Recognized by Council Invisible, Intangible Rail Dockers

[Edymnion]

Please enlighten me aa to why I'd need a bay twice as big as the ship to dock it if they rail dockers are on the wings.

Again, my entire point is that custom building a dock for every ship you have is harder than it has to be.

So we are talking generic docking here.

If the docker in the bird of prey is in one of the wings, then it is at the outside edge of the ship. Since a generic dock doesn't know which wing the docker is going to be on, it has to have enough room to dock it either way.

If the docker was in the middle of the wings, much less room is required. If you have a default docker placement at the bottom middle of all of your ships, or at the same point on the sides of all of your ships, or wherever else, you can build a dock that can handle anything of size XYZ or smaller regardless of what shape it is.

Pick a universal placement for your docker, and build your dock around that placement. Now all of your ships can dock anywhere they want. When you build a new ship, you don't have to build a hanger just for it, it'll fit on any of your existing docks. We go from nothing but custom builds for everything to generic docks overnight.

We could have that right now, if we didn't mind having the dockers floating out by themselves for everyone to see.

 

[FlyingDebris]

what.

You do know how the rails work, right?

 

[Edymnion]

what.

You do know how the rails work, right?

Let me get the crayons.



Ship has dockers on either side because those are the points at the bottom of the ship. There is one rail block to dock on. The docking area for the ship has to be twice the width of the ship because it isn't centered, and thus could be on either wing, a generic bay won't know which one.

If the docker were universally in the center of the ship, you could fit twice as many ships in the same sized bay without wasting all that extra room.

Sure, you could build the bay with the rail on either side, but then we no longer have a generic bay and nothing but ships with their dockers on the outside edge can dock in it. Anything with the docker in the center won't be centered in the bay, and we again have to either increase the size of the bay, or build a second one for that center docker ship. Even if both ships are exactly the same size.

 

[Nauvran]

Let me get the crayons.

Ship has dockers on either side because those are the points at the bottom of the ship. There is one rail block to dock on. The docking area for the ship has to be twice the width of the ship because it isn't centered, and thus could be on either wing, a generic bay won't know which one.

If the docker were universally in the center of the ship, you could fit twice as many ships in the same sized bay without wasting all that extra room.

Sure, you could build the bay with the rail on either side, but then we no longer have a generic bay and nothing but ships with their dockers on the outside edge can dock in it. Anything with the docker in the center won't be centered in the bay, and we again have to either increase the size of the bay, or build a second one for that center docker ship. Even if both ships are exactly the same size.

And you're not smart enough to just have a rail moved out to the sides so that the ship would dock centred to the hangar?

 

[FlyingDebris]

I give up, you're a lost cause.

 

[Edymnion]

And you're not smart enough to just have a rail moved out to the sides so that the ship would dock centred to the hangar?

See last post, then we're just back to having built a custom bay for one ship when the goal is a generic bay.

Again, the entire point of this is that it would let you put the docker in a standardized location on all ships regardless of their shape. Which means they can all dock in the same sized bay without needing to change anything.

 

[Nauvran]

See last post, then we're just back to having built a custom bay for one ship when the goal is a generic bay.

Again, the entire point of this is that it would let you put the docker in a standardized location on all ships regardless of their shape. Which means they can all dock in the same sized bay without needing to change anything.

bohooo hooo, I have to add two small rails to my hangar and it will ruin it!
Seriously, it's such a small modification.
You can keep the normal hangar setup you have and just add those two extra docking points, why is it so hard for you to grasp?

 

[Edymnion]

bohooo hooo, I have to add two small rails to my hangar and it will ruin it!
Seriously, it's such a small modification.
You can keep the normal hangar setup you have and just add those two extra docking points, why is it so hard for you to grasp?

You're missing the point entirely.

The bird of prey is an example of a random ship. Yeah, I could put extra rails on either side of the bay. That would be great, for that one ship. But again, I am talking generic bays here, and you can't have the entire floor be a solid sheet of rails to cover every conceivable location a docker might be in.

Whereas if you have a standardized docker location on all of your ships, then you always know that as long as the bay is physically larger than the bounding box of the ship, it will dock. You don't have to pick and choose from dozens of docking points, you don't have to have a half dozen different floating layers of pickup rails to accommodate ships with higher or lower docker placement. They would all dock in exactly the same way.

Can you really not understand the concept of universal docking? I mean, come on, the universal docking ring for butting small ships together at hatches has been around for ages and is commonly used. Because it is the same across the board.

Same concept, just scaled up for things USDs can't do.

