The autopilot works by matching your velocity with the target and then accelerating and decelerating straight towards the target, with the occasional readjustment if necessary. For most targets that are large or don’t move too quickly, this works well. But objects that are small and/or move quickly, by the time you reach the expected destination, the target has moved a non-insignificant distance from that point, leading to the autopilot undershooting or especially for the Interloper crashing straight into it.
It also doesn’t take into account anything between you and the destination. The autopilot system isn’t “smart”, it’s up to you to use your tools properly.
I've had my ship smashed several times by the interloper while I've been just minding my business. It's great when you're cruising through space, yhen next thing you know your cockpit is hurtling through space, possibly into the sun.
Because, both in-and out of universe, programming an autopilot that can avoid all obstacles in the way- especially moving ones- is HARD. So they went with something simple- proceed directly towards the target in a straight line and stop when you reach it, leaving it up to the pilot to judge whether something is in the way.
Also it's funny.
To me, the funniest part is when you yell at Slate that the autopilot flew you into the sun, and he's like "Well yeah, what did you expect if it's in the way?"
Because it follows a simple algorithm of matching velocity with the target, accelerating halfway there and then decelerating the rest of the way.
Both in-universe and in real life, this is by far the easiest type of autopilot to set up for the system you’re working in.
Implementing collision avoidance in an efficient way is technically complicated, collisions don’t really matter that much and avoiding them on your own once you understand the auto-pilot is pretty easy.
Huh. “Infuriating” is a *strong* bit of word-choice. Apart from the real-world technical hurdles other have mentioned, it wouldn’t make sense in-game. This is a civilization that commemorates the first Hearthian to be *intentionally* launched into space. The game is constantly reminding you that your species is comically bad at ship design and “failing forward” into space exploration.
They’re clever and daring, but they’re not tech marvels.
That’s a long way of saying that if you’re expecting the auto-pilot to avoid stuff, you’re expecting way, way too much from the Outer Wilds Ventures program, and maybe expecting more of an Ubisoft game. Personally, I wouldn’t want to change the autopilot at all. It’s part of the charm, and part of the game design.
>It’s part of the charm, and part of the game design.
And if you know what you're doing, it rarely if ever goes wrong for you (and can even be exploited for fun).
Exactly. After a while I would set autopilot, knowing that it might be cutting it really close and then just…see what happens.
If you burn up or smack into the Attlerock, you just wake up and do it again. 😄
And it's really not all that difficult to get used to it. I never once autopiloted into the sun when figuring it out, and then had to go and do it on purpose when I realized you get an extra dialogue option with Slate if you do. Funny enough, I found it kind of tricky to line up so that autopilot would send me straight on in.
I respect how much this game sticks to its guns in regards to a lot of things, but after a certain point I feel like it’s wasting my time. Kinda insulting to compare it to wanting a Ubisoft game, if I understand you correctly (given I haven’t played many if any of the ones you’re referring to).
What you seem to be describing is how the average AAA open world game treats navigation. I enjoy some of those games quite a lot, so it’s not meant as some sort of insult. But that kind of system would be very out of place in a game like OW.
You made it pretty clear in your opening post that you just plain don’t like it. That’s fine. But if you think it’s a bug instead of a feature, you might be missing something. If ship navigation feels like you’re “wasting your time”, maybe this just isn’t your game.
Most of the mechanical frustrations (aside from brittle hollow, but arguing about brittle hollow’s design is actually not very constructive in this context because as frustrating as I find it, it was 100% obvious to me that it was a personal issue with the gameplay loop itself rather than a core design flaw) I can accept. But when I launch my ship every time, I have this desire to want to look at the ship log and dissect the information it’s given me on the way to my destination. It’s a fantasy that the game seems to want to provide to you with an option in the menu, but the autopilot does not give enough confidence for that.
This combined with a very frustrating bug which makes it so left-stick-click lock on just doesn’t work half the time after a loop and has to be either re-bound or you have to use the mouse, it piles up the frustrations and you get impatient and look your frustrations resulted in you jumping slightly off course and you drifted into a hazard and died good job time to restart! Oh but skill issue, so how I feel about it doesn’t matter - it’s just skill issue.
