Reorienting docking facing?

[Panpiper]

So I'm building what is finally a major, general purpose ship, even including the 'roleplaying' features I usually avoid due to it being mass intensive to no functional end (up till now, everything I've built except for one dedicated fighter/bomber has been permacloaked). This ship is not intended to permacloak, as it is significant enough to not be worried about pirates and the like. However, it is still useful to be able to scout while cloaked so as to check out the pirate station you are thinking of clobbering. So, I've built a shuttle bay.

Oops...

My nice little cloak scout wants to sit in the shuttle bay in a most inopportune angle. While it can fit, it looks every bit as bizarre as it's orientation is dysfunctional. Such a shuttle would never sidle up sideways like that into a docking bay, it would move in or out head first.

Is there any way to change the orientation of a docked ship, or is one expected to change the orientation of the entire ship/station itself by effectively rebuilding the whole thing? If it is not possible, is there any hint it will be someday? This is enormously frustrating.

 

[GothicGhost]

I got the same probelm after a made a big ship with the little ship facing the wrong way when docked

 

[Bloodlance]

As far as i know, orientation is always the same direction.

 

[CaptainTaz]

As far as i know, orientation is always the same direction.

yep, what he said. I hear it may be planned in the new docking system for this to change, but I'm unsure.

 

[CyberTao]

Docking is dictated by which direction the docking box is facing (relative to the entity it is docked to).
If it is pointing up, the ship is right-side up and pointing forwards.
If it is point down, the ship is upside down and pointing backwards.
If it is pointing left or right, the ship will be on it's side pointing forwards.
If it is pointing forwards or backwards, the ship sits pointing up iirc (it bugged once upon a time, dunno if it was corrected).
In all cases, the bottom of the ship faces the docking module.

What you could do, if none of these positions are correct, is use a 'coupler' as I've come to call them. basically dock a ship to the main ship, and dock your ship to that 'coupler'. Clever use of this can get the ship to point in a direction that it normally does not. To get it to point down for example, you could dock a ship to the underside of the coupler (so that it would be pointing opposite) and dock that coupler to the main ship via a docking module facing forwards/backwards.

 

[Calbiri]

Docking orientation can get really complex, particularly with the unlimited tiers of docking that are now allowed. This has been something Schema has done preliminary work on before, and will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming patch he mentioned including the docks and rails if more problems don't crop up.

 

[timethatswasted]

Docking orientation can get really complex, particularly with the unlimited tiers of docking that are now allowed. This has been something Schema has done preliminary work on before, and will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming patch he mentioned including the docks and rails if more problems don't crop up.

In the upcoming patch?!

 

[Calbiri]

As in, after the GUI patch.

 

[timethatswasted]

ah... way to crush my optimism Still looking forward to that new GUI though!

 

[Panpiper]

Docking orientation can get really complex, particularly with the unlimited tiers of docking that are now allowed. This has been something Schema has done preliminary work on before, and will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming patch he mentioned including the docks and rails if more problems don't crop up.

Has anyone told you recently that you are a wonderful human being and that we love you for all you are doing?

 

[Jananton]

Docking orientation can get really complex, particularly with the unlimited tiers of docking that are now allowed. This has been something Schema has done preliminary work on before, and will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming patch he mentioned including the docks and rails if more problems don't crop up.

One of the reasons I only use ship docking on stations at the moment, for ships I wait for the time we can set the docking direction as desired. As always, patience is the key here.

Greets,

Jan