Cross Zone Nav Mapping

[DarkHawkPro]

I've been curious. Since the game have an autopilot built into it for flying between nav points with-in a known sector of space. How many people would want a cross-sector nav map. By placing a End location onto a space station or nav point in a different sector your ship will auto-nav through each zone, it will auto-gate and it will auto-dock if needed.

I dont' know how difficult it would be to setup, program wise, and will not attempt to i just want to see the demand.

[karu [WDL]]

I dont' know how difficult it would be to setup, program wise, and will not attempt to i just want to see the demand.

not at all difficult to create auto-route autopilot, but it would make trade routes dead easy.

[r8rsfans75]

Sounds very similar to a macro, but designed for people who know nothing about macro's. I would be all for it, especially for dual-boxers who have one toon doing a trade run and another toon doing something else, you forget about the trade run toon and if you are unfortunate enough to have done this near the BBW gate, you come back to a smoking ship.

I know there has been some discussion on the game chat, but I was just wondering what the dev teams views are on macros? Discouraged? Against the TOS? I know in live there was always mixed feelings, some admins didn't mind as long as you were just using them for trade runs and not for taking jobs out of the terminals or camping/farming.

[Tienbau]

From a technical point of view, it would be a moderate challenge. First you'd need to work out a point to point sector route - this would take either a brute-force route route finding approach or using operational analysis. I believe there are route finders and algorithms for this sort of thing posted up but you'd need to allow for factioned gates & so on.

Once that's done it wouldn't be too difficult to run through each sector and plot in the course on arrival then initiate warp.

I think it would be more fun (and a little easier to code) if the player laid out a course, and had a "route memory" of say 3 routes. The player would need to fly to the start of each route and then activate the auto-pilot, maybe by clicking on the start Nav and getting a 'go' verb on the target. The ship would then navigate the route and leave you at the final destination.

But this is just from the technical point of view - personally I can't see anything wrong with implementing it, especially if it means more players online.

TB.

[bondct]

not at all difficult to create auto-route autopilot, but it would make trade routes dead easy.

Cross Zone Nav Mapping is death easy to do with macros... you would just have to plot the gate nav points, write the code and then copy paste till you did all the zones... as for trade routes that is not dead easy... nav points are easy to plot cuz they exsist in game and are actual points... hard part if you wanted to do trade runs is the instation mapping... since there are no points to click on you would have to teach the code how to determine your position... gl with that

[Terrell [BT]]

Cross Zone Nav Mapping is death easy to do with macros... you would just have to plot the gate nav points, write the code and then copy paste till you did all the zones... as for trade routes that is not dead easy... nav points are easy to plot cuz they exsist in game and are actual points... hard part if you wanted to do trade runs is the instation mapping... since there are no points to click on you would have to teach the code how to determine your position... gl with that

Put in a /starbase reset after you land to put you in the same spot everytime. Work from there. There were job macros in Live, especially after they dropped the rule forbidding unattended macroing, that did something along those lines.

[karu [WDL]]

From a technical point of view, it would be a moderate challenge. First you'd need to work out a point to point sector route - this would take either a brute-force route route finding approach or using operational analysis. I believe there are route finders and algorithms for this sort of thing posted up but you'd need to allow for factioned gates & so on.

one of them is Dijikstra. Code samples in

http://en.giswiki.net/wiki/Dijkstra's_algorithm

For Faction/Race/Unexplored gates.. you just dont add them to graph, so they never used.

But this is just from the technical point of view - personally I can't see anything wrong with implementing it, especially if it means more players online.

so... tomorrow then? ;-)

[Suricata79[IS]]

I'm not overlly against it, but it was disheartening after the sunset announcement to see most ships that were mining or doing trade jobs been run by afk players. As long as a feature like this doesn't encourage botting then I'm fine with it.

[seekeronos]

Totally off-topic, but looking at Suricata's sig graphic:

JW with almost 170k hull and 84k shield?

JE with 140k hull...?

That's doing better than any PW (L135 hull for a PW is 82k) I've ever seen. Are these toons from Live™ or are these dev toons with gear that us normal players will likely never see?

[Terrell [BT]]

Totally off-topic, but looking at Suricata's sig graphic:

JW with almost 170k hull and 84k shield?

JE with 140k hull...?

That's doing better than any PW (L135 hull for a PW is 82k) I've ever seen. Are these toons from Live™ or are these dev toons with gear that us normal players will likely never see?

He could very well be showing his effective hit points, when all resistances given by equipment are factored in. Much like the PW has a hull of 82K, but really has way more due to Damage Control, plus whatever equipment he has that gives him additional HDC or deflects, etc.