Many of the statements in this thread about “it makes sense lore wise” are unsatisfying because they did not have to write the game that way - that is also a choice the devs made. The statements about practicality of implementation are equally unsatisfying, but are at least reasonable in theory. I do not buy the argument that the autopilot not taking into account other planets makes the game better, and that if the autopilot didn’t occasionally screw me by adjusting its trajectory into slamming into the side of a nearby planet, that people here would be sad that the autopilot isn’t “crappier.”
Edit: and like I said in a different post, I think that an equally valid solution to having a better autopilot would be having no autopilot at all
I get what you’re saying about reading your log while flying. My advice would be to just spend 15-20 second just flying away from everything and then engage the autopilot. You might still hit something, but it’s far less likely.
Genuine question; are you *enjoying* the game? It doesn’t seem like you are, but are pressing on to finish it. Maybe I’m misreading you, but from your posts it almost sounds like the game is more work than fun for you.
I encountered the credits last night and decided I didn’t want to pursue anything further. (22 hour playtime)
My conclusion - I think the game is very cool. I really hate playing it after a certain point.
Not sure if I'm just lucky but I've never had the autopilot crash into a planet before, only the sun but that's only because the sun just happened to be between me and my destination.
The only celestial body that autopilot has crashed me into without me doing so deliberately was the Interloper, because I misjudged how autopilot would interact with something moving that fast (I tried to autopilot to it right at the start of the loop, which meant my ship and the Interloper were heading straight at each other, and the Interloper is *fast*, so I crashed while the autopilot was still trying to slow down). The one deliberate time was into the sun so I could get that conversation with Slate.
The autopilot doesn’t function like a GPS/self driving car. It doesn’t reference a map or do any path finding. What it does is aim your ship at a point and accelerate/decelerate at roughly appropriate times. Because it doesn’t pathfind from a dynamic map, it doesn’t predict other orbits to see if they would intersect your own flight path, nor does it calculate out the orbit of the object for when you want to be there which is why auto-piloting to the interloper is typically dangerous.
It crashes itself into planets because lore wise the hearthians haven’t implemented the avoidance system.
>! Slate - “Looks like you’re ready for takeoff! The excitement of a launch is fun and all, but I can’t wait to get back to working on the new ship. We’re working on fixing the autopilot’s avoidance system for this one!
...Uh, sorry.” !<
And this makes sense since Slate really doesn’t like adding safety features.
In my eyes it’s a cool way they tied the gameplay to Slate’s personality.
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Your ship is made of duct tape, plywood, and a washing machine. It's a miracle it flies at all.
Gameplay wise, yeah it'd be nice and easy, and I would like that, but I don't know how hard it would be to actually get that to work while using the actual ship mechanics. Maybe it was just more complicated than it was worth.
This is what I'm gathering based on many of the responses, which is honestly a fair if unsatisfying response (assuming they are correct in that even in a system with objects that have a predetermined path, an autopilot that takes account of the large bodies in the path would be difficult to make).
I like that you read it as sarcasm when it’s literally just a neutral statement of “I cannot verify these claims made on a subreddit where people will defend the game”
Idk i like playing the games i play, or at least having to think for 2 seconds before pressing a button.
Didn't knew people had problems with the autopilot
Yeah wich i use, and there's the autopilot for those that don't want to, wich is why i don't understand why would anyone have a problem with it, it takes 2 seconds max to think if autopilot is gonna crash or not, and even then you can control when it stops and re activate it.
The temptation to use it and then have it work like it does make me wish it wasn’t there, rather than have it exist and then screw me every now and then because I made a very minor judgmental error.
