Auto Pilot is Not Working As it Did Before Rebirth

[GT182]

What's up with the Auto Pilot in Rebirth? I've found that you do not want it on when near anything... asteroids, XL ships, or anything the sits in one place like factories or gates.

We never had this problem with X2 or X3, so why is it like this in Rebirth? Please do some thing Egosoft to fix it so AP will avoid any and all stationary objects.

[wwdragon]

Autopilot is a new addition.
Give them time to make it better.

[zanzal]

The autopilot wasn't available at launch of Rebirth, so it is one of those features they are still working to improve.

I've noticed a few examples of where the Rebirth autopilot works dumb, like on escort missions you will enter highways good, but when you exit highways you are ahead of your follow target so the Autopilot makes you do a 180 and ram the ship head on trying to get behind it. Since it is a little harder to disengage autopilot, you can't just take control you have to turn it off the first time this happens is really amusing panic mode. Fortunately collisions don't usually prove fatal as ships don't instantly die like they did in X3.

[GT182]

Thanks guys for the info. I've just started with Rebirth as I bought it at a really great price.... cheap. LOL So far I like it tho not crazy about having to use Steam. But now I understand why as with the updates and all the mods.

And I apologize for posting my inquiry in the wrong forum.

[Snafu_X3]

What's up with the Auto Pilot in Rebirth? [...]
We never had this problem with X2 or X3,

HAH!

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

We never had this problem with X2 or X3, so why is it like this in Rebirth? Please do some thing Egosoft to fix it so AP will avoid any and all stationary objects.

Seriously? You never played X2 or X3 then.

[Graaf]

What's up with the Auto Pilot in Rebirth? [...]
We never had this problem with X2 or X3,

Ooohh, the irony.

Autopilot is a new addition.
Give them time to make it better.

It's not new to X, just new to Rebirth. And it was supposed to be better then X2/X3...just like AI-pathfinding.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

And it was supposed to be better then X2/X3...just like AI-pathfinding.

Show me a video of AI fighters fighting inside a station geometry in X2/X3.
Especially M2 and M1 AI was completly useless... When a station is in the path of M2/M1 in X3, it gets very close to the station, then turns around and goes BACK and repeats this six times until it finally gets around the station.

Rebirth AI is nothing amazing, but definitely an improvement. What we need is more control over commands now.

[GT182]

I had no problems with AP in X3TC. With AP my ship never ran into anything... not asteroids, ships, stations, gates, or the enemy. AP is a royal mess in Rebirth.

Is Rebirth a different game engine than the previous X sims?

As for M1s and M2s, I never paid any attention to them as I wasn't a Trader. I only destroyed them if need be, as I only worked as a mercenary and made beaucoup credits. When my HDD crashed and I lost everything, I had over a billion credits in TC.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I was also mostly a merc in X3AP/TC and was doing money with trades.
I used to have wingmen, but they kept ramming me and were very dumb in combat and got damaged too often, even when facing inferior enemies.
Once I got a capship, I wanted to command it from the deck to feel like the "captain", but I was forced to pilot AND shoot it manually, as the AI turrets were unable to charge the PPCs, and it took several minutes to dodge a small asteroid/station.

And playing since X2, I had nightmares of the suicidal AI.
Having directly crushed into a asteroid when using auto-pillok to dock, I totally grew pure hate towards the AI.

Also, the AI in previous games wasnt called "auto-pillok" by the community just so. There was a great reason for that, and I experienced loads of examples of the horrors.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@GT182: The X-Trilogy autopilot would constantly run into things in busy sectors: asteroids, carriers/stations (if approached from the wrong angle), other ships (both larger and smaller). IMO In X2, the autopilot was no way near as bad as it became in X3 but even then it was not perfect. In X2, you could at least have wing-men fly in formation reliably while in X3 it was quite erratic IME. The X-Trilogy Auto-Pilot did not earn the euphemism Auto-Piloc for no reason.

I am inclined to agree with EU4, the X-Rebirth Auto-Pilot (and general path finding) is better than that in the X-Trilogy but by no means perfect. Will it ever be perfect? Personally, I would be surprised if it ever gets there due to the overall complexity of ensuring none of the paths collide with anything En Route.

There are some obvious solutions to some of the main problems. For example, ensuring that boosting NPC ships do not collide with any static object by ensuring that they only boost along paths that are clear of the potential construction zones.

Egosoft are well aware of the currently known auto-pilot/path-finding issues (release notes being the evidence) but solving all the issues is most likely not a five minute nor an easy job.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Iam glad that they removed collision hull damage.
AI will never, NEVER be perfect, and removal of damage penalty for crashes YOU CANT STOP is at least a nice insurance.

[Trucifere]

LoL I'm remember hours of playing In X3-AP and I thnik to save next "zone". I launch the autopilot and the AI exploded my ship on the portal...
I'm happy too for the remove of the hull damage !

The stations are optimized for the circulation of the ships. I'm remember in X3AP too, for connected 2 stations sometimes the connector passed through or too closed the dock and the ships exploded one by one when they attemped to dock...

The drone are good things for that. Finished the rahannas who turn and turn around the station for attempt to dock

[Graaf]

Iam glad that they removed collision hull damage.
AI will never, NEVER be perfect, and removal of damage penalty for crashes YOU CANT STOP is at least a nice insurance.

That's the only reason you will see NPC's fighting in the stations superstructure. No penalty for collisions.

[GCU Grey Area]

That's the only reason you will see NPC's fighting in the stations superstructure. No penalty for collisions.

No - the reason they're fighting there is that some NPCs are pirates who attack stations & some are police who shoot pirates. Thought that was obvious.

Anyway, glad they do. Makes combat a lot more interesting when you can dogfight in amongst the station structure (rather than just fighting in open space), though does mean you have to watch out for bits of the station directly behind whoever you're shooting at & avoid shooting the station by mistake. One friendly fire incident too many, station turns red & you find out the hard way that they're often surprisingly well armed...

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Iam glad that they removed collision hull damage.
AI will never, NEVER be perfect, and removal of damage penalty for crashes YOU CANT STOP is at least a nice insurance.

That's the only reason you will see NPC's fighting in the stations superstructure. No penalty for collisions.

No. Small vessels have no problems flying through station infrastructure, especially since 2.50 when they somehow increased the avoid distances, so ships now dont crush that often and dont get stuck inside of buildings.