Remote ship control

[Numinak]

With the addition of the specialized mode of testing ships in the shipyard, how much more work would it be to convey that ability to real ships?

Say, you could remotely control your ship from another location and fly it around.

I say this from a RP perspective, as there is nothing more annoying than having to be there in person to pretend to be a 'probe' or other entity.

Thoughts?

 

[jayman38]

I envision too much remote griefing and not enough fun to make this worth while.

I can see it being interesting to be able to link a camera on a probe to a wireless block also on that probe and linking the wireless block to your real ship, and then being able to switch to that camera without being able to control the probe in any way. This would be a fun thing for torpedoes too. (Edit: and fun for in-game CCTV/security cameras) A fleet update would allow you to issue commands to an AI on the probe for general command and control, but that update is not here yet.

I just don't want to see remote-controlled ships. A punk faction could attack everyone with minimal reprisals. Remote controlled ship blown up? No biggie, just remote another doomcube and attack again. Not fun for the other players.

 

[aceface]

Sounds like an awesome idea. I think there should be a broadcast range, otherwise nobody would fly ships normally. Maybe 5-10 sectors?

 

[Keptick]

With proper balance I could see this work. Things such as a very limited range (scanner range), being unable to go back to controlling the ship you're on without losing complete control over the remote ship (unless you redock it or it gets destroyed) and requiring a good amount of power to opperate the remote system (should probably be a wirelessly linked system like logic with a controller and a receiver). In addition, it should take a couple of seconds to return to normal ship control after the probe gets destroyed.

With those measures in place it'd be possible for an enemy to scan down the control point and warp to it if they're fast enough, forcing the player to abandon or destroy the remote controlled ship in order to not die (unless they have sizeable defense, but then they wouldn't need a remote controlled ship in the first place).

Key words: With a feature like this balance makes the difference between a fun feature and something so broken it'd be bordering on god mode.

 

[Parameter]

I like the idea of remote cameras on other objects. Perhaps you can bind a camera to a display module, and using it would allow you to look through the camera, but not have any control over the system the camera's connected to. Lots of possibilities: security cameras, remote probes, AI scout drones, POV spectators for battles or racing, teleconferencing to intergalactic senate councils, etc.

Bonus points if you could render a very low res texture from the camera and periodically update the connected display module with it.

 

[Lecic]

How about this- you can only remote control ships within a system you control?

 

[aceface]

How about this- you can only remote control ships within a system you control?

Perhaps like scanners,in enemy space very short range,in neutral a default range and in own system extended range

 

[nightwalker_007]

I'd be okay only with being able to tell a ship with an AI module to fly to a specific sector, but not actually able to control the ships. This would allow you to command drones to return home, or back to your ship. During auto-pilot, however, these ships shouldn't be able to fire their weapons, only missile defense turrets would be active.

 

[RavenWT]

You guys seems to forgot you can configure server and admins can too. I'm really interested with remote control for small ships like probes or drones. Even if "punks" can try to exploit this, remember they are somewhere... and as you said, the remote control should be limited to a system range. So they can try, but you can find them and destroy them to stop drones. I mean, it's just an other way to play: Large ships, small ships, salvage ships, repair ships, carriers, drones, torpedo launcher....

We shouldn't limit variety of gameplay, that's sandbox spirit