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

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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666Villain666
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Post by 666Villain666 » Sun, 15. Jan 06, 09:55

i've had a think about it....and, err....ummm, read some material....and i see another part of your problem. Other than my fore-mentioned post (Up the page people.), i see that you people are buying fresh, off the shelf gerbils.
This is a clear mistake. A brand new gerbil, fresh from the shop, has no idea where it is going. You need a seasoned vetern to understand the complexities, and indeed the dire nessessity, of navigating a dark region of space (Note: i did not say "A region of space that is dark." That's just childish and might draw the attention of a few of the smarter moderators.).
So stop shopping at R.Gere's Pet-O-Rama and go around to the guys house and raid his personal stash. If you happen to be the guy who gets there after the guy before, then steal R.G's dvd collection to watch between gates.

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apricotslice
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Post by apricotslice » Sun, 15. Jan 06, 12:58

Kitch wrote:Hmmm... does anyone think it might be intentionally bad? You know, in a way to make people fly manually more. Was there a perceived problem that people would flawlessly fly around the whole universe on autopillok (tm - great phrase apricot) ot that good path plotting was too risk free or too time / resource / gerbil intensive to include?
The term wasnt mine, I just picked it up and ran with it :)

It is just so expressive of the situation and what we all feel :)

Re intentional, I'd hate to think so, but since so many other good X2 1.4 things were sabataged for X3, one has to consider it. :(

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apricotslice
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Post by apricotslice » Tue, 17. Jan 06, 14:35

Well, with the beta version of 1.3.1 out, I thought maybe that gerbil servitude may be a thing of the past.

Alas, they gave the poor little thing a window, but it still cant see where its going.

Not only does my Mammoth continue to be suicidal, but now the auto-pillok on my own ship just smacks me into asteroids about 1 in 5 times now instead of 1 in 50 before.

Well they did warn it was a beta. I guess now I either uninstall and reinstall to 1.3, or I uninstall and leave it until someone actually guarentees the auto-pillok is fixed. :(

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Dgn Master
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Post by Dgn Master » Tue, 17. Jan 06, 14:45

It would be nice they added better avoidance to the game, however it's a non-issue to me as i never use auto-pilot; i prefer point and dock by way of docking computer when within 5k of target. As for wingmen, i never use them unless they add the ability to have them auto refuel because i jump around alot.

BTW i think the gerbil fetish some of you seem to have is rather unhealthy, Besides they are clearly using guinea pigs :lol:
Could the parents of the little Argon girl, Suzie, please claim her sealed jar of remains?
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Post by WarmMachineME » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 01:08

Dgn Master wrote:BTW i think the gerbil fetish some of you seem to have is rather unhealthy, Besides they are clearly using guinea pigs :lol:
I'd say based on the fact that my errand running is twice as dangerous as my bounty hunting trips to pirate sectors, that the autopillok is obviously powered by lemmings.

NeilDingley
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Gerbils ?

Post by NeilDingley » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 14:29

Gerbils?, I think you crediting the AutoPilot with to much inteligence.

It's really a long stick on the front of the ship with a push button on the end, to tell it when somethings in the way, then the ship just turns right, goes forward 50m then tries to head in a straight line towards it's target again.......

PS don't even try AutoPilot with cap ships (other than the Mamouth) they just can't turn fast enough.......

Come on Egosoft how about an AutoPilot than can actually do route planning, rather than just fly in staight lines.

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apricotslice
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Re: Gerbils ?

Post by apricotslice » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 14:38

NeilDingley wrote:Come on Egosoft how about an AutoPilot than can actually do route planning, rather than just fly in staight lines.
Here Here.

The problem is not moving ships, its fixed objects. Surely the auto-pillok is capable of working out a safe route before it actually starts moving the ship, and then only has to cope with things that move along the way.

Granted its a bit more difficult when the target is moving, but all the same, if the starting position has a big asteroid in the direct path, it should be able to calculate the expected movement of the target ship, assuming it is stable, and plot a safe route to the intercept point not even going near any fixed object along the way.