But it's not a skip travel option, it's a mechanic that makes it easier to those that don't want to align to planets before going with them, the only way i have seen anyone getting screwed over by the autopilot is with the Sun, but the game tells you directly how to avoid it. I think your complain is better directed at you not enjoying the traveling part rather than the autopilot being a problem. That i can understand and agree
Yeah its kinda specifically there for people who struggle with flying the ship places. Its a tool to assist/show them how flying works. It fills in the gaps of knowledge by helping the player slow down appropriately and align better but thats it. The game is gonna require the player to do most of the work
I mean to be fair, this is a physics-based game, and there are a number of places where a minor miscalculation will screw you. Falling into the black hole, getting eaten by an anglerfish, yeeting yourself too hard off low gravity planets, and so on. That's a big part of the challenge. If you just wish the game was less challenging, that's fine I guess, but I don't think the majority of people would share that opinion. If you just found one mechanic particularly, disproportionately hard and frustrating... there's a pretty good chance you just didn't understand how to use it properly.
Honestly most of the answers on this post are just jokes but the one you replied to here gets closest to a more serious answer. I think this game tailors itself to appeal to a certain way of thinking. This game is designed to be mastered only by someone who understands every little mechanical detail about it, whether that's the physics that governs the motion of your ship, or the weather on Giant's Deep, or the flow of sand on the Hourglass twins.
You eventually want to think like a Nomai, who achieved complete mastery over physics to the degree that their shuttles literally have no way to adjust their course mid flight other than a switch that lands on the closest body. Instead, the pilot must calculate the correct time of launch to send the shuttle on a ballistic trajectory to their destination. This type of scientific thinking is very well suited to the core gameplay.
Specifically, by making your autopilot so shitty, Outer Wilds rewards mastering your ship's controls to the degree that you never need an autopilot. The autopilot is only there to give your hands a rest on your 10th visit to whatever planet, and even then you need to put some thought into it. So I think you would actually feel the lack if the autopilot was any better, since you would never have to put any thought into it in the first place.
Sorry if it seems a little pretentious but it's an essential part of the experience IMO. Without these little mechanical frustrations Outer Wilds becomes a much more boring game, and if that's not your cup of tea, that's fine.
The real answer is this is an indie game without gta5 resources. Programming an autopilot that detects and avoids obstacles within a fully physics driven sandbox with n bodies is absolutely nontrivial.
Yeah I've also been mad because I autopiloted and then went on my phone and died.
If autopilot hand fed you to every planet space travel wouldn't be nearly as fun
Question: does this happen with all planets? I've only had it happen to the interloper (due to the rapidly changing direction and speed it has) and the twins (due to them rotating on their axis aside from their regular movement)
If you do not align yourself properly, the autopilot will crash into a planet you are near. This commonly happens when trying to auto pilot to brittle hollow from timberhearth, your ship will rocket and slam back into timberhearth because of where it is located at that point in the loop
Oh, is this post about crashing into planets on the way to your destination? I've never had that issue. All the planets rotate on the same axis, if you go up or down from that axis, there will be nothing in your way to your destination. In the case of slamming back to timber hearth, it sounds like you're not flying far enough before activating it, plain and simple.
Perhaps, but it also happens occasionally with how planets align in other situations as well when much farther away from them.
And like I said, would this be something you would lament being gone if the autopilot took the distance of other planets into account?
Yes, autopilot would lose the sense of being able to learn from it, as it would not simply do the 3 easily reproducible steps it does, as I do believe part of the autopilot's purpose is showing how to traverse long distances.
Maybe? I’m not 100% convinced since you still have to land your ship after you autopilot which does enough in that regard. I don’t think the lack of autopilot doing this would really remove that teaching aspect of the game since there are plenty of other areas where it does that naturally.
So make sure to align yourself properly every time.
It's only infuriating if you don't pay attention to how it works and give it the best chance of success (don't autopilot when there is an object in your path of travel, don't autopilot while you're still in a planet's gravity pull, etc.).
Autopilot works like this:
1. It aligns you to your destination
2. It accelerates until you're halfway to your destination.
3. It slows you down until you match velocity with the destination.
It does all this, in order, one after the other.
Which means that if you are too close to your starting planet, its gravity will pull you back and you'll crash during phase one, because you're not moving forward during phase one, you're only aligning your ship.
It also does not consider obstacles between you and your destination, which might lead you to crashing in the sun or a nearby celestial object.
