Navigation Computer needed ?

[Susanna]

Please, not again. This post has been made about three dozen times over the last 18 months.

OK, lets add an autopilot. Also add auto-combat and auto-trade. You would end up with a beautiful space demo, but unfortunately, there would be no game-play left.

TL;DR: OP, ED is probably not the right game for you.

Oh for banana sake get real, and quite with the stupid dramatics, an autopilot isn't going to wreck the game, it will just remove some of the manual donky work and micro flight mechanics that are currently needed. A trip to Hutton wouldn't be a boredom fest any longer. In your world, I'm presuming that you have NEVER used cruise control and abs or any other features on our cars that remove some of the tedium of driving?

 

[Vasious]

Oh for sake get real, and quite with the stupid dramatics, an autopilot isn't going to wreck the game, it will just remove some of the manual donky work and micro flight mechanics that are currently needed. A trip to Hutton wouldn't be a boredom fest any longer. In your world, I'm presuming that you have NEVER used cruise control and abs or any other features on our cars that remove some of the tedium of driving?

If I have never owned a car new enough to have "cruise control and abs or any other features on our cars that remove some of the tedium of driving" then I can say no to Navigation Computer?

 

[lysan]

If I have never owned a car new enough to have "cruise control and abs or any other features on our cars that remove some of the tedium of driving" then I can say no to Navigation Computer?

LOL, my horse can find its way home when I'm drunk ....so...NO.

 

[S.H.A.D.O]

Oh for banana sake get real, and quite with the stupid dramatics, an autopilot isn't going to wreck the game, it will just remove some of the manual donky work and micro flight mechanics that are currently needed. A trip to Hutton wouldn't be a boredom fest any longer. In your world, I'm presuming that you have NEVER used cruise control and abs or any other features on our cars that remove some of the tedium of driving?

The day autopilot is added is the day I click uninstall and tear up my lifetime pass. Elite with an autopilot.. dear gods NO, never!
If flying around is such a chore then obviously Elite isn't for you.. perhaps go try Galaxy under Fire, that game is very simplified for the console crowd and yes, it has autopilot. perhaps its more up your street?

 

[Jaiotu]

The day autopilot is added is the day I click uninstall and tear up my lifetime pass. Elite with an autopilot.. dear gods NO, never!
If flying around is such a chore then obviously Elite isn't for you.. perhaps go try Galaxy under Fire, that game is very simplified for the console crowd and yes, it has autopilot. perhaps its more up your street?

I'm all for a "limited" autopilot. Nothing that actually steers your ship but something that would automate the throttle so that the ship slows down and eventually throttles to zero when you've reached your destination. It would make you extremely vulnerable to interdiction (if you walk away from the keyboard and get ganked that is your own fault). If they gave us an autopilot that flies you around the system scanning all the planets for you ... yeah. That would ruin things for me.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Will it also stop and do the fuel scooping for you? Perhaps negotiate with unexpected pirates on your behalf? Suggest new opportunities on NetFlix?

I think the simple answer is No, but it shouldn't preclude the idea of an autopilot aid.

A nav computer or autopilot on/off like Flight Assist would be incredibly useful BUT I do not think it should be intelligent. So if you leave it on it will follow your route until you run low of fuel. If you are attacked and do nothing about it then tough you risk death imho. That is not unreasonable and not OP and FDev should do it imho but restrict its availability to Elite ranks as a reward. The theory being you'll done a lot of manual navigation and jumping already...

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The day autopilot is added is the day I click uninstall and tear up my lifetime pass. Elite with an autopilot.. dear gods NO, never!
If flying around is such a chore then obviously Elite isn't for you.. perhaps go try Galaxy under Fire, that game is very simplified for the console crowd and yes, it has autopilot. perhaps its more up your street?

This makes no sense to me, you're over reacting. A simple auto pilot would just perform the menial task of route navigation and flight nothing more like most aeroplanes do today never mind space ships.

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Please, not again. This post has been made about three dozen times over the last 18 months.

