Please automate Supercruise - its the most pointless gameplay element.
- Thread starter Twotricks
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So you're going to use an autopilot AND keep just sitting there watching the screen while you do even less than now? Yeah that sounds thrilling.
Yep.
Again, you're going to use an autopilot so you can sit and watch the screen tick over?
So now you want a FAULTY autopilot? So that we have to tolerate a certain amount of gold farming bots, but they crash 10% of the time?
Do you really think an autopilot would be enough content and desired by enough players to warrant it being a paid expansion? The only reason for an autopilot is so you don't have to pay attention and the ship flies itself.. that's what an autopilot IS. Any suggestion that people will still remain attentive to the screen while on autopilot is disingenuous.
So, why do you want to waste the devs' time creating a mechanic that you'd eventually get bored with? Noone is saying SC is perfect, but doing LESS in SC isn't the answer. I'd much rather the devs spent their time creating EXTRA to do in SC and improving SC.
Chuckles. Poker in flight is NOT how I would suggest FD further develop, supercruise in going forward
It's "your" thread Cmdr ... but he should have paused his in game game, game!
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Why not download screensavers and slideshow them, Let the others players do all the tedious stuff like travelling and screen capturing them for you. You can then sit back and simply watch them without lifting a finger, and for the times you want to get into combat, there are a good selection of commander confrontations you can watch on youtube...again without lifting a finger to participate. Voila, you now have Elite Endangered.
I agree that there should be more to do in SC.
But I don't think that dev time for autopilot would be very long.
The docking computer uses the NPC docking code.
An autopilot would use the NPC supercruise code.
Yeah, sure, it would then take months for it to then actually work properly and not fly people into stars 50% of the time... ;-D
But yeah definitely more things to flesh out SC would be great!
Because the action is best put into something better than clearly a time sink mechanic.
If a player has to sit through a long supercruise, at least allow us to enjoy SOMETHING else if it's going to be this boring. Even truckers have at least a radio (and not having to dodge 3 pirates a minute for "action" -- yeah, had that happen in solo). -_-
Creating the basic mechanic would be simple... as you say 90% of it already exists. The time would be taken up trying to prevent it being misused, making sure it was balanced, creating appropriate GUI's and balances, testing etc. BUt that is time that would be better taken up putting more into the game for everyone, not creating a way for players a small number of players to ignore the game.
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As I've been saying, I agree that SC needs more in it. Autopilot however is simply a way to IGNORE the game, the devs attention is better spent IMPROVING the game than giving you a way to IGNORE the game.
It's a Sunday, I'm here, so are you .. so here goes
No. I'd suggest that if doing anything to automate SC, I'd go the whole way and make it a programmable flight system. Instead of inputing command controls "live", you could (perhaps and along the lines of) load the co-ordinates in prior, editing them in flight, and see how you did. This is only shifting the control, away from the event, like fly by wire .. It could mean working on improving your course between two regular runs that you do again and again, or developing exploration routes that take you around all the bodies in a solar system.
Actually it's to stop you from having to stare at the speed indicator.
Yeah, they MUST break down. I LIVE for things breaking in ED .. and only just making it home (phew, pint).
Really suggested as a way to spot gold bots .. and kill 'em.
It depends how involved the flight computer is. Point to point with no hands, no, is not worth a paid for expansion. A more sophisticated (and parallel to flight stick) "programmers way" to PHYSICALLY fly your ship MIGHT be? (discuss?)
If people are already getting bored of always having to fly manual (given the OP which is not mine) I suggest giving choice is a possible answer to that. I think you'd find people switch back and forth between the two, esp. of course on milk runs.
I've mentioned above, exploration gameplay, but no I don't want to waste developer time. That's partly why I suggest a full on (pay for it type) upgrade which justifies the development. I have some experience of computational science (Fortran would you believe) and (could tell you but then would have to kill you) team built projects. I have a gut feel here, that predicting a here-to-there flightpath (which an autopilot would have to follow, virtual NPC) could, in software, help smooth SC exit. Not telling FD how to do their job, and they MIGHT be doing it already, but it's a smallish team, they ruled against auto early on, and you never know. Helpful suggestioning only, hopefully.
What else, would you put into SC (if not this) as you mention, extra content? Definitely open to hearing ..
Happy Sunday Afternoon
No. I'd suggest that if doing anything to automate SC, I'd go the whole way and make it a programmable flight system. Instead of inputing command controls "live", you could (perhaps and along the lines of) load the co-ordinates in prior, editing them in flight, and see how you did. This is only shifting the control, away from the event, like fly by wire .. It could mean working on improving your course between two regular runs that you do again and again, or developing exploration routes that take you around all the bodies in a solar system.
Actually it's to stop you from having to stare at the speed indicator.
Yeah, they MUST break down. I LIVE for things breaking in ED .. and only just making it home (phew, pint).
Really suggested as a way to spot gold bots .. and kill 'em.
It depends how involved the flight computer is. Point to point with no hands, no, is not worth a paid for expansion. A more sophisticated (and parallel to flight stick) "programmers way" to PHYSICALLY fly your ship MIGHT be? (discuss?)