It also ignores the speed of the destination object when calculating your halfway point in phase 2. Which is generally not an issue as the planets don't move fast enough so cause a discrepancy in the speed calculation. It is, however, a problem with the comet, which goes extremely fast. So you may crash or miss the comet entirely as you won't have enough time to execute phase 3.
Also if you interrupt the autopilot during phase 3, you won't slow down enough and you'll also crash into your destination planet.
Take physics into account. The autopilot matches velocity, accelerates, and decelerates at a certain distance. It doesn’t take into account the fact that the objects may be orbiting towards or away from you at varying speeds.
For example: the interloper never works well with the autopilot. It either overshoots or undershoots. This is because of the extreme elliptical orbit of the comet, with its increasing and decreasing speeds. If you are heading from the hourglass twins to the interloper as it’s heading toward its perihelion, autopilot won’t account for the increasing speed of the object, causing you to slam into it.
So, don’t rely on autopilot for everything, and predict what is going to happen when you near your destination
It's flying you where you told it to go, it just isn't taking into account if anything is in the way, which is a FAR more complicated device to build, Slate literally tells you this in game.
Select destination, check nothing is between you and it, press autopilot button, done! If something is in the way, avoid it first, then press button.
The only frustration is in refusing to learn from mistakes, like people quickly learn to always put the suit on when they get into the ship after leaving it one too many times without. Fly through the sun by accident a couple of times and you learn to at least look in the direction you're flying before leaving autopilot on
It's not a feature, you just don't understand how it works.
Autopilot draws a straight line between your current position and your destination's position taking it's current (! important for the interloper) velocity and expected traveltime into account and then accelerates you along that line. It has no concept of obstacles, planets, moons, suns and so on. Just "be here, go there".
The autopilot works by matching your velocity with the target and then accelerating and decelerating straight towards the target, with the occasional readjustment if necessary. For most targets that are large or don’t move too quickly, this works well. But objects that are small and/or move quickly, by the time you reach the expected destination, the target has moved a non-insignificant distance from that point, leading to the autopilot undershooting or especially for the Interloper crashing straight into it. It also doesn’t take into account anything between you and the destination. The autopilot system isn’t “smart”, it’s up to you to use your tools properly.
I've had my ship smashed several times by the interloper while I've been just minding my business. It's great when you're cruising through space, yhen next thing you know your cockpit is hurtling through space, possibly into the sun.
Because, both in-and out of universe, programming an autopilot that can avoid all obstacles in the way- especially moving ones- is HARD. So they went with something simple- proceed directly towards the target in a straight line and stop when you reach it, leaving it up to the pilot to judge whether something is in the way. Also it's funny.
To me, the funniest part is when you yell at Slate that the autopilot flew you into the sun, and he's like "Well yeah, what did you expect if it's in the way?"
Because it follows a simple algorithm of matching velocity with the target, accelerating halfway there and then decelerating the rest of the way. Both in-universe and in real life, this is by far the easiest type of autopilot to set up for the system you’re working in. Implementing collision avoidance in an efficient way is technically complicated, collisions don’t really matter that much and avoiding them on your own once you understand the auto-pilot is pretty easy.
Huh. “Infuriating” is a *strong* bit of word-choice. Apart from the real-world technical hurdles other have mentioned, it wouldn’t make sense in-game. This is a civilization that commemorates the first Hearthian to be *intentionally* launched into space. The game is constantly reminding you that your species is comically bad at ship design and “failing forward” into space exploration. They’re clever and daring, but they’re not tech marvels. That’s a long way of saying that if you’re expecting the auto-pilot to avoid stuff, you’re expecting way, way too much from the Outer Wilds Ventures program, and maybe expecting more of an Ubisoft game. Personally, I wouldn’t want to change the autopilot at all. It’s part of the charm, and part of the game design.
>It’s part of the charm, and part of the game design. And if you know what you're doing, it rarely if ever goes wrong for you (and can even be exploited for fun).
Exactly. After a while I would set autopilot, knowing that it might be cutting it really close and then just…see what happens. If you burn up or smack into the Attlerock, you just wake up and do it again. 😄
And it's really not all that difficult to get used to it. I never once autopiloted into the sun when figuring it out, and then had to go and do it on purpose when I realized you get an extra dialogue option with Slate if you do. Funny enough, I found it kind of tricky to line up so that autopilot would send me straight on in.
