It's not possible. When following custom waypoints the nav computer selects the next waypoint automatically but you have to engage the Go To command manually every time. Dunno why, but that's how it is.

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"Sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities. Perhaps my next film will be about a talking dog who braves the harsh realities of the world in a heart warming attempt to find his rightful owners, who mistakenly thought he was dead. That way you could watch it and get a fuzzy feeling inside and when it was over you could all go f*ck yourselves." - Troy Duffy, director of The Boondock Saints

Babysitting the game? I call it Playing.

it would be playing if I had escorts and didn't just run away

I miss my Tradewars scripts..

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fl at berkeley? shoot me an email.

I'd imagine if you found an NPC convoy going to the same place as you're heading, all you'd have to do is hit formation on one of the transports and sit back and read a book or something. Although, you do have to do the formation thing every time you go through a jump gate. Still, in system travel would be a cake.

Well controlling your ship would happen to be a part of the game, where it goes...what it does... unless you just want the computer to have that game play experience in your place. Interacting with the game is or at least should be a basic part of it...You don't really have to do much while following way points any ways...just hit a few buttons and you're on the way to the next one....ask youself this question..."How lazy am I?"

I tend to agree that an autopilot to final destination is needed. Why can't the computer alert us like... "Warning! Under attack, autopilot will disengage" (voice) when our attention is really required.

Reason... sometimes I want to go grab snacks or toilet break without wasting time being docked. When I heard the system warning, I can run back to pilot my ship!

... this will also prevent me from being hypnotized by the tradelink and jumpgate effects too frequently!!! hahahaa....

Remember Wing Commander 3? I think it was three - that had a nifty-ass autopilot feature. It'd get you half-way across the galaxy by itself. And it saved SO much time... That hypnotizing jump gate animation is slowly starting to drive me insane.

Aboslutely, its a pain of an omission.

Whats so "interactive" about clicking on the word "Waypoint" and pressing the F2 key. Hardly state of the art fun.

A "real" autopilot is not something that kills fun, I call it "comfort function". Especially for recon purposes, when you search a system for wrecks, an autopilot which follows your waypoint path would have been a great idea. The AI spacecrafts are able to follow waypoints all in cruise mode automatically, but I have to leave "Go To" mode shortly before I reach a waypoint, pass the waypoint and enable "Go To" again, or "Go To" disables the cruise engine for about 800m and re-enables it when I passed end locked on the new waypoint - very clever, and if you're being chased it's even more fun...

But maybe this was just too much, as the other "autopilots" have their problems as well - "Go To" slows you down too early, "Dock" slows you down too far from your destination, and if you're not directly in front of where you wanna dock, the autopilot has some difficulties finding the docking port and flying around a station.

Edited by - YuriEd on 22-03-2003 00:15:00

They should've made the auto pilot like independece war 2...
It pilots itself across the star cluster, it docks with whatever you told it to (even ones firing at you), and it even fights on its own if you come under attack...

It's clear that you won't get docking clearance for a hostile base, so even an autopilot which docks everywhere is not that useful in FL, since you can't board enemy ships or bases with marines

Also, in FL it's all about combat, so you had to do nothing except for talking and trading, if the game would explore and fight for you automatically. It seems clear that in this far future, autopilots should be capable of doing much more than just go to, dock and join formations, but then the game wouldn't make much sense...

What WOULD be nice, however, is an autopilot which makes the already long and boring search and trade runs more comfortable, and an automatic turret control (especially for freighters) which makes rear-facing turrets more useful...

I rather have it the other way around, im at the turrest and the "neural net" does the flying. And whit neural net I mean some thing that can make evasive manouvers whit your freigter and not the stupid autopilot.

So... AP like in I-War II and turrent control like in XWA (x-wing alliance)?

So we agree that the autopilot modes should be far more elaborate:

My suggestion is to make the autopilot customizable by using separate functions for movement and combat. With different movement modes the player could set how the AP flies. An automatic "follow waypoint AP" would be extremely useful for long trade runs and search routes, while a "defensive combat AP" follows your current course, trying to evade enemy fire. An "offensive combat AP" attacks ships in sensor range, evading enemy fire but staying in range of your weapons until are enemies are gone. Even a "follow target" mode would be nice, or just the option to use "go to" on ships.

In combat, you would have the option to either let the ship AI shoot back and launch countermeasures, or shoot yourself. So there doesn't need to a special turret AI, as the whole ship shoots, or you do in a free external view, while the AP tries not to take too much damage. So there might be the different movement modes and a switch to choose between automatic or manual combat. The quality of the AP/AI could depend on software and hardware modules to buy for your ship computer.

BUT: The balance of such a system would be incredibly difficult. The problem is the combination of very skilled AP and AI modules with top notch weapons, because if you neither have to fly nor to fight, all what's left is setting waypoints and search for bases, wrecks and jump holes. It would be great for traders, though, but it takes away all thrill from the game. And in MP, we would have the situation that every player with enough money would buy the best modules and weapons, so a) you don't really need to be skilled at all and b) all combats would be level 10 AP/AI vs. another level 10 AP/AI. Solutions?