Space Engineers Tutorial: Autopilot & Remote Control Part 1 (tips, testing, tutorials for survival)

This is the first tutorial in a miniseries on autopilot in Space Engineers. This covers its basic functions, patterns and how to use each without running into too many of the unfortunate bugs.
The future parts of this miniseries are partially going to be crowdsourced in that I want you to tell me your own experiences, tips and tricks you've learned about the autopilot so I can share them and learn from them myself. If you've got any particular tasks that you think the autopilot could achieve I'd love to hear about those too!
As always, don't forget to enjoy this awesome (if at times buggy) game!
For those of you kind enough to want to support me in making more videos: / splitsie
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www.spaceengineersgame.com
Space Engineers is used pursuant to the terms laid out in their video policy, found at www.keenswh.com/press.html
Music and Sound Effects by:
Space Engineers
Extra music:
Kai Engel www.kai-engel.com/
- a fantastic composer whose music fits in really nicely with Space Engineers

[@mustafaal-samarraie7270]

What i usually do is build ships without the cockpit and instead slot a remote control and an antenna and control them all from one control station inside my base , my astronaut has become quite fat since i started doing this

[@Splitsie]

I've often thought the hermit style of gameplay could be an interesting one as it really forces you to use multiple cameras and first person :)

[@mustafaal-samarraie7270]

the ships become increasingly smaller meaning driving them is much easier

[@patchworkfellow4262]

Makes sense

[@brandondallaire]

@@mustafaal-samarraie7270 How so? You remove a cockpit, but add an antenna, remote control and programmable block. It stays mostly the same size

[@mustafaal-samarraie7270]

@@brandondallaire on small grid , the three are still much smaller than a cockpit , also it gives more freedom on where you put stuff , and no oxygen worry either since there's no person inside , it's a chance for better optimization .

[@harbinger6173]

Lets try spinning, thats a good trick

[@77robertmilton]

Where is that quote from lol. It’s so familiar but i don’t remember

[@youseff500]

@@77robertmilton Phantom Menace.

[@harbinger6173]

@@77robertmilton Star Wars my boi

[@cadmanfox6874]

*dies

[@patchworkfellow4262]

*Splitsie* : And we should be ready to go... *Gyroscope* : _Am I a joke to you?_

[@Splitsie]

I can understand why the gyro might feel that way with how often I forget it :P

[@patchworkfellow4262]

Splitsie fair enough 😂

[@cmwhitworth2159]

@@Splitsie Same, so many times I've released my landing gear and launched away because I forgot my gyro

[@MrChiknora]

5 years ago.... and still best tutorial about Space Engineers !!! thx mate !

[@kevintan3705]

“Now, we unlock our landing gear, and take off.” Ship: *Spins Uncontrollably” Me, in terror: “WHAT HAVE WE DONE WRONG!?!?”

[@kerbalairforce8802]

You can have an extra lifting thruster turned off with max override selected. A sensor that detects terrain switches it on. This can help your terrain avoidance feature. As an aside, if a B-1 Lancer detects a problem with it's terrain avoidance system, it automatically pulls up.

[@Splitsie]

That's a really nice tip, I'll definitely be including that in one of the later videos :)

[@grimmliberty7447]

Auto pilot and sensors are always a good combination, IMHO

[@mikea2363]

Can you believe I have a thousand hours and have never even considered using autopilot?

[@Splitsie]

Can you believe I was almost in the same boat? Tried it once very early on after it was released, got frustrated and didn't go back to it until recently :P There's a bunch of stuff that these videos have made me explore that I really wish I hadn't missed out on :)

[@danybray721]

Yup same here over 1000 hours and never used remotes. Duhhh

[@Malimber]

I've used them before but I've never found any practical use outside of just curiosity. Anything they do I can do faster and more effectively.

[@stanpollard]

What's a remote.

[@kevingriffith6011]

It's less about "you can do it faster" and more about "you can set it to do a thing while you go do something more important". If you can find something they can do effectively and reliably, why not set them up to do that and save yourself some time... The trouble is, the only thing I've found they can do reliably are shuttling cargo from place to place.

[@Mz-st2fs]

We started Space Engineers with friends and we got ourselves a nice server after New Year. Your tutorials are really helpful and we're already 55 hours in completely addicted, thank you for your dedication to this community even 5 years later.

[@Splitsie]

I'm glad I was able to help your group have some of the immense amount of fun I've had with the game 🙂

[@Krommandant]

This video is still very on point years later! Thanks Splitsie!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@aaqibansari9703]

Keen should give a link to your videos as tutorials. I just wished that these tutorials were there when I started to play SE instead of learning the hard way

[@Splitsie]

Wow! Thank you for the kind words :) I learnt through trial, error, error, and more error then I started watching Sage and LSG in their first survival series and started to learn from their errors so I thought I'd pass the favour forwards and let people learn from mine now

[@sebione3576]

@@Splitsie yeah thanks for that. I tried playing SE without tutorials. It was, in a word, frustrating. Your videos saved me hours of trial and error.

[@taylorwhite9750]

I have been headbutting my keyboard for yrs....you showed me fingers and from there on I have seen the light lol

[@MrJacobnoel]

Imagine using this on a PVP server by mounting a turret and putting these on patrol around your claims

[@Splitsie]

With no antenna or beacon on them and a decent route they could probably cause some trouble, or at least be a distraction while you deal with the enemy yourself :)

[@assasincubique4501]

Does the auto pilot works better now tho?

[@kylea2349]

honestly this videogame offers many easy ways to abuse others lol like you could sneak over and place a small antenna somewhere and send off a warhead missile from far away

[@goldenblacklee]

@@kylea2349 why use an antenna would a GPS marker not be enough?

[@shi77e20]

@@goldenblacklee gps markers are static, an antenna would mean the missile could follow the target

[@IamusTheFox]

You're rapidly becoming my favorie SE youtube channel.

[@Splitsie]

Awww schucks! Thank you :)

[@crcrcrying]

Mine too, lol)

[@cmwhitworth2159]

@@Splitsie same

[@daitokuji8327]

nice one Splitsie. explained very clearly. I am making an automated hydro tanker that flies out from my main base, collects a full tank of hydro from my processing plant, returns and dumps it into my main base tanks. I was going to schedule this to go every hour. an in depth explanation of automated docking would be great!