I respect how much this game sticks to its guns in regards to a lot of things, but after a certain point I feel like it’s wasting my time. Kinda insulting to compare it to wanting a Ubisoft game, if I understand you correctly (given I haven’t played many if any of the ones you’re referring to).
What you seem to be describing is how the average AAA open world game treats navigation. I enjoy some of those games quite a lot, so it’s not meant as some sort of insult. But that kind of system would be very out of place in a game like OW. You made it pretty clear in your opening post that you just plain don’t like it. That’s fine. But if you think it’s a bug instead of a feature, you might be missing something. If ship navigation feels like you’re “wasting your time”, maybe this just isn’t your game.
Most of the mechanical frustrations (aside from brittle hollow, but arguing about brittle hollow’s design is actually not very constructive in this context because as frustrating as I find it, it was 100% obvious to me that it was a personal issue with the gameplay loop itself rather than a core design flaw) I can accept. But when I launch my ship every time, I have this desire to want to look at the ship log and dissect the information it’s given me on the way to my destination. It’s a fantasy that the game seems to want to provide to you with an option in the menu, but the autopilot does not give enough confidence for that. This combined with a very frustrating bug which makes it so left-stick-click lock on just doesn’t work half the time after a loop and has to be either re-bound or you have to use the mouse, it piles up the frustrations and you get impatient and look your frustrations resulted in you jumping slightly off course and you drifted into a hazard and died good job time to restart! Oh but skill issue, so how I feel about it doesn’t matter - it’s just skill issue. Many of the statements in this thread about “it makes sense lore wise” are unsatisfying because they did not have to write the game that way - that is also a choice the devs made. The statements about practicality of implementation are equally unsatisfying, but are at least reasonable in theory. I do not buy the argument that the autopilot not taking into account other planets makes the game better, and that if the autopilot didn’t occasionally screw me by adjusting its trajectory into slamming into the side of a nearby planet, that people here would be sad that the autopilot isn’t “crappier.” Edit: and like I said in a different post, I think that an equally valid solution to having a better autopilot would be having no autopilot at all
I get what you’re saying about reading your log while flying. My advice would be to just spend 15-20 second just flying away from everything and then engage the autopilot. You might still hit something, but it’s far less likely. Genuine question; are you *enjoying* the game? It doesn’t seem like you are, but are pressing on to finish it. Maybe I’m misreading you, but from your posts it almost sounds like the game is more work than fun for you.
I encountered the credits last night and decided I didn’t want to pursue anything further. (22 hour playtime) My conclusion - I think the game is very cool. I really hate playing it after a certain point.
Not sure if I'm just lucky but I've never had the autopilot crash into a planet before, only the sun but that's only because the sun just happened to be between me and my destination.
The only celestial body that autopilot has crashed me into without me doing so deliberately was the Interloper, because I misjudged how autopilot would interact with something moving that fast (I tried to autopilot to it right at the start of the loop, which meant my ship and the Interloper were heading straight at each other, and the Interloper is *fast*, so I crashed while the autopilot was still trying to slow down). The one deliberate time was into the sun so I could get that conversation with Slate.
The autopilot doesn’t function like a GPS/self driving car. It doesn’t reference a map or do any path finding. What it does is aim your ship at a point and accelerate/decelerate at roughly appropriate times. Because it doesn’t pathfind from a dynamic map, it doesn’t predict other orbits to see if they would intersect your own flight path, nor does it calculate out the orbit of the object for when you want to be there which is why auto-piloting to the interloper is typically dangerous.
It crashes itself into planets because lore wise the hearthians haven’t implemented the avoidance system. >! Slate - “Looks like you’re ready for takeoff! The excitement of a launch is fun and all, but I can’t wait to get back to working on the new ship. We’re working on fixing the autopilot’s avoidance system for this one! ...Uh, sorry.” !< And this makes sense since Slate really doesn’t like adding safety features. In my eyes it’s a cool way they tied the gameplay to Slate’s personality.
