Always good to get in and comment first, means your questions are more likely to get answered, haha. Ok here we go.
GET THIS MAN AN INTERNET! HES EARNED IT!
I just have some concerns of the way we'll be docking. Will we be able to align to an entity with "C"? the only good thing about the old system was that we didn't have to deal with properly positioning our ships with the mothership if the mothership was facing some odd direction. We could just hit the docking port with the docking beam and boom, were docked and in alignment with the mothership.
If we can't quickly align ourselves to our target then then i can definitely see the "experience" of docking becoming more frustrating than awesome. especially if the magnet aspect isn't particularly good.
You will still be able to use a docking beam of sorts, but it won't be from the core and more likely associated with the block itself. The idea being that if you're in a complicated maneuver then you could beam from your docking block to the block you wish to dock to. Then, like a tractor beam, a docking sequence takes over which will bring you in for those two blocks to dock together. You will still be be able to dock through the alignment and pilot method but we recognise there are these situations so providing this alternative where it isn't an instant snap to dock, but a more sure-fire way of aligning and docking, is needed.
Wow! I'm so exited about this whole thing! :D Will we be able to use the finalized docking system to make traps for enemy ships in fake warp gates? :p
The area in which you align and are "pulled in" by the "magnets" isn't large enough for that sort of movement. And if the beam tractor animation was in play, it would ignore warp gate areas.
Looks and sounds very awesome but makes me curious how it will apply to turrets as others have mentioned.
Will the turrets be changed from 2-angle motions to a single angle to compensate for being flush against the hull or will the turret body clip inside the main ship body when elevating to target an entity?
As I mentioned in the OP turrets is the least fleshed out part of all of this. From memory you will be able to split the different movement on the axis up but the exact way this will occur hasn't been set yet.
So, if the docks are planned to work like magnets now, does this mean in theory boarding an enemy ship can be a thing now if both ships had compatible docking points? I'm starting to feel the hype.
I'm unsure about this as if it is still factioned it would have restricted access to those points.
This is all really cool, wireless logic, the gods have finally answered my prayers! <3 I do have a few questions though on the new docking system.
Now that there is no space between the docked blocks, how will this affect the orientation ability of an AI turret in combat, for example if I place a turret on a horizontal hull surface, will it only be able to fire on the horizontal plane, or can it shoot upwards and at other angles?
If I put a docked turret on an external rail system on the hull of my ship, will the AI automatically move the turret along the rail to reposition itself for a better view of it's target?
Is a rail limited to a single plane, in essence, can I make the rail run along the ground and then up a wall on the same track?
Turrets again I'm not sure I can answer much of this until the design of the new turret system is finalised. We also haven't considered the way the Bobby AI will treat rails, this obviously will be part of the development.
Rails won't be restricted to single planes.
I want to build off that and ask a similar question.
With everything being flush now, how will that effect docked things that are flush moving out at an angle? For instance if you wanted to make an escape pod that is 3x3x3 fit into a 3x3x3 space. Will the game spazz out like it already does with collision? Will there be any limitations to avoid this?
As mentioned above there's a tractor beam sort of pulling in the ship as part of the animation sequence when completing docking. We would be looking at the reverse for scenarios where we detected that collisions were being felt. So in your example, it would detect it's snug in that space and push the escape pod out until it was no long in collision with those walls, after which you take control and are able to pilot it away or whatever you want to do.
