real autopilot: question to frontier development

antodena

antodena
hi guys, i'm here to ask if there are plans to inplement a real autopilot like it was in the original elite frontier.

it is totally legit to have an autopilot in a ship so i really, really want it...

planning the route with the nav computer and launching the autopilot is something we really miss in our ships, it should totally be like that.

have we any chance to get it?
 

Troa Barton

Troa Barton
Wouldn't use it myself but I don't see why it can't be in the game. It would need drawbacks though. Slightly slower approach speed, maybe an interdiction percentage increase of 5% to keep you on your toes.
 

OamodSias

OamodSias
antodena said:
hi guys, i'm here to ask if there are plans to inplement a real autopilot like it was in the original elite frontier.

it is totally legit to have an autopilot in a ship so i really, really want it...

planning the route with the nav computer and launching the autopilot is something we really miss in our ships, it should totally be like that.

have we any chance to get it?
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Autopilot to do what exactly? Bot your way through the game? Or have it do things like SC you to your destination, slow you down, engage auto-dock etc?
I have no objections to an autopilot, as long as it's implemented for the right reasons, and not because some players are lazy and want to earn bucks by doing as little as possible.
 

RipperJack

RipperJack
all my opinion ofc -

for right reasons - want to travel 300ly to somewhere, set auto pilot so it flies towards the sun and ONLY to the system, not to stations, turns and flies to the next and so on but forcing player interaction for fuel scooping, interdictions etc.

for wrong reasons - using it to run between 2 stations trading and player barely has to do anything except buy and sell when docked.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Whiterose said:
lol, I have images of the autopilot from Airplane..........
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lol baggsey not doing the emergency inflate!.

AFAIK its been confirmed by MB himself that it is not going to happen... tho personally as others have suggested in past threads, so long as it takes up an equipement slot, takes power, and is not the most efficient way to do things, it would not offend me........

would an autopilot be legit? sure it would, after all planes can almost fly themselves now, but imo that is not really reason enough, after all, who really thinks in 1000 years time we would do ANY flying at all? I believe probably even in my life time travel will become pretty much fully automated.

it does not make for an especially good game however!.
 
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antodena

antodena
It's not a simple lazy thing. It's just legit. I set the route to a distant planet, launch the computer's autopilot and he takes me there. When arrived I manually get near the station, ask for admittance and fire the dock autopilot.
 

777Driver

777Driver
AnnuverScotinExile said:
This has been asked multiple times. FD's answer has always been a consistent: "NO".
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Does anyone actually have a official statement regarding this? Crew members are AI, a helmsman will basically be an autopilot.

I love hand flying these ships, but I had to resort to programming my own Autopilot for my bigger ships. I want to issue orders in a 2000T ship lol!
 

Joe Spivey

Joe Spivey
antodena said:
That was totally unexpected. Elite Frontier and Elite SE had it and it was totally meant to be used in ships. I'm slightly disappointed.
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There are also interviews whit DB saying that just because earlier versions had X, Y and Z it does not automatically follow that ED will have it if it does not fit in with what they are trying to accomplish with the game. In fact, if you want to look, I'm pretty sure he says something similar on one of the Dev Diary vids.
 

Tiamat

Tiamat
SC is pretty much autopilot already and we already have a suicide/docking computer. If we had an autopilot there is not much left for the player to actually do.

I have never played WoW but are their forums full of players asking for an auto-walk function because they don't want to do this annoying "map navigation" stuff? I assume not so the question really is why do such a large portion of our player-base want the game to play itself?
 

Slopey

Volunteer Moderator
Slopey
antodena said:
That was totally unexpected. Elite Frontier and Elite SE had it and it was totally meant to be used in ships. I'm slightly disappointed.
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FE and FFE had to have auto-pilot as manually piloting your ship in true newtonian style would have made it virtually impossible (or at least very very irritating) to get anywhere (without it doing something like Kerbal with planned burns etc).

ED harks back more to the original Elite with a non-newtonian (unless you take assist off) flight model, which doesn't require an auto-pilot just to get from A to B (unlike FE), and FD have always been very open that they want a hands-on feel to it.

It took them several updates before they introduced a docking computer for example. ;)
 

antodena

antodena
Slopey said:
FE and FFE had to have auto-pilot as manually piloting your ship in true newtonian style would have made it virtually impossible (or at least very very irritating) to get anywhere (without it doing something like Kerbal with planned burns etc).

ED harks back more to the original Elite with a non-newtonian (unless you take assist off) flight model, which doesn't require an auto-pilot just to get from A to B (unlike FE), and FD have always been very open that they want a hands-on feel to it.

It took them several updates before they introduced a docking computer for example. ;)
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I see your point, this explanation in fact gives me some plausible excuse about the lack of an autopilot. Still, being in a spaceship the lack of that gives me to think...

edit: actually our shuttles and our space rockets have autopilot... so I don't understand why in this futuristic view of space travel there isn't ANY.
 
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Vi.king

V
OamodSias said:
Autopilot to do what exactly? Bot your way through the game? Or have it do things like SC you to your destination, slow you down, engage auto-dock etc?
I have no objections to an autopilot, as long as it's implemented for the right reasons, and not because some players are lazy and want to earn bucks by doing as little as possible.
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Yes because flying 20.000 ls in a straight line is so fun... there really is no plausible reason for having no autopilot for flying from A to B. It takes no skill, there is no real fun factor, it would not take anything away from the game. It´s just a quality of life feature
 
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