Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Ok, here is a thought...

Can we have pre-programmed robo ships?

Now, I am not talking about botting here, more like autopilot taken to it's extreme. No ability to react to anything unexpected, and effectively blind.

Pros: cheaper than regular versions of ships.
Possibly faster and more agile.
Does not require pilot to be online so long as it's pre-programmed routine ends up as docked in station, or other location like a POS.

Cons: unable to react to attack. Unable to target anything. Cannot pick up items, only dump.
Attacking this won't summon concord, but does cause a can flipper response, allowing any in owner's corp to engage in reprisal.

Examples:
Hauler Drone: Pre-programmed routine between hangar and jet can. Jet can must have specific name to be recognized, as hauler drone cannot adapt. Hauler waits by jet can a predetermined amount of time, or pauses until manually told to resume.
(Pilot dumps cargo into hauler from jetcan at this point)
Hauler dumps cargo into player hangar at station, and repeats cycle.

Hauler Drone v2: Pre-programmed with route between two points. May or may not dump cargo at the end, as preferred.

Player benefit: If they plotted it's course properly, the player can escort the hauler drone themselves. It can be remote repped, stasis webbed, just like a regular ship.

It can also be used as a decoy, just have an alt launch it so any check shows the owner to be offline.

Programming: transfer bookmarks into it's special bin, and assign them an order to follow.
All gates and stations where docking and gate jumping auto set to 15KM distance, just like auto-pilot.

That's about right, if you view it from a risk perspective.

Putting a freighter on autopilot is also risky, but I see it happen.

This allows players to make insanely risky gambles with their ISK and property, since attacking the drones is no worse than can flipping. They would be crazy to set high value items unguarded like that.

Now, if they are wiling to actually make effort along with this, it can be a tool as well. Outfit a good escort ship and protect your assets on their path.

OR... Get several in your corp, and use it as bait for luring in gankers.

Is it poorly guarded goods you can make a profit taking, or is it a trap?

Mining OPs, these could be a great value in many places helping to move ore, and also hardest to guard as you need to access them directly to make them stay in a safe place.

I get your point about offline usage, it's not comfortable territory in many ways.

But in many cases, it's kind of a narrow perspective to consider the difference between online and offline.

I am fairly certain a lot of the ships crossing hi sec on autopilot are only online as far as describing their client being connected.

The player in many cases is so far from being able to pay attention to what is happening, that they are effectively offline.

The idea for that aspect, is that it won't allow the drone to be active offline unless it is programmed to end up either docked or in a POS. At that point, the drone can be dumped from the game until pilot returns, as it's level of risk becomes effectively meaningless.

The offline aspect creates additional disadvantage to the drone owner, in that they could be checked by others to see if they were online. If you see a drone who's owner is offline, you may be more willing to risk the can-flipper penalty to gank it.

Think of it like the penalty timer on ships recently in a conflict, where they remain vulnerable online until the timer runs out.

Unless you are in a very high population system, (Jita, or the middle of a fleet battle), that should not be a major obstacle.

In many cases, this will replace the presence of an active account online. It won't replace the account itself, since it cannot perform the mission critical tasks that inspire second account purchase, however.
(Cyno, Mine, PvP, do anything besides dump cargo, etc...)

If anything, it is specifically limited to the tasks considered mindless and repetitive. Noone is likely to miss these.
(And if it is hauling between points, it could be the tool that makes freight trains in space, with the owners flying escort. Things go boom!)