I would like to propose that a small selection of commands be available for basic ship movements, not manual callable controls, ie, not a turn for x time thing, but small autopiloting scripts that perform simple functions.

Due to my recent lua excursions, i have much delved into the effects and balance of the abilities thus described, and i believe that if the game were inclusive of the following two commands, that it would enrich the game extensively.

Firstly, it would be important, for the nature of game balance, that the behavioural response times of these commands be relatively slow. They should be able to perform the tasks, but at a speed noticeably slower than a mildly competent pilot. The idea i shall expand as a background.

In the far future, it would be almost a definite likelihood that the ships and machinery would be able to perform very much complex tasks without intervention from a controlling person. This would include, for the most part, those same tasks that even now, in airliners and similar, we have being controlled by computers.

A computer can already successfully land, and is trusted to land, a jumbo jet full of people. Specifically it seems in the industry the computer is used to land in cases of limited crosswinds and limited visibility.

So, it naturally follows that several thousand years in the future, a space ship would have these abilities, but evolved to fly most maneuvers without response from a pilot, and (for a point of reference, lets consider a real future) generally speaking said autopilot would, by then, likely be able to perform ANY flight task, better, and faster, than a human pilot.

So the logic is, in a space future game autopilot is kinda a given, it should be there as an expected technology like life support, lasers, and space-effective propulsion.

That being said...

Vendetta is a combat orientated game. The entire recourse of human tactics and abilities is where the war should be waged, NOT with an autopilot controlling your ship...

By this logic, any usage of an automated ship pilot during combat would, in the principles of the game prove unethical. So, i propose that the ships autopilots are enabled to perform the most basic tasks but no more, potentially being programmed such that if incoming fire is received from any source, they will stop dead in space, to discourage afk use.

The first command should be simple, "Follow Nav Route". This should be simple, with the few proposed limitations beingthat a) it requires a preset navroute to alreadybe set, and b) if it gets shot, the autopilot stops, and awaits user input to save it, and would not distinguish bot or player as being different, any incoming fire. c) it would possess collision avoidance, but ONLY of immobile objects. If a ship sat in its path, it would collide. d) it should not be able to even approach a station, let alone dock at it. The reasoning being that if the ship arrives unattended it should definitely sit where it arrives, most likely outside the nfz if its a station sector - again, as a sitting duck to discourage afk use. The player must manually approach and dock.

The second command should be simply, "Approach Target" Same again, with the same limitations as above. It would simply fly towards the targetted object, avoding asteroids or stations and stop within the requested distance. Same a) b) c) and d) as above.

The reasoning here is that if the pilots are enabled a way to fly their routes easily and in a relaxed way, they would likely play more, and do a wider range of activities rather than simply staying put in b8 cos longdistance flying is a bore... However, if the player was aware that the autopilots response to hostile action is to stop dead, and cease control, thereby becoming a sitting duck, it would discourage them from using it whilst afk.

And i think, finally, that there should be a few limitations on the types of ships that can use the autopiloted ships, for example...

Any type of small fighter with almost no hauling capability would be an illogical choice. All warthogs, and centurions and vultures and hornets as well as the prom and the valk. The udv tho... Im unsure, as its nature is a utility ship, not a fighter(closer in role to a taur without hauling really?) would fall into this category, simultaneously removing the combat ships from it and also the fastest ones, further expounding the "unsupervised activity = death" aspect. Then, potentially any other ship could be able to use the autopilot, but it must be purchased for each ship to enable it, lets say a flat fee of 1million per ship, regardless of the ship type, making the cost applied to a centaur highly disproportionate, but to a behemoth, acceptable if not enjoyable (but definitely expensive), but for a trident, this would be a very much appropriate cost to pay.

This would also definitely be a good way to encouragemore premium subs, and therefore more game revenue by only allowing its access to the premium subbed players.

As this is likely to prove an incredibly controversial topic, i would like to remind the community to please follow the guidelines set up by the developers, and provide constructive criticisms. Make it a discussion not a mudslinging match. I have intentionally taken as many views into account as possible, including the suggestion of "if attacked then stop dead" to offer the similar ethos to the desires of players to not have ships easily able to disappear by logging off or such.

