Deleted member 115407
D
Please make this happen, FD. It would be so fun to just pirate the crap out of lazy autopilot traders.
Why does my 34th century spaceship have no autopilot OR how do you accept the hyperjump grind?
- Thread starter sc_neo
- Start date
I was just thinking about eve and how it balances autopilot in much the same way. That said everyone is in "open" there so it works differently.
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Given how easy it currently is to make the AI fly into stars and planets, I'm pretty sure you'll just be dropping into low-wakes to watch the autopilot cook itself trying to jump out .
Excellent! More jobs for my scrap dealers enterprise.[yesnod]
I think it'd be neat to be able to auto to a destination within your fuel range. Once you are there, it's up to you to fuel scoop and continue the jump process. Alternative would be the suggestion to allow us to just have a continuous, perhaps time based, jump that takes you as far as the fuel can and then drop you out at that star. This still makes you pay attention somewhat but doesn't require you to align and hit the jump button until your finger falls off.
Personally, I get no joy out of manually doing everything that doesn't require my full attention and doing hundreds of successive jump, with no desire to stop to ping, does not require it. That's just a dream though, I can't see them changing out the current system works. There isn't much incentive for them to do so and I imagine enough people enjoy how it is already. Perhaps if the Q4 update does bring big improvements, the manual jumping won't really be such a bad thing since there may actually be things to stop and check out that you won't otherwise see by skipping it completely.
Personally, I get no joy out of manually doing everything that doesn't require my full attention and doing hundreds of successive jump, with no desire to stop to ping, does not require it. That's just a dream though, I can't see them changing out the current system works. There isn't much incentive for them to do so and I imagine enough people enjoy how it is already. Perhaps if the Q4 update does bring big improvements, the manual jumping won't really be such a bad thing since there may actually be things to stop and check out that you won't otherwise see by skipping it completely.
There are many realistic alternatives to J-pitch-J-pitch...etc, which can only be described as “piloting” under the loosest possible definition and can’t begin to qualify as gameplay.
I wouldn’t favor pure autopilot, but I could go for dramatically increased jump ranges, pilotable hyperspace (imagine a big interdiction tunnel, the longer you stay in the blue the longer your ship stays cool, the further you jump in one go) jump gates, just accepting telepresence as a universal technology in Elite, paid shipping (ship and commander), reduced frameshift charge time, increased acceleration in supercruise, reduced jump fuel consumption, etc. any or any combination would allow players to get to the gameplay parts of the game without a mindless, disengaging, tedious, repetitious, boring, obligatory process to do so. None of which would preclude someone from continuing to mindlessly turn away from stars to press a button if they enjoy that sort of masochism.
Lots of “haters” love elite, just not all the tedium required to actually play the game part of it.
How it should be IMHO :
- man Ship together with NPC Crew
- if desired, task NPC to fly the Ship to a specific Location
Skill and ability (speed of execution) varies depending on NPC Rank. Some specials excluded (i.e. Jet Cone Boosting or Exploration as in still manual targeting Stellar bodies or honking, NPC will not honk or scan anything).
Everyone can still fly the Ship manually all the time.
Folks with an NPC Crew can occasionally take over if they wish.
Folks with an NPC Crew can permanently hand over the Controls and let the NPC do the job - for the price of a slower pacing than manual flying.
Everyone happy, everything makes sense and it's not rocket science to implement (unless NPCs end up being as reliable as a Docking Computer *lol*).
Problem is : it'd make sense, add a tiny little more functionality to NPCs & Gameplay depth by giving more realistic Options and make NPC Crews a better utility. Can't have that around here. You know it
So : stop complaining and git Grinding!
I'd be okay with this, if they can do it. I'm not sure how difficult it'd be for them to program the AI to refuel without frying the ship or just running it into the boundary. NPCs themselves already dive into it for no reason.
I see Your Andrea and I raise my stake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFiqO0Qpa_g&index=1&list=RDpFiqO0Qpa_g
I agree with you on not wanting an autopilot. It would remove a fair chunk of the exploration gameplay.
I do think that a future implementation of HyperJumps could be a 'HyperCruise' mechanic. Essentially, this would be an extension of what has already been implemented in the Galaxy Map when you view it in realistic mode: low-resolution stars rendered at the appropriate coordinates that you can fly through and see passing you at relative locations.
As with SuperCruise, flying close to stars would slow you down, so the 'game' would be to maintain the optimum path through interstellar space to ensure maximum speed. This would become increasingly difficult the closer you get to the galactic core. However, fly too close to a star and you will be committed to dropping out of HyperCruise back into SuperCruise within that star system (this 'commitment' would mask the instance loading).
You would get an alert when your fuel tank is close to empty, so you'd be able to drop out near a scoopable star to refuel. This would make ships with large fuel tanks, like the ASP and Diamondback Explorer, more desirable for continuous uninterrupted HyperCruise travel. Neutron stars & FSD injections would provide a time-limited speed boost to HyperCruise.
HyperCruise would still be slow, to preserve the massive size of the galaxy. A trip to Colonia would require many hours of non-stop HyperCruise.