OK, lets add an autopilot. Also add auto-combat and auto-trade. You would end up with a beautiful space demo, but unfortunately, there would be no game-play left.

TL;DR: OP, ED is probably not the right game for you.

oh good grief get some perspective, a simple autopilot is less of a pilot aid than flight assist how you arrive at auto-combat and auto-trade is simply not credible.

 

[Susanna]

I do believe I just spat out my tea, all over my screen!

Is that going to be known as being 'Twitched'

 

[steevaavoo]

While I disagree with the OPs idea.

I also find travel rather... Not dull..i don't know what the word is. . Lol

But, if I want to make a long journey, I have to remain at the controls, despite not actually doing a great deal. But just enough, that I can't get up to pee or make a coffee. Because I'll just jump in to the next system and foolishly crash directly in to the star. Lol

Making a coffee on a long trip involves the following procedure:
• Line up to target system, full throttle, and engage FSD.
• Run to the kitchen
• Trip over cat, who is excited you're running to the kitchen
• Fill and Put kettle on.
• Run back to the controls hopefully just in time to steer away from the star.
• Honk, Wait for cooldown, scoop if necessary, align to destination, and charge for hyperspace again.
• Get up, and run back to the kitchen.
• Avoid cat
• Get mug
• Add coffee, and sugar
• Run back to controls.
• Honk, scoop, align, charge FSD.
• Run back to kitchen, avoid cat, again.
• Pour hot water in coffee.
• Stir vigorously.
• Rinse spoon.
• Carefully run back to controls.
• Sip coffee, burn mouth.



If there was an "autopilot", I'd like it to only, only only, handle lining up and jumping. But not using the best methods either.
No scooping.
Disengages if interdicted.
Disengages at 10% fuel.
Disengages at 100%+ heat.
Zeros throttle at destination.

The true words of a genuine cat owner.

Thank you so much for the roaring laughter I just experienced.

 

[hookandsling]

Er.. Docking Computer exists.
Never used it because I love to fly the ship - but the option has always existed for players who don't to buy a module and bypass it.

No difference. No impact to those who don't want to use it.
Can't see the problem with this if implemented well (error prone in extreme gravity, maybe a time / range nerf to protect explorers, buckyballers or if you're in a hurry)

 

[Luniticisi]

While I disagree with the OPs idea.

I also find travel rather... Not dull..i don't know what the word is. . Lol

But, if I want to make a long journey, I have to remain at the controls, despite not actually doing a great deal. But just enough, that I can't get up to pee or make a coffee. Because I'll just jump in to the next system and foolishly crash directly in to the star. Lol

Making a coffee on a long trip involves the following procedure:
• Line up to target system, full throttle, and engage FSD.
• Run to the kitchen
• Trip over cat, who is excited you're running to the kitchen
• Fill and Put kettle on.
• Run back to the controls hopefully just in time to steer away from the star.
• Honk, Wait for cooldown, scoop if necessary, align to destination, and charge for hyperspace again.
• Get up, and run back to the kitchen.
• Avoid cat
• Get mug
• Add coffee, and sugar
• Run back to controls.
• Honk, scoop, align, charge FSD.
• Run back to kitchen, avoid cat, again.
• Pour hot water in coffee.
• Stir vigorously.
• Rinse spoon.
• Carefully run back to controls.
• Sip coffee, burn mouth.



If there was an "autopilot", I'd like it to only, only only, handle lining up and jumping. But not using the best methods either.
No scooping.
Disengages if interdicted.
Disengages at 10% fuel.
Disengages at 100%+ heat.
Zeros throttle at destination.

Two easier ways to make a coffee whilst playing ED is..

1) Have all the stuff you need to make your beverage of choice in the same room as your computer

or

2) Quit to main menu, make coffee, log back in.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

If there was an "autopilot", I'd like it to only, only only, handle lining up and jumping. But not using the best methods either.
No scooping.
Disengages if interdicted.
Disengages at 10% fuel.
Disengages at 100%+ heat.
Zeros throttle at destination.

Exactly nothing more than that is necessary, a simple follow my route autopilot on/off is all that is needed which gives no advantage to the player it's just a way for the pilot to focus their attention on something else if they choose.

