Dev Blog : March 30th 2015

[Keptick]

"wireless logic"

I'm fucking drooling right now

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

yes they need to touch to dock, that's how magnets work.

Another problem I am seeing is if two blocks have to touch this more or less eliminates large standard docks or any all encompassing docking system in general. Docks will more or less have to be specialized for specific ships. I cannot just build a large flat landing pad with a dock in the center. Any ships with winglets or any mass below the belly of the ship will be unable to dock on this port unless they have docking receivers on the winglets but this makes them unable to dock in the center which could cause other issues. You will not be able to expect to dock your ships to other peoples stations or carriers and vs verse.

 

[Lecic]

Another problem I am seeing is if two blocks have to touch this more or less eliminates large standard docks or any all encompassing docking system in general. Docks will more or less have to be specialized for specific ships. I cannot just build a large flat landing pad with a dock in the center. Any ships with winglets or any mass below the belly of the ship will be unable to dock on this port unless they have docking receivers on the winglets but this makes them unable to dock in the center which could cause other issues. You will not be able to expect to dock your ships to other peoples stations or carriers and vs verse.

I'd imagine people getting around this with retractable landing gears and the like, so they can fit their ships on any platform.

 

[mindlord0013]

Sven_The_Slayer Hence why we're discussing this USD, to try and have some kind of "universal" dock type.

In the current iteration of the "USD type 1", this is the smallest compatible dock.

It fits and seals like this.

Valiant70 had a great idea of adding an additional docking block middle of the lower border, which could further minimize the smallest compatible dock size (you wouldn't need the two blocks at the sides).

On a side note, in the current dev build you can use a "Rail Docker" (the one that shoots the docking beam) to dock to other "Rail Docker" blocks. Bench is this intended, and will that work in a similar way for the new docking blocks (it would make USD even more universal)?

 

[Keptick]

I'd imagine people getting around this with retractable landing gears and the like, so they can fit their ships on any platform.

Yea, I was specifically thinking of an access hatch on a rail. Basically the same thing as airports in real life have ^_^

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Sven_The_Slayer Hence why we're discussing this USD, to try and have some kind of "universal" dock type.

In the current iteration of the "USD type 1", this is the smallest compatible dock.

It fits and seals like this.

Valiant70 had a great idea of adding an additional docking block middle of the lower border, which could further minimize the smallest compatible dock size (you wouldn't need the two blocks at the sides).

On a side note, in the current dev build you can use a "Rail Docker" (the one that shoots the docking beam) to dock to other "Rail Docker" blocks. Bench is this intended, and will that work in a similar way for the new docking blocks (it would make USD even more universal)?

Docking two compatible airlocks together is one thing, docking an entire ship on a flat landing platform is another. You may not always want to dock airlock to airlock. USDs will not work on the internal hanger deck of my carrier or the external docking mounts.

 

[Keptick]

 

[mindlord0013]

Sven_The_Slayer Fair enough. I guess factions/friends will have to collaborate to make sure it can work.

 

[nightwalker_007]

Having escape pods would be great.. I'd love to hop into an escape pod with an already charged jump module, and, the moment I undock, a self-destruct timer automatically activates in my ship, and then I jump out. No reward for space pirates, no stolen blueprints, just a big boom .

 

[Valiant70]

Sven_The_Slayer Hence why we're discussing this USD, to try and have some kind of "universal" dock type.

In the current iteration of the "USD type 1", this is the smallest compatible dock.

It fits and seals like this.

Valiant70 had a great idea of adding an additional docking block middle of the lower border, which could further minimize the smallest compatible dock size (you wouldn't need the two blocks at the sides).

On a side note, in the current dev build you can use a "Rail Docker" (the one that shoots the docking beam) to dock to other "Rail Docker" blocks. Bench is this intended, and will that work in a similar way for the new docking blocks (it would make USD even more universal)?

Yep. Only thing is, my shuttle only has a 2 m high flat surface at the aft hatch, so it would need a lower opening (hence the door idea to narrow it to the smallest human-usable doorway). Theoretically I could change either the top or bottom blocks of the shuttle from wedges to flat, but it would look bad. The way it is now, it wouldn't "seal."

 

[Keptick]

Having escape pods would be great.. I'd love to hop into an escape pod with an already charged jump module, and, the moment I undock, a self-destruct timer automatically activates in my ship, and then I jump out. No reward for space pirates, no stolen blueprints, just a big boom .

You can already do that :P. You can even have it automatically "eject" you out of the ship with push beams.

 

[Blodge]

Docking two compatible airlocks together is one thing, docking an entire ship on a flat landing platform is another. You may not always want to dock airlock to airlock. USDs will not work on the internal hanger deck of my carrier or the external docking mounts.

I already raised this on page 2. Docking Arms become incredibly more practical, but Hangars and Landing Platforms get more tricky. Especially if you want to make a more generic Hangar which can dock any ship which is small enough to fit inside it. I think the way forward with this new system will be to think of a Hangar as a box enclosing one or more Docking Arms. Either that or they'll need to be tailored specifically for whatever ships you want to put in them.

This latter option may seem awkward, but is actually more realistic. Take the example of the Cobra Bays for the Starfury fighters in Babylon 5. They're clearly designed to only fit Starfurys and no other shape of fighter. With careful planning, you should be able to come up with a standardised Hangar design for your own fleets. Making docks to suit other people's fleets will probably be limited to Docking Arms, much like the International Space Station.

As for landing pads: who constructs a Landing Pad in a Zero-G environment anyway? They're really only suitable for things heavy enough to have a large gravity-well.

