Will somebody please fix the Auto-Pillok !!!!

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apricotslice
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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 02:43

Given the complexity of the problem to solve, they go ahead and make it orders of magnitude harder to do by adding millions of extra asteroids that just clutter the place up.

If it wasnt for the fact that most collision are with the object the ship is trying to go through or dock with, I'd just take the roids out and be done with it.

Its a self fulfilling nightmare. The extra roids make the auto-pillok stupider and at the same time, make it far more likely that flying manually, you will lose concentration just long enough to kill yourself on a roid anyway. having things to do while travelling is why I use the autopilot, so I dont accidently smash into a roid because I'm giving remote order to other ships and not looking where I'm going.

Reminds me of Privateer days, when using any speed in a asteroid field was fatal, simply because the hardware and software wasnt up to rendering them acurately enough to fly around. I stayed out of them, and the systems that had them, except for plot missions.

Put the issue another way. X2 1.4 had a perfect reliable auto-pilot. I want it back please !

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Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 02:54

apricotslice wrote:Given the complexity of the problem to solve, they go ahead and make it orders of magnitude harder to do by adding millions of extra asteroids that just clutter the place up.
Now this part I agree with. And I did remove most of the new 'roids. But to be honest, I've never had a collision from using the autopilot, even before I removed the new ones (which was in response to a massive FPS hit). And that was with SETA. Of course, I never turned it on where I couldn't see a clear path to my objective. And I normally only use it to quickly dock at a distant station.
Put the issue another way. X2 1.4 had a perfect reliable auto-pilot. I want it back please !
Oooh! I want some of what you've been drinking. :P :lol:

My memories of the X2 autopilot were actually worse than what you describe with X3. Thus I rarely used it. At least in X3, the NPC ships have less of a tendency to ram you while you're on autopilot. And it had a lot less complexity to deal with, such as fewer 'roids and gates that were in mostly regular positions. Not to mention, much smaller stations.
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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 03:02

Nanook wrote:
Put the issue another way. X2 1.4 had a perfect reliable auto-pilot. I want it back please !
Oooh! I want some of what you've been drinking. :P :lol:

My memories of the X2 autopilot were actually worse than what you describe with X3. Thus I rarely used it. At least in X3, the enemy ships have less of a tendency to ram you while you're on autopilot.
Errr....drinking water infused with 'love' intent. :)

Being rammed by enemy ships while on auto-pilot ? How is such a thing possible ? no, it cant be.....you fight with the auto-pilot on ?

I never fight with the auto-pilot on, but I do auto-pilot and seta up to about 6 kms away, then disengage both and match speeds better as I close.

The X2 auto-pilot was reliable at not hitting solid immovable objects. I never hit a station or an asteroid. However, in combat, the setting were such that the auto-pilot held the ship incorrectly placed to lead the target enough to hit it properly. Ramming ships wasnt the auto-pilots fault, it was a factor of the combat itself and the results of ramming. In most other games I've had, ship ramming simply reduced shields with the bump, and only killed you if you had none or you rammed something really big.

Combat is combat, you do that yourself, but gettting to it is a nav computer thing, and I insist on a reliable one. Ego had one in X2 1.4, why or why did they abandon it for gerbils and lemmings ?

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Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 03:06

Slip of the fingers. Meant 'NPC' pilots. But then again, when they have a tendency to ram you a lot, they can be considered enemies. :twisted:
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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 03:10

I ahve heard that some people do fly combat using the auto-pilot. Go figure ;)

I find collisions are usually my own fault, flying to fast for the ship I'm shooting at, and waiting til the last second to pull off it so I can get that last shot in that hopefully destroys or caps it. Leave it too late and bam, "jumpdrive destroyed". Usually its because I'm going to too fast. Was the same in X2, only more of a problem there.

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Sucidial Gerbils ?

Post by NeilDingley » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 10:24

Nanook wrote:There seems to be some misconceptions about the difficulty of programming a pathfinding routine. It's actually a rather difficult thing to do in reality. Part of the problem stems from having a practically infinite number of start positions, as well as an unknown number of obstacles, both stationary and moving, along the projected route.
The AI doesn't need to be that complex, and we realy only need to improve it with respect to stationary objects like Asteriods and Stations, the current system manages to avoid other ships fairly well so far. All they need to do is instead of flying in a straight line all the time, draw a line from where they are to where they need to be if this path causes a colision break the line (i.e. add a waypoint) at the colision point, and shift this point to the side of the object. then repeat on the line/path to this first waypoint until there are no colisions with fixed objects, simple :-)

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Re: Sucidial Gerbils ?

Post by RJV » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 11:42

NeilDingley wrote:
Nanook wrote:There seems to be some misconceptions about the difficulty of programming a pathfinding routine. It's actually a rather difficult thing to do in reality. Part of the problem stems from having a practically infinite number of start positions, as well as an unknown number of obstacles, both stationary and moving, along the projected route.
The AI doesn't need to be that complex, and we realy only need to improve it with respect to stationary objects like Asteriods and Stations, the current system manages to avoid other ships fairly well so far. All they need to do is instead of flying in a straight line all the time, draw a line from where they are to where they need to be if this path causes a colision break the line (i.e. add a waypoint) at the colision point, and shift this point to the side of the object. then repeat on the line/path to this first waypoint until there are no colisions with fixed objects, simple :-)
Your comment is probably a little tongue-in-cheek but I do suspect that it is a little harder than that....

