Automated shipping and what would it look like?

[Enki Anunnaki 240]

Fast travel aka teleportation should never be a thing in atlas... honestly i kinda have a problem with even bed spawning (i feel like spawning in after you die should have a much greater timer than 2 min) or even bed hopping for discoveries... but when it comes to sailing, i believe if you want to find a new place you need to sail there manually. exploration is a huge aspect to this game... i mean shit... it's fun.. you get to see what others have built, find new pvp targets and you get discovery points that advance your max lvl... what's not to like about that... but when it comes to hauling materials, its super time consuming and makes it almost impossible for small companies to compete and stay relevant and therefor stay in the game without getting completely stomped out wherever they go (trust me, ive always been in a large company and see small groups being extinguished and forced to merge with someone they dont want to or quit on the daily)... when it comes to an economy, there really isnt one. player shops are either just holding spots to store gold for respecs and cosmetics or are always almost empty or filled with raw materials you still gotta ship back anyways so theyre worthless to buy and would be farmed up in minutes in a nearby grid

so what is the answer to that? there really should be an automated sailing and/or trade winds ( high windage routes) that fallow grid walls. automated sailing being where you can put an npc on the steering wheel, hold e on the npc and select "select course" where it pops up a map where you can put in your turning points (grid corners) all the way to the eventual destination grid, at a high gold charge rate. the devs should make a special skill line or rank option in companies called logistics managers that get notifications of all automated ships navigational progress and if its getting attacked by pirates.

benefits of such a system
1. More time doing what you actually love instead of spending all your time sailing resources around.
2. Pirate content - a constant supply of trader vessels to pillage and steal for your own company
3. Small companies now have a chance of finding and obtaining the materials it takes to build BP gear and stay competitive where before they didn't have the manpower and time to do the hauling manually. 
4. The chance to actually build a real economy. With the supplementation of materials and time allocation comes the building of BP's (supply and demand). where before you would just find worthless stacks of raw mats in the occasional mostly empty freeport store, now you will find premade BP's gear and parts. Gold will become more valuable and used. Int crafters will become renown and more coveted.
5. being that turn points are the corner of grid and the paths are the grid walls, manually sailing thru grids would still be much faster, cheaper and less risk in getting found by pirates than automated shipping therefor manually shipping would still be a viable speedy option for anyone doing so. 

what are your thoughts? how can this idea be improved and more viable?

Edited November 27, 2019 by Enki Anunnaki

[bluelance 22]

Some time ago they did mention that they will be doing trade routes to allow for automatic sailing by NPCs. Was mentioned within the 1st 3 momths, but a lot has been changed since then so whether or not they plan to do it still is a mystery, they never explained in depth what it would be.

[Enki Anunnaki 240]

6 hours ago, bluelance said:

Some time ago they did mention that they will be doing trade routes to allow for automatic sailing by NPCs. Was mentioned within the 1st 3 momths, but a lot has been changed since then so whether or not they plan to do it still is a mystery, they never explained in depth what it would be.

Yeah but a year later with nothing substantial except the colonial island claim system and xbob crossplay, I feel that I really need to push the point. Automated shipping is the most important thing they could be working on right now.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Enki Anunnaki