Why does my 34th century spaceship have no autopilot OR how do you accept the hyperjump grind?
- Thread starter sc_neo
- Start date
Yes of course, however there are aspects of modern autopilots that could be added ingame to add some depth and player interaction (beyond pushing J every few minutes)
After 4+ years of manual flight in game, here is a brief summary of what I would like to see implemented -
Module - Standard Flight computer accessible through the forward pop up interface
A. Automation for cruise phases (limited to class Med ships and above) ability to plot routes via the galaxy map and upload/download routes/bookmarks/planetary coordinates into the flight computer. Capable of following a direct route to any waypoint whilst in SC at 75% (including course corrections) Also capable of navigating long jump routes.
B. Automation is not capable of refuelling, manual control is handed over for neutron stars, interdictions, anomalies, and on final approach to a destination (orbital cruise/SC dropout)
C. Like real automated navigation systems, they rely on some form of GPS and are prone to error, in the case of Elite it could rely on position updates using pulsars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_pulsar-based_navigation A small chance of navigation error is still possible if not monitored (resulting in a mis jump) A user hitting autopilot then going to sleep for 7 hours may find his ship has mis jumped and taken damage whilst dropping to normal space.
D. No trade capability
E. End result is freeing up the cmdr from repetitive tasks like minor course corrections on long trips, it will open up more options for interacting with the ship in flight (or walking around carrying out repairs)
(Snip)
Agreed, but limited to SC and docking. No take offs, hyperdrive or the stuff you mentioned.
With the development of bots I doubt you'll see this, however.
'J', lol, peasant.
Man, rebind the jump function to "<ctrl><shift><esc>". Thank me later.
Hi Flowey,
I think you are missing the point in argument for the need for ED to include an AP.
I have to repeat the fact that doing several hyperspace jumps and having the same loading screen images gets pretty boring for a lot of ED players and you can read that in a lot of posts from different CMDRs that will actually take the time to visit and comment in the forums. Who knows the number of players who have quit playing just because of getting tired of having to do rinse and repeat jumps. A boring game doesn't get recommendations and further gaming. Let alone that the jumps are do not remain a novelty or is fun after 100 times.
I proposed that your galaxy map navigation computer can only engage the AP if your route included systems that you have already explored/visited/passed by manually piloting through them. This mitigates the exploration nerf because you still have to visit as many star systems so that your navigational computer can compute an AP route which is still going to take the same amount of jumps but automatically controlled by the ship's computer until you reach a point near your destination. It is not cheating. It is a reward for visiting as many star systems as you can manually piloting the ship.
The devs could decide if fuel usage may or may not be automatically worked out by the navigational computer, but in any case, maybe the ship will just stop if you accidentally didn't work out what your fuel needs will require. ie large fuel tank or stop to fuel scoop at last fuel star. There is still gameplay left even if there is AP.
A lot of players want to be able to multitask/do chores whilst still playing ED and AP will allow this. And it just makes sense that a spaceship includes AP. Seems stupid without it.
The key here is to make the travel less of a grind and more of like an actual expedition, in simple plain words, make travelling a challenge. I do agree that current mechanics are boring but just patching your way around them won't refute the fact that they are boring.
Travel in ED sucks, big time.
And being patient enough to hit J and fuel scoop for a full week does not make it more special, it makes it pure stupid.
A-"What did you do on vacation?"
B-"I drove to Mexico, hit a drug dealer with my car when they tried to jack my car, and had a great time, what did you do?"
A-"I traveled to Sag A in ED, I basically jumped and fuel scooped all week but saw some cool stuff, it was like jump, fuel scoop, honk, wash and repeat for a solid week, man, it was awesome. "
B-"Yeah, you're a real bad boy space traveler, lol, keep up the good work space boy, lol."
Then you are the talk around the office at the water cooler, and wonder what all the funny looks are about.
And being patient enough to hit J and fuel scoop for a full week does not make it more special, it makes it pure stupid.
A-"What did you do on vacation?"
B-"I drove to Mexico, hit a drug dealer with my car when they tried to jack my car, and had a great time, what did you do?"
A-"I traveled to Sag A in ED, I basically jumped and fuel scooped all week but saw some cool stuff, it was like jump, fuel scoop, honk, wash and repeat for a solid week, man, it was awesome. "
B-"Yeah, you're a real bad boy space traveler, lol, keep up the good work space boy, lol."
Then you are the talk around the office at the water cooler, and wonder what all the funny looks are about.
Last edited:
The bots could be nullified by the devs coding an RNG generator for a probability that an interdiction attack on a bot, CMDR or even AP piloted ship which follow a set route more than once.
Although how a coder can code a monitoring program for this would take some sort of skill. Maybe it could be as simple as the game logging controller movements and if it can detect that there is a repeated pattern of inputs or no inputs after set amount of time then the chance of interdiction increases.
And what exactly is the purpose of making other players quit the game because of an aspect of the game that definitely needs attention?
That won't help in ED getting more development.
Gamers want a game that is fun to play and not a boring pointless repeating time sink.
I would consider lazy as someone sitting in front of the PC doing 20+ jumps whilst there are other more productive things you can do while letting the AP pilot your route.
I want an AP that is thought out well as a means of mitigating the time sink involved in transit because the time sink for transit in ED is not the purpose of the game but it is only there to give a gamer a feel of the scale of distance.
One place where an autopilot would be useful would be if we had space legs on our ships, and could/had to move around fixing things.
S
Great idea, although I could potentially have space legs if AP was in the game because I could go make a cup of coffee while waiting for my ship to complete its route.
Hi Brrokk, that avatar looks cool, looks like something similar that I have seen in my experiences.
Anyway I did suggest this previously as AP rules. So I just cut and pasted it as a bump.
