This may have been put forth before, but what the heck.
It might be nice to expand the SLF NPF pilot role to a Co-Pilot. While the NPC is riding along in supercruise he/she could be learning a route from say a star to a specific port or other permanent destination. A commander could put the co-pilot in 'learn' mode which would first teach the pilot how to navigate to within 7 seconds of the destination. This would allow the co-pilot to fly to within 7 seconds then kind of lose control , maybe overshoot the destination, maybe just stop. A second training run would let the co-pilot remember to throttle down at 7 seconds. A third run would teach the pilot to jump out of supercruise at the appropriate time.
To keep it from being a total auto-pilot, a commander would need to manually order the co-pilot to fly to the destination after a jump. The commander would also be required to manually get docking clearance. The co-pilot would only learn to fly those specific paths that the commander taught them. And if the pilot gets killed, well, the commander would have to start over with a new NPC.
Also, the NPC would not know how to handle an interdiction. This may help relieve the monotony of supercruising to places yet not just making supercruise a single button push. It would be a limited semi-autopilot but a player would have to put forth some effort to get it going.
It might be nice to expand the SLF NPF pilot role to a Co-Pilot. While the NPC is riding along in supercruise he/she could be learning a route from say a star to a specific port or other permanent destination. A commander could put the co-pilot in 'learn' mode which would first teach the pilot how to navigate to within 7 seconds of the destination. This would allow the co-pilot to fly to within 7 seconds then kind of lose control , maybe overshoot the destination, maybe just stop. A second training run would let the co-pilot remember to throttle down at 7 seconds. A third run would teach the pilot to jump out of supercruise at the appropriate time.
To keep it from being a total auto-pilot, a commander would need to manually order the co-pilot to fly to the destination after a jump. The commander would also be required to manually get docking clearance. The co-pilot would only learn to fly those specific paths that the commander taught them. And if the pilot gets killed, well, the commander would have to start over with a new NPC.
Also, the NPC would not know how to handle an interdiction. This may help relieve the monotony of supercruising to places yet not just making supercruise a single button push. It would be a limited semi-autopilot but a player would have to put forth some effort to get it going.
