Why does my 34th century spaceship have no autopilot OR how do you accept the hyperjump grind?

[Vorxian]

The ultimate problem is that the ship flies itself.... after you push 'J'.

I can understand being set in an era where we're not quite at singularity drive propulsion yet.. but even taking an ancient mode of transport, the car.. you don't simply aim your car at a GPS focal point, start the engine, and pull out a keyboard and hit 'J'. Cars do actually take skill and practice to drive. They're not particularly challenging to drive, but the challenge with cars is dealing with the unexpected, and knowing the signs of impending hazards.

If I had my way, space travel would be more like star trek travel, range governed by speed and fuel, but with 'things to do' during the travel time so it's not an afk activity. Route navigation would be an entirely new game mechanic and the skill of knowing tell tale signs of trouble (just like driving a car) would be the defacto decider if you go puff or arrive safely.... not just line up- J, wait. Fly around sun, line up, J, wait. Line up, J.. honk for giggles, wait...

The whole line up, J and wait cycle, admittedly burned me out. I really don't want to explode myself to get back nearer the bubble

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Yes, but gameplay requires that travel is to be slow enough that there's a game left to play while going between A and B.
(snip a lot of good stuff for clarity)
-- from the Elite V introduction

While I enjoy the sheer briliancy of this short story, just put a limit on what can be transported, have it scale with mass and distance for example, either possibility-wise or cost wise... So you can telepresent ;-) a commander somewhere, but a bunch of passengers is cost-prohibitive. This would open "instant commander transfer", for example to retrieve a ship from somewhere. Make a number of jumps from ship in space limited, but rechargeable.

My proposed autopilot crutch is slower because it follows all safety protocols ;-) though having personal transporters would make things interesting. Including teleporting to another ship for Braben promised boarding :-D

 

[Shinji Ikari]

The ultimate problem is that the ship flies itself.... after you push 'J'.

I can understand being set in an era where we're not quite at singularity drive propulsion yet.. but even taking an ancient mode of transport, the car.. you don't simply aim your car at a GPS focal point, start the engine, and pull out a keyboard and hit 'J'. Cars do actually take skill and practice to drive. They're not particularly challenging to drive, but the challenge with cars is dealing with the unexpected, and knowing the signs of impending hazards.

If I had my way, space travel would be more like star trek travel, range governed by speed and fuel, but with 'things to do' during the travel time so it's not an afk activity. Route navigation would be an entirely new game mechanic and the skill of knowing tell tale signs of trouble (just like driving a car) would be the defacto decider if you go puff or arrive safely.... not just line up- J, wait. Fly around sun, line up, J, wait. Line up, J.. honk for giggles, wait...

The whole line up, J and wait cycle, admittedly burned me out. I really don't want to explode myself to get back nearer the bubble

Indeed I hope FD adresses the monotony by adding more challenge, after all, AP will still leave us with the monotony the thread has complained about all along.

 

[Dbrn47]

It also takes up a slot, docks your ship quite slowly, doesn't try to avoid scans, can cause you to incur fines for collisions and, very rarely, will faceplant your ship into the front of a station with potentially lethal results.

I wonder if people would be willing to accept comparable limitations, inadequacies and flaws in an inter-system autopilot?

Well, that's what I was trying to get going, but all I've been going is "No implementation is acceptable." I feel that the idea I had going was pretty fair, unsurprisingly I'm sure. The only advantage it would have is being able to get up and go use the restroom while your ship makes a few jumps, no speed bonus, no system skipping, no auto scooping, just the same thing you already do (for just pure travel) without the manual inputs. I appreciate you posing questions to actually continue the discussion though, even if you don't agree with the idea.

 

[Dbrn47]

Indeed I hope FD adresses the monotony by adding more challenge, after all, AP will still leave us with the monotony the thread has complained about all along.

Of course. We can't assume Q4 is going to solve the issue though and autopilot is something that has continually come up, even before plans to expand exploration.

 

[Dbrn47]

Forgive my possible misunderstanding but an AP does not result in 'faster travel'. It simply means you don't have to keep hitting that damn J key for 3 hours at a time. If you want to of course, there is nothing to stop you from doing exactly the same task manually.

It certainly doesn't need to result in faster travel, it's not what I'm asking for at all. Perhaps there's hints of that in the OP but personally I feel the discussion has evolved a little past what the OP presented since it's a few steps too far.

 

[Screemonster]

The issue isn't that it's faster, it's that it's tireless. Constant. Which... does effectively make it faster. The people worried about bots aren't worried about the intended goal of making it less tedious to get 5kly out of the bubble to unlock Palin, they're worried about someone setting up a macro that amounts to "fill ship with powerplay commodities, open galmap, plot route to target bookmark, undock, autopilot there, dock, offload commodities, autopilot back to HQ, repeat" and having the computer haul for them while they go to the store.

