Carrier help requested.

[Gasboy]

I am working on a carrier design, and I have a question for those of you who have built them.

How on earth do you take off in the fighters? I have a basic framework right now, with the docking setup down so that I can test landing and taking off. The carrier design I have will be separate launch bays for each fighter.

Landing is fine. But to undock, I notice that the process of undocking launches the fighter upwards, where it collides with the frame (which would be the ceiling and sides) I am building.

How do you counteract this?

 

[Chronite]

Build the fighters facing down/out?

 

[Gasboy]

The process of launching still pushes the fighter away from the docking point, towards whatever ceiling I build.

I guess I can just build an open topped carrier. :\\

 

[Chronite]

Launch the fighters out of the bottom/ sides of the ship. Have the fighters fly upwards and then out to undock.

 

[War Dog]

It really depends on the fighter. The smaller and more vulnerable ones can be docked internally, but larger ones can be externally docked.

If you\'re making individual dock bays you could have them exit upwards instead of forwards. Thus the undocking movement is a plus.

Generally I put fighter bays facing fowards so fighters can immediately be launched towards a threat. Either one large bay in the center or several small (but still pretty big) launch bays on either sides.

One more thing about individual docking bays is that you can \"remotely\" open their docking bays using a line of plexdoors.

 

[Gasboy]

I think I will expand the size of the ship. I had thought there was enough ceiling clearance but oh well...

 

[MisterVec]

I set up up my fighters by docking them on their sides, that way when they undock, their initial momentum carries them out of the carrier.

 

[Gasboy]

The ship will always dock with the bottom of it\'s core to the top of the docking module, right? Or is there a way to change that?

 

[MisterVec]

The only exception at the moment seems to be ships docked the way I described. They are effected by the same bug that causes turrets to spawn upside down in relation to their docking point.

 

[Gasboy]

So you mean fighters docked on the side of a ship?



The fighters in the back are docked on the \"top\" of the station, in relation to gravity. The ones in the foreground are docked on the \"side\". Do you mean to dock on the side then?

 

[War Dog]

They\'d just be docked sideways.

You\'ll need to be wary of the docking bug that occasionally causes docked ships/turrets to be turned upside-down; most likely clipping them into the ship. It seems to only affect ships docked sideways. It seems to happen whenever the ship is bought via blueprint or loaded upon starting the game.

On a similar note, the mechanics of ships docked sideways seems to be different from ships docked right-side-up/up-side-down. The docking extenders don\'t seem to work correctly.

 

[0-0-Bram]

if youre worried about hitting the cieling, why dont you make a higher cieling? the simple way is better, not enough room, make bigger ship! (hefty russian accent there)

 

[Gasboy]

Well, the ceiling was 9 meters, the remake of the ship had the ceiling at 15 meters. One fighter was 7 meters tall, so I can see why it would have an issue. The other was only 5 meters tall, and it still managed to bang all over the place.

I\'m thinking now of using plexdoor domes, or half domes, to cover the ships, instead of a solid ceiling.

 

[Voldrath]

You could try holding shift, or whatever your full stop button is, as you undock. That should negate the undocking inertia reather quickly.

 

[Gasboy]

I learned something new today.

 

[Voldrath]

Something else I just discovered. Seems that if you undock without having left the ship it will snap to whatever dirrection it was facing when you first docked. Likely this will cause collisions in tight spaces. I\'d advise while testing your dock to leave the ship and reenter.