[Vinzent Zeppelin[IS]]

one of them is Dijikstra. Code samples in

http://en.giswiki.net/wiki/Dijkstra's_algorithm

For Faction/Race/Unexplored gates.. you just dont add them to graph, so they never used.

so... tomorrow then? ;-)

I actually used another graph analysis algorithm to make the sector_distances table for use in job planning, the Floyd-Warshall algorithm, which can be used with another procedure to get the shortest path between two endpoint nodes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd%E2%80%93Warshall_algorithm#Path_reconstruction.

[Suricata79[IS]]

Totally off-topic, but looking at Suricata's sig graphic:

JW with almost 170k hull and 84k shield?

JE with 140k hull...?

That's doing better than any PW (L135 hull for a PW is 82k) I've ever seen. Are these toons from Live™ or are these dev toons with gear that us normal players will likely never see?

They were my effective hull values with HDC like Terrell pointed out. I didn't work out the deflects though. I spent alot of time fighting on my hull with my J:(

[Allia]

How come only options are: I want it, I don't care? Where's the I don't want it?

Just becuase you don't want it doesn't mean you don't care if it gets installed or not. Honestly I think adding something like this would ruin some of the game, so I don't want it at all.

Mainly, I don't want it for the same reason that EnB never raised the warp cap to high in live...they wanted you to 'see' the game. Yes they could of given in and raised it a little higher like it is now and not ruined that...so I'm quite fine with Emu's warp cap. You don't 'see' the game if your zipping through at 20k warp. You aren't 'seeing' the game if you just plug in coordinates and walk away for 10-15min as your ship does it for you. I'd like to preserve the original intent of getting to view the game, because this game has a lot to show.

The main reason for something like this I believe is Trade runs. Yes I know after the first 500 trade runs your sick of the same sights, but the game was never meant to be nothing but trade runs in the first place. If this change was passed through I think trade runs would become a joke and far to easy...just check in every 10-15 min to sell/buy. Far to much like Eve if you ask me...que it up and check on it later was never meant to be EnB's style.

I'd be fine with alternatives that help get around better such as a npc at wefts you could buy a wh from instead of waiting for a je to come along. This would allow people to travel quickly despite job (since we dont' have the community yet to support this without npcs) yet keep trade runs at least some 'effort' for your 'reward'.

So if your going to make a poll at least make sure to have a +, -, and neutral answer becuase there will be people from all groups with reasons for it else its an inaccurate representation of what your asking.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

How come only options are: I want it, I don't care? Where's the I don't want it?

Just becuase you don't want it doesn't mean you don't care if it gets installed or not. Honestly I think adding something like this would ruin some of the game, so I don't want it at all.

Mainly, I don't want it for the same reason that EnB never raised the warp cap to high in live...they wanted you to 'see' the game. Yes they could of given in and raised it a little higher like it is now and not ruined that...so I'm quite fine with Emu's warp cap. You don't 'see' the game if your zipping through at 20k warp. You aren't 'seeing' the game if you just plug in coordinates and walk away for 10-15min as your ship does it for you. I'd like to preserve the original intent of getting to view the game, because this game has a lot to show.

The main reason for something like this I believe is Trade runs. Yes I know after the first 500 trade runs your sick of the same sights, but the game was never meant to be nothing but trade runs in the first place. If this change was passed through I think trade runs would become a joke and far to easy...just check in every 10-15 min to sell/buy. Far to much like Eve if you ask me...que it up and check on it later was never meant to be EnB's style.

I'd be fine with alternatives that help get around better such as a npc at wefts you could buy a wh from instead of waiting for a je to come along. This would allow people to travel quickly despite job (since we dont' have the community yet to support this without npcs) yet keep trade runs at least some 'effort' for your 'reward'.

So if your going to make a poll at least make sure to have a +, -, and neutral answer becuase there will be people from all groups with reasons for it else its an inaccurate representation of what your asking.

Edited the poll so it was less loaded for them.

[Yuritau]

I voted that I want it, but there's a caveat.

I only want cross sector pathing available in game. I don't want to see any kind of support for automated on-station movement or vendor interaction. All you should be able to do is manually lay in a course (maybe a small number of saved favorite routes) and have it take you all the way there, with the option of docking or not docking built into the route.

[Allia]

Don't get me wrong I'd love the convince that this purposes. I could plug in my end coordinates, get up go get myself a tea, call my mom, clean the kitchen, put on some old Mash episodes and enjoy for about 15min before having to check ship. That's all and great, but someone please tell me exactly how all of that is 'playing' the game?

