SYSTEM TO SYSTEM AUTO PILOT

A) Considering a player created an auto-pilot script a while ago and was subsequently banned, I think it's pretty clear FDev don't want players automating the game.
B) If you don't like space trucking, find another profession?
 
you missed the point of my post I think, I don't mind jumping from system to system as mentioned
at least with trucking the road is different so its not a repetitive set of inputs repeatedly that's what I have an issue with
also I only would use it if fd made one.............................
and yea as in my post I wont go exploring and stick to bounty hunting due to mindless input robot factor
and am glad that explorers can do this exiting type of input robot gameplay I just cant hack the repeat input control nature of it
the traveling part i don't mind doing at all that's my point.
I could drive a truck for 11 hours a day straight and have done so when I was a younger man just not this game for even four
when distance is involved maybe I need to get a steering wheel and a couple of brake pedals:D
 
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you missed the point of my post I think, I don't mind jumping from system to system as mentioned
at least with trucking the road is different so its not a repetitive set of inputs repeatedly that's what I have an issue with
also I only would use it if fd made one.............................
and yea as in my post I wont go exploring and stick to bounty hunting due to mindless input robot factor
and am glad that explorers can do this exiting type of input robot gameplay I just cant hack the repeat input control nature of it
the traveling part i don't mind doing at all that's my point.
I could drive a truck for 11 hours a day straight and have done so when I was a younger man just not this game for even four
when distance is involved

I think you miss the point of exploring - jump and honk is not exploring.

To me robot gameplay is sitting in a RES smacking dem bad boys and waiting for another spawn - ad infinitum (or until you run out of ammo synthesis).
 
ya you are correct of course I just meant say I had done the exploration thing and just wanted to goto colonia as I had been there before for eg no two fights play out exactly the same way so its less repeating if you get my drift same with driving a lorry really due to road difference traffic etc
you either get my point or you don't if not fair dues I can supercruise all day long not a problem
its like if I were driving past the same chicane every 200 meters that's what I just cant do its just too robotic
 
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I would like to slightly automate the more boring parts of exploration- flying from body to body, scanning. It's quite boring.

If an autopilot would just put the throttle to 75% and head to each body, stopping when the scan starts, then going to the next body, that would be perfect (fly around suns, please). Picking systems, reading the map, honking, would be all manual.

And doing it manually would STILL be faster, as a player flies at 100% throttle and drops back at a few seconds out. So someone who does it manually would have an advantage, as well as being able to pick and choose what they want to scan. Automated scanner would just blindly scan the nearest unknown body.

Then, you pick the next system, jump, scoop, and honk. Set the scanner to automatic and unpause Netflix. Repeat as desired.
 
yes yes yes.................
cant watch got and travel from system to system:D
were as if i could supercruise there in a respectable time not a problem hutton orbital for eg
 
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I would love to see some sort of system implemented that would somehow reduce the amount of loading screens you see. Because ultimately that is all you are seeing. Your literally playing a game in a never ending loading screen.

I don't know what the proper fix or balance would be for this, but when I have an hour to play and 30 mins of it is just spent on a loading, it is kind of a kick in the nickers.
 
yes that plus just steering round a sun if not exploring and just doing long distance a to b
but allas the load screens are inevitable even if they were shorter than 12 secs I get which aint bad compared to some 15 on avg I think.
yours does sound way of the chart though?
also when it does actually come to exploring I think srv distance on one tank should be 10 x what it is
 
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I would love to see some sort of system implemented that would somehow reduce the amount of loading screens you see. Because ultimately that is all you are seeing. Your literally playing a game in a never ending loading screen.

I don't know what the proper fix or balance would be for this, but when I have an hour to play and 30 mins of it is just spent on a loading, it is kind of a kick in the nickers.