If people are already getting bored of always having to fly manual (given the OP which is not mine) I suggest giving choice is a possible answer to that. I think you'd find people switch back and forth between the two, esp. of course on milk runs.
I've mentioned above, exploration gameplay, but no I don't want to waste developer time. That's partly why I suggest a full on (pay for it type) upgrade which justifies the development. I have some experience of computational science (Fortran would you believe) and (could tell you but then would have to kill you) team built projects. I have a gut feel here, that predicting a here-to-there flightpath (which an autopilot would have to follow, virtual NPC) could, in software, help smooth SC exit. Not telling FD how to do their job, and they MIGHT be doing it already, but it's a smallish team, they ruled against auto early on, and you never know. Helpful suggestioning only, hopefully.
What else, would you put into SC (if not this) as you mention, extra content? Definitely open to hearing ..
Happy Sunday Afternoon
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It's a Sunday, I'm here, so are you .. so here goes
[snip]
What else, would you put into SC (if not this) as you mention, extra? Definitely open to hearing ..
Ahh, see NOW you're talking about completely replacing the whole SC mechanic with a more complex one involving navigation and course plotting... THAT I could get right behind. I'm just against something like "dropping out of hyperspace, selecting a planet, pressing the autopilot, and going off to eat cheetos while the ship flies you there" version.
I've actually spoken about this on a few occasions... we already have a frameshift drive that uses artificial gravity and reacts poorly to other gravitational masses... I'd really like to have seen (too late now, had to happen a year ago really) gravity wells to be "mapped" onto the hud somehow and have the ship operate more like a sailing ship in currents, getting assistance from solar winds and navigating gravity wells rather than like a power boat just muscling it's way through everything. THAT could be a far more involved trip requiring real piloting skills and offering you course choices that actually affect the trip (stay further out and be safe at the cost of a longer trip, or sail close to the planet and potentially slingshot off, but also at the risk of getting caught in it's gravity well etc).
That ship however has sailed, and we're stuck with the mechanic we have now. What to put into it to make it more interesting at this point I don't know... I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know an "fire and forget" autopilot aint it.
It's Monday morning here... but I still like the Small Faces
As do I - especially with the great Stanley Unwin!
[video=youtube;9jJeoS--XZM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJeoS--XZM[/video]
You have to ignore it at times. It's called a RL sanity check.
Time sinks are put in games to prevent over consumption of limited assets, yet how they're implement most of the time is without much thought. It's like ghostwalking was the method of adding not only a penalty for death, a time sink in raids. When raids became what they came to be today, some games just removed them as that time sink wasn't needed anymore.
Supercruise feels every bit the time sink. That's the beef. Good time sinks doesn't feel grindy. You know they exist, but they're not so unpleasant a player dreads even logging in to play.
I dread logging in because of this mechanic puts me to sleep. I thought garrisons could get boring, supercruise is showing even the garrison "chores" are more entertaining. :/
And it's the very reason I bought ED to not repeat the garrison boredom (no new content patch and the same garrison routines for 3-4 months ... ah, no!).
Would like to be able to watch videos while this time sink is in process, since the flight has me doing even less than flying my Time Lost Proto-drake in WoW. And if interdictions is the answer, ED will become but a paperweight. Not interested in another fight game when I already have a enough games like that.
Sandman, getting each other better, p.o.v. -wise there. Nice!
Yes, definitely don't want ED to go full on point and click. In view of the OP, from that users point of view (not a minority) of a juddery SC exit (maybe) and some monotony encoutered, I do think it's worth considering supercruise as being a little bit different from flight in normal space.
Normal space, with exception of docking computer, you're hands on stick. Always. No worries, 100%.
In SC? I suggest give people a choice. Even if they do point and click (a little bit off topic really, the OP only wants to drop out automatically), so long as they don't get there any quicker than you can manually (messing up earnings potentials) and if gold-botting is looked at too, do we really care if they do get up from their seat and stretch their legs even? They might play longer?
It's nice to think they won't get up, and they'll be hands on at all times, but at end of day, it doesn't REALLY matter to me at the other end .. (so long as it doesn't matter to me! esp if I can interdict them easiy! arf)
So yes, it's NOT to mess with the core game, at all, but partly commerically speaking, ideally people stay on board with the game. if people get bored with any routine mechanic, it spells potential trouble as far as I can tell. Much probably depends on how rough a job it is for FD to look at it. I just hope they don't "ruled it out, no way Jose" .. for me that's not the best message ever sent.
Liking the gravity wells idea, right up my street that ..
Maybe it's still possible to overlay such a thing in future. Here's hopes.
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edit: great add there Cody
Yes, definitely don't want ED to go full on point and click. In view of the OP, from that users point of view (not a minority) of a juddery SC exit (maybe) and some monotony encoutered, I do think it's worth considering supercruise as being a little bit different from flight in normal space.
Normal space, with exception of docking computer, you're hands on stick. Always. No worries, 100%.