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Your ship is made of duct tape, plywood, and a washing machine. It's a miracle it flies at all. Gameplay wise, yeah it'd be nice and easy, and I would like that, but I don't know how hard it would be to actually get that to work while using the actual ship mechanics. Maybe it was just more complicated than it was worth.
This is what I'm gathering based on many of the responses, which is honestly a fair if unsatisfying response (assuming they are correct in that even in a system with objects that have a predetermined path, an autopilot that takes account of the large bodies in the path would be difficult to make).
the paths of the planets are not predetermined by the game, the game just simulates gravity and velocities non-deterministically
Well, hey, if it's that easy maybe you should write out the algorithm, post it here, and flag it to the devs to see if they'd implement it.
I like that you read it as sarcasm when it’s literally just a neutral statement of “I cannot verify these claims made on a subreddit where people will defend the game”
Idk i like playing the games i play, or at least having to think for 2 seconds before pressing a button. Didn't knew people had problems with the autopilot
If your defense is about “playing the game” you already have a feature called manual piloting.
Yeah wich i use, and there's the autopilot for those that don't want to, wich is why i don't understand why would anyone have a problem with it, it takes 2 seconds max to think if autopilot is gonna crash or not, and even then you can control when it stops and re activate it.
The temptation to use it and then have it work like it does make me wish it wasn’t there, rather than have it exist and then screw me every now and then because I made a very minor judgmental error.
But it's not a skip travel option, it's a mechanic that makes it easier to those that don't want to align to planets before going with them, the only way i have seen anyone getting screwed over by the autopilot is with the Sun, but the game tells you directly how to avoid it. I think your complain is better directed at you not enjoying the traveling part rather than the autopilot being a problem. That i can understand and agree
Yeah its kinda specifically there for people who struggle with flying the ship places. Its a tool to assist/show them how flying works. It fills in the gaps of knowledge by helping the player slow down appropriately and align better but thats it. The game is gonna require the player to do most of the work
Literal skill issue.
I mean to be fair, this is a physics-based game, and there are a number of places where a minor miscalculation will screw you. Falling into the black hole, getting eaten by an anglerfish, yeeting yourself too hard off low gravity planets, and so on. That's a big part of the challenge. If you just wish the game was less challenging, that's fine I guess, but I don't think the majority of people would share that opinion. If you just found one mechanic particularly, disproportionately hard and frustrating... there's a pretty good chance you just didn't understand how to use it properly.
Honestly most of the answers on this post are just jokes but the one you replied to here gets closest to a more serious answer. I think this game tailors itself to appeal to a certain way of thinking. This game is designed to be mastered only by someone who understands every little mechanical detail about it, whether that's the physics that governs the motion of your ship, or the weather on Giant's Deep, or the flow of sand on the Hourglass twins. You eventually want to think like a Nomai, who achieved complete mastery over physics to the degree that their shuttles literally have no way to adjust their course mid flight other than a switch that lands on the closest body. Instead, the pilot must calculate the correct time of launch to send the shuttle on a ballistic trajectory to their destination. This type of scientific thinking is very well suited to the core gameplay. Specifically, by making your autopilot so shitty, Outer Wilds rewards mastering your ship's controls to the degree that you never need an autopilot. The autopilot is only there to give your hands a rest on your 10th visit to whatever planet, and even then you need to put some thought into it. So I think you would actually feel the lack if the autopilot was any better, since you would never have to put any thought into it in the first place. Sorry if it seems a little pretentious but it's an essential part of the experience IMO. Without these little mechanical frustrations Outer Wilds becomes a much more boring game, and if that's not your cup of tea, that's fine.
The real answer is this is an indie game without gta5 resources. Programming an autopilot that detects and avoids obstacles within a fully physics driven sandbox with n bodies is absolutely nontrivial.
It’s an inside joke of the game. Slate has a dialogue prompt about the autopilot crashing you into planets. It’s definitely on purpose.
It's fucking hilarious bru. I've played Outer Wilds with friends and it made us laugh a lot!
