Autopilot Is Awful

[Ren]

Why does the autopilot system for recorders and remote controls function so poorly? It doesn't seem to properly take into account the inertia of the craft when attempting to slow down to properly align with a waypoint. This makes ships 99% of the time almost never reach their waypoints or at the very least take 20x longer than is needed if proper calculation was implemented. I've spent countless hours testing this system on a planet, and I would be more than willing to show recordings of proper waypoints and testing. The autopilot in the game needs a desperate rework.

[CoolGreysen]

Ya same here, I made a ship that is supposed to dock to a connector after launching from a mothership and it never rotated fully towards it.I wonder if they will ever patch the ai blocks. Precision mode sometimes doesn’t seem to do anything too.

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, keep in mind AI Drones need more thrusters and power to do a better Job.

The best Drones are the ones able to stop 100m/s to 0m/s in 4 seconds, so the most important thrsuters are the Backward and Upward to avoid crash landing and not able to stop on assigned waypoint.

-> Ai Drone will Bug if not made to stop fast.


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That said, it's Ok to add suggestions to the SE Dev "Choice list" on the Portal.

How to participate :

Click "Submit Feedback" on their Support Portal

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc
(create "Bug report" or "Request help"(Private) or "Feedback"(Petition) on the Portal)
+
-> Important to know on Portal Feedback (suggestion) :

1 - Feedbacks must have only one idea in for the vote system to work properly, more than one idea to vote on will become unusable.

2 - A good title that shows what is in to vote on will give it a better visibility to have more votes.

And share your Vote Feedback links here on Steam asking the community to vote on your ideas.

[Dan2D3D]

Originally posted by CoolGreysen:

Ya same here, I made a ship that is supposed to dock to a connector after launching from a mothership and it never rotated fully towards it.I wonder if they will ever patch the ai blocks. Precision mode sometimes doesn’t seem to do anything too.

This short video Tuto is very very important :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt9yMJrgDxU

[Ren]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Hi, keep in mind AI Drones need more thrusters and power to do a better Job.

The best Drones are the ones able to stop 100m/s to 0m/s in 4 seconds, so the most important thrsuters are the Backward and Upward to avoid crash landing and not able to stop on assigned waypoint.

-> Ai Drone will Bug if not made to stop fast.

I mean you're right but that doesn't actually address the issue. AI drones wouldn't need more thrusters if the calculation for autopilot was better implemented. The AI system should already know things like the weight of the craft, the location of the thrusters relative to the remote control/AI move block, the XYZ of the destination, the velocity of the craft, and the time to actually reach the destination.

Yet somehow, with a system as simple to calculate as this, the autopilot still functions extremely horrible with grids that do not have an equal thrust to mass ratio in all directions. Granted there are things the user can do to make their craft deliberately overshoot a destination point, like activating the autopilot only after the grid doesn't have a chance to properly slow down to reach the destination point. However, even when the autopilot is given time to recover or has much time to properly reach its location, it often doesn't.

As a user, I should not have to specifically construct normal grids to compensate for a bad AI/autopilot mechanic. I might open a thread on Keen's forums to see if they're willing to take a look at it, but I figured I'd make a post here to talk with some other users about it first.

[Dan2D3D]

My Ai Drones or RC autopilot works when the Ship is well done and I wanted to share my solution, you may use it or wait for a "Fix".

[Ren]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

My Ai Drones or RC autopilot works when the Ship is well done and I wanted to share my solution, you may use it or wait for a "Fix".

I do not know if this was your intention, but this kind of feels like an insult to anyone who makes a good ship, calling it not "well done" because of a game mechanic not working the way it should. Also, I have tried that solution in the video, and it hasn't really worked out for me nor 90% of the other people I have talked to about the autopilot. Please do not imply that creations of users are not "well done" if the autopilot system does not handle very well.

Regardless, I'll suggest a fix to Keen and see if they can update it to where it handles better regardless of the craft.

[Dan2D3D]

No "bad" intention, but I may not express myself correctly since English is not my first, sorry about that,

in other words -> I can make it work and I wanted to share my working solution.

[Ren]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

No "bad" intention, but I may not express myself correctly since English is not my first, sorry about that,

in other words -> I can make it work and I wanted to share my working solution.

Okay, sorry for assuming. Circling back to the original point, I'm happy to hear you can get it working, but wouldn't you agree that it is a bit too difficult to get the autopilot functioning properly and that users shouldn't have to overcompensate for how difficult the system is by constructing their ships specifically to solve this issue?

[Dan2D3D]

+ I can share what I use so we can compare, you may not use the same ship size ...

I failed a lot but I found a good solution for Offensive Follow Guard Drones so far.

Like this one I can Deploy and call back on connector using Action Relay blocks :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3246160866

My best setup

AI Flight
+
AI Basic set to Follow home so bond to a Beacon placed on the Mothership or Station.
+
AI Offensive set to attack enemy and circle 100m around the enemy.

Enable all AI in same time
=
Offensive Follow Guard Drone

= Detect + Attack enemy 2Km around and return home when Job is done.

[Ren]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

+ I can share what I use so we can compare, you may not use the same ship size ...

I failed a lot but I found a good solution for Offensive Follow Guard Drones so far.

Like this one I can Deploy and call back on connector using Action Relay blocks :
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3246160866

My best setup

AI Flight
+
AI Basic set to Follow home so bond to a Beacon placed on the Mothership or Station.
+
AI Offensive set to attack enemy and circle 100m around the enemy.

Enable all AI in same time
=
Offensive Follow Guard Drone

= Detect + Attack enemy 2Km around and return home when Job is done.

Most of my testing has been done purely with a few recorder waypoints in a straight line. My ship will overshoot these waypoints consistently, showing that there is definitely an issue with calculating proper deceleration timing. I can share the blueprint if you wish.

[Dan2D3D]

I've started in space with the AI Recorder, it's the first AI block I've tested and I can tell it's harder on planet.
+
I use "Apprroach Vectors" only if my AI Drones are made to stop Fast, and I will lower the AI Flight Max speed if the Drone is not made to stop 100m/s to 0m/s in 4 seconds.


Anyway, suggestions are always good and I will add my vote to your Portal Vote Feedback if you create one so don't be shy to tell me when ready.

[Ren]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

I've started in space with the AI Recorder, it's the first AI block I've tested and I can tell it's harder on planet.
+
I use "Apprroach Vectors" only if my AI Drones are made to stop Fast, and I will lower the AI Flight Max speed if the Drone is not made to stop 100m/s to 0m/s in 4 seconds.


Anyway, suggestions are always good and I will add my vote to your Portal Vote Feedback if you create one so don't be shy to tell me when ready.

So it sounds like it just has issues in planets. I have not tested in space. Most of my autopilot tests have involved just having a ship in atmosphere move along a straight line.


https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/44863-fix-the-autopilot

[Dan2D3D]

Cool! I gave you my vote to help.


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You may create a new discussion in General Discussions forum where you will share your Drone setup to go in straight line ready to test in world and ask the community to help find a working solution.
-> You may share your save here, I will load to help you find a working solution, just save with your character in front of the Drone I have to test.

How to save a world in your Workshop :

1 - Select your save.
2 - Click the "Publish" button on the left.
3 - Choose a proper Tag, check Steam upload and click the OK button.
4 - Your world will be uploaded to Steam Workshop.
5 - Paste the Workshop item link here.

[Dan2D3D]

+ To be honest, I did not tested the RC autopilot in the new game version so not sure if they fixed the "One way" mode but automatic Cargo Drones was working very well since a long time.

Here is video of player finding the solution with RC block, a long time ago :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCgou-HMmug