[@ZTRCTGuy]

I could say I'm well into space engineers with over 800 hours, I build complicated ships, bases and sorting systems but am a pretty damn noob if it comes to coding or things like the autopilot. So this tutorial is very helpful.

[@Splitsie]

I'm with you on being a noob with coding - I'm hopeless at that stuff. When I started making this autopilot miniseries I had very little experience with it as well, now that I've played around with it a bit I really like it and am impressed at how well it works - even if it has some issues :P

[@ZTRCTGuy]

Well. it's not really that hard if it comes to the autopilot, i've seen that in your video. The only thing you really need are some tricks and a logical way of thinking. Like... in most things actually. But writing code yourself seems to be on such a different level... Like there's some extra section in the brain of programmers which other people don't have, it's infuriating. I'm defenitely going to try this out. It's really usefull if you build a base on your own in a multiplayer server or when there are wolves around, or spiders...

[@simonknibbs5867]

I plan to use this for attacking enemy bases. Be nice releasing a swarm of rocket or bomb drones.

[@DaveyRace]

I like your tutorials, this one looks cool so far. Looking forward to the others.

[@Splitsie]

Thank you! Me too, I'm excited to use some of this to help me create some interesting builds in survival :)

[@TM2Ben]

wauw amazing. i have spend so much time in SE and never saw this. Ty for the upload

[@Splitsie]

You're very welcome :)

[@Emmepathic]

ah-ha! this is the one (or two, or maybe even three) I've been waiting for! love your stuff splitsie, keep up the good work :D

[@Splitsie]

Thanks! :) Any hints of what the other ones are?

[@Emmepathic]

the other one, or maybe two videos about autopilot you mentioned, automation has been probably my biggest weakness while playing SE :)

[@Splitsie]

Let's hope I can get a few people to throw in some more tips to really make them useful :)

[@Emmepathic]

i can give you one, though you probably already know, precision mode is almost never precise :P

[@Splitsie]

And can often end with your ship spinning around like crazy trying to hit the mark! I managed to miss recording that as I want to put together a bunch of the known bugs into a blooper reel of sorts :)

[@Arbiter1223]

I knew there was a crap ton of stuff that I've had yet to try in Space Engineers. This is definitely one of them, and I've got a feeling your tutorials will be VERY helpful to me! :D

[@Splitsie]

I hope so, though if you're going to try and do more complex things with autopilot, once you've seen what's doable with vanilla I would very much recommend looking at PAM (Path Auto Miner) and SAM (Sam's Autopilot Manager) which are two autopilot scripts on the workshop :)

[@YogiTehBear]

Just started Space Engineers and all of these tutorials you are making are a godsend! Might have to set one of these up to deliver me supplies when I'm out mining and inevitably run out of power due to my own hubris and greed.

[@Splitsie]

lol sounds like something I'd do too :P

[@ChozoSR388]

Great start to the tutorial series! This is great!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks!

[@Utoxin]

Oh man. Thanks for this video. The first minute of the video gave me the clue to hopefully fix my misbehaving ore hauler drone. It's an atmo ship and didn't have an thruster for down.

[@Splitsie]

Good luck with it, also don't be afraid to use some scripts like Sam's Autopilot Manager to help out with some of the more difficult parts, that script is more reliable than the vanilla autopilot in my experience :) (especially lately since it's seen some improvement since I made a video using it)

[@danybray721]

Spot on. Never really found a need to use remote blocks or autopilot but i think ill start using them once you have shown me how to use them correctly :) Another good tutorial Split

[@Splitsie]

Thanks! I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say this is the 'correct' way, but I'll certainly show you a way that works :)

[@kerbalairforce8802]

In survival, it can be cheaper to build a passenger seat and a remote control block than to build an enclosed cockpit

[@danybray721]

Either way your tutorials have helped me devolop new ideas in to my designs. Looking forward to more turorials and survival aspects.

[@highflyinryan76weezer25]

This game still continues to surprise me every time I come back to it.

[@Splitsie]

And there's a survival update which is being tested tomorrow as well which should bring some much needed changes I hope :)

[@highflyinryan76weezer25]

@@Splitsie I can't wait :)

[@Bystander333]

Nice series. liking your videos. A few things I've discovered with the autopilot you may also want to add.1) Even with avoidance and precision off, flying close to the terrain will cause the autopilot to really slow down. I had a mining base across a large lake and thought it would be cool to have my Ore Mule skim a few metres from the surface and avoid other air traffic. Went really slow.2) If you seriously overload an ore mule - for instance it's not easy to restrict how much it loads during the collect all lock - then the autopilot will badly overshoot targets and often just hard crash into the ground on descent.3) If you mount a cockpit or seat on a drone, then fly it around and capture waypoints without remote then the waypoints are at your position in the cockpit and not at the remote. When it comes to fly solo everything will be slightly off.4) Don't forget you can also turn avoidance and precision off with actions. I tend to never turn avoidance on and sometimes use precision if the landing is tight. Leaving precision on all the time wastes a lot of time at intermediate waypoints particularly if overloaded.

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, precision mode really makes it careful. I've found it helps a lot for a reliable landing on a connector though, and I agree that it's best to only turn it on when needed if you want things to move at any sort of reasonable pace. That's a good point about the mass affecting how well the autopilot functions, just like me when I overload something it has a tendency to... lithobrake ;)

[@XxEmptyAbyss87xX]

your vids are rad my dude

[@Dth091]

If the autopilot uses a PID controller or something with an accumulating error term, that spinning is probably due to it increasing the torque bias on rotation to try and overcome resistance while the landing leg is locked. Then when you unlock the leg, it's still trying to compensate for that resistance by hammering the torque as hard as it can, and so speeeeeeeen

[@akifumi1214]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@fredpryde8555]

thank you that was so helpful

[@MrTakeshi763]

Cheers dude 👍

[@Widestone001]

8:24 made me tear up laughing xD Great video by the way.