In conclusion, I feel that enabling pilots to take advantage of an autopilot in a way that requires supervision to really get anything done would encourage a strong diversification in the types of gameplay players would indulge in. The end result would be more ships in the verse, and, alongside this, more targets for the combative amongst you. The intention is to make it something which is expensive enough as to be an asset you wouldnt throw away on a spotter bot, or anything other than your own personal supervised ride. You would protect it... And as a side effect it would also offer those pilots who enjoy fighting everyone they might and attacking tridents and similar activities the knowledge that the asset they just destroyed (mostly with capital ships) was worth a lot more than it used to be.

At the simplest, the implementation of these commands would be definitely appropriate forcapital ships.

I don't think the premise that this would be expected technology is a strong one when considering adding an element to a game.

Your premise supporting it as a game play element "The reasoning here is that if the pilots are enabled a way to fly their routes easily and in a relaxed way, they would likely play more, and do a wider range of activities rather than simply staying put in b8 cos longdistance flying is a bore" is not well supported as yet. If I am a pilot with this feature enabled, am I just chatting, eating or doing some other activity in front of my device while my ship lumbers around? Is that the draw? I don't think that's enough to pull in more players.

I do like the slow and stop elements though.

The idea is that the pilot cannot reliably leave the autopilot alone, but it can be trusted to do those simple tasks under supervision.

The idea is that the autopilot allows the players to simply haul or whatever more easily, i suggested it thus that the pilot could be doing any of those things, and the ship would continue flying. Generally, its an addition aimed at movement only, allowing for example piloting large ships that are very slow for you, without fighting for you.

I think adding limited autopilot would remove the frequency of things like the explode home, and the "attack sf at home station" teleports, and so on. Flying long distance in vo has always been tiresome, in my opinion. I think it would result in more ships in the verse generally, as pilots spend more time flying, able to let their ship handle that whilst they chat or whatever, keeping an eyeout for enemies and taking over manually at that point. It would improve many aspects of trading, mining, and the less combative types of gameplay which many players find quite boring.

There are many players in the universe who would consider this a positive, and potentially as many considering it a negative, but by tailoring it into a position whereby its not able to perform any combat role even against bots, its likely to become a widget to encourage more productive gameplay rather than everyone gravitating towards combat.

For those who consider it a positive, and use it, It could encourage players to build more, as it eases the hauling a little.

And for those who consider it a negative, that thought is mitigated by making the pilot essentially leave the ship as a sitting duck if it is found unsupervised, rewarding those who disagree with its use with easy kills, whilst they also know the ship they just killed was a far more expensive asset than your average behemoth or whatever.

The slow/stop elements could even be extended to be triggered by the proximity alert, rather than actual attack, meaning that in the circumstance that a ship hits a sector with bots, it wont get the chance to possibly just naturally fly through by luck... I.e. if it just happens to reach a fast enough speed to escape before the bots shoot (or players) the autopilot would simply just stop once it detects hostiles in a certain range. So, being caught in a storm sector on autopilot for example remains the dangerous experience it should be.

I agree to having a remote pilot in game. It has so many good options for battle and game progression. I would love to have this application available. Its a great idea

Deathstrike001 here...
Since so many things are automated as is.... Example the /defend plugin... Why can't limited flight control commands be allowed?

+1

+1

–1 to clandestine plugins in space

It's pretty easy and quick to get around the galaxy in this game. VO's galaxy is quite small.

-1

If this gets implemented, then we need a jammer that will lock up all autopilot/non auto piloted commands completely if that device is equipped (in a sector). There needs to be a huge disadvantage to using such a device, and a control jamming device would be such a disadvantage.

-1. This would make manufacturing (and trade, to an extent) pay-to-win. Sure, it can't dock, but you could still set up a fleet of bots that buy and haul cargo from their home stations to your factory station, /explode, and repeat endlessly while you keep yourself busy ferrying all the goods into the station proper.

This could also be used for AI bombing fleets, if the follow-target feature is implemented. You don't even need the rest of your auto-pilot proposal, since plugins can already handle plotting courses and pressing activate. You'd just have to be out there leading the fleet by the nose.

