Docking location module

[METROID4]

Hello guys!

After throughoutly searching online if this idea has already been suggested, as I haven't found something like this yet, I'd like to propose an idea to make docking better, and, I think it wouldn't be that difficult to implement. So, excuse me if it has already been proposed.

At the moment, docking exists out of the parent - the docking module (with possible enhancers to make the max area bigger), where ships dock, and the second is the chil - the ship which is going to dock.

Now there are some difficulties docking a ship, as for example alignment/orientation (as said before by others) is not yet changable (like east/west direction, like having a docked ship point forward), and also, you dock at the ship core. That brings up several problems, as the ship core is not always a practical position to dock.

This makes docking a quite large ship into a barely larger ship's hangar quite difficult, and while in the latest pre-release the docking beam can come out of an active cockpit (so you can place a cockpit right on the bottom part of your ship so you can clearly see the docking module you are aiming for), it's almost impossible to to that. If you slightly touch the walls of the hangar, the mothership will begin to turn (as you pushed it) and you're going to be teleported away (as being "stuck").

Smaller ships docking into a more than sufficient & large room isn't a hassle, but there you have quite some room to wiggle around, and as the ship is much smaller than the mothership, bumping against walls isn't a problem as it won't push it away.



So my idea would be to have a new module, which is the location of where the ship will be at the docking module on the parent ship. Basically, this module takes over the docking part of the ship core.

This module could be on the outside (so it's like as if not only the mothership but also the docking ship has a docking module, and docking happens when those two connect), but also burried under 1-2 layers of hull (then it will act just as docking now with ship core, it will get as close as possible, the most outer layer of hull just touching the mothership).

The best to explain this would be to show it, I tried to explain this in screenshots (excuse my quick paint skills):



As seen in the second picture, the ship could dock with the front (if the module was placed there, in the image a normal docking module is shown to illustrate), while the ship core is in the center.

I hope my explanation is clear.

I'd also appreciate suggestion how to improve this.

Regards,

M4

 

[NeonSturm]

But who decides the turning around z? (around the axis of your \"dock---to---dock line\").

The ship or the dock?

Should it also be possible to make enhancers on the docking ship and then dock onto ANY _station/planet_ block? It would increase the mass on smaller ship, but good for landing shuttles if you don\'t want to spam docking modules in new teritory just for a hour-logoff...

 

[METROID4]

Yeah I haven\'t thought about orientation :P

I\'d say the module on the ship itself (which is going to dock) also has something similar to the docking module on the mothership, and those two align into each other (so if both point to eachother, it will dock perpendicular onto it, if the module on the ship points downwards for example, the orientation changes).

I think you can play around with some directions if you have 2 modules which you can both rotate around.

That turning around Z (so in picture 2, the rotation when you press X or C) is indeed difficult to know, as the module can be rotated as of where to point, but not in 90 degrees rotation around the same axis.

I don\'t know about having enhancers on the ship to be docked itself, that would be quite nice, however, large motherships and space centers are generally larger than the ship which is going to dock, so enhancers often fit better on the host. What you could do, is combine (having enhancers on both ships), but that\'s the next step in my opinion :D

 

[NeonSturm]

Say, you have a single block, you would dock in the angle you are currently closer to

\"a +45 -(a+45)%90\" | for a ={0, 40, 310, 350, 360}, results are {0, 0, 270, 360, 360} -> this formula should be ok.

or \"a +PI/4 -(a +PI/4)%(PI/2)\" if you prefer \"rad\" over \"deg\"

Or you could have a triangle with the coordinates -1x+0y +1x+0y +0x+2y on both the docking spot and your ship? If x are standardized being powers of 2 and y = x difference by players, ...



And once I thought about male and female docking partners - like you have a 2x2 field of docking units and the inbetween is a dock for your 1-docking-module ship. Would it -while occuping 1/2 blocks all around it- _not_ intercept builds - even around the core?

But this is your thread - I just throw my new random stuff in here and see what remains.

 

[METROID4]

I think you made some unquestionably good suggestions, thank you!

I think the first idea with the upper formula would work really well, so you could just rotate your ship how you want it prior to docking, and then when you dock it will get aligned to the closest 90 degree position.

And/or, there could be a button somewhere (really anywhere, in a menu, or a shortcut like numpad 2-4-6-8 as arrows for direction of rotation) with which you could rotate afterwards of docking (and if it weren\'t possible, like if you rotated 90 degrees and something would be in the way, you\'d rotate by the next possible step like 180 degrees, or not at all if there\'s simply no space).