I don’t see how your suggestion is any “cleaner”, it’s broader for sure, but that can have both positive and negative effects on other gameplay features.
What if the devs want to have “The Matrix” that the pilots connect to to go home and visit their families, and those require sophisticated and very advanced and nearly sentinel computers. Yet they still don’t want automation?
Not really a fan of this method of development. The expectations the player has are set by other games, media, and the genre as a whole, if your worrying so much about trying to interpret and manipulate these expectations that you alter your own presentation, you stand a significant chance of killing whatever new take and chance of modifying those expectations you had.
I still like JBs idea from further up …
Setting high standards for the lore is a good idea … though if you do all that work it should show in more then just text.
Following player expectations from other games is exactly what I would want to avoid. That’s why I posted in the “realism” thread. Realism is the thing to focus on. Where realism falls short, add to the reality; create a self-consistent “lore” (as Lomsor puts it) that clearly explains why things are the way they are and work the way they do.
[quote=“Lomsor, post:63, topic:554”]
though if you do all that work it should show in more then just text.[/quote]
Absolutely. The average player doesn’t read, so the lore has to be a living, breathing part of the game. The point of doing that work is to find inspiration for gameplay mechanisms that tie the world together in a signature fashion. It sets new expectations.
If all spaceships looked like stylized circus clowns, that would set an expectation that the weapons would probably be pretty silly in operation. Hardpoints with big flowers that spray high pressure water (into the other ship-clown’s eyes for maximum effect). Huge landing skids of clown feet. Goofy-looking carriers that are the size of a frigate that can carry as many fighters as would normally be carried by a cruiser (clown car analog). And so on. There is a theme that underpins gameplay. INS needs a theme that allows their players to intuit the consequences of gameplay from a few simple observations.
It makes sense to me that some form of “Auto-Aim” would be a necessary feature on large ships that have multiple wide angle hardpoints, I don’t think that’s the issue being discussed however. But that does lead me to assume that auto aim systems could then be included on smaller forward facing “gimbal-like” hardpoints (depending on their inclusion)
Edit: Additionally, it could be suggested that and Auto Aim feature, also allows one to produce “Auto-Firing” to ensure each hit is well timed in order to hit the target. (As a dogfighter, not something I’d prefer…)
The discussion of AI however seems a bit overkill. It wouldn’t take much “intelligence” to operate a Turret, one shouldn’t need an AI capable of reasoning moral systems and ethics to aim and fire upon designated targets.
Although, having a turret respond with “Why?” Could be an interesting situation to find oneself in…
Elite handles gimballed weapons well, in that ECM modules will cause the “auto-aim” to stop functioning. Jettisoning cargo appears to sometimes confuse it as well, by presenting new targets that the computer needs to process. It’s not so different to the concept of using IR “dazzle” to confound face detection software. In those situations, automated systems would be rendered temporarily vulnerable, but a human operator wouldn’t be affected, or would be better able to cope with the situation.
I assume you are talking about this:
If you are, then I think you’ve missed cybercritic’s point which was that if there exist computers of sufficient capability (which might be used for other game mechanics), how are you going to explain them not being used for auto aiming?
[quote=“Hutchings, post:65, topic:554”]
It makes sense to me that some form of “Auto-Aim” would be a necessary feature on large ships that have multiple wide angle hardpoints, I don’t think that’s the issue being discussed however.[/quote]
Ideally, we’re discussing the base post’s question.
I’m not sure what auto-aim is. Is that
A. Turrets that spot targets and shoot at them autonomously
B. Turrets that will snap to a target that the player has roughly indicated
I can see B, but I’ve been arguing against A for years.
On whether or not we should sacrifice some realism for gameplay.
I’d prefer strong gameplay over an overly realistic universe. As mentioned previously in the thread, a realistic universe would be drones and automated warships doing most of the work with strong AI, or Remote assist from a safe location.
Speaking of AI
I see that now, yes. In that case I’d think automatic targeting systems could work, so long as they had an impact on gameplay so as to be balanced against manual targeting. As others have mentioned here as well.
[quote=“Hutchings, post:69, topic:554”]
As mentioned previously in the thread, a realistic universe would be drones and automated warships doing most of the work with strong AI, or Remote assist from a safe location.[/quote]
A realistic universe has no relation to drones and automated warships. That’s a simplistic extrapolation about 100 years into the future, with the addition of spaceships.
