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- Aug 17, 2013
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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
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