That would be tricky, as the loading screen probably covers a session change of some sort. And judging from the disconnects, it also covers the time it takes to engage in P2P networking. Or at least TRY to engage that, since sometimes it hangs when I try and enter a crowded zone and the game just drops me instead of working correctly.

They could probably cut the witchspace animation down a lot, though. If they wanted to.
 
yes that plus just steering round a sun if not exploring and just doing long distance a to b
but allas the load screens are inevitable even if they were shorter than 12 secs I get which aint bad compared to some 15 on avg I think.
yours does sound way of the chart though?
also when it does actually come to exploring I think srv distance on one tank should be 10 x what it is

Ok, now you're just being lazy. SRV is easy to refuel, and even easier to repair.

An autopilot would be (and should be) idiotic. It might not know better than to fly right past planets, and have the gravity slow down the supercruise severely. Where a human who is paying attention can fly out of the system plane, and arrive WAY sooner without hitting that gravity well much. It could be that the autopilot only flies at 75% speed, maximum, so a human paying attention would again be superior (and also, could catch up and interdict something working on autopilot). But it should steer around things to avoid a collision, even if it doesn't bother to dodge gravity.

The one thing it would be good for, would be scanning in a system while the pilot does something else. Chat with friends, watch chunks of videos online, play a second account, whatever.

And here is a (non-exhaustive) list of it should not do, IMO:
  • H-jump
  • Dock
  • Fuel Scoop
  • Fight Interdiction
  • Combat, in any way.
  • Honk
  • React to anything
  • Be smart enough to NOT fly 100k+ ls to scan stuff

And when any of those comes up, the pilot has to deal with it.
 
yes that plus just steering round a sun if not exploring and just doing long distance a to b
but allas the load screens are inevitable even if they were shorter than 12 secs I get which aint bad compared to some 15 on avg I think.
yours does sound way of the chart though?
also when it does actually come to exploring I think srv distance on one tank should be 10 x what it is

Well at least with the system we have now, where the next destination is on the far side of the star, your travel around the star incorporates your fuel-scooping. If it is not an "unknown" star then you don't have the time spent scanning it before manoeuvring around it.

I can see that repeated trips to Colonia might make your brain melt unless of course you used the "exclude visited stars" option to give you some variety.

[alien]
 
Ok picture this:

FD Implments an auto pilot, you are extremely happy and you begin to take long exploration routes with this new found "skill".
You watch your ship mindless pilot itself through system after system for 30mins before just watching becomes boring.
You alt-tab whilst the game does it thing and go play another game or watch a movie.
Hours later your route is finished, but to you it doesnt really feel as if any distance as really passed, only time spent doing something else.
You set another route and go do something else again.
You do this for a few days and your credit balance goes up, but with no real input the number just feels like a number and even buying those ships/parts you really wanted to feels like you've just entered a simple cheat.

Look put it this way, space trucking/exploring can be boring for some, but adding an auto pilot won't make it MORE interesting or more playable. As some old quote goes, "It's not about the destination, its about the journey" and nothing could be further from the truth in ED.

My happiest memories are from doing the CCC, where I was in a overladen Type-7 barely doing 12LY jumps, but holy did I see a lot in those 1704 jumps to Colonia.

All I can suggest is finding out WHY people like exploring OR simply choosing another figurative path to follow.
 
Ok picture this:

FD Implments an auto pilot, you are extremely happy and you begin to take long exploration routes with this new found "skill".
You watch your ship mindless pilot itself through system after system for 30mins before just watching becomes boring.
You alt-tab whilst the game does it thing and go play another game or watch a movie.
Hours later your route is finished, but to you it doesnt really feel as if any distance as really passed, only time spent doing something else.
You set another route and go do something else again.
You do this for a few days and your credit balance goes up, but with no real input the number just feels like a number and even buying those ships/parts you really wanted to feels like you've just entered a simple cheat.

Look put it this way, space trucking/exploring can be boring for some, but adding an auto pilot won't make it MORE interesting or more playable. As some old quote goes, "It's not about the destination, its about the journey" and nothing could be further from the truth in ED.

