To be honest, I usually solve the issues by just killing the game process, but recently this problem has really triggered me and I cannot just keep calm anymore. Frontier, ship autopilot (AP further) when you are in SRV or fighter is a real piece of hell! It fails on every planet that is not a complete flat plain! If ship recalling from SRV goes mostly fine and the max AP can do is to drop 1-2 shield circles (on 0.1-3.0 G, I don't think we even have to discuss what happens if G is higher) hitting some terrain edges if you are in a narrow ravine or near steep hill. But what happens when you are in a fighter... Oh, man, AP just rams every obstacle it encounters and usually does it on high speeds. And if AP manages to wreck your ship while you are in SRV you can shut down the game cause you do not get destroyed shortly after this. But, again, in fighter you literally have 4-5 seconds to close the game to revive your ship and you often have to just shut down the PC because game will have time to show you insurance screen while you are looking for ED process in task manager. And I think you have understood by now what made me to write this post - yes, yesterday this "great" AP destroyed my ship.
And no, I do not ask to resurrect me or give back money: I flew only 2500 ly (and it is much faster to come back manually rather then wait 2-3 days for support answer) and I have 2+ billions of credits - I just encountered the problem too many times, it really enraged me, and I want to tell about it. Yes, one can start telling about cautions and warnings, but let's be honest - AP must not behave like that. Either you are in a canyon or near the mountain - it must bypass obstacles and follow your fighter or fly to the landing spot. And, by the way, yesterday I was just enjoying the mountain view high up where the width of it was less that 2 km and it could be easily flown around or over - but the AP decided just to ram the peak! No narrow canyon or hilly surface, just a damn mountain peak and plenty of space to evade it! And yeah, I know about the possibility to order position holding but it is not convenient at all, especially when you want to do a canyon run, cause you have only sphere with 30km radius to fly in. Plus, as I mentioned it is just an excuse and nothing more! Is it really so hard to program a fine AI that will evade obstacles? We are in 2019 but AP seems like it is from mid 90s where mob passfinding was really bad in most cases.
A one will say I am only complaining about the issue without any suggestions... Well here they are! Though I am not really a programmer (at least in the video games sphere) is it hard to give the AI such commands: 1) keep at least 500 m from any kind of solid obstacles 2) "scan" the shortest route from the fighter to the ship 3) if it is obscured than start looking for bypassing in 10-15 km sphere, for instance, so that it will keep the same 500 m from any wall 4) if there is no such path than hold position and send message that AP cannot find safe route to the player. To overcome the problem of ship complex shapes (like cutter "wings" or anaconda "cargo bay") you can just give them special rectangular hitboxes so AI will not process the distance from ships "bulges". Well, let's assume this is "technically impossible" (seems just as impossible as color adjustment for separated HUD elements) and I do not know a damn thing in programming, then what? Well, you can just make ship invulnerable to terrain hits when there are no other players in instance. It will not hurt any game rules but will save the ship in case AI decides to drill the terrain with your ship.
Somebody can also claim something like: "ah, fighters are used only near bubble and you will be revived nearby anyway..." Firstly, you still lose money and potentially some rewards like bonds or bounties. Secondly, fighters are used not only in combat ships: they are very effective for surface or anomaly recon, plus making some canyon runs with the whole milky way in the sky without risking your main ship. Or sometimes it's just even a possibility to fly fast maneuverable ship after tens (or hundreds) hours of piloting conda or cutter. And I maybe even would left this topic if there was a simple possibility to let your crew pilot the ship for some time while you are enjoying the fighter, but no, you can either fly in 30km limit or have fun with AP which rams every corner of the planet.
So, here it is. I have not really talked about AP landing after a recall, cause, as I said, if you are not in a ravine it often goes smooth and you always have a possibility to shut down the game and revive your ship or just log into base game and you will get teleported automatically. I do not want to write some "polite askings" to fix the problem - no - it is not some kind of minor issue that can be triggered only in certain time of the universe life by going through list of actions, it just an idiotic AI that plays a substantial role and must be fixed (just imagine spending 300-400 hours of your game time and get your ship destroyed on 0.05 G planet by AP - this is even not your fault cause you had no control over ship but you still have to face the insurance screen). I spent my money on the game and have to spend more if I want any customization except HUD color, and I want to get a good product - simple market relations. And do not try to convince me that when I buy customization elements, I get them and can't demand more - in fact, I have to get nice and neat game even for the basic price. Cause if you buy the item like camera or tv in a usual shop you want it to work properly and have a right to complain if it does not. Why should it be different with video games?