 

[Sysmon]

The issue isn't that it's faster, it's that it's tireless. Constant. Which... does effectively make it faster. The people worried about bots aren't worried about the intended goal of making it less tedious to get 5kly out of the bubble to unlock Palin, they're worried about someone setting up a macro that amounts to "fill ship with powerplay commodities, open galmap, plot route to target bookmark, undock, autopilot there, dock, offload commodities, autopilot back to HQ, repeat" and having the computer haul for them while they go to the store.

As long as we can intercept them and chew them up while they are AFK autopiloting, autopiloting surely is fine.

It is having something to do in-game while the autopilot runs, that's the issue. If we had an autopilot now, choices are mainly playing with the menu windows such as Systems and Galaxy maps, and looking at Galnet.

S

 

[Shinji Ikari]

As long as we can intercept them and chew them up while they are AFK autopiloting, autopiloting surely is fine.

It is having something to do in-game while the autopilot runs, that's the issue. If we had an autopilot now, choices are mainly playing with the menu windows such as Systems and Galaxy maps, and looking at Galnet.

S

Good luck finding someone outside inhabited systems.

Of course. We can't assume Q4 is going to solve the issue though and autopilot is something that has continually come up, even before plans to expand exploration.

I don't expect Q4 to solve all exploration problems but we haven't had an exploration focused update since forever, either way, isn't it more useful to ask for more realistic things?

 

[Dbrn47]

isn't it more useful to ask for more realistic things?

Yes. Can we agree on what 'realistic things' are? Probably not.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Yes. Can we agree on what 'realistic things' are? Probably not.

Well, we already know that FD not only don't want to implement AP but they don't want people to use third party tools that automatize traveling so I consider an AP unrealistic because of that, do you consider AP to be realistic? Why?

 

[EUS]

Well, we already know that FD not only don't want to implement AP but they don't want people to use third party tools that automatize traveling so I consider an AP unrealistic because of that, do you consider AP to be realistic? Why?

Nothing should be discounted, this game has gone from one pilot, one ship, to wings, multicrew, pmf, now talk of PP open only, squadrons & carriers.
Whatever vision FD started with, they have shown they will change their mind whenever they wish.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Nothing should be discounted, this game has gone from one pilot, one ship, to wings, multicrew, pmf, now talk of PP open only, squadrons & carriers.
Whatever vision FD started with, they have shown they will change their mind whenever they wish.

None of those were explicitly avoided by ED, in fact, since the kickstarter it was clear ED would be more of a multiplayer game especially when no off-line version was offered.

 

[EUS]

None of those were explicitly avoided by ED, in fact, since the kickstarter it was clear ED would be more of a multiplayer game especially when no off-line version was offered.

Guess my point was take everything FD says with a grain of salt.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

imo it is vital to keep the scale of the game.

That said i do agree it can be mind numbing, ideally there should be more things which can happen on your journey to make it more interesting....

autopilot would be a poor solution imo, however it could be a fab job for an npc crew helmsmen ..... not fire and forget as it were, but just to do some of the basics, the higher up ranking the less likely to mess up.

as for how do i tolerate it.... I just get into the mindset.... VR helps and i always have a good scifi audio book on when on long journeys.

(I have got through the complete gap story, mote in gods eye, dune, 1984, time machine, stranger in a strange land, brave new world, martian chronicles, do androids dream of electric sheep - and a lot more.
(if you google there is a reason most of those are in my list, i downloaded the top 100 sci fi books of all time list and slowly plough through it. Everyone of these were with me in vr playing elite... which is probably why i have clocked up 2000 hrs!.

So this is the one, big thing that drove me away from Elite at the end of 2016...the interstellar space travel mechanic! I have searched the forums with a bunch of terms to find the myriad of threads i thought must be here by now concerning the space travel grind, but i did not find a lot to be honest. There are a few suggestings here and there of how to improve it, but the majority of users don't seem to be too vocal about it. Quite contrary to the 'engineer' grind or the money grind and such.

So, i do get that the feeling of the vastness of space is desirable and that instant traveling would in all likely be detrimental to this. Thus it seems imperative that space travel takes time, a significant time when travesing the universe. But i don't feel in the slightest way that this means i should waste hours and hours of lifetime doing a repetitive minigame and looking at a loading screen. Not a new complaint, i know.

So why does my 34th centuray spacecraft have no autopilot where i punch in the star system i want to go to and then the entire jump, fuel scoop mini-game is repeated hundreds of times automatically? In real life, no way in hell we'd be doing this ourselves. We'd be watching movies in the ships launch, playing games, sleeping, cooking food, whatever. But the actual driving would be done by the computer. It'll be way more save anyway!

The system i would like to see would (optionally) automate the entire hyperspace travel mechanic with the player being able to logoff and quit Elite. The travel would still take 10, 15, 30 hours like now if you force yourself to bruteforce your way to the galagtic core or even further.

I, for instance, would love to go out to the Formidine Rift and experience the little audio stories at those abandoned settlements. But i cannot justify to myself sitting 3,5,8 hours infront of the screen playing this mini game over and over again. You, Mr. Braben, are responsible for probably millions of hours of precious game time that got wasted on a very poor game design choice! Even worse, most of the content that is in the game is dependent on people using the game mechanic, hence it is kinda locked away behind that grindy mechanic.

