Newbie help - autopilot

[joefitts63]

So, I thought it would be nice to use an autopilot to fly my ship the 80+ kilometers to the trade station I got on the starting datapad. Installed one on my speeder. Set all the parameters, got up in the air, flipped it on, promptly flipped over and crashed.

I figured that was because of where I installed the block. Reinstalled it on top with the arrows facing forward. Much better. Didn't immediately crash. However, it seems to be confused about how to get to the waypoint. Because it is around the curvature of the planet, the AI seems to want to fly THROUGH the planet. It didn't crash, because I set the toggle for collision avoidance, but it didn't go to the waypoint, either.

How can I use the autopilot to reach a distant waypoint?

[Dantheotherone]

Unfortunately the "Auto Pilot" isn't the brightest, therefore it needs a little help with you trying to keep most obstacles out of its flight path, even with the collision avoidance on.

Put a way-point far above the planet so the trade outpost is in sight and it doesn't have to deal with the curvature problem.

Or . . .

With the A.I. blocks you can set the minimum and maximum altitude from the planet. With it being high enough off the ground it would help the collision avoidance to have the room to avoid manufacturing craters in the landscape.

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, with the Remote Control block we have to create all the needed GPS coords in way the ship will fly above the soil so we must create a "Safe Path"

Watch this video of a player testing the RC autopilot, he found a good solution and worth to watch because it gives a lot of experience by watching him do the needed Engineer testing :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCgou-HMmug


+

I recommend to watch this video if you want to try with the autopilot of the AI block :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqZrD9tmH_E

[Jack Schitt]

The game's autopilot isn't great. It doesn't work like autopilot in a flight sim game.
The autopilot on the Remote Control block doesn't avoid things very well it only flies the vessel in a straight line at the same altitude from waypoint to waypoint. If there's anything at all in the way between 2 waypoints we have to make other waypoints so the ship avoids smashing in to them, including large objects like planets.

We have to fly there manually, ourselves, first and set waypoints along the way to direct the ship around things it would smash into and steer it around other things like planets, etc, to set the autopilot up if we'd want to have an un-manned ship fly that route in the future or if we'd want to use autopilot again to get ourselves there.

Another way of doing it, without having to manually fly there the entire way is we can manually fly the ship up to an altitude where it won't smash into any of the mountains on a planet then turn the autopilot on telling it to go toward the far away waypoint destination. We have to keep an eye on it insuring it doesn't crash into anything. If it's getting close to something shut autopilot off, steer around it until the ship is clear or it, then turn autopilot back on.

We also have to watch it when the ship gets close to the destination. Most of the time waypoints we get from datapads are in the center of the object the waypoint is for. We have to stop the ship before it smashes in to the asteroid or planet or station, whatever the destination waypoint is.