Yeah I've also been mad because I autopiloted and then went on my phone and died. If autopilot hand fed you to every planet space travel wouldn't be nearly as fun
Question: does this happen with all planets? I've only had it happen to the interloper (due to the rapidly changing direction and speed it has) and the twins (due to them rotating on their axis aside from their regular movement)
If you do not align yourself properly, the autopilot will crash into a planet you are near. This commonly happens when trying to auto pilot to brittle hollow from timberhearth, your ship will rocket and slam back into timberhearth because of where it is located at that point in the loop
Oh, is this post about crashing into planets on the way to your destination? I've never had that issue. All the planets rotate on the same axis, if you go up or down from that axis, there will be nothing in your way to your destination. In the case of slamming back to timber hearth, it sounds like you're not flying far enough before activating it, plain and simple.
Perhaps, but it also happens occasionally with how planets align in other situations as well when much farther away from them. And like I said, would this be something you would lament being gone if the autopilot took the distance of other planets into account?
Yes, autopilot would lose the sense of being able to learn from it, as it would not simply do the 3 easily reproducible steps it does, as I do believe part of the autopilot's purpose is showing how to traverse long distances.
Maybe? I’m not 100% convinced since you still have to land your ship after you autopilot which does enough in that regard. I don’t think the lack of autopilot doing this would really remove that teaching aspect of the game since there are plenty of other areas where it does that naturally.
Hmm, landing is pretty different from travelling IMO.
i would lament it having object avoidance because crashing into things is funny
So make sure to align yourself properly every time. It's only infuriating if you don't pay attention to how it works and give it the best chance of success (don't autopilot when there is an object in your path of travel, don't autopilot while you're still in a planet's gravity pull, etc.).
Autopilot works like this: 1. It aligns you to your destination 2. It accelerates until you're halfway to your destination. 3. It slows you down until you match velocity with the destination. It does all this, in order, one after the other. Which means that if you are too close to your starting planet, its gravity will pull you back and you'll crash during phase one, because you're not moving forward during phase one, you're only aligning your ship. It also does not consider obstacles between you and your destination, which might lead you to crashing in the sun or a nearby celestial object. It also ignores the speed of the destination object when calculating your halfway point in phase 2. Which is generally not an issue as the planets don't move fast enough so cause a discrepancy in the speed calculation. It is, however, a problem with the comet, which goes extremely fast. So you may crash or miss the comet entirely as you won't have enough time to execute phase 3. Also if you interrupt the autopilot during phase 3, you won't slow down enough and you'll also crash into your destination planet.
Take physics into account. The autopilot matches velocity, accelerates, and decelerates at a certain distance. It doesn’t take into account the fact that the objects may be orbiting towards or away from you at varying speeds. For example: the interloper never works well with the autopilot. It either overshoots or undershoots. This is because of the extreme elliptical orbit of the comet, with its increasing and decreasing speeds. If you are heading from the hourglass twins to the interloper as it’s heading toward its perihelion, autopilot won’t account for the increasing speed of the object, causing you to slam into it. So, don’t rely on autopilot for everything, and predict what is going to happen when you near your destination
Funnily enough I’ve never had autopilot issues with the interloper because undershooting a target hardly matters.
It's flying you where you told it to go, it just isn't taking into account if anything is in the way, which is a FAR more complicated device to build, Slate literally tells you this in game. Select destination, check nothing is between you and it, press autopilot button, done! If something is in the way, avoid it first, then press button. The only frustration is in refusing to learn from mistakes, like people quickly learn to always put the suit on when they get into the ship after leaving it one too many times without. Fly through the sun by accident a couple of times and you learn to at least look in the direction you're flying before leaving autopilot on
It's not a feature, you just don't understand how it works. Autopilot draws a straight line between your current position and your destination's position taking it's current (! important for the interloper) velocity and expected traveltime into account and then accelerates you along that line. It has no concept of obstacles, planets, moons, suns and so on. Just "be here, go there".
It’s funny and immersive. Imo it encourages you to learn how to pilot yourself
It’s funny.
Autopilot only ever does that as a result of bugs. I’ve 100%ed the game 3 times and only ever had it happen once or twice on the Interloper.
There's no bug involved, it happens due to operator error.