I want auto pilot

[Tryst]

"Go here, thanks, computer. BTW, when interdicted, could you submit, then boost then jump back? And it would be nice if you could also auto request docking when you auto jump out of frameshift, and dock by yourself."

Oh and when you get there, interface with the market tool and pick the best commodities, and handle the trade route will you?"

It's a slippery slope. We human beings love to take shortcuts that cause us to miss the point of taking the journey.

Hey, we have self driving cars now, why not?

It would take a lot of the tedium out of flying. I find myself playing less and less, not because I'm bored with trading etc but I am bored with having to manage the flying and let's face it, that's what we do most of in this game. It's especially useful when you're flying to places like LHS 3447 where you start out, 195K Ls takes around 15 minutes to fly and it's not the furthest trip you'll do by a wide margin. Even if the AP dropped you 20Km from the station with engines at zero instead of 10Km as a downside of using it, that would be acceptable from my point of view. It would already fly you in a straight line to your destination which is the slowest route, so that would be two downsides of using it.

I also hate this new idea of having to go to the navigation console again to select the station after you jump, you should be able to do that from the point of origin, you always used to be able to in the Original Elite.

 

[CMDR Piracy]

We have the technology today to drive a car with a laptop, so why can't the same be done with a spacecraft? Surely in 3301 navigation technology is advanced enough to fly a ship in a straight line and stop it at a given point.

 

[Vasious]

On the one hand
More Automation = less of a game

On the Other
Auto Pliot, plus planned flight path plus debug camera....

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

We have the technology today to drive a car with a laptop, so why can't the same be done with a spacecraft? Surely in 3301 navigation technology is advanced enough to fly a ship in a straight line and stop it at a given point.

With a Cmdr name like that, I question your motive for advocating an Auto pilot that can "fly a ship in a straight line and stop it at a given point"

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

Sure, add an autopilot if you like. Its not something for me though.

But be aware that:
- you will not learn how to fly you ship
- you will not learn how to avoid interdictions (or even be able to)
- you shouldnt watch netflix while gaming

On that note I officially predict a lot of future forum rage from AFK'ers being killed by NPC's in solo or mobius because they.

- didnt know how to fly the ship
- didnt know how to avoid interdictions
- watched netflix while gaming.

 

[Krow]

Can we have Auto-Pirate as well.

 

[barcode]

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a basic autopilot that supercruises you from Point A to Point B and hands control back to the player the moment anything else happens.

 

[MacKerris]

Somewhere in space...

"Hey copilot! It's your turn.....I've got someone waiting for me in my bunk. Be back in a while."

 

[Kandarus]

Auto-pilot would be great but shouldn't fuel scoop automatically.

If the next jump is in the path of the corona of a scoop-able star OK, but if not then it misses that scoop and jumps on. If you cannot make the next jump, with the fuel in tank, you drop into normal space until you take over to refuel.

Auto-pilot should not be able to avoid interdiction.

Auto-pilot does not equate to less of a game as long as it cannot avoid non-static intervention. Stars are static, players/npcs not static.

On a personal note, I am just getting back from a ~70k light-year trip around the galaxy. I would have loved an auto-pilot to help me get back. Although I would have missed out on some scans along the way, that is the price I'd be willing to pay to get back. If somehow my ship popped because of player/npc intervention that would be MY fault but as it is 400 Billion stars some form of automation should exist especially outside of populated space. Anyway these are my thoughts on this.

 

[Jexter]

I wouldn't be at all suprised if we see something like an autopilot in the future, but it'll probably be in line with the docking computers of today: needs a module slot, extremely slow and with a 50% fatality rate.

 

[Taimaru]

I personally don't want an auto pilot as flying the space ships is one of the reasons I bought the game. I have hundreds of hours flying and I still love it. However, I can understand why some may want one.

It could be sold as a module but it would need to automatically disconnect when being interdicted or some other kind of danger (Thargoids) threatens the ship.

