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

[UFO Reality]

I would cautiously agree with AP under those conditions. I say cautiously because once you let it in people will be campaigning for it to be changed. As I have said in many previous discussions I am not 100% against all forms of faster travel, what I am against all forms of faster travel that allow for carefree movement between two places, and I really am not that worried about how easy it is to get hold of, but any attempt to travel to distant places that have never been visited, even if it is between two known places but passes through unexplored systems, should almost be on the level of intentional suicide.

It is possible that there will be players that will want some changes but that is what ED has been doing since release. I have to say that it has improved a lot but it still lacks a lot as well. I believe that AP should be only available after a set amount of hours of play which is regulated by rank to gain access to the technology. Although I think that the AP should really strictly only be available to have only visited star systems in the route to be able to let it plot the route because it would keep in with what game devs want to achieve, which is to keep a player playing the game. As much as I would love to AP everywhere regardless of whether I have been through the star system or not, I feel that this caveat will make it quite fair on ED's main game play activity, which is a space piloting. I just would like to see some rationality in regards to the game devs respecting some of the gamer's time in RL and allowing the game to be more enjoyable by decreasing/subtracting some of the boredom of transit in ED and also in some way, reward the gamer because they have manually piloted the route and by planning it or by luck.

The problem of money is always going to exist though and the increased ability to earn money would have to be offset. A smart trader using his wits and skills should always be able to make a profit above a AP run that requires no personal interaction, and I am not sure the game in it's current state will support that. However the current demand for AP is simply to remove any necessary interaction or danger from say a run to Colonia, and that I am against. People basically want to start an AP run to Colonia, go to bed and wake up next day in Colonia, thus removing all sense of adventure and distance from the equation.

Yeah, not keen on AP abuse either. I do agree with other anti-AP players that point out such issues. In regards to long distance treks, I personally, am not that interested in doing a week of hyperspace jumps unless there is some real juicy reward or reason for it. At least the return trip to the bubble would be less crazy using the AP rules as suggested and it would only decrease the amount of time by a smaller amount, due to automation. Somewhat, it will still make the gamer respect the time sink. As a bonus a gamer could actually get things done around the house and still be playing the game without getting nagged by the missus. Well until the ship gets interdicted anyway and gets disengaged from AP. [smile]

 

[UFO Reality]

You nailed it. I am for autopilot now.
Grade A

Thanks, It would probably still need more discussion in the community prior implementation.

Personally, I have always been for AP and by playing the game for a very long time it has helped me understand the issues regarding the game and its players. I have also grasped how issues could arise out of an AP technology that is badly implemented for ED. All that being said and with all the forum post I have read and personal experience with ED it is clear to me that transit boredom is an issue.

Now, if only the the game devs would agree and get motivated enough.[money] or [heart]

 

[Tataboj]

At the earliest, this will happen when there will be something else to do in your ship other than traveling (like going around the ship, analysing stuff, taking care of cabins, all that fine space legs stuff). So, I would say in a time span of 5 years - never.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

At the earliest, this will happen when there will be something else to do in your ship other than traveling (like going around the ship, analysing stuff, taking care of cabins, all that fine space legs stuff). So, I would say in a time span of 5 years - never.

Or, they can embrace their users' needs and give it now, so users can watch netflix or do household chores relatively unhindered, as it is now. It would be a QoL update very much in-spirit to the Beyond series of QoL updates, lol. These examples are from this thread alone, so you know, people are doing this anyway. They're not "thoroughly immersed and engaged in the beauty of long range travel", they watch netflix while E: D plays in the background . And this is now even possible in VR.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

And for those that don't like it, here's a suggestion - DON'T USE IT.

I love this argument, so let's extrapolate:

Chess is boring and there should be a new piece added that can move anywhere on the board.
If you don't like it, don't use it.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Completely different reason in my opinion. This is a multiplayer game and allowing third party apps would quickly open a can of worms of the cheater kind. Thus, there is a blanket statement in the Terms of service which forbids such modifications.

Clearly they have no problem about using EDSM or EDD or EDDB.io...

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Or, they can embrace their users' needs and give it now, so users can watch netflix or do household chores relatively unhindered, as it is now.

Except it'd break for the most part the sence of scale and FD and many players don't agree with the proposed feature.

 

[Arkadi]

Except it'd break for the most part the sence of scale and FD and many players don't agree with the proposed feature.