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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 12:15

I doubt it actually, the only complication is that it needs to loop a bit to check the line each time it adjusts it.

Personally, I'd rather have the auto-pilot take a half a minute to decide on a flight path and then kick in, than do what its doing at the moment, which is fly directly at the biggest asteroids and then try to get out of the way at the last second. And failing.

I dont think the 1.3.1 patch fully uninstalled. The rest of my ships are behaving better, as long as they are not given orders to go into cluttered areas, but my own ship is a different matter. I've had to disengage the auto-pillok and wrench the ship out of the way of asteroids (and the really really bigs ones mind you) in ordert not to crash into them (which it seems to do every time now if I let it). Most annoying.

The programming may be a bit complex, but thats the sort of challenge I used to get my teeth into when I was a programmer. Hopefully Ego has a programmer who likes a challenge ???

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Post by RJV » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 12:22

To be honest I've never had the auto-pilot crash me into an asteroid. Gut-wrenching turns to avoid at the last minute, yes, but no collisions. It did smash me into a station I'd just undocked from once, but that may have been in 1.2.

The way I play is I undock, set target, increase speed, steer myself out of the immediate vicinity of the station I am leaving (takes at most 10 seconds), then hit U. If it doesn't work I wait a few seconds and do it again. Doing this I have zero collisions.

Navigating through sectors I've also not had a problem. While trading in my Mercury on arrival in a sector I boost speed to max, set the target, press U then J. I've never hit anything, asteroid, station, nada. Even in Seizewell.

Admittedly not used capships though.

Cheers,

Rob.

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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 12:31

RJV wrote:Navigating through sectors I've also not had a problem. While trading in my Mercury on arrival in a sector I boost speed to max, set the target, press U then J. I've never hit anything, asteroid, station, nada. Even in Seizewell.

Admittedly not used capships though.
Thats pretty well what I do, and its crashing me into asteroids every time theres one in the way.

Now interesting comment though, cap ships. I'm flying a Centaur, which has the speed of M5.

Makes me wonder if the auot-pillok is not using the top speed showing for the ship, but the top speed stored for the model itself. Thus it changes course way too late, because the ship is not where it thinks it is.

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Post by Kitch » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 16:36

AHA!

The mystery and the antipodean apricot autopillok assault may now be explained...

I was wondering as I have very few issues with crashing into things, though I heartily agree it could be better.

Still hit things occasionally though, which should easily be avoided. Hitting a million ton rock just isn't on and deserves to have gerbils in front of tribunals quick sharp.

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Post by alphalvr » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 16:55

apricotslice wrote:
RJV wrote:Navigating through sectors I've also not had a problem. While trading in my Mercury on arrival in a sector I boost speed to max, set the target, press U then J. I've never hit anything, asteroid, station, nada. Even in Seizewell.

Admittedly not used capships though.
Thats pretty well what I do, and its crashing me into asteroids every time theres one in the way.

Now interesting comment though, cap ships. I'm flying a Centaur, which has the speed of M5.

Makes me wonder if the auot-pillok is not using the top speed showing for the ship, but the top speed stored for the model itself. Thus it changes course way too late, because the ship is not where it thinks it is.
i never use autopilot ever but cuz i see your moaning posts everywhere :P i thought id have a go.

test 1
sat ship next to asteroid and set a target directly behind it. whee, succesfully docked...no problems there.

test 2
went to that sector next to paranid prime (with lotsa roids) sat as far away as i could from a station and put my ship in amonst the tinys roids. 6km of roids to circumnavigate....click....wheeeee....successfully docked

seems ok to me, back to flying myself

mind you it wud be nice if when i jump in my elephant, all the traders that were heading for that gate i jumped to, didnt suddenly explode all over my ship :o

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Post by apricotslice » Fri, 20. Jan 06, 02:15

I think one of the difinitive tests of auto-pilot goes like this :

Choose the fastest freighter you have and tell it to jump to Orebelt and dock with the pirate base. Then tell a fighter of each class, with maxed speed, to protect it, ensuring they can jump with it. (If they cant jump have them waiting at the north gate in orebelt and then tell them). Then also get a Mammoth to follow the freighter as well.

If you can get the lot to the pirate base without losing any, then theres nothing wrong with your auto-pilot.

In my game, I cant even get a merc to dock at the pirate base on its own. I sat there and watched it one day. 2 major hits on asteroids and it was left with just orange peel slice of hull left, at which point I jumped it out. It was nowhere near the pirate base when I jumped it either, so had no hope of getting there.

