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

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Red Anders said:
As an argument, 'if you don't want to do it you don't have to' rarely has any real merit.
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And applies equally to both sides of the argument:

Don't want to jump 1,000 times to get somewhere? Then don't do it.
Don't want to use the autopilot to jump 1,000 times? Then don't do it

We're in 'no autopilot' mode at this point and I'm yet to see a compelling argument for why we should have one.
That some people find long-distance travel to be boring is undeniable. But it's clear from the forum that the entirety of EDs gameplay is covered by the 'some people find it boring' umbrella. The only way to resolve this issue is to provide a startup option which allows a player to choose to start with 100 billion credits, one of each ship, fully engineered, together with maxxed out materials and modules, max rank and reputation with all factions and powers, and all PP rewards available.
Even then, some people will manage to find a grind to complain about.
 

JesusRocks1988

JesusRocks1988
DrewCarnegie said:
And applies equally to both sides of the argument:

Don't want to jump 1,000 times to get somewhere? Then don't do it.
Don't want to use the autopilot to jump 1,000 times? Then don't do it

We're in 'no autopilot' mode at this point and I'm yet to see a compelling argument for why we should have one.
That some people find long-distance travel to be boring is undeniable. But it's clear from the forum that the entirety of EDs gameplay is covered by the 'some people find it boring' umbrella. The only way to resolve this issue is to provide a startup option which allows a player to choose to start with 100 billion credits, one of each ship, fully engineered, together with maxxed out materials and modules, max rank and reputation with all factions and powers, and all PP rewards available.
Even then, some people will manage to find a grind to complain about.
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Just going to say I rarely, if ever, disagree with the penguin.
 

Speedcuffs

Speedcuffs
DrewCarnegie said:
And applies equally to both sides of the argument:

Don't want to jump 1,000 times to get somewhere? Then don't do it.
Don't want to use the autopilot to jump 1,000 times? Then don't do it

We're in 'no autopilot' mode at this point and I'm yet to see a compelling argument for why we should have one.
That some people find long-distance travel to be boring is undeniable. But it's clear from the forum that the entirety of EDs gameplay is covered by the 'some people find it boring' umbrella. The only way to resolve this issue is to provide a startup option which allows a player to choose to start with 100 billion credits, one of each ship, fully engineered, together with maxxed out materials and modules, max rank and reputation with all factions and powers, and all PP rewards available.
Even then, some people will manage to find a grind to complain about.
Click to expand...

Load game.
Go do something else while game plays itself.[wacky]
 

krylite

krylite
I'd agree having to press the j-jump key again after moving around a star is certainly based on gameplay design decisions on FD's part with some thought to mmo considerations. However, I'd think also it would be nice to have some autopilot functioning to have the ship be able to auto-scoop then vector to the next jump heading whether through a new module or upgrade to the ship navigation, or even upgrade multi-crew function where a hired npc pilot takes over the piloting in this area.

Which is likely not going to happen, so here's an idea for a compromise. Remember in the movies "Stargate" and "Contact", while "hypertraveling" around, the vortex trip made "turns" and "corners" like changing waypoints. So how about a "mini-game" like extension of the hyperjump sequence (in an optional setting mode for the FSD) where for a few seconds a target reticule appears vectored off to the next star waypoint where the player can choose to let the ship continue on and exit at the current destination star, or attempt to "turn" the ship heading to "catch" the next waypoint leg. It would continue on until the pilot lets the ship emerge at the current endpoint, or until the fuel is close to running out where either the ship exits at the "fuel star" point, or even a chance exit at a random star system nearby (similar to hyperjump errors that existed in FE2&FFE), or even a special hyperdiction by thargoid or some other discovery (glimpses of "cities in hyperspace" per Elite rumor lore, lost ships in black hole event horizons, etc. ) Or even allow those special-interrupts be chance happening especially if the pilot fails to catch the next waypoint vector while in the hyper extension. So, effectively a compromise where one can skip multiple 'j' key-pressing points without having to stop , but unable to scoop refuel, while introducing some gameplay risk for long range trips across the galaxy.
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
sleutelbos said:
Suppose I want to go to Colonia. Why would you be so incredibly opposed to people doing just that without pressing the 'J' but an ungodly number of times? You can keep doing whatever you like as it is now, if you prefer.
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Colonia requires *some* sort of boundary between it and Sol to make it at all distinct from the bubble.