I don't really get why an auto-pilot, like UFOreality pictured (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...erjump-grind?p=6916826&viewfull=1#post6916826), would alter the sense of scale. The universe is still gigantic. There are no shortcuts. The autopilot just takes away the need to stay glued in front of the screen (or behind the VR-goggles) all the time it takes travelling. Going ten thousands of light years still will be an enormous task to do. You'll have to stop any 10 or 20 jumps to scoop fuel. You'll go manual if you reach any interesting spots like nebulas, black holes or neutron fields, the universe will NOT shrink. It is big. With or without autopilot. What auto-jump-pilot will do, is make life more comfortable (and maybe more dangerous) for the lazy Elite-Dangerous traveler.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I don't really get why an auto-pilot, like UFOreality pictured (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...erjump-grind?p=6916826&viewfull=1#post6916826), would alter the sense of scale. The universe is still gigantic. There are no shortcuts. The autopilot just takes away the need to stay glued in front of the screen (or behind the VR-goggles) all the time it takes travelling. Going ten thousands of light years still will be an enormous task to do. You'll have to stop any 10 or 20 jumps to scoop fuel. You'll go manual if you reach any interesting spots like nebulas, black holes or neutron fields, the universe will NOT shrink. It is big. With or without autopilot. What auto-jump-pilot will do, is make life more comfortable (and maybe more dangerous) for the lazy Elite-Dangerous traveler.

20 jumps is 1000 Lys in a >50 Lys ship, in a trip to Colonia that's just 20 stops to refuel and considering you find pretty much nobody in deep space, you are at risk of nothing.

In short, you'll need 20 times less invested time to get to Colonia if AP existed.

 

[M66]

Love to do some mining 1000-5000+ LY out, then AP home.

Right now...There is zero chance I'm going to mine outside the bubble then babysit my ship home. 133 jumps to sell 40 tons of Bauxite isn't what I call fun.

Do some mining some exploring, skip the loading screens...get alerted when I'm back in the bubble and take manual control from there.

 

[Arkadi]

20 jumps is 1000 Lys in a >50 Lys ship, in a trip to Colonia that's just 20 stops to refuel and considering you find pretty much nobody in deep space, you are at risk of nothing.

In short, you'll need 20 times less invested time to get to Colonia if AP existed.

If, someday, the inhabitants of Colonia want more resident Commanders, maybe they will be pro AutoPilot too...

edit: the dangers clearly refer to the inhibited parts of the galaxy. For a travel to Colonia this would be the start and end of the journey. The danger is, of course, interdiction by NPC or Commanders, while the ship is on AutoPilot whist Commander is sleeping or doing other important stuff, like watching latest soap of Zarek 0 and his romance with princess blue hair....

 

[rp198419]

FSD Navigator and other autopilot mods are regarded by FD as 'cheating', according to the EULA which prohibits any automation.

The whole game is built on the basis of wanting players to be online for as long and as often as possible. The AP modules don't save time but they do relieve the tedium of pressing the J key 1,000 times. This however is not what FD want.

FD want people to 'work' in ED and get bored senseless, with players always hoping (forlornly) that something better will come along at some point. This attitude of theirs is due to the fact that they do not 'play' the game in the way that real players do and, at present anyway, there is no competition -especially if you want VR.

FD's only contact with the game is when they are - sometimes - working on it. They don't give a damn about the thoughtless pain inflicted on players by their hopeless, endlessly repetitive jump mechanic.

I haven't played now for 6 months, after playing nearly every day for two years. I just can't go through all those endless jumps again.

If there was an autopilot to save me from pressing the J key key and scooping every 45 seconds, usually hundreds of times on a lengthy journey, I would be back tomorrow.

The PvPers don't care - and they have the loudest voices - so will always come out against an AP. But for explorers...well, I'd even be happy to pay for an autopilot. It would make the game so much more enjoyable...and would probably make FD a stack of money in the process.

The prohibition on AP is just another example of FD's arrogant attitude towards its players.

OK...now you can flame me.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

If, someday, the inhabitants of Colonia want more resident Commanders, maybe they will be pro AutoPilot too...

edit: the dangers clearly refer to the inhibited parts of the galaxy. For a travel to Colonia this would be the start and end of the journey. The danger is, of course, interdiction by NPC or Commanders, while the ship is on AutoPilot whist Commander is sleeping or doing other important stuff, like watching latest soap of Zarek 0 and his romance with princess blue hair....

