supercruise though ... might be on purpose
Well Done DB Well Done Adam
Well, considering Frontier had an autopilot that docked for you (including requesting docking clearance from the station), there's nothing wrong with having a LITTLE bit of assistance in docking, especially when you're trying to cram a Space Cow or Anaconda with six inches of clearance into a station. Same thing with supercruise... all it's really doing is increasing the window a little bit for dropping out, to prevent the constant need to spend 30 seconds it takes to turn around if you overshoot.
Remember, this game is set 1,300 years from now. In addition to technology created to allow us FTL travel, surely someone would be BOUND to invent a better brake. And we already have cars that can park themselves, so having an environment where SOME things aren't completely manual isn't exactly chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
We already have passenger planes that, after programming, mostly fly and even land themselves if needed.
Also, the docking computer was already in the original Elite, also fully automating docking after activated and with nice music playing to it.
What is intriguing to me is, that many want things to be more 'realistic', because it is more 'skill' based (whatever that is supposed to mean), yet discount the fact that many things in a game can not be made realistic in certain ways as feedback is missing (e.g. G-forces in a combat flight sim).
While many planes are landed manually nowadays it is often done with either established and trained procedures, that are similar for most planes and often with the assisstance of landing systems, ranging from navigational aids to find the airport to PAPI lights telling you if you are on the correct glide path and ILS systems telling you, even in adverse weather if you are on the correct way to landing the plane safely. Add to that the above mentioned autoland systems, the first of which were already developed and used in the 1960s and you'll see that guiding and landing a plane is as much about surrounding technology as it is about skill.
Can you do landings without any assists? Sure. Can you do landings without any assists in adverse weather (stromy, low to no visibility)? Highly unlikely.
Realism, in civilian spaceships of the year 3300 then, if we project nowadays capabilities and rules and regulations, would mean that each ship would at least have some assistance in aligning the ship and setting the right speed (compare PAPI lights) at space ports and would likely only be allowed to enter at a certain time slot and would also need to follow a specified flight path with predetermined parameters to get to the landing platform where, again and with more rules in place, a landing would have to be performed in a certain manner.
Depending on the circumstances a station might even require ships that want to dock to have something akin to todays ILS on board or an autoland (read docking computer) system installed.
But since too much realism is not fun, I think we can leave it like it is today and then lets just see where UI improvements and docking assists take us.
Having and learning the skill to do manual dockings is helpful and should and will be required at the start, but later on I would very much like to be able to sometimes hand things over to my shiny, new docking computer, lest she'll feel underapreciated and we all know where that can lead with AI's.
Actually, automation in the cockpit is becoming a problem, with one recent crash possibly related to pilots not knowing how to actually fly their plane... a scary thought if you plan to fly any time soon.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...voided-manual-flying-former-trainers-say.html
The new cars I'm looking to buy can park themselves. I don't see them taking reverse parking out of the test though. We join the game after the test... I see nothing wrong with starting in an old banger with no automation and upgrading to one that can park itself.
Teach the players the basics, through making them do it themselves until they can afford the automation, then if it breaks... they'll remember how to save themselves without that automation.
Also.. most IRL pilots start flying in single engine planes with no automation at all. Again, I see no reason why we shouldn't start Elite like that and work up to better gear.
I have this! It still freaks me out.
I have this! It still freaks me out.
wait till they drive themselves ... they can you know
They can't drive like I drivewait till they drive themselves ... they can you know
Which is probably a good thing.
In a few years nobody will be able to use a simple map...
I like this, but it doesn't make sense that easily.
I would suggest a logarithmic range, meaning around 5000 km you drop out at 5000 km, and then have a curve that goes to a factor of 10 as suggested.
Maybe some kind of destination lock where you only determine the distance, your ship is locked in direction towards the goal.
The throttle should be polynomial or so, e.g. X^3 so you have more control in lower throttle settings.