I realize that there aren't many who will do what is good for the game over what is good for themselves and I just can't see this as for the good of the game. I really don't see this request as something different then "Hey dev put in a lv1 shield all races block 10,000,000 damage with 100,000 regen a second, has +10,000 to all deflects, and makes my ship look like its on fire! This way I don't waste points on shields and get befriend instead!. Oh and make it buy-able from starting vendors for 100c!" Can the devs do it? Yes. Should they? No. I mean if you got the shield why would you ever do anything else? This is really just a 'Hey dev make my Trade Runs run themselves pls!'. Yes they could, no they shouldn't. If people got this, why do anything else to earn trade or even combat and explore? Just check in every 15min and go play something else while you wait.

If its just pure travel not trade runs your suggesting this for, I believe there are other ways of doing it. JE npcs at wefts to WH would help, faction the starting zone gates (really good faction and you could use it) would be ok, proposal new zones that connect two current out of way zones (like something connected to xipe and anju), maybe even buy-able one time device canned wormholes...all of those seem more appropriate solution to the travel issue then 'do it for me' type answer.

Sorry for the rant mode D: But apparently this type of thing gets me worked up.

[Jester]

Travelling is fun for the first 40 or so EL levels but then when your OL150 it just becomes a time sink.

Im not advocating point a to b auto pilot but I am advocating some kind of improved travel system.

Maybe one that opens up after you do a mission at a certain high enough level, that perhaps allow you access to NPC's who you could pay to take you to the end game zones. By end game zones I mean those zones where people mostly have to group to kill stuff like Antares Cooper (Fishbowl) Aragoth Prime (Red Dragon Base) Witberg for when der Tod makes live. They could be placed each of those zones and some in the popular areas like Glenn Jupiter etc etc

If EnB had evolved Im positive it would have had features like this in place since most games copy each others ideas, shared vaults in game mail and auction house would have also been implemented and yes I know its been brought up before - Im merely pointing out these things would have been eventualy added to the game IF it hadnt been closed down.

[bondct]

I really don't see this request as something different then "Hey dev put in a lv1 shield ... ... ... and makes my ship look like its on fire!

and whats wrong with a L1 shield that makes my ship that looks like its on fire... damn... I would want a shield like that even if it had no protection whatsoever...

[r8rsfans75]

and whats wrong with a L1 shield that makes my ship that looks like its on fire... damn... I would want a shield like that even if it had no protection whatsoever...

Kind of like a Ghost Rider shield. We could call it the Penance Shield. It will have a shield inversion buff that doesn't increase damage, but targeted member will have their soul burn.

[Tyran]

If this gets added could we also have an auto-farm button?

[Akela]

I think the real fix for this is to put in a live econemy where FPO to Somerland is not the only trade run worth doing. As for the point to point AP I say no it’s a bad idea.

Akela

[Leavon]

I would like to this brought into the game, it would give a player an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the ride to their destination rather than have to click on every gate and reselect their route of travel.

[Kherana]

I'm not overlly against it, but it was disheartening after the sunset announcement to see most ships that were mining or doing trade jobs been run by afk players. As long as a feature like this doesn't encourage botting then I'm fine with it.

I agree with you, but what I see coming is the ability to "macro" trade routes and remove the risk of navigating gates if the ship "automatically" selects gates, gating option, and when to warp it puts the control in the hands of the computer instead of the player. To be honest I think it would encourage more afk than play for some.

I'm gonna be devils advocate here; in other games I've played *cough*WoW/EvE/Aion(beta)*cough* with the "botting/macros" came the gold sellers then come the beggars both spamming channels to either sell something or beg for something. I'll go with whatever the devs/community deem they want/need, but I think we'd be losing a certain amount of "community" by doing so.

The thing that made this game so different and so special was the community plain and simple. In my opinion if we start going in the direction of the other "cookie cutter" games mentioned above we'll be losing the things that made this game so great.

my question I guess is; why make this into the games we all left for one reason or another? We came back to EnB because, it was so amazing and personally I'd hate to see it become another WoW or EvE clone :-(

[Jamosite]

bang the gavel

this could be a nice addition to the game

give it but with a risk or cost

[Falstar [MOD]]

I'd agree with what Raptorred has said. Also, it wouldn't exactly help the community if you've got ships everywhere zooming on autopilot with players afk. You should also keep in mind that part of what makes this game great is that fact that you DO have to travel through these systems, and it can be a semi pain (Oh.. great I've got to get alll the way over there...) BUT it is more realistic and fun, at least for me. Also, how would this affect traders vs other classes?

On the other hand some dynamic trade goods do sound good - at some point you'll have stations up to the airlocks in NullG art.. so why would they buy more? I would also agree with Avani that not all trade runs should be variable - some things don't change... That weapons Tech will always be in demand..