My happiest memories are from doing the CCC, where I was in a overladen Type-7 barely doing 12LY jumps, but holy did I see a lot in those 1704 jumps to Colonia.

All I can suggest is finding out WHY people like exploring OR simply choosing another figurative path to follow.

You're looking at an extreme worst-case scenario here. Yes, COMPLETELY automated pathing or exploration, or ANYTHING is a bad idea.

But automation of obnoxious busywork is a GOOD idea. Someone got me thinking about Space Engineers a little while ago. For example, SE features a LOT of mining, and generally do you it with ship-based drills ASAP. The drills have internal storage.

The SE drills automatically deliver that internal storage to ANY and ALL connected storage tanks, automatically. So you never have to manually empty the drill, they only accumulate ore when the attached storage is full. Deciding where to actually STICK that drill is ENTIRELY manual. Getting stone or ore is entirely your responsibility.

And the entire system is nice.

Now, if you had to repeatedly empty the drill manually? It would still work. But it would be obnoxious busywork. Automating it is a good design decision.


Now, actually flying around the ED galaxy should not be automated. Not pathing, fuel scooping, honking, none of that top-level stuff.

But when you want to scan a system? All you're doing is:
  • Point your nose at something.
  • Wait for scan to start.
  • Throttle down until scan complete.
  • Repeat for each body you wish to scan.
HOW is that engaging gameplay? The ONLY even SLIGHT challenge is when you very occasionally have to fly around a sun. This could really be automated without hurting any gameplay.

Not the entire thing like STRONTIUM DOG is suggesting, though. I don't have a super high opinion of his ability to form proper sentence structure or shape his ideas optimally, but that doesn't make him entirely wrong.
 
Wouldn't it just be simpler to have infinite distance jumps so it's one jump anywhere?
Or 'post me to here' and wait the x days for transfer to complete like the ship transfer.
To be honest, I don't know why you'd bother playing. If it isn't fun.... don't do it. Simples.
 
apologies for my trashing of the English sentence structuring, I did not attend school much in my youth, I am however hardly writing a novel.
(a dammed waste of a highly intelligent young man as my headmaster put it but I was far to busy with my George Carlin type schooling for higher learning................
and bought my house outright and its land at the age of 20)
if fd were to implement such an auto pilot I am sure measures could be included as to prevent the complete journey being automated for eg reseting every half hour..........................
by a single keystroke random code digit
what I am trying to say is, its like if I where driving a truck and I had to slow down and had to go around the exact same roundabout every 200 meters that would drive me insane (not entirely unlike Milton Keynes):D
I would simply like an autopilot to do that and without refueling too so I could sit back whilst montoring my journey and watch game of thrones at the same time and it even run me out of fuel if I did not keep my eye on the ball so to speak a type of roundabout cruise control if you will ............................
I don't mind travelling its just the same constant hand on control this requires if you simply need to get from a to b without exploring that I find tedious if I could supercruise all the way there it would be a dream come true in fact in game I do sometimes just in system cruise, just so that I am not navigating around the "same roundabout" too frequently on a long trip that I have done before many times..........................
it does of course make the time it takes that much longer but it does mean I am not navigating that " roundabout" for at least ten mins for eg
 
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I don't understand why you want a robot to play the game for you. If it isn't entertaining enough (you'd clearly prefer to watch TV) then don't play.

There's no requirement to travel large distances. There's no requirement to do anything actually. By example, I'm bored with trying to rank up combat to unlock the engineer <Lori>. I don't *need* to engineer. I *want* to...so I put up with the boring-as combat. I wouldn't dream of grabbing a robot to rank me up. It's a choice I made to set a goal. If I really get well and truly over it, I'll go do something else. Like I did with the navy ranks....got bored so starting doing CG's instead.
There's even two chunks of the game I've never even *looked* at....power play and multicrew. They sound boring and worth my time.