But no, we have to go full speed towards the center of the nearest asteroid and then do full thottle 90 degree turns to avoid it at the very last second, all now with proper physics applied. Auto-pillok !

oldfox1941
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Post by oldfox1941 » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 18:18

:D Maybe we should change the name to "AUTO-PILEUP" :D

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Post by APOLLO13 » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 18:22

Actually you are all wrong, Gerbils are very intelligent rodents, the problem with the auto pillok is that the navigation software is provided by............... insert the name of your least favorite supplier. :roll:

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Post by TBV » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 18:31

Gerbils?, Gerbils?

Thats where your going wrong, the Boron use Hampsters
You do realise Hamsters are pretty well blind don't you.
Going with the Gerbil is probably a better bet :D

some bits of string and a Sinclair Spectrum ZX81, anything you can do to ease your flight will help.
The ZX81 and the Spectrum are 2 different things.

ZX81 had 0.5K memory and Spectrum had 48k :o EDIT: 1k (ZX80 had 0.5)

The ZX81 had a touch sensitive sheet of plastic as a keyboard with
the keys printed on it.
(well touch sensitive to a hammer anyway).

The Spectrum had rubber keys and my Hamster ate the letter k.


A bit sad that I know all this admittedly :oops: but there you are.

unfunfofmpc
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Post by unfunfofmpc » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 18:42

Is there a reason you are spelling it auto-"pillok" instead of autopilot?... It's starting to annoy me :).

TBV
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Post by TBV » Wed, 18. Jan 06, 18:46

It's a mildly insulting term used by English people.
Not entirely sure it's spelt like that though.

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apricotslice
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Post by apricotslice » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 02:04

unfunfofmpc wrote:Is there a reason you are spelling it auto-"pillok" instead of autopilot?... It's starting to annoy me :).
Sorry about that.

Yes, it is a mildly insulting term of endearment, British origin I think. Us Australians know a good insult when we hear it and will use anyones :)

Basically, its a way of releasing some of the frustration, and getting accross to any Ego people who read here that there is a problem and it isnt fixed yet, without having to make repeated complaints about it. Sort of like an ongoing protest without the protest.

Its actually a term I would not have thought of, but it fits so well, since you call someone a pillok when they do stupid things. And consistently flying into solid objects is pretty stupid !

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Post by Voran » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 02:20

I suppose we should be glad they aren't using Lemmings. "Hey guys, lets take this convoy to Xenon 101!"

Nanook
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Re: Gerbils ?

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. Jan 06, 02:32

apricotslice wrote:
NeilDingley wrote:Come on Egosoft how about an AutoPilot than can actually do route planning, rather than just fly in staight lines.
Here Here.

The problem is not moving ships, its fixed objects. Surely the auto-pillok is capable of working out a safe route before it actually starts moving the ship, and then only has to cope with things that move along the way.

Granted its a bit more difficult when the target is moving, but all the same, if the starting position has a big asteroid in the direct path, it should be able to calculate the expected movement of the target ship, assuming it is stable, and plot a safe route to the intercept point not even going near any fixed object along the way.

But no, we have to go full speed towards the center of the nearest asteroid and then do full thottle 90 degree turns to avoid it at the very last second, all now with proper physics applied. Auto-pillok !
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. Now, it would be easy enough to have a vehicle move along a given path to the first known obstacle, stop, replot its course and continue. But when the ship is moving, it's calculations are inherently inaccurate, just due to the delay in calculating the route from a position that's no longer valid. That built-in delay for a moving object is a large part of the problem. And the more complex the route, the more complex the equations, and the longer it takes to calculate. And the more CPU power needed and hence potential lag. And if you add SETA into the mix, it can be a downright nightmare!

As a point of reference, modern aircraft autopilots are not trusted to do much more than maintain level flight at a set speed. All maneuvering is done manually by the pilot, or at least under some sort of pilot control. I certainly wouldn't feel safe having a piece of software fly me through the maze of aircraft that can be found over a busy modern airport! And you expect a game's autopilot to fly you through a maze of stations, ships and asteroids with nary a hiccup. HA! You want a safe flight, fly it yourself. And save autopilot for those areas where there are few obstacles. That's my advice; take it or leave it. :P
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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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apricotslice
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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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