If you hang around rookie chat for long, you'll undoubtedly hear the following common question come up from a new pilot: How do you make Autopilot drop warp closer to the stargate? The answer of course is: You can't. The obvious follow up question is: Why not? A fair answer is: That is the price to be paid, and rightfully so, for the convenience of Autopilot. Some pilots might find this answer unsatisfying, but most veteran pilots agree with it. However, for those who want more to the answer, let me provide a bit of lore, straight from my own imagination, as to why this Autopilot handicap exists. You'll have to forgive me if my lore conflicts with any existing lore, as I am not an expert on Eve lore.
It all started long ago, before Autopilot even existed. The Gallente ship manufacturers were looking for a way to give their ships an edge in pilot favor over the rival factions. Many Gallente mining ship captains were making long treks into Caldari and Amarr space to mine Pyroxeres which was in high demand at the time. Gallente ship manufacturers saw this as their opportunity to garner favor from tired captains making long journeys by introducing Autopilot. Autopilot was rushed into service and quickly became a favorite feature among freighter and mining ship captains. For a time, this gave the Gallente ship manufactures the edge they wanted, but the rival factions were quick to introduce their own versions of Autopilot to even the playing field. Soon it seemed almost everyone was taking advantage the new Autopilot capability, either on new ships or retrofitted onto older ships. It was the golden age of Autopilot. Until the heiress Itania Ferlord of Itamo VI decided to take a voyage to see the Impro ruins on Inaya IX.
The heiress and her companions boarded the family luxury Cruiser which had recently been retrofit with Autopilot. They left port from Itamo VI and set Autopilot for Inaya IX before heading to the Cruiser lounge to relax. Everything went fine until they reached the stargate in New Caldari, which was just called Caldari at the time, to jump to Josameto. This gate link was a key route and bottleneck between vast regions on either side. Traffic was always heavy at this stargate, but was unusually heavy that day due to a massive trade event in Jita drawing in travelers from far corners of the galaxy.
As the heiress' Cruiser was coming out of warp at the stargate to Josameto, something went wrong. The retrofitted Autopilot on the Cruiser was unable to determine a safe drop out of warp. Some blame the hasty adoption of insufficiently tested Autopilot systems, other blame it on sloppy work of the retrofitters, while still others blame the excessively high traffic all trying to jump into basically the same place at the same time. Some say it was a combination of all of these factors. Whatever the cause, the end result was horrific. The heiress' Cruiser dropped out of warp slightly off the mark and right into the side of the stargate's main power core while the stargate was active with a Trade Delegation Freighter passing from Josameto to Caldari. The stargate exploded in a massive burst resulting in an uncontrolled subspace surge. Millions of miles around the area were exposed to the effects of subspace after the subspace corridor containment was lost. An estimated 37 ships were destroyed in the initial stargate explosion, but that was just the beginning. The effects of subspace had such great effect on nearby Caldari VI that it fell into a decaying orbit. Just three days later, Caldari VI was consumed by the Caldari sun. In addition to the horrors of the immediate losses, economic depression persisted for decades due to the destruction of such a significant stargate corridor.
Afterwards, Autopilot systems were for a time banned. Later it was agreed that Autopilot systems would only be allowed if they dropped out of warp at least 15km from stargates. In more modern times, some say Autopilot is so mature that it would now be safer than manned warps to stargates, but the 15km limit endures nonetheless. Caldari had been so dramatically affected that it was renamed to New Caldari. Caldari VI, home to roughly two million settlers, was no more. Stories survive to this day of horror stories told by survivors who escaped Caldari VI, but official records say that Caldari VI had no survivors. It took two years for a new stargate to be opened restoring travel between systems, but economics of the region were forever changed. No one knows what happened to the Trade Delegation Freighter that was in the subspace corridor at the time of the incident, but legend says it dropped out of subspace inside of Caldari V. Some surveyors and explorers still hunt to this day for this lost ship beneath the crust of New Caldari V.
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