Autopilot

General discussion about anything related to Transcendence.
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TheLoneWolf
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I recall reading once that when we engage autopilot in Trans, we [the player] go into a semi-cryo state till the system (or the player) disengages it. But why do autopilot ROMs exist, then?
JohnBWatson
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TheLoneWolf wrote:I recall reading once that when we engage autopilot in Trans, we [the player] go into a semi-cryo state till the system (or the player) disengages it. But why do autopilot ROMs exist, then?
Perhaps autopilot only became universal recently, and these ROMs are left over from when people were updating their ships en masse. I believe that's what happened from a mechanical, out-of-universe perspective.
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Xephyr
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I think the cryo-state thing is a pretty old bit, not sure if it was ever canon.

What's makes more sense to me is that the pilot just goes and does other things when autopilot is on (eating, sleeping, etc). You could even argue that the pilot has to make many adjustments to account for gravity or otherwise, which the autopilot program could handle.

The real reason that the autopilot ROM exists is because the autopilot can be uninstalled from the ship, or not have on to begin with. That's a pretty cruel thing to do though so you don't see it much.
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TheLoneWolf
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JohnBWatson wrote:
TheLoneWolf wrote:I recall reading once that when we engage autopilot in Trans, we [the player] go into a semi-cryo state till the system (or the player) disengages it. But why do autopilot ROMs exist, then?
Perhaps autopilot only became universal recently, and these ROMs are left over from when people were updating their ships en masse. I believe that's what happened from a mechanical, out-of-universe perspective.
So its more like a Driver installer, eh? Because IIRC cryo most certainly requires a cryo pod. Or am I wrong?
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TheLoneWolf
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Xephyr wrote:I think the cryo-state thing is a pretty old bit, not sure if it was ever canon.

What's makes more sense to me is that the pilot just goes and does other things when autopilot is on (eating, sleeping, etc). You could even argue that the pilot has to make many adjustments to account for gravity or otherwise, which the autopilot program could handle.

The real reason that the autopilot ROM exists is because the autopilot can be uninstalled from the ship, or not have on to begin with. That's a pretty cruel thing to do though so you don't see it much.
Another interesting thing I recall is the player being in semi cryo state all the time, and that is why time in Trans flies with respect to real world time. Feasible? Moreover, don't you think slave coffins are a sort of cryo pod?
JohnBWatson
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That would make sense.

It's a bit different. Cryo slows perception of time, slave coffins turn the slaves into human computers - to my understanding, they are tools where one of the parts is a human rather than tools for keeping a human alive.
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TheLoneWolf
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JohnBWatson wrote:That would make sense.

It's a bit different. Cryo slows perception of time, slave coffins turn the slaves into human computers - to my understanding, they are tools where one of the parts is a human rather than tools for keeping a human alive.
The Sung are really resourceful people, if you ask me. Wouldn't it make sense if those coffins put them in a sleep like state (like in the movie Interstellar, the early explorers "slept" till they were woken up by the next gen explorers) while their brains are used for intense calculations?
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Its a bit of both:

The slave coffins that you find in game are explicitly described as life support units:
"The Sung Slavers of Jiang's Star transport their slaves in life-support canisters that keep their captive occupants in biological suspension."
and upon rescue, captives are in good enough physical condition that one "walks away".

On the other hand there are the non-releasable slave coffins at Huaramarca. Either that's a different type of pod or the transport pods can also be processorized with non-reversible consequences.
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kay.py wrote: On the other hand there are the non-releasable slave coffins at Huaramarca. Either that's a different type of pod or the transport pods can also be processorized with non-reversible consequences.
Another possibility is that some rescued slaves cannot be revived, and Commonwealth procedures handle this somehow. Maybe there's a huge medical station full of unrevivable slaves sitting around with unparalleled, untapped processing power.
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TheLoneWolf
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Xephyr wrote:
kay.py wrote: On the other hand there are the non-releasable slave coffins at Huaramarca. Either that's a different type of pod or the transport pods can also be processorized with non-reversible consequences.
Another possibility is that some rescued slaves cannot be revived, and Commonwealth procedures handle this somehow. Maybe there's a huge medical station full of unrevivable slaves sitting around with unparalleled, untapped processing power.
Maybe Decker used them for developing the lamplighter?
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