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, that autopilot just wanted to show me up while I was talking :P

[@falin9557]

4:20 the reason why it does that it's pretty simple, actually. It uses a PID controller. When you enable autopilot, it start running the PID controller. Because of the landing gear, the error doesn't change, so the I term continues to increase. When you reach a certain value, the ship doesn't stop by itself. That happened before you release the landing gear. If you do it in reverse (LG then AP), it will never happen

[@macgabhann1108]

I have found that if you turn on collision avoidance and precision mode it works good at avoiding things it will even try avoid a person standing on the ship if the remote block is in the middle of the ship behind the character causing the ship to spin in circles unless the remote block is in front of any players standing on the ship but with no characters on the ship it will avoid everything , as precision mode slows the ship down before approaching an object or way point however it does take it a long while to navigate around an asteroid as it does try to re orientate it self ever few seconds then has to re correct itself so precision mode is grate for not slamming in to objects but makes it take a long time to navigate when there more objects in the way usually taking 4 or 5 times as long to navigate then what can be done manually, and even though it takes longer it means that it frees up a repetitive task alowing the player to focus on other things like building. so I have found that when using auto pilot it is best to have both options checked at the same time. usually I will set up an auto mining station and have a drone autopilot and dock with mining station then head to the base and unload so that I no longer have to deal with the mining my self. glad my little demonstration i made for you awhile back helped you out with this.

[@Splitsie]

It helped a lot! I was really grateful for it as before you showed me it I really couldn't get my head around the autopilot stuff. Hope you didn't mind me highlighting your help :) I agree with you about using the collision avoidance and precision mode, costs time but it works pretty well at saving components from damage even if it ends up scraping against voxels at times :P

[@macgabhann1108]

dont mind at all in fact it made my day :)

[@NikkyElso]

I was kind of hoping for somthing that I could tell to keep heading but avoid collision, so that I could work on the ship while on longer voyages and not have to worry about hitting things. Still a great video for explaining what it can and can't do.

[@BlankFX]

Wow, you can easily create Space-Fedex with that. Thanks for the Video!

[@Splitsie]

Easily might be overstating it since the autopilot can be unreliable, but certainly with the help of some scripts you can do some amazing things with it :)

[@mrtommygunwhite]

hmm you could do a sort of ground vehicle delivery system like how the us army drops stuff from planes

[@Splitsie]

You could, the hardest part is getting the GPS points ahead of time though - there are some scripts that would get you them from range though :)

[@kampfas]

i use it on mining ships to auto fly and dock at base XD never missing or crashing thx to these Tutorials most might be outdated but they still work

[@elrondmcbong467]

5:00 This isn't a Bug, it's a Feature, to ad Realism.

[@Splitsie]

I wish I could post a picture, the one I want to use is the bug/feature comparison where one's a cockroach and the other is a cockroach in a suit :P

[@Gottaculat]

I honestly keep forgetting autopilot exists. I build most of my ships with a remote control onboard, but I typically use it for remote inventory management and production. I really should use it more for docking procedures and such.

[@DmytroBogdan]

Ok, I see, the light points forward, thanks dude! :)

[@Splitsie]

You're welcome, the image convention also holds true for the all the other vanilla blocks in terms of which direction is 'forward' :)

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@Splitsie I don't think its true for gyroscope.

[@taylorwhite9750]

Add a sensor to the drone with a extended front view set its action to activate upward thruster when meet by forward facing obstacles like mountain

[@sorrowandsufferin924]

Autopilot is an interesting concept, one that could potentially be very powerful at making the worlds feel alive because things are moving. Not sure how well it's set up to excel at that, though; haven't tested it myself yet. The idea is still in development.

[@Splitsie]

It *can* work very nicely for that, but it can also bug out for reasons that may never become apparent, if you're a patient person you'll likely have some fun with it though :)

[@watto7291]

Could the autopilot be used as a safe way of landing larger ships on planets? Does the autopilot take into account the ships thrust/weight ratio when precicely arriving at gps coordinates?

[@seanmcdonald5859]

Well there ya go, i now have a clear idea as to how i can use autopilot to set up some armed drones: nicely done. As always, clear and concise demonstrations that are now my goto for training.

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, I'm glad it's helpful :) The autopilot can be a bit inconsistent, but if things stop working your best bet is just to go back to a basic design like I used in this video and start from there to see when it all breaks, sadly while I planned more autopilot tutorials I've run into too many bugs for me to make any more at this stage - I don't feel that it's right to put up something recommending a build when it only works 20% of the time :/

[@gabetheokie]

Trying for the "Planetesphobia" achievement, and I think I'll use it as an opportunity to learn the autopilot system. There are easier ways to do it, of course, but I'm going to try to use a remote control drone to get GPS data for targeting and then use an autopilot drone for ordnance delivery. Should be fun!

[@Splitsie]

Just make sure your ordnance doesn't use hydrogen thrusters, I haven't tested since the update, but the autopilot has never coped well with hydrogen thrust :( You should be able to get away with dumbfire turned smart though, if you use something like artificial mass blocks on the drone, a grav gen on the ship, then atmo thrusters on the drone for control in atmo. You could launch it dumb with a timer to turn autopilot on once it's safely in atmo, just for that extra level of 'what could possibly go wrong here' :P

[@battomori1059]

You can legitimately can do airdrops with a bigger ship and container when you are out mining. It's best to have 2 people though. Take the ship with you to where you will be mining or collecting materials. Once you arrive set a waypoint 1 at your base. Set up the drone so it makes an air drop of the container demonstrated similarly around 19:00 in the video. Waypoint 2 can either be back to your position or a new waypoint where there is known materials such as cobel ore so you can quickly load up more by adding another small container which is enought to hold just material and having it air dropped again full of supplies. Containers are cheap to produce so long as they are small ones. You can also have multiple bots doing this back and forth as you mine materials. Your buddy will be unloading back at base while you mine. I see this as efficient, lazy but cool work. While mining. That or you can be normal and just send the drone back and forth with a container and just unload it. 1 at a time

[@Splitsie]

There's something that's so much more fun about doing things just because you can - dropping containers instead of unloading fits that description to me :)

[@sebione3576]

Autopilot in space engineers: "ALL THRUSTERS ALL THE TIME!!!!!1"

[@Splitsie]

Yup, pretty much :P

[@adamomalley7579]

I’ve been tinkering around with my own cargo drone, hoping to use your awesome tutorial for the docking process especially. I’m having a consistent problem though with my autopilot skipping waypoints. Like nearly every other one. Seems to be a common issue, but can’t find a fix! Any advice?