 

[Nauvran]

You're missing the point entirely.

The bird of prey is an example of a random ship. Yeah, I could put extra rails on either side of the bay. That would be great, for that one ship. But again, I am talking generic bays here, and you can't have the entire floor be a solid sheet of rails to cover every conceivable location a docker might be in.

Whereas if you have a standardized docker location on all of your ships, then you always know that as long as the bay is physically larger than the bounding box of the ship, it will dock. You don't have to pick and choose from dozens of docking points, you don't have to have a half dozen different floating layers of pickup rails to accommodate ships with higher or lower docker placement. They would all dock in exactly the same way.

Can you really not understand the concept of universal docking? I mean, come on, the universal docking ring for butting small ships together at hatches has been around for ages and is commonly used. Because it is the same across the board.

Same concept, just scaled up for things USDs can't do.

I thought this was all about invisible raildockers not USDs

 

[Edymnion]

I thought this was all about invisible raildockers not USDs

Same concept.

USDs work because they have the dockers and the rails in the same places so that any two USDs will fit together. They are standardized. If you build something that is USD compatible, then you don't have to worry what the other guy built, you know where the important blocks are and you know they'll just work.

Take that bird of prey example again. Build a box that is just big enough to have a few blocks of clearance all the way around it.

Now make it where I can dock that ship in that box if I can put the docker anywhere on it I want. On the wings, on the nose, on it's butt, anywhere. You only get one rail block or pickup block, and the ship has to fit correctly the first time.

You can't do it. Its just that simple.

Now if I tell you exactly where the docker is beforehand, you can easily set that box up for it to dock perfectly.

That is my point. If the docker can be in the same relative place on any ship, then any ship can dock in the same space. There is no guesswork, there is no custom building anything, you just fly any ship that is smaller than the bay in, hit your docking beam, and you're done.

We can do that now, with the blocks we have. But we end up with rail dockers floating outside of the ship where they don't fit the rest of the design. Making them invisible in flight mode means we don't have to worry about making the ship look bad just so it can functionally dock easier. Making it intangible means if that docker is sticking out in a weird place for a given ship, we don't have to worry about it hitting things.

That is literally the extent of it. Lets you build standardized docking for everything, doesn't make your ship ugly, and doesn't make you hit things due to blocks floating outside of your ship.

 

[Nauvran]

Same concept.

USDs work because they have the dockers and the rails in the same places so that any two USDs will fit together. They are standardized. If you build something that is USD compatible, then you don't have to worry what the other guy built, you know where the important blocks are and you know they'll just work.

Take that bird of prey example again. Build a box that is just big enough to have a few blocks of clearance all the way around it.

Now make it where I can dock that ship in that box if I can put the docker anywhere on it I want. On the wings, on the nose, on it's butt, anywhere. You only get one rail block or pickup block, and the ship has to fit correctly the first time.

You can't do it. Its just that simple.

Now if I tell you exactly where the docker is beforehand, you can easily set that box up for it to dock perfectly.

That is my point. If the docker can be in the same relative place on any ship, then any ship can dock in the same space. There is no guesswork, there is no custom building anything, you just fly any ship that is smaller than the bay in, hit your docking beam, and you're done.

We can do that now, with the blocks we have. But we end up with rail dockers floating outside of the ship where they don't fit the rest of the design. Making them invisible in flight mode means we don't have to worry about making the ship look bad just so it can functionally dock easier. Making it intangible means if that docker is sticking out in a weird place for a given ship, we don't have to worry about it hitting things.

That is literally the extent of it. Lets you build standardized docking for everything, doesn't make your ship ugly, and doesn't make you hit things due to blocks floating outside of your ship.

Two completely different scenarios.
And of course it doesnt work with a fighter inside a hangar, it doesnt have room to adapt to the dock as it would with two ships or a ship and a station with USD.
You need to adapt your hangar design to fit all your fighters or make your fighters able to dock in that one hangar design. Not even that invisible non-collideable docker would help with that. It's all up to you to make a proper design

 

[Edymnion]

You need to adapt your hangar design to fit all your fighters or make your fighters able to dock in that one hangar design. Not even that invisible non-collideable docker would help with that. It's all up to you to make a proper design

Yes, it would. Because then all of the fighters could be built with the docker in the same place. All of them would be built to fit in the same bay, but none of them would have to have their hulls specifically shaped to fit. Build whatever you want, however you want, and then stick the docker in the exact same place in the bounding box (in this example, bottom center). Doesn't matter if your ship is a cube, that upside down V of the BoP, or two spheres butted up against each other. Long as their bounding boxes where the same size, and the docker was in the same place, they'd all dock just fine.