In SC? I suggest give people a choice. Even if they do point and click (a little bit off topic really, the OP only wants to drop out automatically), so long as they don't get there any quicker than you can manually (messing up earnings potentials) and if gold-botting is looked at too, do we really care if they do get up from their seat and stretch their legs even? They might play longer?
It's nice to think they won't get up, and they'll be hands on at all times, but at end of day, it doesn't REALLY matter to me at the other end .. (so long as it doesn't matter to me! esp if I can interdict them easiy! arf)
So yes, it's NOT to mess with the core game, at all, but partly commerically speaking, ideally people stay on board with the game. if people get bored with any routine mechanic, it spells potential trouble as far as I can tell. Much probably depends on how rough a job it is for FD to look at it. I just hope they don't "ruled it out, no way Jose" .. for me that's not the best message ever sent.
Liking the gravity wells idea, right up my street that ..
Maybe it's still possible to overlay such a thing in future. Here's hopes.
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edit: great add there Cody
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When it was in alpha ED didn't have it, you would hyperspace directly to 20km out from the station. SC was actually put in AT THE DEMANDS OF THE PLAYERS because it made space feel small and it felt unnatural that "all the action" took place in small bubbles and ignored 99.9% of the galaxy.
No, that would be called "quit and save".
Agreed. SC is empty at the moment and it needs more in it. What it DOESN'T need is a fire and forget autopilot so you can go eat cheetos and watch friends while it does it. (The "friends" thing actually came from this same conversation I had with someone else back in beta who literally wanted to watch friends episodes while playing!).
And then I get to this... oh well. Hopefully you're not watching Jennifer Aniston.
No, that would be called "quit and save".
Agreed. SC is empty at the moment and it needs more in it. What it DOESN'T need is a fire and forget autopilot so you can go eat cheetos and watch friends while it does it. (The "friends" thing actually came from this same conversation I had with someone else back in beta who literally wanted to watch friends episodes while playing!).
And then I get to this... oh well. Hopefully you're not watching Jennifer Aniston.
Cmdr SCADVID just changed my mind
(joke)
(joke)
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So, if your car got automatic gearbox and cruise control, then you basically don't need to do anything - the car will insta-drive itself to work, insta-work for you in the office, insta-do all the grocery shopping, and you can only sit there playing with your giant spreadsheet?
Right?
Absolutely agree. Let's just have three massive threads. One called "Yo dude!, this game totally sux, bro!", one called "Dear Mr. Braben, Please let me bear your children" and a third vastly more intelligent one to discuss the truly important issue of sock wearing.
Because some people get out there and do the hard work of eating wasp nests for a living, damn it, while you just sit back and eat your namby-pamby, automated, processed food from the supermarket. Wasp nests give you all the protein and fibre you could possibly need, an excuse to get some exercise, practice your survival skills and see the world, for a change!
And there's you, you God damned heathen... Just sitting around, acting like the world owes you a favour and pretending you have better things to do with your time and not eat wasp nests.
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Just have it actually working, and that's it.
QFE even though OT
I too hope that one day this will be something that the FDEVs will be able to make a smoother/quicker/seamless transition. It's a lot better than early beta for sure, but it still feels very disjointed. Along the same lines, I still get horrible stuttering during witch space that really breaks the immersion for me as well. I've tried all the tweaking I can on my end with my i7-3930K / 16GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X / 2GB GTX 680. Since I have no problems in any other games playing at high-max settings @1080p, I can only assume it is an ED optimization issue.
Well. Witch space isn't so much a cut scene as a semi interactive load screen.
And a bit of stutter is in my perception better than screen saying "LOADING..." for a few seconds.
I have also noticed that it only stutters during the first jump. If I do a sequence of jumps the rest are usually rather smooth.
If you do a lot of stuff between each jump game will of course offload witch space from the ram and make room for other stuff as any game or software should do.
Stutter during witch space is fine, what is worse is when the game stutters during loading elements when approaching planets and stations in hyper cruise, a stutter in the wrong place there could be the difference between pulling around a planet and coming in at a perfect angle on the station dock or face splatting into the side of a planetoid
coming out of hyper cruise could definitely have been more elegant but figuring out the best way to corkscrew into a station and whether to pull around the planet close to it as a method for "mass braking" is brilliant fun. Not that I am any good at it hehe.
And a bit of stutter is in my perception better than screen saying "LOADING..." for a few seconds.
I have also noticed that it only stutters during the first jump. If I do a sequence of jumps the rest are usually rather smooth.
If you do a lot of stuff between each jump game will of course offload witch space from the ram and make room for other stuff as any game or software should do.
Stutter during witch space is fine, what is worse is when the game stutters during loading elements when approaching planets and stations in hyper cruise, a stutter in the wrong place there could be the difference between pulling around a planet and coming in at a perfect angle on the station dock or face splatting into the side of a planetoid
coming out of hyper cruise could definitely have been more elegant but figuring out the best way to corkscrew into a station and whether to pull around the planet close to it as a method for "mass braking" is brilliant fun. Not that I am any good at it hehe.
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