Now that automated ship control is no longer possible, due to the removal of that functionality with a recent update, I would very much like to be able to get the relative positions of anything within radar range. Currently you can only get distance, but I would like to also get relative coordinates (Cartesian, using the player's ship as the origin) to any target. Whether or not there is a fiducial to the orientation (so you'd know that you were pointing 20 degrees to the right and 52 degrees up from Sol II, or whatever), I think this would be extremely useful.

The massively exploitable aspects of this are no longer available. Previously, this would have made writing an autopilot plugin dead easy, but now that's not a concern. The exposure of this type of information would allow for a much broader and cooler plugin ecosystem, with multi-person tactical considerations made vastly easier. I already have a few ideas that I would absolutely love to be able to develop more fully, that are currently impractical but would be launched into the realm of possibility by this change.

Of course, it's possible that I'm missing some huge exploitable holes, and if so I welcome people pointing them out.

Turbo still works, if I'm not mistaken. /DisplayShipPos still /DisplaysHippos.

Turbo does still work, but autopilot cannot be built on turbo alone!

-1

Because I would like to see expansion of pilot interfaces, I would like lua to have access to user input and ship control. To keep lua from being used as an automation tool, it should have limited access to environment conditions.

Many pilots like to write plugins for their ships and program autopilot. That's their right. On the other hand I don't support plugin usage in battle.

Of course, it's possible that I'm missing some huge exploitable holes, and if so I welcome people pointing them out.

Well, with ability to get the relative positions of anything within radar range will help you to write autochase plugin (you can still turbo.. and with your proporsal you will be able to engage with turbo almost every target).
This is exlpoit, because "chase" is type of combat activity and engaging other pilot only by press button "X" will ruin twitch combat system, imo. And moreover, autochase plugin will give you battle advantage over other players (remember "chase" is type of combat).

I don't really see how this would make it easier to do what you're describing, pirren, but it's possible that I'm not fully understanding you. What do you mean by "engage with turbo?" The only thing I can think of that you might mean would only require the distance to the target, not the relative position, because even though you could automatically activate turbo you'd need to manually position your ship for it, and once you're facing the right way the only thing that matters is distance. But maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Roda, I'm actually somewhat torn on this point. I agree in principle about Lua having access to user input and ship control, but there is no way of limiting Lua's access to environment conditions without breaking pretty much every plugin out there. Unless, for instance, the information Lua had access to was degraded from the information automatically displayed on the HUD, but that, too would break a bunch of stuff. I guess something like only updating every 5 seconds would render the information useless for automated combat purposes, but it would still allow things like autopilots. (sorry, this is getting back into the arguments over Combat Assist)

Frankly, something of this sort is possible now, with trilateration off of asteroids. However, that's a pain in the ass, requires there to be asteroids in sight, and vastly increases the amount of calculation that must be done client-side for every positional sounding. I'm pretty sure that nothing short of completely occluding environmental conditions from Lua would be sufficient to make it impossible to write a Lua-based autopilot (with Lua ship control), and, as I said, that would break the world. I don't see a way around that, and as such I don't think that it's a good argument against this idea. Of course, I could be missing something. :)

A quick clarification on my last point: by "something of this sort" I meant autopilot, not the plugins I had in mind. I realize my wording was quite ambiguous, and I apologize. With the current system plus Lua ship control back, autopilot is currently possible. Changes have to be made to the current system for tactical displays to be possible (of the kind I'm envisioning, at least).

My autopilot script still works...

does your autopilot script involve borrowing a freinds kid and giving him a 5 lb bag of M&M's and telling him what to do?

Congrats Impavid, some of my scripts do not. (No one of them is combat related.) I put some serious work to writing them recently and I liked them. I quit playing VO when the LUA got crippled and I am not going to prolong my two accounts I was periodically paying for. On the bright side, I have more time for my real life since then. :) Take care all.

Inco, you're not the only one leaving. Players gain combat advantages by using 3d displays, precision analog joysticks, programmable game keyboards and other such devices. Other plugins provide combat advantages by changing the way information is displayed to the player. Yet, let someone write a plugin that provides a tiny bit of help to those stuck with stock keyboard and mouse setups and the cries of hypocritical whiners leads to a kneejerk reaction by the devs. I'll let my money do the talking too, by not spending anymore of it here.

i got kicked from a Mortal Combat tournament as a kid cause a used the macro function on my non OEM gamepad! WHAAAAAAAAAA!

Why can't you people fly your own ships? I've got a standard Dell keyboard and mouse and can function fine.

[Edit]Removed post, have fun, good luck, and good bye[/Edit]

In the hope that by some magic a complex interface from this would actually be created, one that would make meaningful command and control much more plausible and thus combat much more scalable and less spastic, I will cast my vote in support of the general idea. It could potentially make the game far richer than it currently is. I suppose that this is a pretty tenuous line of thought but such as everything is, I'm willing to go there..

Inco, I hope to see you soon back and your scripts will work again! I understand script-writing is very time consuming.

diqrtvpe,

but I would like to also get relative coordinates (Cartesian, using the player's ship as the origin) to any target.

If you know relative coordinates, you can auto-pursue (auto chase) targets.

E.g.
your coords are (X: 0, Y: 0, Z: 0).
Target coords are (X: 50, Y: 70, Z: 10).
Your ship points direction (X: 50, Y: 70, Z: 10) and +turbo. Then update script every second and you'll get new target coords (X: 54, Y: 71, Z: 11) and update "route" to (X: 54, Y: 71, Z: 11), etc.

Moreover script can autofire ships back, (with +fire1 or +fire2) if the distance between ships match certain value, e.g. 600m. Eh?

Sorry about the rudeness of my last post, but it is truly what I think. I think we should all fly our ships instead of having LUA do it for us.

OP: I don't see any big exploits with this. Pirren, who would want an auto chase function? As you described, it would curve around to directly follow a target. You could not dodge mines. You could not dodge a turret. It would not be as efficient as intercepting the target at an angle, away from the dangers of mines and turrets, and you would arrive in firing range sooner with a direct interception route.

Is it still possible to rotate your ship using Lua? I wasn't aware. I suppose that would make something like this theoretically possible, but frankly chasing by hand is probably a lot more efficient and effective. What this would allow is tracking the target's changes in position, and extrapolating a flight path based on that information. I guess that's the point where being able to turn the ship to a specific intercept point would become more useful. But I think that fixing that particular problem (by, say, making it so you can't rotate your ship in an automated fashion, if you still can) is worth it when you gain things like being able to plot someone's flight path.

"Sorry about the rudeness of my last post, but it is truly what I think. I think we should all fly our ships instead of having LUA do it for us."

As for me, I did. I was only getting a little help from LUA like others people do from aliases and such. For example, I had a LUA bind for stopping my ship. A little stupid thing which was saving me a hundred keystrokes a day. It just set speed down to 0, activated brakes .. and deactivated them again when the ship speed dropped to 0. I cannot imagine how I could harm the gameplay with this.

In fact, we all were flying our ships, of course. The so called "problem" with LUA did not exist.

"Is it still possible to rotate your ship using Lua?"
No, it is not even possible to use brakes.

No, it is not even possible to use brakes.

brakes or deccelerate?