Anyway, what are your thoughts in this topic? Do you actually feel enjoyment when doing dozens or hundreds of jumps in one session, and doing it sometimes multiple days in a row?

Do you feel the hurt of it is necessary to have this 'space is vast and empty' feeling? Would this get lost if the process was automated and happing while we are not playing Elite? The mechanic exists for ship and module transfer already, why not for traveling also?

I know this is a pretty negative OP but it comes from frustration of having to make a very tough choice....let Elite rest or waste tons of hours on a very bad game design decision.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

imo it is vital to keep the scale of the game.

That said i do agree it can be mind numbing, ideally there should be more things which can happen on your journey to make it more interesting....

autopilot would be a poor solution imo, however it could be a fab job for an npc crew helmsmen ..... not fire and forget as it were, but just to do some of the basics, the higher up ranking the less likely to mess up.

as for how do i tolerate it.... I just get into the mindset.... VR helps and i always have a good scifi audio book on when on long journeys.

Well I respectfully disagree. With all the proposals here, noone mentioned "fast travel", "jumpgates" etc. We all agreed the time investment should be there, and that autopilot should be slower than doing it manually. So if you commit, then you will travel, unless cancelled or otherwise interrupted. The game is basically telling you "you will reach your destination in X hours" and you still need something to do - or stop playing. It's just the tedium that is removed. I will always side with user convenience instead of realism / lore / whatever you throw at me, because for me, gameplay (in other words: having fun) is the most important thing when playing video games, an entertainment form.

If you consider that, an "offline" autopilot is perfectly viable. To keep things interesting, I also suggested that the autopilot / npc crew have a random failure chance. I very much like the idea of having a trained NPC crew "level". As for "things to do" - again, distinguish travel from exploration. While travelling I won't launch probes or survey nearby moons - I want to get from A to B, not admire flowers on the side of the road...

In VR it is IMHO even more tiresome. You have this sweaty facehugger on your head, nothing to do but repeating the same thing, over and over again, thousand times... It's almost like a medieval torture. Getting more busywork into this workflow won't help, really. Unless the game is fundamentally changed, that is (think X-Rebirth fleet management and trading for example) and allows more interactions on long range travel. Still I would need someone/something to continue firing "the jump-fuel-align-jump" macro while I'm moving my fleet around.

Oh, I hate audiobooks. Never was a fan, I prefer to read. I cannot focus on a incorporeal voice reading a story unless it's a movie narration. And in my humble opinion if you have to resort to that in a video game, there's something wrong with the game in the first place (game - a form of interactive entertainment).

 

[Dbrn47]

Well, we already know that FD not only don't want to implement AP but they don't want people to use third party tools that automatize traveling so I consider an AP unrealistic because of that, do you consider AP to be realistic? Why?

Because avoiding it due to what people might do with it is like putting DRM in your software thinking it's going to stop pirates from cracking and stealing it. People that bot are going to bot regardless if there's a base implementation of it in Elite or not. That's the reality. There are ways to implement AP so as to not automate the entire game and keep the honest people honest still. We both agree that the ideal solution is to make travel and exploration more interesting to engage in, but we split off past that because I can't be sure what they're planning to do is enough. For me personally, there is an enough, but since Frontier likes to iterate with no ETAs or guarantees on the full idea being realized I can't be naive about it.

Sometimes something like auto pilot does indeed seem more realistic than expecting them to push forward on finishing an idea. Iterative development on a live game may be easier on them, but for end users like me who sees potential saved for later too often, it can get pretty frustrating, especially when the iterations involve finishing an idea instead of improving a finished idea. Maybe that's where I'm in the wrong, maybe what they do is what they consider finished, Michael Brookes considered exploration a finished idea years ago so I do sometimes question myself if there's really supposed to be more. I think it'd be a shame if that's the case. So that's where I come from on thinking it's realistic. With exploration having essentially endless possibilities for implementation, something as simple as a script to press the inputs for you during travel does appear to be a more realistic idea, cheaters be damned.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Also from a pure design standpoint, autopilot or lack thereof, is not a proper way to combat "illegal" automation. I think things started to change internally when Brookes was moved to JWE. I heard on a stream that Adam Woods has stepped in to the position. Let's hope something good comes out of that change and that Brookes is next assigned to the new franchise. And let's hope this new franchise isn't "Elite 2: Deadly". I suppose Sandro is trying to change things now, but to turn the organisation the size of Frontier around takes a looong time.

 

[Paidtodrive]

So you automate the jumps 'cos doing more than about 10 in a row is really boring. Then you automate flying from the centre of the system outwards 'cos it's just meh (yeah mug this free 'Conda that, you know who you are!). Then you know avoiding interdiction is really tedious so that could be automatic, and so on and so on.

Why not just watch someone playing on YouTube instead of playing the game yourself? That would be even easier.

 

[Velixar]

I do know about bots. I use them on some games and cyptocurrency. I will say if autopilot added you open the door for players like me.