I hope I will get some proper answers from FD staff or its community managers. I am also open for a discussion if you are willing to. Have a nice day!
P.S. There also was an occasion when autodock crashed my ship into the asteroid cause the station was in the rings, but whatever... I do not really want to detail this incident cause the post is already very long...
And no, I do not ask to resurrect me or give back money: I flew only 2500 ly (and it is much faster to come back manually rather then wait 2-3 days for support answer) and I have 2+ billions of credits - I just encountered the problem too many times, it really enraged me, and I want to tell about it. Yes, one can start telling about cautions and warnings, but let's be honest - AP must not behave like that. Either you are in a canyon or near the mountain - it must bypass obstacles and follow your fighter or fly to the landing spot. And, by the way, yesterday I was just enjoying the mountain view high up where the width of it was less that 2 km and it could be easily flown around or over - but the AP decided just to ram the peak! No narrow canyon or hilly surface, just a damn mountain peak and plenty of space to evade it! And yeah, I know about the possibility to order position holding but it is not convenient at all, especially when you want to do a canyon run, cause you have only sphere with 30km radius to fly in. Plus, as I mentioned it is just an excuse and nothing more! Is it really so hard to program a fine AI that will evade obstacles? We are in 2019 but AP seems like it is from mid 90s where mob passfinding was really bad in most cases.
A one will say I am only complaining about the issue without any suggestions... Well here they are! Though I am not really a programmer (at least in the video games sphere) is it hard to give the AI such commands: 1) keep at least 500 m from any kind of solid obstacles 2) "scan" the shortest route from the fighter to the ship 3) if it is obscured than start looking for bypassing in 10-15 km sphere, for instance, so that it will keep the same 500 m from any wall 4) if there is no such path than hold position and send message that AP cannot find safe route to the player. To overcome the problem of ship complex shapes (like cutter "wings" or anaconda "cargo bay") you can just give them special rectangular hitboxes so AI will not process the distance from ships "bulges". Well, let's assume this is "technically impossible" (seems just as impossible as color adjustment for separated HUD elements) and I do not know a damn thing in programming, then what? Well, you can just make ship invulnerable to terrain hits when there are no other players in instance. It will not hurt any game rules but will save the ship in case AI decides to drill the terrain with your ship.
Somebody can also claim something like: "ah, fighters are used only near bubble and you will be revived nearby anyway..." Firstly, you still lose money and potentially some rewards like bonds or bounties. Secondly, fighters are used not only in combat ships: they are very effective for surface or anomaly recon, plus making some canyon runs with the whole milky way in the sky without risking your main ship. Or sometimes it's just even a possibility to fly fast maneuverable ship after tens (or hundreds) hours of piloting conda or cutter. And I maybe even would left this topic if there was a simple possibility to let your crew pilot the ship for some time while you are enjoying the fighter, but no, you can either fly in 30km limit or have fun with AP which rams every corner of the planet.
So, here it is. I have not really talked about AP landing after a recall, cause, as I said, if you are not in a ravine it often goes smooth and you always have a possibility to shut down the game and revive your ship or just log into base game and you will get teleported automatically. I do not want to write some "polite askings" to fix the problem - no - it is not some kind of minor issue that can be triggered only in certain time of the universe life by going through list of actions, it just an idiotic AI that plays a substantial role and must be fixed (just imagine spending 300-400 hours of your game time and get your ship destroyed on 0.05 G planet by AP - this is even not your fault cause you had no control over ship but you still have to face the insurance screen). I spent my money on the game and have to spend more if I want any customization except HUD color, and I want to get a good product - simple market relations. And do not try to convince me that when I buy customization elements, I get them and can't demand more - in fact, I have to get nice and neat game even for the basic price. Cause if you buy the item like camera or tv in a usual shop you want it to work properly and have a right to complain if it does not. Why should it be different with video games?
I hope I will get some proper answers from FD staff or its community managers. I am also open for a discussion if you are willing to. Have a nice day!
P.S. There also was an occasion when autodock crashed my ship into the asteroid cause the station was in the rings, but whatever... I do not really want to detail this incident cause the post is already very long...
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