A change to docking mechanics

[Cybertooth]

Sven_The_Slayer Thats actually the best suggestion i've heard in ages. Simple, but would make a huge change to how easy it is to build ships

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

would be nice if they could work that way, but i believe there are 2 ways to do that both of which would add to lag issues, either the collision routine would have to calculate the offset every time the docking unit was drawn (adding potential for lag) or the docking unit would need to store the data in its block data, making the data stream between client and server bigger is one of the biggest causes of lag,

using existing blocks and existing linking methods is a better way to go to avoid add other issues, if there is no other docking unit linked to the original it would not break any existing docking setup, only when you link a second docking unit to the first one will the docking behaviour change.
and it makes more sense if you add an enhancer in the +x position the docking area would increase in the +x direction as well

Either way there is going to be calculating involved, I doubt one method takes significantly more power than the other, the difference is one method is intuitive, scalable, doesn't require you to change builds, doesn't require you to build your enhancers in a specific pattern but yet the result is exactly the same.

 

[the guyver]

true both ways the calculation would be similar, but one way would be handled by part of the game engine thats already causing lag and being heavily optimized atm the other way would be handled by part of the game engine that has a little room to do the calculations

most of the above suggested changes do not require you to change builds nor build in a specific pattern of enhancers if you chose not to, its only when you link another docking module that you alter the way it works now

the easiest way to do this would just build the docking the way you do now then add a second docking module in the same area and link that to the first so you have a choice of which one to dock to, but the area would stay the same as it was for the first docking unit

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

true both ways the calculation would be similar, but one way would be handled by part of the game engine thats already causing lag and being heavily optimized atm the other way would be handled by part of the game engine that has a little room to do the calculations

most of the above suggested changes do not require you to change builds nor build in a specific pattern of enhancers if you chose not to, its only when you link another docking module that you alter the way it works now

the easiest way to do this would just build the docking the way you do now then add a second docking module in the same area and link that to the first so you have a choice of which one to dock to, but the area would stay the same as it was for the first docking unit

We can't say for sure which one is more resource intensive, so it's a moot point to argue it. Can you honestly say you would rather have to build the docking modules in a specific pattern instead of having the game auto adjust? Two solutions and one is clearly easier on the builder and and more flexible, what happens when you have an off sized dock? You only have 8, 10, 12, meters to mount that turret? Your hangar bay is less than 9 meters tall?

 

[ltmauve]

What's wrong with having both?

 

[BasicPaul]

Yeah I really just want to see it so that you can set the orientation of hoe the ship docks in relation to the direction of the actual docking module, so theoretically I could dock a ship on a sideways docking module but with the ships nose facing towards the dock.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Yeah I really just want to see it so that you can set the orientation of hoe the ship docks in relation to the direction of the actual docking module, so theoretically I could dock a ship on a sideways docking module but with the ships nose facing towards the dock.

As far as I know that's already a planned feature. I'm not sure if we can customize the direction of the ship but we will be able to customize the direction of the dock. Allowing the docking module to rotate makes it have 24 possible block positions. Allowing the ship to dock in any orientation to that dock would make it so the docking module has 144 positions so just having it so you rotate the dock through the various options is not possible, another system would have to be implemented to allow for any orientation docking. I too would like to be able to hang ships from the ceiling of a bay but we might ultimately be limited to bottom of the core docking.

 

[ltmauve]

Well, you could have all 144 combinations simply by blocking off the other faces, meaning the dock has to be in the given position

 

[ltmauve]

Also, have docking be flush with the docked surface (with no half-block gap) and then when it gets undocked it teleports off about a half block or whatever is needed to prevent clipping. (Yeah bit of a necro but I didn't want to start a new thread)

 

[Creeper__God]

eh this is a topic that deserves a necro (also its barely been half a week)