Driving the sub with autopilot

[Teo]

Hello.

In case some people might be unaware, it is possible to steer the ship by setting the autopilot to the "Maintain Position" and then grabbing and holding the position waypoint on the radar. This essentially allows you to steer the ship just like in the normal mode and it is has 100% responsibility as it is not taking your piloting skill as a factor.

Is this an intended feature?
Are there any drawbacks (Apart from not gaining experience) to this method of driving the sub?

[Shiro]

Iirc piloting skill actually increases your speed. Try checking whether you are faster with piloting or manual movement on various skill levels

[Bean]

The only reason I was iffy on this is that while I suspected that it let you do some fine movement I just kinda defaulted to turning the autopilot off just to feel like I can actually move

[Teo]

Originally posted by FGK:

Originally posted by Teo:

Hello.

In case some people might be unaware, it is possible to steer the ship by setting the autopilot to the "Maintain Position" and then grabbing and holding the position waypoint on the radar. This essentially allows you to steer the ship just like in the normal mode and it is has 100% responsibility as it is not taking your piloting skill as a factor.

Is this an intended feature?
Are there any drawbacks (Apart from not gaining experience) to this method of driving the sub?

Auto pilot is very "Slow"...

"Manual Pilot" is definitely "Faster".

A map with 5 minute travel time can become 15 or more using "Auto Pilot"~

Also, it become more and more unreliable as you travel through the campaign.

Shouldn't you already know this??

I think you are confusing the literal autopilot with autopilot with maintain position and manual steering which the thread is about.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

autopilot is great for keeping sub in 1 place or making slow precise movements close to wrackage , bacon or station , 90% of the time you should be stearing your sub , it can also let you make more precise movements in combat

but for first 30 mins i ineed used just autopilot , just buildup confidance as you use it to stear manualy , its fine

[Mountain King]

Steering the sub in autopilot mode is good if you are in a very tight area or if you have low confidence in your piloting skills. The problem is that although you are constantly updating the waypoint, you are still just giving the sub a constant series of "go here and stop" commands. Because of this the sub won't ever go very fast because it's constantly anticipating having to stop in a few seconds.

[Dynamoon]

OP probably did not mean anything bad by what they said, and there is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to clarify what you mean! Doing so merely ensures everyone gets the answers they are looking for, and there is no reason to react badly to that, I think.

I've not had a chance to find out any actual under-the-hood facts about the question, but I wanted to post a gentle reminder now: please be kind and considerate, keep things on topic and do not get into personal arguments.

I'll see if I can also find out something about the topic, too, before the week is out. Until then!

[Insano-Man]

An obvious boon to using "maintain position" is that the sub will try to automatically stay where you tell it to go - whether you're being strangled by a moloch or rocketing past crush depth. If you've got to step away from the terminal to go fix that problem, it helps to have the sub inch itself back to a safe place instead of flying into the ceiling at max speed.

[Lipi]

I thought piloting skill only applied to bots?

I actually do use the autopilot then maintain position to manually set a point. the sub takes cares acceleration and braking by automatically adjusting engine thrust and ballast flooding depending on the direction my clicked position is. Sub will automatically slow down as it approaches the point, to ensure it hovers exactly at the point upon arrival and doesn't overshoot it.

[Insano-Man]

Originally posted by Lipi:

I thought piloting skill only applied to bots?

It definitely applies to players.

On my solo save, I'm at - or near - 100 Helm on my captain. On the multiplayer saves I'm juggling, I've got captains still at a basic 40-50. My solo captain sees instant response times from the engines and ballasts while on manual piloting. My co-op captains all have a noticeable lag time. This can be seen by the second arrow trying to catch up with the first at the nav terminal.

This isn't so bad when you're just wiggling a Dugong around in the Cold Caves, but it can be vital when you're trying to move a speedy Humpback around flora spores and cave walls in some of the tighter biomes.

[Count D'Cinamon]

yea as other has mention, i can confirm that your character skill affect the auto pilot ability to maintain position. at the beginning of a new captain character, im having difficulty to even just maintain position, with the sub bobbing up and down constantly until i switch to manual and try to stop it from moving before turning auto back on.

now that i have 100 helm skill, the auto drive the sub smoothly following the way point i choose, and generally a reliable way to park the sub when close to wreck and such.

im not sure about the not getting experience part tho, can't confirm that since i drive it manually most of the time (since you'd want to look for wrecks and resources along the way anyway)

[Insano-Man]

Flying "half-manual" (setting successive waypoints for autopilot) does not gain Helm skill, as far as I'm aware. I did that starting out, and I only noticed skill gain when I started switching to manual.