A realistic universe 10,000 years in the future (or is it 40,000?) is anything that is self-consistent and logical. I can give you all sorts of weird futures for humanity 10,000 years in the future. Universal Islamic rule that is technophobic. Global thermonuclear war. Colonies on the Moon that survive when Earth does not, relegating sensitive electronic circuits to the dust bin. A future where we eliminate the genetic and developmental bases for homicidal behavior (only PvE from then on)
The goal is to come up with a setting that lacks advanced automation - for good reason. That can be perfectly realistic. That bit about humanity’s survivors being in an environment that doesn’t tolerate electronic circuits is looking pretty good to me. Other technologies would be pursued that are more durable, but in some ways less capable. That very durability might have led to the development of the FTL drive. Instead of pursuing information processing capabilities, humanity would be pursuing material properties and physical controls. Serendipity strikes and - boom - FTL drive.
IIRC Infinity lore has the origin of FTL tied to telecommunications advances. Also I don’t really see why automation needs to be cut at the root. Infinity MMO might even include gameplay that requires advanced automation; judged from all the “features” we came up with on the old forums; everything from semi autonomous colonies to factories to drones.
As a hardcore twitch gamer, my preference is to have no automation or auto-aiming at all in fighter combat. I genuinely believe that gimballed weapons would have lessened the overall experience of playing the ICP. I also think that they lessen the experience of Elite Dangerous, fortunately combat in that game is good enough in other ways to survive that decision.
For larger ships I would not be completely averse to auto-aiming turrets. I’d simply explain these by the presence of NPC gunners.
I must agree with JB. The game needs as much ingame realism as possible. If you don’t use auto-aim just because it’s not so fun to play… Well it’s just out-of-game reality. But how can you make the auto-aim not possible inside the game reality? How can you make that reality to work in all the universe of that game and not just local decision that is out of context from the whole game?
All i can say that possibility of auto-aim system to be hacked doesn’t seem logic. If that was the reason there would be no computers in war aircrafts today. And yet there are plenty of them ( some of the airplanes would fall down if they wouldn’t be computer guided).
Anyway i hope the ingame reality, where auto-aim is not possible, will be found cause it wouldn’t be fun otherway 
Auto aim could be balanced very simple. Auto aim should require CPU resource. Small fighter like ships do not have it enough. End of the story. Starting from the big bombers and bigger ships will be possible to have some extra free CPU to have hardpoints to operate in auto aim mode. Autofire should consume even more CPU. More complex behavior of autoturrets should require more CPU.
for example low range guard fighters could have autoaim turrets but in the same time they will not have warp/FTL drive, long range sensors, galaxy map applications, trade applications, and so on.
But then you have to explain why my smartphone today has more computing power than an entire FTL-capable battlefleet - back to square one.
Hacking risk is not entirely stupid, as hacking methods can evolve a long way along other techs. Maybe they stopped using our silicon-based digital computers after some spoilsport found an effective way to scramble them at a distance. Maybe the new computer types they use are open to direct physical manipulation. Or simply really inefficient at most things. Or very specialised, like the aforementioned MEMS.
I’ll note that while military planes are hacking-proof AFAICT, it’s not the case of civilian airplanes. Recently, some security engineers showed that you could hack the airport/airplane liaison used to help the autopilot land the plane, and that you could use it to crash the plane (assuming that the pilots didn’t see that their instruments disagreed with the autopilot, i.e. doing their job). Yes, the stupid plot from Die Hard 2 is actually technically feasible.
Similarly, it’s possible to hack the GPS (and as such autopilot) of a boat if you have an emitter less than a km away, and some people raised serious concerns about military drone security.
If today’s technology is having such glaring security holes even in what should be absolutely secure, with such dangers only increasing with the advance of technique, then it’s not hard to imagine another set of technologies where it’s simply not worth the risk.
But again, hacking risk is only a small part of software risks.
You have the risk of bugs. You have the risk of new bugs from damaged hardware - those high-energy doodads military ships are throwing around (let alone those you get near stars, in warp or with hyperespace) could easily knock parts of your mass memory drives and create new errors. Good thing the human brain is particularly resistant to that.
You have the risk of expert systems making the wrong decision (those can’t adapt like a human mind does), and the risks associated with true-( or empowered stupid-)AI. Don’t see how it could affect something as simple as auto-aim? Listen to the general opinion about nuclear power if you want an idea on how it could drive irrational decisions about forbidding anything that sounds even remotely similar.
A nuclear power-plant on this Galileo probe? There is no way you launch this Chernobyl-waiting-to-happen!
A robot controlling a gun? There is no way you build this Skynet-waiting-to-happen!
