The main thing is the ring itself, and the general shape of it. It doesn't matter whether the corners are rounded or not, because it still "seals" regardless.
I'm just saying that, even if we only use a 5x5 ring, there are still many combinations which may be compatible or incompatible(the best {although maybe impractical} example would be a male/female USD port [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners])
hopefully schema can get the AI to intelligently recognize how to orient the ship to allow for a smooth docking sequence. i'm also guess that if this works out it will pave the way for the "Return to Dock" command for the AI that every ones been begging for.
Currently the docking points have to touching. I raged a little bit at first.... It makes fighter docking a little wonky... But you can get around that by building a little fighter "clamp" or something to make it look a little more authentic.
Well, the way you did that made it hard to quote you... well, whatever.
I like this, but I would add a docking block at the bottom center and a plexdoor that closes all but the bottom and center two blocks. This will allow a ship with a 1m wide, 2m high port to dock to the same port. I currently have a shuttle that would need such a modification to be able to dock practically to this device. Re-designing the shuttle to fit a 3x3 opening would compromise its purpose (or at the very least its looks) as a super-compact vehicle.The main thing is the ring itself, and the general shape of it. It doesn't matter whether the corners are rounded or not, because it still "seals" regardless.
Here is the basic shape of my (subject to change) USD. Can we call this USD type 1? (totally not full of myself)
Ah okay, that will depend what happens with the thrust update that will happen in the future.
Why not have it like this: at the end of each tick of the physics engine, (directly before movement is applied) The difference in the velocity vectors of mothership(before tick and current) is calculated and multiplied by the mass of the docked entity(or mass of the "mother"-ship, if it is indeed movable and has a smaller mass than the docked ship). The result of this calculation, which is the accelerating force, will be compared to sum of the docking-forces(if multiple dock-connections will be a thing, otherwise only the max-force of the docking-connection). If the force exceeds it, the connection is lost. (the max-force will depend on the mass-limit of the dock[a.k.a how many enhancers are connected])
Ship A is the "mother"-ship, Ship B is the docked ship. Ship B is manned and fires thrusters/push-/pull-effect.
That is not how magnets work…The magnetic force will be very weak, as it is antiproportional to the square of the distance (assuming radial field of magnetic monopole (magnetic monopoles are physically impossible, but let's ignore that for a second). However, let's simply say the force is negligable once the distance exceeds 1 block.
So all ships will absolutely have to have a docking receiver in order to dock? No more docking cores, or if your receiver gets shoot off you can no longer dock your ship until it is manually repaired? I love the idea of being able to customize how a ship docks I really don't want to have an ugly spot on every single ship. Even if it could be say below a single layer of hull and it makes the hull block on top of it the docking point. Still I would prefer the core be the central location for docking if no other dock is present, that way we still have a fallback or a way to dock smaller objects that may not have the room for a docking receiver.