I think what would hopefully need to happen is how AP should be implemented into ED instead of just excluding it. Presently, there are more gamers with experience with the game, the community could be a source for great ideas for AP implementation.
SUGGESTED AP CAVEATS:
1/ Auto-Pilot hyperspace jumps are only available to star-systems already visited and logged by the Galaxy map. No exploration bypass here.
2/ AP does not include fuel scooping. You plan the trip.
3/ AP will still cause your ship to be vulnerable to attack/interdiction when using it during super cruise.
4/ AP does not decrease time it takes to do travel manually and only available in open mode and while in-game. (You can sleep but the ship computer must be online ).
5/ AP will only slowdown at the star-port or dock destination in SC and will still require pilot to come out of SC. Because ED is about piloting a spaceship.
6/ AP only available to specific ships and/or be rank locked for an engineer to make it available to your ship. ( Extra grind so that it keeps with ED's motto )
7/ AP only available when ship's mass is under x-amount to prevent easy trading automation. Fully loaded ships need manual piloting anywhere. At least the return trip will be easier if you are not loaded up and keep trading relevant as missions can be more profitable than trading.
These caveats will not be a cheat but a method to help keep the game balanced and take the absurdity out of ED and actually make its game design look more refined.
Some people like to do repetitive tasks, I don’t, I hate it, oh got to go to colonia.... 150 jumps late .... I’m gonna smash that jump button again, uhh ya smash smash who’s your daddy now jump button, yeah smash who’s your daddy, I’m you daddy...
-_-
You got to go to Colonia?
"Don't like the autopilot, don't use it"
Don't like so many jumps to go to Colonia? Don't go to Colonia.
It's a boring place anyway.
This is something I've been advocating since I started playing ED.
Pull up your right-HUD, look at the "systems" tab and (unsurprisingly) there's a whole heap of stuff there.
It'd be nice if a lot of that stuff could be twiddled with, in various ways, to optimise it's performance.
For example, you make a dozen jumps and the efficiency of your FSD begins to decay.
You pull up your FSD in the right-HUD, click on an "adjust" button and the game shows you several dials, bar-charts and graphs providing a variety of data.
Perhaps your "alignment with the galactic compass" has drifted as a result of you travelling a significant distance since the last time it was adjusted and you need to twiddle something to reset it.
Maybe the current system has significantly different planetary masses than the system where you previously calibrated your FSD and you need to adjust your FSD to suit the current gravitational conditions.
Perhaps the stars in this system give out certain types of radiation and you need to twiddle something to attenuate the interference in order to optimise your FSD.
Or, maybe your FSD is just suffering fluctuations in operating characteristics and you need to twiddle stuff to re-tune it.
Similar thing with thrusters, sensors, scanners, shields and pretty-much every active system.
It'd be nice if all this stuff was dynamic and required routine adjustments to keep it working efficiently.
Only trouble is, most of the time we spend travelling is spent in hyperspace, which is basically a loading-screen.
I know you can look around and access messages while in hyperspace but that's about it.
Maybe it'd be possible to allow access to the "modules" HUD while in hyperspace?
That'd be ideal because you'd be able to set the autopilot and then devote all your time to keeping everything else working.
Failing that, maybe it'd be okay if the autopilot did fuel-scoop so that it'd give you sufficient time to make adjustments to your other ship's systems between jumps?
That'd also create the required compromise/drawbacks because if you did just plot a course to Colonia and then leave your ship to fly there for itself, you'd end up making 10Ly jumps (in a variety of wacky directions) and then taking half an hour to fuel-scoop because your ship's systems were so far out of calibration.
Lestat
Banned
Now we are seeing your true intent is to be able to Watch Netflix or Adult sites or even play another game while Elite Dangerous plays itself. That not what this game about and it a terrable idea.While you're at it, why not add the random chance of your powerplant exploding unless you type "ELITE HYPERJUMP GRIND IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED IN MY LIFE". THAT will keep those nasty slackers chained to the cockpit! Someone already suggested a captcha to make things interesting. Oooh let's make it a "space trivia" captcha, so you need to go to the galaxy map, and using the information provided, calculate the current positions of celestial bodies and list the values of gravitational forces which they influence each other? Shouldn't be too hard, it's just astrophysics math!
I have a even better idea, why don't we mount a machine gun to every speed trap, which opens fire when someone's going, say, 40km/h above the limit. Because that person is a potential murderer and has to be eliminated from society! [OK, that went too far, I admit, but it's on a similar "ridiculousity level"
</s>
I would rather advocate walking around the ship and monitor parts of the ship. Adjust parts like your idea suggest. It would combat Bots better than captcha type idea. It makes it harder for people to make Trade Bots and Exploration bots. When people can walk around different types of ships.
The best part. It forces players to play the game instead of their idea for Autopilot and their hidden intent to be watching Netflix, Youtube or adult site or play another game while Elite Dangerous plays itself.
Better than Camelot - which is a silly place
[video=youtube;1Npo0cmp-VY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Npo0cmp-VY[/video]
Back OT: Just completed a nice 21K LY trip out to Eorl Auwsy today to be in place to check for changes in the Guardian Ruins when 3.2 hits. A nice change of pace, always good to watch the incrasing star density and see the nebula get closer - long distance travel is fun
I completely agree. It's poor game design. I'm sorry but I feel like FDev have no clue about good game design.
Lots of people will claim they like this, but lots of people stop playing the game because of it. The number one reason I don't play Elite much anymore is because it's a waste of time. I have no idea how people find time to play this game. Last time I played, I spent 4 hours doing a few mission and had very little fun relative to time spent. Most of my time was spent traveling and watching loading screens. I have better things to do.
No, not all of us can agree that.
True. Some people kid themselves into believing it's not.