[@Splitsie]

I've seen the autopilot appearing to skip waypoints when I've forgotten to put a gyroscope on the ship or a downwards thruster. But if everything is set up correctly it also seems to happen more often when the waypoints are close to one another or when you have precision mode on and there are obstacles near the waypoint. My only ways of avoiding those problems have been with a complete reset of the system and setting all new waypoints trying to keep them at least 50m apart. Sadly that doesn't always work :(

[@OzzyDok4472]

Pretty nice

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, I find the autopilot works much better on planets than in space these days, but at least they've recently fixed the bug that was limiting the speed to 15m/s :)

[@WoolyGriffin]

Can we have a flying star destroyer just circling one are high in the sky as a defence? Multiplayer challenge..... Edit: Use F8 to follow a creation. When looking at a moving creation use Shift and middle mouse to have the same speed. Use shift scroll to increase|decrease (that's really fast) and finally use middle mouse for more precise movements! Don't use ctrl middle mouse it's changes the speed you look around. I hope I helped! Oh and I forgot while in that cam do ctrl space, it teleport your engineer to your cam.

[@Splitsie]

Well that would explain some odd behaviour I had while flying around in spectator trying to get the thumbnail - it kept just floating off everytime I painted the whole grid a different colour (ctrl+shit+middle mouse) :P I was really surprised that I'd never run into that before! Also you could definitely have a large ship circle your base providing a mobile defence platform :)

[@nathanburgett1599]

You could use that setup to drop a timed warhead on a base. The only issue I guess would be you have to fly into the enemy base to make the way point. Unless...can you make a GPS with a remote controlled bot? Or is there another way to make them from a distance?

[@sterrre1]

I made a wheeled drone! I set the tire friction to 0 and gave it enough directional/forward thrusters an a gyro so it could slide on the ground, but it still looks like it's driving. Gotta make sure collision avoidance if off though or it'll kinda just wiggle on the ground. I also set a speed limit to 40 m/s.

[@sterrre1]

I put sensors on my drone an set it up that that way if it sees an enemy grid it will stop and fire a rocket launcher at it :) Now I just need to figure out how to make it aim.

[@sterrre1]

I figured out how to make my ground drone aim at enemy grids :) I have two sensor on the front right next to the rocket launcher. They have maximum fields forward, but only 1 meter in all other dimensions, so they only activate if there is a target directly in front of the rocket launcher. One sensor is set to disable auto-pilot if it sees an enemy grid and re-enable it once there is no more enemy grids. The other sensor continuously fires the rocket launcher if it sees an enemy and stops once there is no target. I also have 2 sensor on both the left and right sides. These have maximum forward fields and almost maximum left/right fields, the back field reaches to the edge of my front sensors. One sensor disables/enables auto pilot if it sees an enemy an the other increases/decreases gyro yaw override. So if there's an enemy on the flank in theory it should stop and turn the rocket launcher towards the target.

[@sterrre1]

I will have to test a flank target later. Depending on how fast it turns I might want to add more yaw control sensors. I haven't tested yaw control yet.

[@Splitsie]

That sounds really cool, I love builds like that where you're using the basic building blocks more than scripts largely because I can get my head around how they work :) Make sure you post it to the workshop once you've got it fully functional I'd be interested in taking a look

[@sterrre1]

Been working on it and I've had a lot of trouble. The side sensors keep seeing the target at the corner of their field, an when they do they start turning, but as soon as they start turning the target leaves their field an they stop. Long story short, making a drone turn to fire a fixed weapon with sensors is way too difficult, just put a turret on it.

[@jacobreyes7734]

Pretty good

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@foundationedge2689]

@Splitsie, you have no idea how much you helped me learn how to play this game with your videos in the last 3 months ! I have been messing with autoplito together with the planet auto miner Octopus - steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=619449097, and thats how i got here. A cool tip for your next video, is to use 2 RCs in the ship. I did this because I wanted to turn ON/OFF the autopilot using the toolbar while controling the ship at same time. It works well. Now I have 3 RCs , 2 of them for different waypoints... one to go home and dock and the other RC to make the octopus go back to ore. But I am still having trouble with the setup and going up and down, docking, undocking from station, etc, so I look forward to your next video detailing more the setup part, even though I will probably learn by then hehe... Im your fan !

[@Splitsie]

I'm so glad they've been useful for you, and if you figure out how to get the autopilot to work before the next video, feel free to share it with me ;) The double RC setup for a trip to and from is something that seems to be necessary to get it to work in order to dock at each end. I haven't finished the build for next week's video but hopefully it'll be something interesting for you even after you've figured out more of the issues for your build :)

[@foundationedge2689]

Oh cool, I got the RCs to work fine, only thing is I have to slightly adjust the ship and manually dock... So its not 100% automatized and thats a pain ... I think the autopilot is still broken, as ive seen in so many forums... it sometimes spins around itself at a waypoint... I heard that if you build your RC right at the center of the ship helps, but I have all ships built already ... cant afford to build all over... I hope the developers fix the autopilot soon ... Cant wait for your next video on the issue... lol

[@Splitsie]

The autopilot is less than consistent that's for sure. For these videos I've tried to come up with methods that work at least 90% of the times I've tested them but it's really difficult to make something perfect with how the autopilot functions (or doesn't). It'll probably be another week before I've got something functional enough to show off, but I've got more plans for the autopilot yet to come :)

[@foundationedge2689]

Awesome !!!!!!!! - "but I've got more plans for the autopilot yet to come"

[@xpainx5185]

steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1221979298 The Octopus is already automatic, With this scrip, full of fun and it works really well. Two problems that I found, the reactor isn't connected to the conveyor system, easy to fix, and when the ores are too sallow or too deep, I change those numbers in the scrip by hand with the ship running, today added a projector to do the repairs easy or automatic.

