PSA Ornithopter "autopilot" (and some ramblings too)

Hello offworlders I just discovered there seems to be a method to lock your ornithopter direction without having to hold any key or button. Here is how this sort of "autopilot" works:

1. Pilot your ornithopter in vulture mode with a desired hud azimuth angle

2. Press and hold "Right Mouse Button" to enter free look mode

3. Keep holding RMB

4. Open any game menu like "Inventory"

5. Relase now RMB

6. Close the "Inventory" menu

You are now locked to that azimuth vector and can stay in free look mode without having to hold RMB. You can still control your ornithopter with WASD keys to make course corrections but it will go back again to the locked vector automatically like some kind of autopilot

To restore again full standard flight controls simply press RMB

This comes really handy when you are flying in the Deep Desert and need to constantly scout the vast horizons searching for ph4t l00t or bandits at your six. It is also specially useful when flying the Assault Ornithopter because that bird has a steep gliding angle and needs to gain altitude often to keep gliding in the DD long travels but with this method you just activate the thruster boost, gain altitude, then pitch down, disable boost and the orni will go back automatically to the locked gliding angle while you comfortably keep scouting your surroundings

I dont know if this method was already known or if there is another way to do it but I can say I discovered this when I started flying in the Deep Desert after almost 500 hours playing this game which I have spent mostly in Hagga Basin

Also I suspect this is not an "official" game feature so I want to take advantage of this post and humbly ask to our dear Developers to implement a "locked" free look mode option just like there are other "toggle or hold" keybinds (but in this case remembering the ornithopter flight vector)... correct me if Im wrong but I think they added an "autorun" feature but it only works for "on foot" game mode and not vehicles ???

By the way it took me so long to find this because honestly, as much as I like this game, I have avoided the Deep Desert like a plague, that place has always been a broken mess of bugs, griefing, hackers, and the barebones "cooperative" aspect of Dune Awakening doesnt help neither

As a matter of fact in case anybody from Funcom reads this post and cares, and since I dont use Discord, I recently read the points exposed in this other post from a frustrated ex-Guild Leader and as a solo player who has never joined a party or a Guild, I would also like to expose very briefly my own ideas of what is lacking and how to improve this game:

1. Make "Tab key" default for "Inventory menu" instead of last opened menu, I think player inventory is (followed by world map) the most used menu in the game and deserves much more that important and strategic keybind. I believe the current default can be very confusing for new players

2. Keybinds Modules: Make every "Keybinds section" independent from the other. For example if I remap keybind "switch to a vehicle second seat" to key "2" it should not overwrite or collide with key "2" of keybind "Hotbar Slot 2" from the "On Foot" section, the game should differentiate between kebinds pressed in different modes like on foot or driving a vehicle. We already have something like that in the "Menus" keybinds section where you can press Q E Z C to navigate the menus whithout interfering with other game modes so I say lets just complete the job

3. Modifier Keybinds: This is keybinds made with "Shift", "Control" and "Alt" combinations. So we can have something like "Shift + F" to open the map for example. Honestly I dont see this happening in Dune Awakening anytime soon, also I hear some horror stories about lag input in this game but all I can say is I only had problems when I played in a high ping server and probably because hackers where making it unstable

4. Add remote control from ground vehicles to a nearby Carrier Ornithopter. I dont even have that machine yet but as a solo player I dont see myself using compactors forever because Im chewing through them like if they are made of paper. The Carrier is a vehicle so complex and expensive to make I think it is completely justified to have an option to be able to control it remotely while driving from a Buggy or a Sandcrawler, the player switches focus between ground and air vehicle in the near area just like we can switch seats now... I mean we are ten thousand years in the future and we have a remote control seeker assassin dart so why not a remote control pilot option for the biggest and most expensive vehicle in the game ??? this simple feature would save a world of pain for solo players, no more bindu sprint clown dances, and it would make the Carrier an even more worthy prize for the obscene grind it requires

5. Add a remote control activation for thumpers. If I remember correctly in the Dune books sandworm thumpers had a timer so the user could plant it and move to the point of interest before it started calling The Maker. Currently in this game a thumper can save your life if you plant it during the breach animation of the sandworm and not any longer, so I say make things easier for solo players and allow a secondary deploy mode for thumpers that will activate them remotely, this way we can also recover them for reuse in case they are not needed

6. Add a radial menu to change between skill loadouts, keep a reset timer or whatever but dont make the players fish between menus when they want to change something like "Shigawire Claw" with "Eye of the Storm"

7. Make Melee combat great again with "Close Quarters Combat" mode. Everybody is critic with melee combat but nobody gives solutions, so here is my idea: At the first melee hit activate the "CQC mode" for both opponents, attacker and defender, it can last a few seconds and refresh with every new melee hit (blocked or not). In this mode they cannot run only walk and they cannot dash, instead dash is replaced by something like a "Fencer Stunt" where the fighter avoids the attack at a big cost of stamina but stays in melee range all the time locked in this "CQC mode"

This mode would make melee much more important when you dont need to use skills to stun or slow your target to keep them at range, and makes you think twice when and where to go for melee combat because with this automatic movement limit you can get seriously wrecked by enemy ranged support

This basic idea of "CQC mode" can be expanded with things like shield overcharges that make you immune to ranged damage for a time, some kind of stuns, etc, but I believe this is the better basic start from where to improve melee combat

8. I dont have anything good to say about the new radio station with that new Spice Wars "music" but I think "Dune 1" and "Dune 2 Battle for Arrakis" songs should also have each their own radio stations because they are also different games and come from different composers. Honestly all I want to listen while I farm spice or mineral nodes are the godlike Frank Klepacki chiptunes and not "close your eyes relax yooorself" (also if you could please add "Dune 2000" songs to the radio it would be great I think they are certainly missing here... please please please pretty please)

9. Add storm resistant "Vehicle Stilltents". Make it a crazy expensive item to build if you want, but please add to the game some kind of storm covers for our beloved ornithopters so we can quickly park them outside a testing station without worries. Like the stilltents these covers should have a durability loss and even a deploy timer so they cannot be used again until a time has passed and are fit to deploy

10. And to finish my rambling I want to expose a nasty bug that apparently has been in the game for months (probably from day 1), it happens the first high level armor I made from my Deep Desert plunder was "Pardot's Hood" which has a "-30% sun stroke rate" reduction, but to my surprise what this helmet does is actually give the player a "+100% sun stroke rate"... and the bug persist even if you change that helmet... dear developers this bug is probably just a typo in some configuration file but has been going on for months while continously reported, and Im sorry to say but this kind of things is exactly what gives bad press to a videogame no matter what, so please somebody at Funcom undust the inkvine whip and start motivating the team (Im just joking... or maybe not)

And I think that is all, I think only rushers and hoarders can hate a game like Dune Awakening, people dont understand this is a marathon not a sprint, I even played the original Star Wars Galaxies 20 years ago and dont listen what nostalgics say that game was a horrible mess even for the awful ancient technology of that time, but what made it great was the social interaction of the open world, that game had natural leaders that had the right tools to make great Guilds. Dune Awakening "cooperative" experience is very barebones, and until that is improved solo players need a lot of tender, love and care, because we are going to be the skeleton crew that will keep the flame alive