Please don't take this as offence in any way, it genuinely isn't meant that way.
I seriously don't understand why so many people have problems docking. To me it felt like the easiest thing from day 1. Never had issues, never touched anything while docking, tried the computer once and it feels like it takes ages in comparison to manual (easily 2x as long).
I would honestly like to know what exactly causes people to find it difficult to do.
Is it because of vertical landing, is it because of general lack of control of the ship, is it (in the letterbox) the rotation, is it the other ships around you? I would really appreciate if someone told me
no offense taken and get your point, but think you missed mine - at least my OP, cant speak for everyone else.
1- my OP didnt even hint docking was hard, and most the replies i read are in same camp. My point is something doesnt need to be hard in order to appreciate the convenience of automating that former non-hard but routine task
2- regardless hard or not, as a new player i can unequivocally speak to the benefit of using a docking computer until at least you do learn the ins and outs of the tips to docking - and as my OP described, even after you get good manual docking, there's tips to learn from the docking computer someone may not have thought of
think of the docking computer as a great convenience item and in-game tutorial simulator
my highest praise for a game comes when someone asks me how to best do something in that game, and i can reply - go see/watch/use X.
and if that X can do it as good or reasonably close to a human, that is darn high praise and convenience.
3- to reiterate, once you learn, either on your own or following example of the docking computer, yes - docking is easy. But having that convenience is still awesome if you dont have anything else to use that ship slot fpr.
as said in my OP, i dont use it on my cobra - the slot is too valuable to assign for a convenience item. But on my 100 ton cargo type 6? What else am i going to use it for? I already have the optimal cargo spec most have advised - all that slot would do is occupy a discovery scanner i dont need or a tiny increase to my cargo capacity of like 4 more tons.
and for many docking lineups, so far i cant beat thr computer time - sometime match, usually within 80% - but seems like whether it is a starter tool like starter ships, or convenience item used even by veterans, it has value all across the player range.