TheMegaTurnip
Banned
To be fair they could add in transport vessels that jump to colonia and a few other distant places in a few jumps (megaships with hugemungous FSD's) and we could pay to get a ride on said ship, say, the same cost as it would be to export your ships to said destination, similar to how WoW has the transport accross the land. (I think)
I made this suggestion not long ago. Guess it got burried while waiting on approval.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/434732-witch-space-all-the-way-to-final-destination
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/434732-witch-space-all-the-way-to-final-destination
What you fail to realize is that the 'choice' you propose is not a choice. No one will jump on their own if automation is allowed, instead we will have players complaining about how they have to 'take a time out like a 4 year old who's in trouble' every time they want to go somewhere.
As I see it, if jumping a lot isn't your idea of fun, then stay in the bubble of populated space. Virtully everything in the game can be done inside of 1,000 light years of the starting systems.
As I see it, if jumping a lot isn't your idea of fun, then stay in the bubble of populated space. Virtully everything in the game can be done inside of 1,000 light years of the starting systems.
I play Elite to fly a spaceship. If you don’t enjoy all that comes with it, play a different game instead of trying to have the game change to suit your preference.
Sometimes “unfun” mechanics need to be in video games to give shape and meaning to the rest of the game. I could write an actual essay on this but I’ll leave it at that.
Fortunately, I don’t think Elite is in any real jeopardy of Frontier caving to the people that don’t seem to have any business playing the game in the first place so it’s not much of a concern. If that means the population doesn’t explode and the game stays niche, there’s nothing wrong with that. Oh how boring games would be if every game was catered for mass appeal and games basically played themselves for you so you wouldn’t dare be inconvenienced or asked to work toward something.
It’s very annoying when people that don’t really like a certain game whine on forums trying to get the game changed to what they want, ignoring both the intent of the developer and the actual fans of the game that like how it is. There’s a million things that need to be added to Elite, and having the game fly your ship for you is not one of them, considering, you know, that’s the actual game.
Sometimes “unfun” mechanics need to be in video games to give shape and meaning to the rest of the game. I could write an actual essay on this but I’ll leave it at that.
Fortunately, I don’t think Elite is in any real jeopardy of Frontier caving to the people that don’t seem to have any business playing the game in the first place so it’s not much of a concern. If that means the population doesn’t explode and the game stays niche, there’s nothing wrong with that. Oh how boring games would be if every game was catered for mass appeal and games basically played themselves for you so you wouldn’t dare be inconvenienced or asked to work toward something.
It’s very annoying when people that don’t really like a certain game whine on forums trying to get the game changed to what they want, ignoring both the intent of the developer and the actual fans of the game that like how it is. There’s a million things that need to be added to Elite, and having the game fly your ship for you is not one of them, considering, you know, that’s the actual game.
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I treat long range travel as a racing minigame, full throttle leave it there and each jump try to shave a few seconds off the last time. You need a good scoop so you can grab fuel in a quick pass, and it sometimes goes horribly wrong so it's best to also have an AMFU.
I only do it whilst going A to B once I'm out there I slow down scan and explore, I also have a rule of must land and drive about on at least one planet in any new system I've discovered (if there are any) which breaks up always flying.
Give the people who want it an autopilot. Make it a module of equivalent size to a docking computer. It will automatically follow a plotted route as safely as possible: Emerge from jump at zero throttle, reorient on the next system, throttle up then engage the FSD as soon as it's back online and the ship is at 60% heat or less. If it arrives in the destination system and an in-system destination is plotted it will fly directly there in the blue zone and safe drop (it it's a planetary destination the ship will be left in normal space just short of the orbital cruise boundary), then wait at zero throttle for the pilot to take over, otherwise it will simply drop to normal space immediately on exiting jump in the target system.
BUT...
If the target system is obscured, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
If there is insufficient fuel to reach the next system, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
If an in-system destination is obscured, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
So ultimately it will end up just like docking - if you're OK with it happening slowly but very safely, let the computer handle it. If you want or need to dock fast and maybe break the rules in the process, do it yourself.
If you want to make that multijump trip requiring several scooping passes in the absolute minimum time, even risking your ship in the process, fly it yourself. If you're OK with "safe and slow" fit an autopilot module and let it chain jumps and SC for you. Just like with the docking computer all you'll need to do is watch and be prepared to take over if required. (although we're bound to get at least some salt the first time somebody plots a route, turns the autopilot loose and then finds out that the autopilot has stopped needing fuel and the last scoopable star was two jumps ago)
BUT...
If the target system is obscured, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
If there is insufficient fuel to reach the next system, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
If an in-system destination is obscured, autopilot will disengage and drop the ship to normal space at zero throttle.
So ultimately it will end up just like docking - if you're OK with it happening slowly but very safely, let the computer handle it. If you want or need to dock fast and maybe break the rules in the process, do it yourself.
If you want to make that multijump trip requiring several scooping passes in the absolute minimum time, even risking your ship in the process, fly it yourself. If you're OK with "safe and slow" fit an autopilot module and let it chain jumps and SC for you. Just like with the docking computer all you'll need to do is watch and be prepared to take over if required. (although we're bound to get at least some salt the first time somebody plots a route, turns the autopilot loose and then finds out that the autopilot has stopped needing fuel and the last scoopable star was two jumps ago)
That is everything after the first jump mate...