[@user-mv3qm4qh8l]

Thank you realy handy

[@Splitsie]

You're welcome, make sure you have a look at some of the docking scripts and such things that have come onto the workshop since I made these videos as they can often help you get around some of the bugs in the vanilla autopilot :)

[@FeltSteam0]

Imagine doing a series where your character can’t move

[@TheMegamaster44]

You would need blueprints for everything or you would need a welder that you can place blocks from

[@silverbullet11793]

The way this autopilot move looks like there is some string on top of it dragging to its way point. So when it is on its way on a cliff face with cliff avoidance it looks like a pendulum swinging.

[@Splitsie]

That might be a more accurate description of how it works than you realise

[@teresabooth312]

Is there a way to use an antenna to activate something when say it has an enemy drone or something like that or even like spawn your own drone that will attack enemies?

[@Splitsie]

All of the ideas I've thought of for detecting enemies and activating an alarm or activating defences have major flaws that I can't seem to get around sadly :(

[@bloodstormwolf9512]

Using a antenna and setting a alarm when a unknown or unregistered ship is detected? Sensor probe webs?

[@JeremyMenefee]

@@Splitsie Could you use sensors (with battery, laser antenna) as trips to launch drones, using the sensor's GPS location as a waypoint? Could you then use a timer block for the drone to return to base if it sees nothing on arrival? If any of that is possible, would we need separate drones for each sensor, or could it just go to the one waypoint (sensor) that got triggered? I don't know how to do any of these things (newbie) but it seems like it should be something that could be handled through some kind of logic gate

[@sherman6723]

Greetings. Wondered if you could give me some advise? Built a simple drone but what is happening is that the flight controls refuse work if the craft is on a connector. Whether on autopilot or manual control the engines (atmospheric, haven't tried hydrogen as yet) get no power. I have scrapped and rebuilt multiple engines on the drone and it still gets no juice. If I restart the game I can get it off the connector, put it into autopilot and it continues on its merry way until the next connector and then same thing again. No power. HELP please.

[@MellexLabs]

Great tutorial... maybe in the next part you can test when setting up your waypoints does your direction matter and does your autopilot emulate the direction on arrival to the waypoint... I think this will be useful if you trying to do reverse docking with a connector on the back of your ship instead of the bottom... unless there is another way to tell it to rotate as part of your actions... not sure...

[@macgabhann1108]

the direction of entering a way point does matter if it s a way point where you want something done such as docking or flying within close proximity to voxels or other grids the remote will always position itself so that it is directly on the waypoint so if the remote is not centered and you come in from the opposite direction for example and the waypoint is to close to another grid it will hit that other grid even if collision and precision are both checked also putting a connector on the back of the ship will not work unless you add in another remote block per docking point location as there is no way to reverse direction autopilots always fly forwards or in the direction you tell it is forward.

[@MellexLabs]

MacGabhann ok in that case I can try using actions with timers and thrust overrides and gyro overrides to try and position it before connecting to a station grid and then after all the timers are complete then the ship can continue with the auto pilot and waypoints...

[@macgabhann1108]

if you are on a planet it is very easy to do with out having to do a whole mess of things , how ever in space well lets just say im still working on that problem but it is requiring a whole lot of overrides but once i can get a drone to dock on earth then fly to a space station and dock there ill most likely have splitsie have a look at it

[@MellexLabs]

MacGabhann what makes space so much more difficult?

[@Splitsie]

While in the gravity well of a planet the autopilot has something to orient to, it will align the remote control block to gravity. In space it has nothing to orient to, so you have to get clever to force a particular alignment before docking. On a planet having the connector aligned for vertical connection is easiest as the ship can approach from any direction and still dock because it will be upright. Without gravity to align to you have to figure out a way to get the ship's orientation the same on every approach so that the connectors align. That's a tricky challenge, hopefully something Mac or myself come up with will be reproducible enough for me to show it in a later video :)

[@vildousek6758]

i need help... i play multiplayer with my friend and he can control drons but when i try to take control i cant and write me terminal is not connected to ship

[@wadu7205]

Is there a way to use local coordinates for relative waypoints?

[@Splitsie]

Sadly there are none that I'm aware of. There are some very clever people still trying to make docking to a mobile ship possible but none that have been reliable that I've seen yet

[@Eric-mu7hb]

what button do i press to access the remote control gui

[@DarthTrazyn]

Can Autopilot be used to build working player made versions of the defense drones seen in the story? (forget the name but the one with the miners and the artifact)

[@Splitsie]

Sadly not, those use behaviours only available to ships in NPC only factions :(

[@stevegraham3533]

Morning Splitsie, I’m after some advice, I have built a miner following your instructions using this script but whenever it come to the stage of reversing out the asteroid it gets stuck on the roof of an asteroid. Any suggestions on what might cause this? I have added more drills to make the hole bigger so it doesn’t catch anything on the side, thanks for your help. Steve

[@Splitsie]

I've had no end of grief with trying to get the autopilot to behave consistently in space, you may have better luck using the PAM or SAM scripts as they have some much improved scripting around that sort of thing

[@stevegraham3533]

Splitsie brilliant, thanks for the response, i’ll track down your video for the PAM and SAM scripts and have a play tonight

[@Splitsie]

I did a video on the early version of the SAM (Sam's Autopilot Manager) script, but haven't done one with PAM (Path Auto Miner)

[@devoidoverlord1836]

Ur very helpfull man :)

[@devoidoverlord1836]

Aye :D didnt expect a like lol your vids been helpful throughout my time playing se even when i think i know alot i still end up coming back here to learn the basics of somthing new

[@solvedraptor6854]

What if I was gping for like a humvee or supply drop like the C-130 etc. I would want to attach a timer to a parachute which is attached to a rover, which is sitting in a hangar with its own timer connected to I.e. hangar doors etc, so my question is how to go about this. The hangar opens at the GPS coordinates and the supply drop falls out or is pushed out via piston, but how do you get the second timer to open after clearing the exit. Can I put a timer sequence on the supply drop to activate once leaving the ship I.e. a sensor ? P.S. loving the tutorials. Playing from xbox so your vids are really helping : D