I really don't like that it's "press J lots of times" - I stayed continuously in Colonia for 15 months because there was nothing I needed in the Sol bubble worth that many Js ... having reluctantly visited the bubble briefly to set up Remote Workshops after the 3.0 release, I don't intend to make the journey again for at least another 15 months, or at all if possible.

*But* the main reason it's distinctive and - say - that random patch of 70 systems 50LY corewards of Lave isn't ... is because you actually have to commit to being there or commit to not being there. If you could just set an autopilot and then go to work/sleep and come back to being in Colonia, then it might as well be the Pleiades ... and we already have the Pleiades for that. As it is, the local outfitting matters, the transfer costs for ships matter, and in a rare break from tradition, the game delivers decisions with actual consequences.

...

I have proposed as a compromise: put a dockable Gnosis-style moving megaship which flies up and down the highway with weekly jumps. You can park on it, and after a few jumps you'll be in Colonia. Just don't miss the departure when you're hanging around at one of the intermediate stops. Now you can go between Colonia and Sol without pressing J - at the cost of it taking a few weeks of real-time to do so and needing to be lined up with the ship's schedule [1] ... or you could use one of its jumps to get a head start and then fly the rest of the way for at least fewer Js.


[1] The logical intermediate stops would be Rohini and Gandharvi, which both have plenty of mining, bounty hunting and local exploration opportunities, so there would be things to do along the way, and might even grow slightly into tiny bubbles of their own.
 

deckroid

deckroid
Stigbob said:
IIRC the dev quote on not having autopilots were along the lines of "we want people to play the game".
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Well, that's just monstrous of them. How dare they? I mean, it takes ... non-quasar systems ... 200 jumps to get to Colonia? The nerve of some people making me play this game. Like I dont have anything better to do. I want instant gratification. Now. What part of instant don't people get? I want to go to Beagle Point, why should I have to endure HOURS and HOURS of jumping when I could just jump there in one jump? Or tell the auto pilot to jump there and then I go to bed and wake up in orbit. What is it with ED? Why can't I have billions of credits with a single button push? Why can't I have what everyone else has? Why should I have to put in WORK in a GAME to achieve these things... jeeze... it's don't they know that I am important and my opinion matters more than anyone else's?

*** The above statement is satire. Please flame at your own discretion ***
 

LameoveR

LameoveR
the one who dropped the game in 2016 came back in 2018 to say how he dislike space travels in space sim game :-/
you didn't found much threads about "space travel grind" cause it's ridiculous like this one.
 

Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust
I get up,
and nothing gets me down
You got it tough,
I've seen the toughest around

And I know,
baby, just how you feel
You got to roll with the punches
and get to what's real

Can't you see me standing here
I got my back against the coffee machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen
Can't you see what I mean?

Aw, might as well ...
 

VR StarLightPL

VR StarLightPL
We need to clarify two things.
1. Some people want to automate travel. Not exploration. Travel. So handwave the fact that the disco scanner is one button press, and just make it so the autopilot can't scan while jumping. It's just a dumb computer doing dumb menial work. Player can either watch the game play itself, or log out. That's only because there is literally nothing to do on long distance travels right now, unless of course you're not travelling but exploring. Problem solved.

2. FSD countdown and jump is not a loading screen for assets like somebody mentioned. It is actually a "wait for network" loading screen. GPU/CPU power won't help you there. You can observe that when your connection isn't up to snuff, or in busy regions in Open. There are more of these, when the client "phones home", for example dropping from orbital cruise and lifting up a pad.

P.S. Observation: yeah, the usual usernames check out... And me actually agreeing with Sleutelboss. OMG, the irony :)
 

Saool

Saool
Have we not been here before... several times?

Why in the 3300 do humans fly space ships... with a joystick? Why do ships not fly themselves 1000x better than any human could?

The answer is of course that it is a game. It's just where you draw the line between fun activities and the total automation we will have in reality centuries before we get to 3300.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
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 :D

So : stop complaining and git Grinding!
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[VR] M4st0d0n

[VR] M4st0d0n
Mass lock, FSD charging. And then a countdown.

To each one his fun, but man...

At least in SC we have gravity braking and a chance to plant in a star if we mess up. Jump is just point and wait for three cooldowns, with no way to speed things up except stupid engineers.

And those nebula low-res sprites in your face is a downgrade from previous animations.
 
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