Autopilot is an ability enabled on any ship that has an NPC crewmember manning the 
Ship Steering Wheel. It can be a potent tool to aid a sea captain in safely traversing the game world, especially when used in conjunction with the additional HUD information provided from the 
Sextant buff.
One especially useful feature of autopilot is that all your NPC crew manning sails will always keep the sails perfectly aligned to the wind, as much as possible. This can be a huge advantage in many situations.
There are several ways to access the Autopilot commands:
- Look at the
Ship Steering Wheel and hold ethen select "[Auto-Pilot]" - Look at the mast of one of the ship's sails and press or hold e then select "[Auto-Pilot]"*
- Look at any ceiling on the ship and hold e then select "[Auto-Pilot]"*
- Look at any of the planks on the ship and hold e then select "[Auto-Pilot]"*
Note: the two options above that allow for a keypress rather than a key hold open a persistent menu. When calling the menu with a key hold, the menu closes upon releasing the key.
There are many commands the captain can issue using the interface:
- Stop
- Follow the Wind
- Set heading (Wind direction)
- Set heading (My facing direction)
- Throttle
- Set throttle: 0% [Full stop]
- Set throttle: 25%
- Set throttle: 50%
- Set throttle: 75%
- Set throttle: 100% [All ahead full]
- Headings (Global)
- Set heading: [N]
- Set heading: [NNE]
- Set heading: [NE]
- Set heading: [ENE]
- Set heading: [E]
- Set heading: [ESE]
- Set heading: [SE]
- Set heading: [SSE]
- Set heading: [S]
- Set heading: [SSW]
- Set heading: [SW]
- Set heading: [WSW]
- Set heading: [W]
- Set heading: [WNW]
- Set heading: [NW]
- Set heading: [NNW]
- Headings (Ship)
- Set heading: [0] (Forward)
- Set heading: [30]
- Set heading: [60]
- Set heading: [90] (Right)
- Set heading: [120]
- Set heading: [150]
- Set heading: [180] (Backward)
- Set heading: [210]
- Set heading: [240]
- Set heading: [270] (Left)
- Set heading: [300]
- Set heading: [330]
- Set heading: (Ship forward)
There is also a useful shortcut to the throttle menu, which you can use and then jump straight back into navigation. Once you've accessed autopilot, use rmb to jump straight to the throttle options. Set the throttle then use rmb again to jump back to navigation. This can be useful so you can send the all-stop command then a 90-degree turn to avoid colliding with a dangerous object underwater in shallows, to set full speed ahead and then send the command to follow the wind to flee from an outclassing armada of ships, and in many other tense situations.
* Please note: "Autopilot" is a normal English word in our modern times, so the unusual hyphenation (it's not a hyphenated word), the use of a tilde rather than a hyphen and dual-capitalization (only the first word should be capitalized) in Atlas ("Auto~Pilot") might be to fit in with it's pirate-era theme, when it was certainly not a normal English word. At the least, it makes it hard to choose an address for this page. 😉