With a strong enough anti-AI sentiment, it could even prevent developing such systems in the first place.
This is but a few examples, there are probably many other ways to justify it.
I think you just stated a lot of good reasons for why we shouldn’t use auto-aim and auto-fire together. Still if we use auto-aim and human push the fire button your mentioned problems are solved. And if auto-aim is damaged, only then pilots would need to manually aim.
But yes, if for some reason computers work differently then ours then we might find why auto-aim can’t work. For now we just need to find that reason.
Just make them illegal? Perhaps some treaty between the Starfold/Deltan/Centuras forbids their use?
But then you have the problem that only pirates and other criminals use it, giving them an advantage.
There is no head exploding smiley… 
[quote=“Crayfish, post:72, topic:554”]
For larger ships I would not be completely averse to auto-aiming turrets. I’d simply explain these by the presence of NPC gunners.[/quote]
I am completely averse to auto-aiming turrets, period. I’m completely averse to auto-anything in PvP scenarios.
Use the rule of one-gunner-one-target. On any given ship, I can control just one of the turrets or all of them, but I can only point at one location in space at a time. If a battleship ship wants to engage 100 locations with its 100 guns, then it needs 100 player gunners. For that matter, if a frigate has 100 anti-fighter turrets, then it can engage a swarm of 100 player fighters. Epic fights remain available to owners of small ships.
This again relies on the idea that automation just isn’t available. While I’m happy to use the NPC fiction to fill in the blanks here and there, I don’t want any element of PvP to involve any form of automation, regardless of the supporting fiction.
Note that my sending automated drones against your automated turrets is a different scenario, and would be reasonable. But if those same automated turrets can shoot at my player-piloted fighters, then I am again opposed to automated turrets. PvP should be a contest of similar/compatible player skills.
[quote=“Alchemic, post:77, topic:554”]
For now we just need to find that reason.[/quote]
I think there may be traction on that “radiated colony” idea. Humanity had to bail on Earth and ended up on Mars, with its higher radiation levels. That made silicon digital electronics unreliable and also didn’t do the people much good either. So now you’ve got an impetus to get out of there. You want computers that work in elevated radiation and you want to get to a planet that doesn’t have high radiation. There aren’t any such planets in our system, so away we go; FTL drive with simple but durable computers. Heck, those simple and durable computers might be required for a ship under warp. Or a ship that transitions in or out of warp. Or a ship that jumps.
If digital computers are fried by simply being onboard a ship, that would allow them to be continue to be used throughout the galaxy, but only on planets that make them. They can’t be transported.
As an aside, a separate faction went deep into Mars to continue the Earth style of living. They didn’t survive (because they stopped dreaming and lost hope), but anyone returning to Mars would find evidence of their subterranean lifestyle.
Just throwing a thought out there. I have a consideration below after this thought that is the reason I am posting, but I just wanted to throw this out to the sharks and see what happens.
Perhaps the claim could be that auto-turrets exists because of X technology. However, because of Y “X-jamming” technology X tech is easily countered. Because of the easy production of Y tech, it is a standard install on ships. Therefore, X tech isn’t used anymore/only viable on capital ships with enough power/whatever to counter Y tech.
For the arena-style gameplay for I:BS (@INovaeGene ), I can see the arguments against auto-aim and even gimballed weapons, seeing how I:BS is more of an FPS. However, for the actual MMO, should auto-aim be taken more into consideration? Consider a large freighter trading some totally legit goods. Should we expect that ten players besides the pilot manning the turrets to sit in there going back and forth a million times just in case on that million and first time it comes under pirate attack? Even for a combat oriented vessel, manning a turret does not seem like an awful amount of fun unless you are looking for fights (and having a good bit of luck).
For this reason I would consider a CPU-power sort of mechanic mentioned above, maybe needed to counter Y tech. It would prohibit smaller craft from using auto-aim/gimballed weaponry, while allowing larger ships to not be completely useless unless there are multiple players dedicated to turret duty.
As a further argument, consider that just because it says auto-aim does not mean that it is guaranteed to hit the target each shot it fires. This could be tweaked so that an actual player will out-perform the auto-aim/turret, while not making the auto-aim/turret not be a piece of junk.
Another consideration is the use of kinetic weapons. I’m not sure about the speed of said weapons, maybe somebody can clear me up on that ;). But assuming that the projectiles are not moving at a large fraction of c, should the HUD display a lead on the target, or should it be WWII fighter style? If there is a lead, would there be a lead on smaller ships? What technobable would justify this and not auto-aim?