Subset Games Forum

With my recent obsession with the Engi Vortex, autopilot's shortcomings are quite obvious. Even when my crew is off manning other systems full time, upgrading the autopilot is quite an unattractive option (1 or 2 evade for how many points?) If the autopilot were able to charge the FTL(at a rate limited to it's evade penalty), it would be a far better upgrade, rather than practically useless for the sort of ship for which it is most thematically appropriate.

It's not really good early game, but it's better late game with upgraded engines and such.

Guess that more reinforces your point, haha.

Upgrading the cockpit is only really worthwhile as a hedge against it getting destroyed. Being 1 damage away from losing all your evasion, pilot or no, is pretty risky; upgrading the cockpit gives it extra hitpoints so even if it gets beaned by a missile you can keep on dodging a fair amount of the rest of the attacks (because the cockpit is still fully-functional as long as it has a pilot).

I've never even considered trying the autopilot as a reasonable substitute for actually having a pilot. Taking a 50% hit to my evasion rating in exchange for freeing up 1 crewmember has yet to be worth the 70 scrap investment. Of course I haven't tried playing the Vortex...but from what I've heard it's a terrible ship anyway.

The Vortex starts with only one engine, and one crew. The evasion you get from actually manning the pilots seat is pretty pointless. This also means it's pretty pointless upgrading it to avoid getting it destroyed too. If the autopilot could charge the FTL drive, it makes what is probably the worst upgrade in the game something a bit more passable, even if it is only in a hedge case.

I second this, adding a similar amount of FTL charge to the Autopilot would make it more useful.