I guess what I'm saying is, if jonking is boring to you, don't jonk.
I do think the overall exploration mechanics need an overhaul....hopefully that'll happen sooner than later.
 
I don't understand why you want a robot to play the game for you. If it isn't entertaining enough (you'd clearly prefer to watch TV) then don't play.

There's no requirement to travel large distances. There's no requirement to do anything actually. By example, I'm bored with trying to rank up combat to unlock the engineer <Lori>. I don't *need* to engineer. I *want* to...so I put up with the boring-as combat. I wouldn't dream of grabbing a robot to rank me up. It's a choice I made to set a goal. If I really get well and truly over it, I'll go do something else. Like I did with the navy ranks....got bored so starting doing CG's instead.
There's even two chunks of the game I've never even *looked* at....power play and multicrew. They sound boring and worth my time.

I guess what I'm saying is, if jonking is boring to you, don't jonk.
I do think the overall exploration mechanics need an overhaul....hopefully that'll happen sooner than later.

I on the other hand, while I desire what the engineers could give me in the way of upgrades, can't force myself to do the grind, so I go without and don't demand an easy method to acquire them. I have also avoided PP and the BGS, rarely do CG's and never PvP, I explore, a lot. I don't find that aspect of the game boring, it would be a pity to neuter it to satisfy players that do find it boring, just don't do it!

That being said, there are many ways that exploration could be improved, in fact probably every aspect of the game could be improved but that improvement should come from the players that are involved in that aspect of the game, and done with great care. Botting, as in having a computer controlled player, both against the rules and in compliance with the rules really does no game any favours. There's plenty of stuff in the bubble for them who don't like exploration and changing exploration to appeal to them would almost certainly destroy that aspect of gameplay for the people who currently enjoy exploration.

So I guess what I am saying is, yes it can be improved, but it needs to be done carefully and with a lot of thought and some consideration for the players who already enjoy exploring.
 
I don't wish to undo the hard work of explorers just thought it could be a nice module for some ........
ya ill stick to the bubble rather than undo there efforts if that's how they feel about it
but my post was not about exploring its was just about the same roundabout when traveling the same route prevoiusly explored by me or anyone
take a different route I hear you say yea I could but just getting from a to b long distance shortest route possible was what I wanted to do is all and steer round sun but not refuel cruise control would make my QoL just a little less tedious when doing so but not if this will upset real explorers in any way so no would not dream of doing that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYYQDaNgqQ
 
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I don't wish to undo the hard work of explorers just thought it could be a nice module for some ........
ya ill stick to the bubble rather than undo there efforts if that's how they feel about it
but my post was not about exploring its was just about the same roundabout when traveling the same route prevoiusly explored by me or anyone
take a different route I hear you say yea I could but just getting from a to b long distance shortest route possible was what I wanted to do is all and steer round sun but not refuel cruise control would make my QoL just a little less tedious when doing so but not if this will upset real explorers in any way so no would not dream of doing that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYYQDaNgqQ

You see the thing is they are only tedious roundabouts if you treat them like tedious roundabouts, I doubt if I have ever gone more than ten jumps in a row while exploring before I come across something I need to stop and take a closer look at, quite often it's just a few jumps, which explains why it took me a month to get to Colonia my first trip, well that and flying a Python with a 17ly jump range. :D

When I am intent on going somewhere then I might do a few more, but even in the bubble coming across something interesting enough to stop me and do some close up exploration is very common.

Also it's not the fact that it would upset "real" explorers, explorers use the tools in the game to the best effect they can, and if you are just intent on travelling long distances there are ways to jump further using neutron boosts, engineering and jumponium, but why would you go "exploring" just to travel long distances, it's what you do and what you find that defines it as either exploring or just travelling, and with boosts and engineering there's really nowhere in the bubble you can't get to on less than ten jumps..
 
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