Improve docking with "golf style" range markers for landing bays.

[Armchair]

The Nav compass does a great job at guiding you to your pad once you've passed through the station's energy field, but it doesn't give you any advance warning when your pad is directly inside the gate.

I think that this can be rectified with a single light on the HUD and by taking a cue from the pin flags in golf that dictate the general location of the hole on the green. For those of you that don't play golf, red flags indicate that the hole is near the front of the green. White indicates that the hole is near the center of the green. Blue indicates that the hole is near the far side of the green. (the colors can vary depending on the course, but the idea remains the same).


When requesting docking, the nav computer can display how close the bay is to the entrance in addition to its bay number by simply displaying a red, white, or blue light. With this extra knowledge in hand, we may see fewer pilots overshooting their landing pad and needing to reverse.

 

[Simon Darkstep]

For this purpose and possibly others that involve (essentially) waypoints, what if we had a small, dimly lit dot or pad number in the correct position on the compass, until we were through the mail slot and it lit fully to indicate our pad position.

 

[Joe Spivey]

The Nav compass does a great job at guiding you to your pad once you've passed through the station's energy field, but it doesn't give you any advance warning when your pad is directly inside the gate.

Of course it does. It shows you immediately whether the pad is above, below or to one side. If you go past it, it turns from a solid dot to a hollow dot. Simple and effective.

 

[Armchair]

Of course it does. It shows you immediately whether the pad is above, below or to one side. If you go past it, it turns from a solid dot to a hollow dot. Simple and effective.

Are you playing a different game than I am? Because the nav compass doesn't give me any information whatsoever about my pad's location until AFTER I pass through the energy field.

The whole point of this suggestion is to provide some input to the player to let them know the distance to their pad before they pass through the gate.

 

[Kramster]

I always lower my gear before the 'letterbox' it slows down forward thrust and prevents 'boost'
I check my assigned pad against a list I have made so I am prepared to hit stop if it is inside the entrance
There is no need for additional info as the current tool works just fine...I can even land blind now, at least once I am through the entrance
To save you making a list, here's mine:
(relational position of pads is not shown merely location in relation to entrance)
.
Rear of landing bay
.
04.08.15.19.23.30.31.38.45
03.10.14.18.25.29.32.40.44
01.07.22.28.37.43
02.06.09.12.17.21.24.27.33.36.39.42
05.11.13.16.20.26.34.35.41
.
Entrance to landing bay

 

[Armchair]

Well I'm glad that you've memorized the patterns. I've set them up as a series of voice attack macros to query during my approach. But IMO that is not sufficient.

It is akin to saying that the trading interface on the galaxy map is fine because we can use slopey's BPC to find a good route.

 

[Kramster]

Well I'm glad that you've memorized the patterns. I've set them up as a series of voice attack macros to query during my approach. But IMO that is not sufficient.

It is akin to saying that the trading interface on the galaxy map is fine because we can use slopey's BPC to find a good route.

Don't use that either, prefer to play the trading game not the insider trading game...just plan for the fact the bay may be near the door and the compass is fine.

 

[Aircool]

It doesn't help that the space stations enjoy turning off the docking bay numbers. Not being able to tell if your bay is at the front or the back can lead to a traffic jam at the station entrance, possibly a fine, and at worst, collisions. Some sort of ILS like you get in 2015 aircraft would be useful.
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Mind you, because I must have docked hundreds of times since I bought the game almost two weeks ago, I like to go at the landing pad full pelt, with afterburners then pop the landing gear at the last minute. It kinda puts some fun into landing