Also once installed a message should be displayed saying "I, the human pilot, accept all responsibility for losing my ship as a result of using an auto pilot and won't rage quit." that you have to agree to before it is enabled .

 

[Alvatore]

Have any of you played Frontier - a game which must be close to 25 years old?

That had an auto pilot and didn't ruin the game one bit - I spent more hours on that game than I can possibly imagine. Trading, exploring, combat - it was all there. You could be interdicted while in auto pilot and that was just part of it.

At the moment, Dangerous is a cut down Frontier. There's nothing in Dangerous that has added to Frontier - unless you include multiplayer which I'm not the slightest bit interested in.

Is Elite: Dangerous an update of Frontier? No. It's an update of Elite. Did Elite have autopilot? I'm not an '84er but signs seem to indicate it did not.

 

[Tryst]

Can we have Auto-Pirate as well.

Don't want a Chinese version

 

[Krait_79]

After playing this game for a couple hundred hours I'm completely disinterested in traveling anywhere. Traveling has become extremely repetitive and tedious. I use an auto docking module which relives some of the tedium when dealing with stations, but that's only part of it. At first traveling was cool because it was new, but now that the novelty has worn off it's just a chore.

So right now you arrive in a system aim at the destination and do nothing other than slow down at the end. So the point of an autopilot would be.............

 

[Tryst]

I personally don't want an auto pilot as flying the space ships is one of the reasons I bought the game. I have hundreds of hours flying and I still love it. However, I can understand why some may want one.

It could be sold as a module but it would need to automatically disconnect when being interdicted or some other kind of danger (Thargoids) threatens the ship.

Also once installed a message should be displayed saying "I, the human pilot, accept all responsibility for losing my ship as a result of using an auto pilot and won't rage quit." that you have to agree to before it is enabled .

It's no different to the Original Elite. The AP would take you to the station if nothing happened, but would immediately drop to normal time if you had increased time dilation and then hand control to you if a threat came on the radar. In this case, if you are interdicted, it would hand the controls to you, if you don't take over, that's your lookout.

Really, I would like this to be a "NPC co-pilot" as such, most larger ships have a spare seat. Even if you paid a fixed cost every hour you play or so to have it, (you pay wages for your co-pilot like you did in the original for crew).

 

[Kandarus]

Is Elite: Dangerous an update of Frontier? No. It's an update of Elite. Did Elite have autopilot? I'm not an '84er but signs seem to indicate it did not.

Sometimes people make me LOL. Did original elite have joystick+Hotas?

Why do people like making things basic just for the sake of basic? Necessity is the mother of inventions, right? Otherwise would we even have computers to play Elite? Things that make you go Hmmmm....

 

[Slacker]

As far as I can see the only thing an auto-pilot shouldn't allow is for a player to leave their game going in complete safety. As long as there's always the risk of being interdicted and requiring immediate action by the player then it's really no-one's business as to whether someone else is using an auto pilot or has their hand on the controls.

 

[Kael Maliai]

Can we have Auto-Pirate as well.

Isnt that what npc interdictions would be considered? At least from the games overall point of view.

 

[VirusCode X]

Auto pilot is a bad idea for this game...

 

[Valethar]

Sometimes people make me LOL. Did original elite have joystick+Hotas?

Joystick yes. HOTAS no. There weren't any HOTAS available at that time that I am aware of.

 

[Kandarus]

Joystick yes. HOTAS no. There weren't any HOTAS available at that time that I am aware of.

So remove Hotas support. See what I did there?

This is all conjecture by the way. Frontier has not said anything about an auto-pilot but all I am saying is that it would be nice. I don't use the docking computer but I'm sure others think it's nice. Do I care if it exists? Well, I don't use it so until I find the need at least it's there.

More options lend to more variety. Otherwise we would all still be playing Pong. And even that had the choice to either be player one or player two!