[@Splitsie]

The way I'd try to do it would be to use the timer that detached the supply drop to activate either a second timer on the drop, or have it switch on a sensor which is set to detect the carrier. The second spot on a sensor's activation is what it does when something leaves the sensor range so you could use that to activate the parachutes now that it's clear of the hangar :)

[@solvedraptor6854]

@@Splitsie brilliant ;) cheers

[@MrKanibaal]

Im glad im not the only one forgetting the gyroscopes

[@Splitsie]

Those little things are the hardest to remember :P

[@LexieAssassin]

Any advice on avoiding Clang? I don't know if my mods are somehow involved with it or with the fact that I seem to have trouble wielding/grinding small ship blocks, but I was working on making a large ship mining ship the other day and Clang was really being a [expletive redacted] and did major damage as I was trying to grind off the propulsion unit so as to redesign it. Also, I've seen people use wheels to make things like trains and space elevators. Perhaps a tutorial on that? Could tie into your auto pilot tutorials rather well, perhaps. :)

[@Splitsie]

I think you're right, some of the space elevators do use autopilot to allow for stopping at various points. It might be a little while before I do a tutorial looking at that, but it's now on my list :) With regards to avoiding things exploding because the physics have gone weird - or clang - the main things are to be mindful whenever you're using rotors, pistons, wheels, connectors, merge blocks, or anything else that interacts with grids physically. I haven't checked recently, but for a long while small grid rotors were a bad culprit for clang, something stuffed up with their offset parameter. If you are messing about with those things start with the lowest force that can get it to move, that way it will be slightly less likely to break everything, but otherwise just remember to save :(

[@LexieAssassin]

Well, the ship I was working on wasn't using anything that really should have caused Clang. It was just sitting on an ice lake. I mean I did have a connector on the back, but that was just to throw out stone. The good news is that whatever was causing me to have wonky hit detection on welding/grinding small grids in my previous survival save appears to not be occurring in my current save. Granted, with Clang acting up, I'm building this one with landing gears that are locked to the ground, which might've been my problem since I tend not to use them b/c I tend to accidentally destroy them by landing quite hard. As for the autopilot, something that came to mind earlier is you could set up an autopilot to take ores back to your base and dump them off for you whilst you continue to mine. That would be something I think you could rig up pretty easily in your survival series. Speaking of which, have you considered building roads in that?

[@Splitsie]

I think I know what might have contributed to your clang - the stones that were being thrown out, they might have freaked out and caused the damage :( Also with the atmospheric lander, locked to the ground in multiplayer it can do some very strange things... That's certainly one use of the autopilot I've been thinking of, build a small miner and a larger hauler then once the hauler is full, send it back to base to unload on its own and return ready for your next load of ore. As for roads, don't really have the resources yet and would probably prefer to fly once I do :)

[@LexieAssassin]

Well, I'm in singleplayer and there was no stones being thrown out at the time. It seems like grinding on it caused the issue, somehow. It seemed more likely to freak out when a block changed build states or particularly was completely removed. That said, when I loaded it up early today from the autosave, I was just standing on it and it freaked out. Admittedly not as bad as it did the other day, but I did lose a fair amount of the ship. The small ship mining ship I've got atm has 4 large atmo thrusters in each direction (even up, just in case) and it can barely climb. That along with my test dig out on the ice lake (above one of the ore deposits I've been mining) has me wondering if it would be worth it to convert it over to H2 since it offers greater thrust because fully loaded with ice it is just short of being able to maintain altitude. I managed to ski it back to base and got most of the way before one of the 4 landing gears gave out. I mean, it's not like I'm going to be running short on ice any time soon when I'm on an ice lake, but I'm curious what you think about that idea.

[@Splitsie]

I've built a hydrogen only mining ship - just to see if it was possible. It works if you're on a high inventory multiplier and can refuel itself since it's completely oxygen generator powered. Sadly it's not nearly as practical as a battery powered atmospheric miner even though I had high hopes for it :( Building a hybrid might be more successful though, so I say go for it, after all the worst that can happen is you need to build another ship and since that's fun, it's not all bad :)

[@birchplays7563]

So i am making a tank but for some reason my rotor won't rotate the turret, any suggestions?

[@Splitsie]

Far too many to write, I'd suggest having a look at my rotor tutorial or even episode 95 of survival maybe (at least I think it's around there) since I built a rotor mounted turret on a tank in that series at around that stage

[@vladkruglov7719]

in space you should use it to fly to far places instead of being you doing so, also its good that it lands the ship for you

[@Splitsie]

The trouble is, you'd need the GPS marker for that distant place otherwise it won't fly there, so you could have a slow automated hauler that flies a route you've already managed with a jump drive - but I'm not sure how reliable it would be over those sorts of ranges :P

[@vladkruglov7719]

you can set up the actions to activate artificial gravity block that will land your ship without using auto pilot but then defeating the purpose of it, still a good way of being lazy oh wait now i have an idea, bomb dones, but again you only can use them on static objects (bases) and you have to get there and have the precise location before striking...

[@jacobwarkentin2156]

Time to make the CIS from Star Wars. Hundreds of droid gunships launched from a providence class warship. Can’t wait to make some players panic.

[@redbackarachnid9121]

what I would love to see you do with auto-pilot is to make a cargo drone for when you are mining so you can do long stints of it without having to keep going back to base to unload, so a drone that will sit docked at the mine site, then once you fill it up, it goes back to base, docks, empties it's cargo and then returns back to the mine. or to make it even more complicated, when it gets back to base, it detaches it's cargo container, flys to a welder to get a new one installed (projector required obviously) then flys back to the mine site. if you do attempt the second one, I hope you don't go mad doing it. ;)

[@Splitsie]

If I haven't lost the plot already that might be the tipping point :P Sounds like a cool idea though

[@bluelightfox]

That doesn't sound too complicated, if you break it into a series of simple steps and test them one by one. :) Remember: Group names will persist between copies of a grid, even if the blocks' internally-generated ID's change. So if you are setting up a system where one grid automates building/grinding/attaching/detaching other grids, make sure any other grids' action lists (e.g. a timer's hotbar) refer to the duplicateable blocks by group names, not by individual block names. Even if you only want to automate an action for a single block, if you will be cloning that grid and having some other grid do something with it, create a group for that block and have the other grid's timers apply to that one-block group. This will prevent much head-scratching later.

