- A block that is used to allow/disallow dimensions from docking would be useful, but why not build an inlet to your docking structure that has the correct dimensions, this way a ship that has a weird offset would essential get stuck at the front of the bay and never make it to the turns/rotations.
That's the problem, they would get stuck, blocking anyone else from entering. Ships "snap" onto rails. if a ship was shaped with a large nose and a narrow body, then it would get stuck and not be able to back out again (unless it warp jumped)
- When all your docks are full, an AND-Signal could activate a door (rail door in this case) which would not have the controls on the outside available to players. The only way the door opens, is when the AND-signal is false (or when a dock is open) You can also add a timer/clock to the outside rails to dedock an entity waiting to enter that cannot. This would mitigate traffic on the rails.
True, however, if this module already prevents docking, it would make sense to allow it to be triggered to disable docking in general. It's a minor addition, which adds a very useful function to the block. Instead of complex logic, all that would be needed is a single AND and NOT gate to determine if docking bays are full. Ships can dock anywhere on a rail, only the area their docker is attached to would activate a activation block. Placing a bunch of activation blocks under rails is a bit problematic. It's better if the ship was prevented from docking in the first place.
- Why not use a wireless signal to activate an undocking procedure. You could also use a wall of buttons or other types of logic that the docked entity could shoot it's ship core at to activate. Having multiple functions attached to a single hotbar button would prove difficult to control under laggy conditions.
Oh, I've considered this. The problem with wireless logic is that it can activate a block from anywhere, even other sectors. They can only be tied to one block too, which limits them greatly. The idea here is that any ship can dock at any base, so long as the base allows docking, and their ship will fit, according to the station builder, without getting hung up inside. From a player standpoint docking and undocking from these specialized bays would be the same as docking and undocking from a single rail block placed on a planet, or another ship.
Wall buttons are nice, and I do use them currently, but it's not very intuitive, and they have to be placed where you're sure the ship can activate them. Having a wall of activation buttons. This hard dock module would remove the need a button wall, and would allow for station builders to have much more esthetically pleasing docki For complex docking systems, last thing you want is a noob undocking and getting stuck inside a station. This is why I suggested hard docking as a way to enforce a proper undocking procedure.
From a usability standpoint, the same method used to undock from a normal and hard dock rail inside of a landing bay would be the same. The only difference would be forcing your ship to undock from rail that's using hard docking.
