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

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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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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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apricotslice
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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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RJV
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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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apricotslice
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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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