[@Splitsie]

It doesn't 'sound' that complicated, but getting the autopilot to behave long enough to achieve it... that's a whole different matter :P

[@Splitsie]

Also, complicated can be all sorts of fun if bugs don't get in the way!

[@gordon861]

You would have to loose the container that was being emptied too. So after transferring the ore you would need to turn off the connector so it dropped to the floor. For additional fun, place this over a grinding pit to recycle the container into the next projection. Although better might be to just have the BuildAndRepair MOD on a timer and then grind it down using the colour select option. But now things are getting silly. Might be best to have the new container built by your mining platform and then collected by the drone.

[@FeltSteam0]

Time to send a care package to my friends

[@TURBOMIKEIFY]

Basically, you can use that merge block to send shipments to your friends? If that's the case, this game is even better than I thought. Gotta get a PC.

[@Splitsie]

You can, it's quite fiddly but certainly achievable especially if you use some scripts that make the autopilot a bit more accurate

[@axel12841284]

in creative mode they have a auto follow "strafe / follow player last location" been trying to find a way to add that in single player mode with out admin rights any idea how this could be done?

[@Splitsie]

Those functions are only available to NPCs in an NPC only faction (which may also have to be hostile)

[@axel12841284]

@@Splitsie well good news I stole the remote control from the NPC turned it into a blueprint and now I'm able to have a follower wear as long as I don't have manual guns on it 😋 And it does work without admin rights if you blueprint it onto your craft

[@BrianJ1962]

An interesting mechanic - have you found any real utility for it with your offline games (coz it seems under-used in your various 'let's play' series; from what I've seen so far)? Reason I ask, is that it seems perfect for docking / un-docking procedures in manned craft, yet I've yet to come across anybody using it - lol - but that could, simply, be that I've not come across them yet ;-)

[@Splitsie]

It's notoriously unreliable, so while fun to mess around with because you can't trust it you end up with a situation where you have to watch it anyway so why not just control it directly :/

[@BrianJ1962]

That is a shame - could be really useful otherwise :-\

[@victorkurgan7140]

I normally love your tutorials, but is there an earlier tutorial showing what buttons and commands you are using? I am lost before we begin. Menus pop up with no idea how you got there. I am looking for videos because I am a n00b, I guess this is an advanced series.

[@Splitsie]

Anything with the autopilot is something you want to steer clear of until you've got a fairly good handle on the game, there are so many bugs and quirks with how it does and doesn't work that to mess around with it when you can't know if it's the autopilot that's the problem would be all sorts of painful :(

[@driver694]

Is it possible to somehow get the GPS location of a Planet you have never been to so you can send your ship there and dont have to fly yourself?

[@Splitsie]

Some scripts can do that but otherwise no in game way, no

[@gatekeeper258]

I'd like to request a zero grav autopilot tutorial. The remote control when saving waypoints doesn't include rotation. When my ship returns back to it's home point it's usually rotated, how can I fix this?

[@Splitsie]

I've never managed to work out a reliable method for this, I was planning on it as another tutorial in this miniseries but after a month or so messing with it I simply couldn't get it to work more than once or twice :(

[@1950sFordGuy]

How do you connect to it ,??

[@HaloOasis]

I'm having an issue with my autopilot. No matter what I put my speed settings to, I can't get the ship to go any faster than a jittery 15 m/s. How can I fix this?

[@Splitsie]

Sometimes it will do that when you've got it on precision mode or collision avoidance. If neither of them are checked I've still seen it happen and haven't been able to work out why it misbehaves sometimes :(

[@Splitsie]

I was also just reading a comment from meridius ix (who makes all the npc type mods) there's been a bug in the recent versions making the ships go about 15m/s. So you might just be experiencing the same bug

[@pimanwashere8653]

Can you create autopilot drones to connect to ports on moving spacecraft??

[@Splitsie]

Sadly you can't, due to GPS locations being fixed in space. There are some clever people trying to figure out ways to script that behaviour but I haven't seen any reliably functional ones as yet :(

[@pimanwashere8653]

Splitsie someone should use the script for relitive velocity and create a new gps marking that uses the same relitive velocity rules to keep a position relative to the craft instead of space

[@GreatValueJohnnySins]

If you add a sensor would that improve its ability to detect voxels?

[@Splitsie]

Not in my experience :(

[@GreatValueJohnnySins]

@@Splitsie Thanks, your videos have helped me so much with learning this game as I have only been able to play it since console release. I've watched probably 40 or videos. I appreciate all the work you've put into them!

[@henrypjoyce]

Me and a friend are doing a survival playthrough on Mars. He's obsessed with going to the alien planet for some reason. Would it be possible to send out probes to make a safe gps route, then use autopilot to sit afk in as it flies itself toward the planet? Alien planet is 4000km away which will take over 11 hours to reach irl, hence the reason to go afk and leave the ship flying. Do asteroids spawn randomly each save? Would it be possible to do this?

[@Splitsie]

I'm not 100% sure on the asteroid spawning, my understanding of it is that they will be written to the save if the asteroid is modified in some way, so if you just fly by the asteroid would be generated new the second time, I think. The better way to get to the alien planet would be to build a jump drive or two and jump your way there. Even with a large, heavy ship you should be able to do it in an hour or so (depending on how quickly you can recharge the jump drive) :)

[@henrypjoyce]

Yeah, jump drives are the easiest but for some reason he's obsessed with flying there. He even seems to think he can calculate the chance of hitting an asteroid, surviving, and still be facing the right way. Luckily I'm in charge so jump drives are the way. Thanks for the reply on such an old video, your channel is really underappreciated for the content you produce.

