Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There are a lot of advanced maneuvers that can be handled client side that are difficult or impossible for a human player to perform and there are some tasks that are mundane but necessary in all parts of eve.

My suggested feature: Autopilot scripts that load like any other script and automate various types of flight operations.

Example 1: "Maximize Transversal Velocity at Range" and "Minimize Transversal Velocity at Range"
In PvP one ship may rely on maximum transversal velocity to augment the effectiveness of their tracking disruptors. But as the target rotates, gets bumped, orbits, etc this sometimes gets marginally negated. Maximizing the transversal might logically alter directions when two ships are orbiting at near the same speed and are thusly 'locked' to each other with relatively low transversals. Alternately a slower ship being disrupted my try to rotate, align, or withdraw in various ways and combinations so as to minimize the transversal of its target. On fast ships this may produce the orbiting lock that would negate transversal.

Example 2: "Maximize orbital velocity" or "Maximum orbital transversal velocity"
Tight orbits are not always the best. This occassionally produces the eliptical orbit which in turn produces moments of low transversal velocity. This script may automatically begin orbiting the target at the distance which produces the maximum speed regardless of what effects are being applied to the ship. Sometimes it is maximum speed that is desired such as in the case of a ship capable of outrunning drones and missiles. Other times a slower speed produces an orbit with a higher transversal velocity which is effective against larger guns.

Example 3: "Collision Avoidance" and "Avoid at Range"
It is occasionally beneficial to avoid bumping into things while still traveling on your path. This is true in the case of mining ships stuck in asteroid belts and in the case of covert ops ships. It can be difficult to quickly find the best direction to take to avoid being decloaked by an incoming ship. A script set to auto avoid obstacles at range would allow a covert ops ship to analyze the trajectory of a moving vessel and execute an avoidance path to compensate. This would be computationally intensive if programmed poorly but many objects in space can be ignored based on their relative trajectories and distance from the players ship.

Example 4: Keep multiple targets at range.
Its nice to keep 1 ship at range but sometimes this puts you out of range or within range of other ships. In missions, mining, and pvp this would be invaluable. This would try to keep all targets within a specified range if at all possible. When this is impossible it will give priority to the primary target. When that target is destroyed or lost it moves the ship into position with another target.

Other thoughts:
Combining scripts - Collision avoidance in tandem with keeping multiple targets at range or orbiting with a maximum transversal. Keep one set of targets at one range while keeping another set of targets at a different range.
Game effect - This in my opinion would drastically improve the enjoyment of all parts of combat. It would also allow CCP to produce additional piloting effects that show the ship doing various combat turns and tricks. It would even open up the ability for certain ships to perform combat maneuvers specific to that ship class.
Implementation - There is very little server side code necessary for this sort of feature but there would need to be considerable thought put into the mechanics of each maneuver and I'm sure tons of small bugs. Other wise this is basic geometry.

I hope this has given you something to think about. I think this idea has a lot of potential. If there are any significant concerns or thoughts from the devs I would like to hear them.

Thanks
Chromoburst

Thats considerably more involved than my suggestion Crimeo

The scripts wouldn't necessarily need to load into a new module. An additional button on the over view would suffice. The scripts could be said to load into the ships navigational array itself.

I think this should be something left up to pilot skill and attention, and automating it, even a little would take away a lot from the games appeal of how you have to pay attention to so many small things in order to be the best. That adding scripts to lessen this and essentially "carebear" up flying in an active environment more so than we already have available to us is just. I wouldn't say bad idea necessarily. But not smart or really respectful to the actually devoted skill involved in needing to be good. As manual piloting skills can make or break a lot of pvp fights.

yeah I don't like the API idea at all.

@Minty
there are some aspects of this that would supplant personal piloting ability. but that is often the extreme. few fights seem to have large scale maneuvering. in fact you see alot of ships never even move during an engagement or just orbit a fleetmate or the gate. and some of what I suggested is simply impractical for a pilot or even impossible such as rotating a BC to negate a cruisers speed.

eve really lacks flexibility in its piloting system. this is one way to expand that

No. IFL2P