Meanwhile, it does not have any impact on players using /explode rather than traveling. People don't /explode because travel is hard. People /explode because traveling is slower than /exploding, and auto-pilot won't change that.

+1

An autopilot would certainly be useful. Long distance travels can be tiresome, for example flying from any point to deneb takes forever. It would be a lot less tedious if the ship would just fly while we can focus on chatting etc without missing wormholes, resetting the navroute, jumping again and repeating that x times while there is no action in sight.

The game already has notifications when someone enters our sector or when we hit an ion storm to show when the autopilot would disengage and require us to take over flying and fighting or docking to a station.

+1

I'm sure everyone will agree that autopilot is useful for long trips in space. Cars today have basicly auto pilot, so why would our ships not have autopilot? I agree that travel is tiresome and boring. It will be more fun for us to chat while we travel. More pilots will be chatting from ships instead stations like they do now. This will be more targets to shoot. Everyone wins.

If you're too incompetent to chat and travel at the same time without missing your wormholes, then you're also too incompetent to chat and auto-pilot at the same time without missing when the ship politely stops for a pirate.

Why even play the game at all? #spaceMillennials

In response to "We all float" the original idea already includes a clear enough recommendation to make the autopilot disengage if combat begins, whether its a bot or a player approaching, the addition of an autopilot scrambler would be unnecesary because the autopilot would basically be set up to scramble itself.

And, the bombing fleets idea could by easily made impossible by making the proximity alert based disengaging triggered at 2000m, ie. if an enemy is inside that range, autopilot disengages - and max range for swarms is like 1800m or so, so a bomber told to attack would in theory approach the target, then, just before hitting bombing range,it would stop dead, becoming a sitting duck. This particular idea is intended to make combat application of any kind highly difficult to implement, the sutopilot would disengage long before the weapons range was entered. It should of course, also refuse to reengage the autopilot until the target is either killed or evaded manually.

And in reply pizzasgood's suggestion about the usage of it during chat... Thats the whole point. If you arent paying attention during its use, it should be likely that it will end up dead, either by player attack or bot, no difference.

At the very least this idea is most appropriate for capships, as that hugely long build would result in a ship with a selection of additional abilities beyond simply a bigger ship with more weapons and a shield. It would make the dimensions of use for a capship far more pleasureable to players.

-1

This is VO, and we rather like the idea of being able to DO things. So if I am a pirate, i like to know that i can disable some lazy pilots control system. I like to think that an auto pilot system would be intertwined with the controls. So if it is enabled, and i disrupt the system, then that lazy pilot is dead in space unless he or she can get 5k away from me (the range of the jammer).

-1 auto disengaging (that doesn't even make sense)

finally a discussion of substance!

+1 to limited autopilot features in the form of basic multi-sector travel

I don't really see how the complexity of "follow target" benefits gameplay.

I disagree that said autopilot should auto-disengage for any reason other than by owner control or ion storm discovery. I do think, however, that all weapons systems should be deactivated when it is in use (including 3rd party controlled turrets). It should quite literally be an assistant to alleviate the mind numbing, boring ass multi-sector/system travel one must do for hauling purposes.

Most importantly is that such capabilities are made available to the common user by way of GUI additions, and not simply some hidden /command that only plugin makers can access.

Agreed greenwall, equality for all to access whatever solution is hereby agreed, should an agreement be made.

An even playing field is a good playing field.

The disengaging for enemies is intended to be a measure to mitigate attempts to make the autopilot features operable anywhere near combat.

I had an afterthought about the fighter arrangements tho... Maybe the list of ships able to autopilot should include the valk/prom/udv, specifically to facilitate the arrangement for players to fly their valks/proms mostly the several systems back to grey for pews with a little more ease.

People keep thinking an autopilot would cheapen combat... But i disagree. All it would do is afford the pilot the opportunity to concentrate their manual flight skills on combat over anything else, which is where it really matters.

The disengaging for enemies is intended to be a measure to mitigate attempts to make the autopilot features operable anywhere near combat.


With my modification all autopilot would be is essentially a turbo lock followed by a jump. I don't see how that threatens any combat situation.