"Reverse" docking beams.

[rariisan]

A beam that instead of going from the ship to the station, goes from the station to the ship and automatically docks it to itself. Could be used to catch cargo, pick up objects from planets, etc.

Please support my other suggestions if you like them:

• Let servers give out local titles/badges/ranks/medals
  
• New factory button: Add stored blocks to filter
  
• Option to highlight blocks of a certain type
  
• Uniform preview mannequin

 

[Nauvran]

Elaborate this please.
How would it work exactly?
Does the dock shoot the beam?
Does the beam just need to hit the ship or does it need to hit a specific block?
and so on....

 

[rariisan]

I didn't want to take too much space and I supposed the dev team would want to decide that, but here's how I imagine it would work:

Allow to C a docking computer and V the docking module (or whatever we're getting in the future). So a sample situation would be that I'm flying with my repair ship around a conflict area, I find a floating ship around and I place myself over him (because both the docking module and the computer are looking down). I'd get up of my pilot chair and activate a logic button that activates said beam, this one shoots down and as soon as it hits a part of the ship, it docks it to said docking module and I can return home.

- If there's someone in the entity being docked, he should be able to decide if he wants to be docked or not.
- If there's someone in the entity shooting the docking beam, he should be able to decide if he wants to dock said entity or not.

Out of the top of my head this is how I see it, I'll edit if I see I missed something or am corrected in any way.

 

[CaptainTaz]

It could also work to 'capture' enemies for Roleplay purposes. If it gets a bit more elaboration, I'm all for this idea. Got Ninja'd

 

[Edymnion]

Well capturing small ships against the pilot's will is already something we can do now. Just build a docking bay and line it with pull beams. Put an area trigger at the back so that the doors close as soon as the ship is in (and have a second unlock switch to stop them from simply hitting the trigger point again to re-open it).

And pray they don't have weapons big enough to damage your shields while they're stuck in there.

 

[SkaireKrough]

Well capturing small ships against the pilot's will is already something we can do now. Just build a docking bay and line it with pull beams. Put an area trigger at the back so that the doors close as soon as the ship is in (and have a second unlock switch to stop them from simply hitting the trigger point again to re-open it).

And pray they don't have weapons big enough to damage your shields while they're stuck in there.

Due to the way current collision detection works the pull beams can actually cause the smaller ship to glitch through the back wall of the hanger unless switched off. Once the beams are switched off, the small ship need only bang into the walls/door of said hanger to attempt to glitch out of hanger. If small ship has jump drive, he could leave anytime once drive was charged. If larger ship attempts to move or jump without the smaller ship being actually docked, same results. If the server has collision damage enabled, results can be catastrophic for all involved.

 

[Edymnion]

Due to the way current collision detection works the pull beams can actually cause the smaller ship to glitch through the back wall of the hanger unless switched off. Once the beams are switched off, the small ship need only bang into the walls/door of said hanger to attempt to glitch out of hanger. If small ship has jump drive, he could leave anytime once drive was charged. If larger ship attempts to move or jump without the smaller ship being actually docked, same results. If the server has collision damage enabled, results can be catastrophic for all involved.

That was just the basic idea. If you're worried about them glitching through walls, put the detection area more towards the middle and have it switch to stop beams to prevent them from moving. Think they're going to jump out? Mix in some power drain beams to ensure that they can't generate enough power to charge the drive.

Not saying its perfect, but you can capture a ship, pilot and all, fairly reliably if you just design for it.

 

[GaeasSon]

This thread deserves some love.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

this sounds like what Rail Dockers will be able to do when they get magnetic attraction which is planned

 

[AtraUnam]

+1 to this idea because it would allow drones to be retried in a timely fashion, also perhaps it should only work on ships in the same faction to prevent it being OP in combat (Force docking the enemy to you so they can't fight back)

 

[kiraen]

Docking beams are being eliminated.

http://starmadedock.net/threads/no-more-docking-beams.20329/