The point is being able to divorce the docking mechanism from the physical shape of the ship. Build the ship however you like, the docker stays in the same fixed position.

 

[Crashmaster]

I don't like this idea because it doesn't fit with the theme of building with blocks. That's what makes the game challenging, you have to fit in the blocks you want/need for function while making it look ok (admittedly I have customized Lego pieces).


Pro-tip; The bird of Prey's wings fold up to land much like a Lambda-class shuttle. Odd-ball designs require additional engineering to fit in with bog-standard stuff.

 

[kiraen]

While I don't really see the need for this, I can't think of a reason to object.
Some people have mentioned abuse of this block, but I don't recall any example of that abuse.
Maybe I missed it before, but can some one give some examples of how this could be abused?

 

[Edymnion]

Did some really quick builds in game:


All four of these "ships" fit within a 9x9x9 cube. All of them have their dockers in the exact same place, bottom layer center.

All four of these ships will behave on a single rail exactly the same, because they are all the same size and their dockers are in the same place. I could build one bay, with one pickup rail, and all four of these could dock, be moved around inside the bay, be stored efficiently, and then recalled and launched using the same rails and the same logic.

You couldn't do that if the docker were in the bottom of one of the balls in the top trio, or if it was in the horizontal prong of the BoP shaped one, or the corner of the cube, etc. You would need different bays and different rail logic to accommodate each of them.

Fact that they all have that docker in the same place though means they all dock the same.

If the docker were invisible, then it wouldn't matter that its not part of the ship proper because no one would ever see it outside of build mode. You can make your ship any shape you want, and have it just work when it comes to docking.

 

[Lecic]

Let me get the crayons.

View attachment 24166

Ship has dockers on either side because those are the points at the bottom of the ship. There is one rail block to dock on. The docking area for the ship has to be twice the width of the ship because it isn't centered, and thus could be on either wing, a generic bay won't know which one.

If the docker were universally in the center of the ship, you could fit twice as many ships in the same sized bay without wasting all that extra room.

Sure, you could build the bay with the rail on either side, but then we no longer have a generic bay and nothing but ships with their dockers on the outside edge can dock in it. Anything with the docker in the center won't be centered in the bay, and we again have to either increase the size of the bay, or build a second one for that center docker ship. Even if both ships are exactly the same size.

Was it really that hard to make a bay that can accommodate both shape varieties?
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Maybe I missed it before, but can some one give some examples of how this could be abused?

The primary one is that it makes it nearly impossible for boarders to prevent someone from escaping by cutting their dockers off, because it's an invisible block that could be anywhere on the ship.

 

[Crashmaster]

Did some really quick builds in game:
View attachment 24167

All four of these "ships" fit within a 9x9x9 cube. All of them have their dockers in the exact same place, bottom layer center.

All four of these ships will behave on a single rail exactly the same, because they are all the same size and their dockers are in the same place. I could build one bay, with one pickup rail, and all four of these could dock, be moved around inside the bay, be stored efficiently, and then recalled and launched using the same rails and the same logic.

You couldn't do that if the docker were in the bottom of one of the balls in the top trio, or if it was in the horizontal prong of the BoP shaped one, or the corner of the cube, etc. You would need different bays and different rail logic to accommodate each of them.

Fact that they all have that docker in the same place though means they all dock the same.

If the docker were invisible, then it wouldn't matter that its not part of the ship proper because no one would ever see it outside of build mode. You can make your ship any shape you want, and have it just work when it comes to docking.

Your 9x9 example 'ships' could also dock anywhere if we make grey armor invisible and intangible, but that would be stupid.

 

[kiraen]

The primary one is that it makes it nearly impossible for boarders to prevent someone from escaping by cutting their dockers off, because it's an invisible block that could be anywhere on the ship.

Oh yes, I remember now.

Why not just make this block have an icon like the pick-up points and be targetable? Problem solved.

 

[Lecic]

Oh yes, I remember now.

Why not just make this block have an icon like the pick-up points and be targetable? Problem solved.

Hmm... perhaps. It'd have to always show up (disableable in nav) though, unlike pick ups, which only show when a rail docker is selected on the hotbar.

 

[kiraen]

It seems to me that it would be harder to limit it to just the docker (or any other block). Making it always visible would actually be easier.

(If we make it a cloaked block and require the ship to be scanned first then this sort of targeting can be expanded to other systems like Quarters or computers. But that's another topic.)