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Access Remote Control with the Action Relay

CaptainFlips shared this feedback ago

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The idea is to be able to access a remote control of another grid without having to dig through terminals, the concept goes as follows:

When an Action Relay is set to "Owner", within the Relay's Toolbar Config, you get the possibility to assign Remote Controls to "Control" (this is otherwise only possible in cockpits). When the Action Relay receives a signal, if the owner is in a control seat/cockpit, they are sent to the Remote Control just as if they had done it through a cockpit's toolbar (Remote Control -> Control).

This lets us connect to the Remote Control of any grid within range, straight from the toolbar of a cockpit. Right now, this is only possible if the target grid is connected to the cockpit's grid. This means that if you're not (or no longer) connected , to get control of that grid you need to go through the terminals of the grids in range.

You could also do this with a delay, if you for example want a drone to be deployed automatically, only once it's fully deployed, you get control of it. That would be possible with a single press. I'm sure there are many more use cases for this feature.

I like this feedback

Replies (2)

Brian Ronald ●

This also works around the Ctrl-K screen's foible, where if you click Control you get an arbitrary remote controller on either that ship or any ship that happens to be docked to it. I like it.

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Brian Ronald ●

It seems that the edit function here doesn't work. That should read Shift-K.

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Andrey Kleshchev ●

That would be very nice to have.

How do you expect multiple ships to be handled when they all listen on the same channel and all are primed for remote control?

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CaptainFlips ●

I think it would be best for this to be explicitly handled, and I think proximity is a good way to go about it. Then there's the question if you go with the closest or the furthest. Good arguments could be made for both. However this could be difficult to do knowing a bit how the game works intenrally. Another option is that when this is done, a 100 millisecond (for example) cooldown is activated. Then the first relay to catch the signal according to the internal workings of the game will just get priority. It would be a bit random but that's fair if you aren't managing your channels well.

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Brian Ronald ●

I would expect it to be handled exactly as Xocliw demonstrated during last week's live stream, where all of the remote grids responded to the same signal at the same time. It's a broadcast signal, after all.

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Brian Ronald ●

This does open the question of which camera to use if more than one remote control has one configured...

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Andrey Kleshchev ●

> I would expect it to be handled exactly as Xocliw demonstrated during last week's live stream

Not sure if that's a good idea, pool of channels is very small and most vehicles have different characteristics.

> where all of the remote grids responded to the same signal at the same time.

Agree, it will be odd for it to work differently. May be a 'Control Relay' block? Or rename 'remote control' in some way, then make an actual remote control block.

With a bunch of options, like 'control closest', 'cycle' (would love to cycle cameras with a single button), most charged/armed/supplied

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CaptainFlips ●

The problem with triggering it all is that the player could end up switching between 50 remote controls in a fraction of a second. That would likely look and behave in a buggy way which is why it should have extra shielding. And I don't see the need for a separate Remote Control Relay

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Brian Ronald ●

Yeah, that was expectation, not preference.

You can already cycle cameras with the square bracket keys, and it will cycle across all reachable cameras over the antenna network.

Of course, another way to handle it would be as if it were a group containing those blocks. If more than one remote control responds to the signal (and we assume that they all arrive in the following tick together) with an availability offer, that it just fails. Or, it could work like the Shift+K screen's control button does, and picks an arbitrary one from the pool of remotes, with no way of knowing which one you're getting.

It would be down to the player to ensure that they design their comms system so that only one remote responds, or that only a fungible set of remotes responds ("I need one of my six identical drones, don't care which").

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CaptainFlips ●

Very fair. It is however very easy to offset these by game ticks when using timer blocks for example. That's why having a cooldown could greatly help mitigate the possibility of flashing between multiple remote controls within just a few ticks

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