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Post by ttl » Fri, 20. Jan 06, 02:59

I think the autopilot does OK with just one ship and stationary obstacles like asteroids. Sometimes it has problems with more complicated "obstacles" like stations.. Like a vivid memory I have off my wingman Nova getting into the "creaks" of a teladi trading station it was trying to dock onto, and promptly splattering itself all over the station hull.

The main problem comes with formations of ships. Way too often the autopilot, or a wingman, gets totalled in a formation as one ship of the formation (usually the lead ship) evades an asteroid. Another ship then makes a sharp turn to avoid the first one, and of course doesn't see that he's making his evasive maneuver right into the very asteroid the first guy was swerving to avoid.

Changing the speeds of ships might also wreak havoc with autopilot. Maybe some of you guys have the Blackrain rebalance running? Or maybe somebody can confirm wheter tha autopilot uses the actual ship stats to determine its maeuvers vs. being hard-coded by ship type (or smth)?

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Post by apricotslice » Fri, 20. Jan 06, 03:05

My guess is there is an inaccurate hardcoding causing the problem. Programmers gut think.

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Post by joquarky » Sat, 21. Jan 06, 08:48

I noticed something else that's happening more often as i get more comfortable with the user interface...

If I gate into a sector, select my destination and turn on autopilot, my ship likes to dart off in some random direction, and then corrects itself shortly thereafter to head towards my target.

On a rare occasion, it even turns 90 degrees and flys stright into the inside of the gate ring, doing damage to my shields/hull.

The severity of the turn seems to correspond with how quickly I select a destination and enable auto-pilot.

What's up with that?

I'm guessing that once I exit the gate, it suddenly goes into "object avoidance" mode sometimes. Which is funny since on those rare occasions it actually does the opposite.

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Post by apricotslice » Sat, 21. Jan 06, 11:48

Never, ever, turn on the auto-pilot while just emerged from the gate. Splat !

Especially when jumping in. Always make sure you put in some distance first.

New Info on the problem :

Today I watched 2 of my freighters, having been given nav orders, both launched themselves into the dock, scraped around against the other docked ships and then power off. I'd guess about 20mj of shield damage in the process. I thought the first was incredable, and then a few minutes later, the 2nd did it as well.

So a lot of our ships are being destroyed AS THEY LEAVE the stations, not as they dock.

Its the same bug where your own ship leaps to full speed as you undock, which happens to me about 50% of the time, and kills me semi regularly when I'm not paying attention.

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Post by strat » Sat, 21. Jan 06, 16:35

Glad I found this thread as the auto pilot has been an annoying feature of this game for far to long. I was about to open a thread myself because I think I just came across the last straw, so to speak.
My wingmen (three others, 1Xm5 and 2Xm4) and I where happily heading towards the east gate. I head on through and upon entering the system I excelerate to maximum velocity and target a wing of 4 pirates 7km away.
I'm in my Nova so I know my wingmen will have no problem catching me and we make very short work of the pirates, however my disco did'nt make it. Or so I thought, after clearing out the remainder of the system in my patrol I head on back through the same gate I came in and proceeded to head for the north gate. Untill I noticed a lone green m5 on the bottom of the screen, I hit the system map and there is my m5 at the east gate so I reduce speed and order my wing to protect me and hit seti.
Nothing, the ship is still beside the east gate so when I get over there I'm in a bit of shock because my m5 appears to be locked in an endless manoeuvre and avoidance loop with the back side of the gate. It must have been like this for nearly half an hour.
I managed to free it by moving to the otherside and repeating the order.
Last straw I tell thee. Sort it out Egosoft.

Anyone still reading this.


Strat...
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Post by alphalvr » Sat, 21. Jan 06, 16:50

apricotslice wrote:I think one of the difinitive tests of auto-pilot goes like this :

Choose the fastest freighter you have and tell it to jump to Orebelt and dock with the pirate base. Then tell a fighter of each class, with maxed speed, to protect it, ensuring they can jump with it. (If they cant jump have them waiting at the north gate in orebelt and then tell them). Then also get a Mammoth to follow the freighter as well.

If you can get the lot to the pirate base without losing any, then theres nothing wrong with your auto-pilot.

In my game, I cant even get a merc to dock at the pirate base on its own. I sat there and watched it one day. 2 major hits on asteroids and it was left with just orange peel slice of hull left, at which point I jumped it out. It was nowhere near the pirate base when I jumped it either, so had no hope of getting there.
well i guess as i like ore belt so much ive set up 1/2 my facts and what not in there id say that was pretty definitive, and when i jump in in my elephant then switch to a buzzard i always tell the elephant to follow me.

the only ships i lost in ore belt so far are ones pirates took a shine to when i was oos

i dint mind losing ships, i just want to know when i lost one....im sick of looking at messages to find i lost ships all over galaxy with no warning at all.

mind you, ive learned to live with it

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Post by Britguy21 » Sat, 21. Jan 06, 18:10

Can someone from egosoft comment on the disasterous AP in the game. I`ve lost the so many frieghters in the game through the idiotic AP.

Please get it fixed. I think that it should be a top priority for the next patch. Come on DEVS?

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