 

[Valiant70]

You can already do that :p. You can even have it automatically "eject" you out of the ship with push beams.

Yeah, well there's a lot of wasted space now because of the minimum docking volume. That will change.

 

[Blodge]

Yep. Only thing is, my shuttle only has a 2 m high flat surface at the aft hatch, so it would need a lower opening (hence the door idea to narrow it to the smallest human-usable doorway). Theoretically I could change either the top or bottom blocks of the shuttle from wedges to flat, but it would look bad. The way it is now, it wouldn't "seal."

This is a good point. Having to add even 1 extra block to a compact ship design can, well, ruin both the aesthetic and practicality of that design. It might be neat if a Ship Core could still dock directly to a Rail Block without needing a Rail Docker, provided the ship's total mass was below the minimum mass threshold of a single Rail Block...

 

[Valiant70]

This is a good point. Having to add even 1 extra block to a compact ship design can, well, ruin both the aesthetic and practicality of that design. It might be neat if a Ship Core could still dock directly to a Rail Block without needing a Rail Docker, provided the ship's total mass was below the minimum mass threshold of a single Rail Block...

So in other words the core would have to be exposed? Well, my shuttle's already is (it fits in a turret dock).

 

[ltmauve]

Are the rail systems going to be literal rails? Or are they just going to be path endpoints?

 

[Blodge]

So in other words the core would have to be exposed? Well, my shuttle's already is (it fits in a turret dock).

If the Rail blocks have to touch each other (which currently is the case) then yes. I guess this would have the advantage that Turret design wouldn't have to change much. However, if the functionality could be modified slightly to allow the docking effect to work through, say, 1 block then maybe not. You could then hide the Core/Rail Docker under a single layer of hull which may help with aesthetics as well as protecting your essential systems.

 

[Bench]

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.

Spoiler: Nitpicking

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.

I think it adds a whole other level of complicated mechanics to think about when adding the docking forces. I've continued to say magnets as that describes the movements and actions/reactions seen in the system, but they could quite easy be described as tractor beams and coupling mechanisms.

Essentially, you define what points your ship uses to dock. You can either select a specific point and zap the docking module you wish to dock to, in which case that module "activates a tractor beam to draw you in" until those two blocks couple together. Or you just fly towards it to align yourself and once you're within a certain range, the same tractor system activates again to draw you in and couple together.

Because of chain docking we can't be processing the physics of all those entities trying to determine if they should disconnect or not, and if we were we have potential performance issues with collision if say elevators in the middle of your ship are suddenly decoupling themselves from the rail system. So there's a number of factors why we won't be looking at adding in a system where your docked entities are knocked off their docks through an unintentional external trigger.

Again we'll have to see how much influence the docked ship has over the mother ship.

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.

we'll see what happens there. The ship core functionality is getting trimmed down. With the HP system this will happen even more, and when viable bridges where you can sit to pilot are added in at some point down the line, the core again will become pretty much just a point to start building your ship off. At the moment docking has been all about the location you're docking to, we're making it so it's just as much about how your ship docks as where it docks to.

Yes it is different, it is a change and will require some thinking outside of the box. We'll see about putting the docking point 1 layer behind another point, however you can't comment on the aesthetics when the block hasn't even been textured yet. We realise it's going to be an external block so we're going to take that into consideration when we do the texture for it.

Another problem I am seeing is if two blocks have to touch this more or less eliminates large standard docks or any all encompassing docking system in general. Docks will more or less have to be specialized for specific ships. I cannot just build a large flat landing pad with a dock in the center. Any ships with winglets or any mass below the belly of the ship will be unable to dock on this port unless they have docking receivers on the winglets but this makes them unable to dock in the center which could cause other issues. You will not be able to expect to dock your ships to other peoples stations or carriers and vs verse.

Instead you may build a large flat standard dock with many docking points where the ship flies in and once they're in the hangar as they wish to land, then lower the ship onto the dock where their docking points on the bottom of the ship will snap on and then they're docked. I get that that won't work for everyone. I'm in the same boat with my station as well, I have a large number of hangar areas and landing pads that all have to have their docking systems rethought out and at this point I'm unsure exactly what I will do, but that's just part of the game. It's just going to mean people have to think about docking now, and if they need to build something into the ship to support say landing gear or whatever it might be. We're adding both linear and rotational movement in the rail system so you could even have a docking arm that swings out, or a landing gear that lowers, or place docking points on the ends of the winglets that go below the base of your ship.

I see what the problem is, and that this point I can only comment ways around it as I don't know if that will be a long term problem we need to fix or if the community will just adapt and it will turn out not to be that big of a problem. Time will tell I guess.

Are the rail systems going to be literal rails? Or are they just going to be path endpoints?

There will be blocks that you have to put down in lines that the docking block will be able to move along. They will be physical blocks, they won't disappear once out of build mode.

 

[Ixalite]

There will be blocks that you have to put down in lines that the docking block will be able to move along. They will be physical blocks, they won't disappear once out of build mode.

Will it be possible to have THESE on slanted surfaces? I want to see "round" (as round as starmade gets) ship hulls with other objects rotating about the central section. With the inclusion of a "Track wedge" block, you could have something move in a rough circle about a central core, rather than moving in a square.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

We'll see about putting the docking point 1 layer behind another point, however you can't comment on the aesthetics when the block hasn't even been textured yet. We realise it's going to be an external block so we're going to take that into consideration when we do the texture for it.

The HP and armor of the block has to be considered too if it is external only.