Those dangers are still easy to avoid, for CMDRs you can just travel in solo. For NPCs, well you can simply stop AP slightly before entering the bubble or Colonia which constitutes a minute part of the whole trip.

In the case of Colonia, the main reason why not many live there is simply because of lack of modules and ships not to mention that there are no engineers there.

 

[Arkadi]

Those dangers are still easy to avoid, for CMDRs you can just travel in solo. For NPCs, well you can simply stop AP slightly before entering the bubble or Colonia which constitutes a minute part of the whole trip.

In the case of Colonia, the main reason why not many live there is simply because of lack of modules and ships not to mention that there are no engineers there.

You know, Colonia seems pretty fine to me. No engineers, far off from the bubble, no autopilot so not many of the casual pvp-mob is going there...

If there was a starting choice to start a new commander in Clonia I would maybe do this with a second account.

I just won't do a long trip within this game anymore. Traveling in this games really annoys me so much, that I just play less then I would if I could skip that ... charging FSD -witch space - big glowing sphere - charging FSD - witch space - big glowing sphere again and again odyssey...

 

[Shinji Ikari]

You know, Colonia seems pretty fine to me. No engineers, far off from the bubble, no autopilot so not many of the casual pvp-mob is going there...

If there was a starting choice to start a new commander in Clonia I would maybe do this with a second account.

I just won't do a long trip within this game anymore. Traveling in this games really annoys me so much, that I just play less then I would if I could skip that ... charging FSD -witch space - big glowing sphere - charging FSD - witch space - big glowing sphere again and again odyssey...

Hence why I much rather ask for fun things to do while travelling than for an AP, luckly it seems we'll be getting that on Q4.

 

[Dbrn47]

20 jumps is 1000 Lys in a >50 Lys ship, in a trip to Colonia that's just 20 stops to refuel and considering you find pretty much nobody in deep space, you are at risk of nothing.

In short, you'll need 20 times less invested time to get to Colonia if AP existed.

I fail to see how being glued to your seat staring at loading screens keeps 'scale' intact. The linked post in what you quoted is even more strict than one I'd like and you're still like 'nah, scale.' If the autopilot goes through the same motions we do now, you can't keep jumping while logged out, and autopilot turns off when fuel is required, the time investment is still there. Like I said, we're already barely paying attention to the game when doing a long distance point to point jaunt. We're just required to line up and press jump right now and it isn't adding anything to the game having to do so.

There are some good rules that could be added to autopilot that don't remove time investment and don't add any shortcuts, but you still keep saying no because shortcuts and scale. I don't get it.

 

[Dbrn47]

Hence why I much rather ask for fun things to do while travelling than for an AP, luckly it seems we'll be getting that on Q4.

Yea, hopefully it doesn't fall short though. If it is good enough, less would likely be asking for something like autopilot. There's so much potential with that part of the game.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I fail to see how being glued to your seat staring at loading screens keeps 'scale' intact. The linked post in what you quoted is even more strict than one I'd like and you're still like 'nah, scale.' If the autopilot goes through the same motions we do now, you can't keep jumping while logged out, and autopilot turns off when fuel is required, the time investment is still there. Like I said, we're already barely paying attention to the game when doing a long distance point to point jaunt. We're just required to line up and press jump right now and it isn't adding anything to the game having to do so.

There are some good rules that could be added to autopilot that don't remove time investment and don't add any shortcuts, but you still keep saying no because shortcuts and scale. I don't get it.

That's right, then we surely must make it so that we need to put even less atention to the game.

 

[Arkadi]

That's right, then we surely must make it so that we need to put even less atention to the game.

In this case yes. And yes I have read your irony.

But as long as there is no kind of "adventure" to be had whilst traveling, I'd say make traveling a pure time-investment with no need to stay in front of the monitor (inside the goggle) the whole time. I mean pure time-investment is already in the game. Look at powerplay and the 30 minute ticks for fortification. There you already have it. Leave your game running online and benefit after 30 minutes doing nothing, or waiting for your notoriety to fade away, or mode-switching for hours to fill up with missions...

 

[Shinji Ikari]

In this case yes. And yes I have read your irony.

But as long as there is no kind of "adventure" to be had whilst traveling, I'd say make traveling a pure time-investment with no need to stay in front of the monitor (inside the goggle) the whole time. I mean pure time-investment is already in the game. Look at powerplay and the 30 minute ticks for fortification. There you already have it. Leave your game running online and benefit after 30 minutes doing nothing...

At this point I think we'll have to agree to disagree.