[@Splitsie]

Sounds like you're playing with an actuary :P Good luck with the alien planet, if you want to give your friend a fright, make sure you turn on the spiders ;)

[@henrypjoyce]

Cheers, will do ;)

[@lgvereor]

First time using autopilot, on a large Normandy sized cruiser, I activated the autopilot to my friend's base and then jumped there since it was such a vast distance that all my friend seen was a suddenly massive ship appear in the distance heading right for him. Unfortunately, my game crashed...so he was freaking out because it didn't appear to be stopping and only did finally stop when it was at his base and tapped it with the nose. He nearly shat himself and I'm just laughing my ass off on Discord as I'm loading in and hearing this all unfold.

[@Splitsie]

Now that's a use for autopilot! Gotta love a good prank :)

[@mworld]

So, I could build a large grid support ship and send to the moon to rescue my other user ? Maybe not if the antenna has limited range.

[@LordVoltarr]

Is it possible to create a small defending drone with this?

[@Splitsie]

Definitely, but the reloading of its weaponry will be the challenge, something I might try to figure out a solution to for a later video :)

[@eternalflame7850]

Yea I have done it but reloads every time you reach a corner Or can be a rammer

[@miguelf.6827]

Lit

[@obiwankenobi2749]

These are the most supportive comments I've ever seen

[@Splitsie]

I htink it helps that I do a decent job at getting to most of them :)

[@mingime]

I used to sensor for the collision for turning collision mode on, off. It used to work. But not sure does it work anymore

[@Splitsie]

Was that to keep the collision mode to off for when it was otherwise slowing your drone unnecessarily?

[@mingime]

yup

[@macgabhann1108]

I used a waypoint location to turn it off and on though i do see a sensor working for that as well

[@chaoswarriorbr]

That drone bumping the hill to get from 3 to 4 directly, it shall be know as Patrick (it isn't a joke about Irishmen and being drunk, it's a joke about SpongeBob's brainless starfish friend).

[@Splitsie]

Why not a joke about both? ;) It's at this point that I would like to highlight my Irish heritage :P

[@chaoswarriorbr]

No political correctness here. I've just thought of the joke for the starfish, but the shoe does fit in some cases. Besides, who's better then the Irish at taking a piss at each other and themselves, specially when they're drunk, which might lead to a literal piss also!

[@miguelviola7264]

Does the autopilot work in rovers?

[@Splitsie]

At the moment, no it doesn't. There has been a recent change to wheels that lets programmable blocks control them so it may just be a matter of time before a clever scripter comes up with something :)

[@akosgeleta4559]

Hey! In 2020, just released the Frostbite Update, and I wanted to remotely control my newly built ship, but it just won't work. I can access its terminal with pressing 'K', and I can turn off its antenna with 'O', but if I press 'W' or 'S' or 'D' or any control buttons, my ship doesn't even bothering itself with such subordinate tasks like going forward, or backwards, or... you know, moving. In Control Panel \ Remote Access button all 3 indicators showing OK status, to me; The connection is stable, The remote control is ready, And lastly: The ownership is correct, And I still cannot control my ship. Please help, this is going to be my first workshop creation, but it just does not want to work.

[@waynehopkins837]

hmnn if you turn off the antenna .... how are you communicating with it ,... Sign Language ?

[@akosgeleta7461]

@@waynehopkins837 Yeeeeah maaaaaaan; sign languageeee

[@fruittysalade]

Ive found that giving it a camera to use that faces the same way the pilot would works wonders

[@Splitsie]

What sort of things has it helped with? I haven't toyed with that side of the autopilot much yet

[@fruittysalade]

I dont actually have any data proving it but i find it helps with precision. I find that its a lot more accurate when there is a camera involved. Though it could just be my imagination XD

[@Splitsie]

There's interesting though. I wonder if it actually takes advantage of ray tracing in some way...

[@LoneRonin77]

I had set a patrol drone with 4 cords and it goes to #1 and circles it and nothing else. The waypoint are within 500 km of eachother

[@wishyourlife6861]

Can i add myself to make it follow me ? Is that how the enemy drones work ? Also i think a Color Sensor/Sensor would be amazing. Imagine a Drone beeing able to move through caves/cliffs without bumping into something using a Sensor on the Front! Your Drone was like "End my Suffering!"

[@Splitsie]

To be honest I'm not sure how enemy drones track players, but sadly you can't add yourself, nor can you get autopilot to follow your own ship without using scripts and/or mods as the autopilot can only move to GPS markers :(

[@declan2775]

Splitsie the drones use a programmable block with a player tracking script, with another one to point the turret at the player.

[@alexpjp9082]

I believe either W4stedSpace or LSG did a video about tracking players with a sensor, this was when they were first introduced but it should still work

[@Splitsie]

I remember coming across something on the workshop that used that technique but it still required scripts for the sensor to function. Also Declan I think you're spot on now that you mention it, I recall looking through some of those programmable blocks in the past

[@alexpjp9082]

I think this one required like 5 sensors and 5 gyros and if the left sensor detected a player it would activate a gyro until the player was in the center

[@spynorbays]

u can just limit the gyroscope to only turn right and left so it wont fliped over

[@Splitsie]

I never tried doing that with the autopilot though, it doesn't seem to cope so well when you limit anything in terms of movement - to be honest it doesn't cope so well with a lot of things :P

[@astr0jack440]

When I control the autopilot from my ship, after a kilometre I disconnect and can’t control it I have an antennae

[@Splitsie]

When remote controlling a grid you need to have antenna range in both directions so ensure the antenna on the base or ship you're sitting in/near is extended as well as the one on the ship you're controlling

[@Hades200082]

Hey Splitsie ... Love your videos. Been watching through your survival series and have a question... Have you ever used the PAM auto miner script by Keks? I've been using it in my multiplayer survival game with my wife and I think it's great ... you should do a spotlight on it or something. Way better than RDAVs script. I loved it so much I wrote a little script of my own to allow me to remotely command my mining drones using antenna broadcasts... see it here steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545087605 Basically my script lets you send any arguments to any programmable block on the receiving grid... but also allows you to differentiate different grids by channel (aka a group of grids) and receiver name. Let me know what you think.... it might go well in your auto-pilot series.

[@Splitsie]

I haven't had a chance to look at the PAM script yet, but from what I've seen it does seem pretty awesome. Hopefully I'll get some time in the not too distant future to get some more script, mod and tutorial videos done :)