lets say this , you craft a block/console/device that allows you to record a certain pattern of flight or movements of your vessels( any kind) in that way you could even be a passanger of your own "auto" ship , this could have several uses, here are some examples : -Taxi ; you could set your own system of autoguided ships , allowin you to go several recorded places -Scort : set a pattern flight to go around your base or other vessels -Drones : in the same way that the faction drones work , but created by the player how this could work ? with your "recording"device you start flying or setting the path that you choose from point A (the start) to point B(the finish point) , after you start recording you still will be on control of the ship until you stop recording . this could include even the timming on wich the vessel start from point A and the time that remains docked on point B , in other words something like this : point A , you start recording docked so the ship dosent move right away giving you time to enter and do some stuff ( lets say you stay docked for 5 minutes recording , after that you start fliying ) then you take the path that you want to point B and do the same process of wainting docked a couple of minutes and then you stop recording , so whenever you start the autopilot mode , that ship will do that trip on his own . you can activate or deactivate at will . i hope that could be a start to real autopilot and seems reachable with the game system and mechanics love the game so far , hope you like the suggestion. and i hope to recive some feedback.
Auto pilot so I can walk on my ship or let me hire a pilot. Devs should look into the new game ASKA and what they are doing with the settlers
the curious thing its that already the faction npcs already patrol and at least move around , the just have to allow us to do the same , a solution could be using the motion sensor to set them a path or an area in wich they can intereact with stuff
Walking while a autopilot flies the ship probably won't happen. But the drone / automated ships thing sounds interesting. I would love to have a fleet of drones tending autominers and bigger ships bringing the ore to a refinery station in orbit or another system. Also drones for combat.
I'm doubtful. That said, maybe a simple and useful first step would be this. Have a navigation console you could use sitting in a pilot seat. The nav console would display a list of currently selected waypoints. Players would be able to select one, activate autopilot to have the ship automatically align to it, cruise to it, and stop once they reach it. Adding multiple waypoints as a queue would let the ship to visit each one in order.Waypoints in this queue could be adjusted up or down before engaging the autopilot. The ship would warp to selected waypoints into other sectors if able to do so. Autopilot disengages automatically and the ship autobrakes to a stop if the ship is damaged, the ship becomes immobile or unable to continue towards a waypoint, or the pilot tries to leave their seat. Planetary map markers would have the Y coordinate field opened up so players can create midair approach waypoints. Most importantly, waypoints could be added to the nav queue from the map screens and registry to facilitate automated navigation. The most common use case would be something like this. A player wants their ship to fly home after some mining in a distant star system. From the registry, they waypoint their home base and add it to the nav queue. From the galaxy map, they waypoint and add intermediate stars to warp to. The player then reorders these waypoints in the nav console to create a flight plan. They check their pentaxid supply, hop in their flight seat, and activate the autopilot. First, the ship flies around the planet to the next waypoint's position in the sky, transitioning to orbit there. Once in space, the ship autobrakes to a stop (and waits if necessary to provide loading time), rotates to align to next waypoint, and warps there. This continues until the ship reaches the planetary orbit sector containing the last waypoint. Here, the ship autopilots directly to the planet playfield, then to the last waypoint at the player's home base (mirroring the first STO maneuver). The autopilot disengages and the ship simply idles normally after that. Drones, NPC subordinates, walking on moving ships, all that is neat ideas. But it all depends on the ability of ships to get from point A to point B on their own. This is the simplest and most immediately useful version of that.