 

[Vreynn]

Elite has so many compelling hand-eye coordination activities, from simply docking to matching rotation with the station on the outside with FAOFF well enough to snake in through some of it's geometry without touching it. My favorite is gravity well braking, which saves tons of time slowing down to destinations around gas giants with a lot of moons. Elite feels great and as someone who has played from the first day of Alpha 1.0, I'm still finding new things to practice.

I hate interstellar travel. It's not compelling, interesting, or challenging. The only benefit it's given me is accidentally making me proficient at keyboard flight, because while exploring the hand motions were so tedious with the HOTAS that I made a full set of keyboard binds to fly the spaceship and got completely used to them.

Elite can do better than having a navigation autopilot by making a very compelling and organic interstellar travel system. Such a thing is completely missing right now. I'm personally hoping that this Metadrive thing that keeps popping up in Galnet news will give us an enjoyable interstellar travel experience. I love the navigation systems found in sims like DCS and BMS (<3 TFR), but I think Elite can be more clever than that, and anything would be better than what we have now. Perhaps manually navigating Witchspace as it's own dimension for the benefit of traveling further? Maybe a "super-FSD" that allows us to travel among stars the way we now travel among planets?

I want a video of that cat making consecutive hyperspace jumps. I'm not being sarcastic, because I actually believe it.

 

[lysan]

The day autopilot is added is the day I click uninstall and tear up my lifetime pass. Elite with an autopilot.. dear gods NO, never!
If flying around is such a chore then obviously Elite isn't for you.. perhaps go try Galaxy under Fire, that game is very simplified for the console crowd and yes, it has autopilot. perhaps its more up your street?

Ahh cut the drama, ofc you will not do that son, you will just go on playing. There was a AP in the original game and we need one in this game, at some point people will just find mods that will do it, so it's better everyone can get the opportunity to do it.

 

[SERGI-]

FMS (Flight Management System) is no longer used in year 3302.

 

[thorn-]

I just took a mission and the station is 380,000ls from the main star. I don't know about a nav computer but this game needs something.

You had a choice to take this mission, yes? So the game did give you the opportunity to not go there?

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

You had a choice to take this mission, yes? So the game did give you the opportunity to not go there?

I've just picked up some relics for one of the Engineers I need to unlock, its now a 14jump trip back to the engineer base there is no choice in that short of abandoning 'engineers'. Time to put catch up TV on one monitor whilst mindlessly jumping from one start to next with a couple of scoops for the next 15mins woopee :|

 

[SatansMittens]

Please, not again. This post has been made about three dozen times over the last 18 months.

OK, lets add an autopilot. Also add auto-combat and auto-trade. You would end up with a beautiful space demo, but unfortunately, there would be no game-play left.

TL;DR: OP, ED is probably not the right game for you.

Why do people always have to take things to the extreme to argue against an idea. No one is suggesting that it be taken to that level. Your counter reasoning skills are way off. I wouldn't be happy with any of what you said, its just ridiculous.

 

[Hanz Sorensen]

Er.. Docking Computer exists.
Never used it because I love to fly the ship - but the option has always existed for players who don't to buy a module and bypass it.

No difference. No impact to those who don't want to use it.
Can't see the problem with this if implemented well (error prone in extreme gravity, maybe a time / range nerf to protect explorers, buckyballers or if you're in a hurry)

that's how I see it. Discovering ED had Docking Computers was a great day for me. Docking Computers eliminate most of the Speed Limit so docking is much faster.

 

[wenkman]

mmh, TL;DR

navigation computer would be nice. with auto turnoff if something unexpected happens so you can't leave the screen.

would be possible to read / netflix etc. while travelling without taking away the feeling of distance in the game.

 

[Y2K]

Was discussed in depth during alpha/beta... cant see it ever happening infact the docking computer was only added as a blast from the 80's - which is why even that splatters you into the station walls every so often ( as the original did )! Route planner is plenty enough, in the words of the developers - fly your ship you lazy btards!