Green = Go, RED does not..

[ZaphodBeeble]

I just wanted to come here and say these things:

THEY ARE NOT STOP AND GO LIGHTS.

They are port and starboard:

Port is left - colour: red
Starboard is right - colour: green

So if you are approaching the dock from the outside and the red is on the right you are upside down relative to what the lights are suggesting.

When you pass you always pass on the right so both the red lights are near. The same applies to entering the docking port. Get the red on the left and you know which way is 'up' or 'left' or any other direction, relative to the port.

 

[Karnak]

I just wanted to come here and say these things:

THEY ARE NOT STOP AND GO LIGHTS.

They are port and starboard:

Port is left - colour: red
Starboard is right - colour: green

So if you are approaching the dock from the outside and the red is on the right you are upside down relative to what the lights are suggesting.

When you pass you always pass on the right so both the red lights are near. The same applies to entering the docking port. Get the red on the left and you know which way is 'up' or 'left' or any other direction, relative to the port.

Given the design of the stations, up and down aren't a very relevant or high priority piece of information. Ships crashing into each other while entering or leave is rather relevant. Therefore it would be better to have stop and go lights than it would be to have up and down directional indicators.

 

[ZaphodBeeble]

Given the design of the stations, up and down aren't a very relevant or high priority piece of information. Ships crashing into each other while entering or leave is rather relevant. Therefore it would be better to have stop and go lights than it would be to have up and down directional indicators.

If they implement 'stop and go' lights I will endeavour to ignore them. If I've been given clearance then I'm docking. If someone's piloting skills don't enable them to slot a ship through alongside me then that's their problem.

 

[Lobstris]

If they implement 'stop and go' lights I will endeavour to ignore them. If I've been given clearance then I'm docking. If someone's piloting skills don't enable them to slot a ship through alongside me then that's their problem.

And hopefully you'd be fined heavily, if not outright barred from station, followed by quick laser-y death for doing that repeatedly. Or you'd just meet something large and vey heavy going the other way with the same idea eventually

I've just been the 'meat' (along with a Hauler pilot) in a two Lakon sandwich at Aulin. Which, whilst graphically impressive, did cause a lot of confusion as to who the heck had right of way. Eventually resolved by letting the first Lakon out, by the Hauler and I thrusting back and downward out of the toast rack. Now decent space traffic control could have held us off to let the Lakon out in the first place.

 

[Schnittertm]

And when someone else is at a different attitude to this reference their local up is different to that decided upon for the overall frame of reference.
For them to then reorient their mental picture of things to conform with an external frame of reference incurs an additional burden that is neither desired or required.
Can it be done ?
Of course.
Should it be done.
Of course not.
Why ?
There are no advantages and it can only lead to unnecessary complications, ambiguities and the creation of confusion.
Keep it simple.

Which is why the lights are there. To adjust your frame of reference to that of a station controller put the red light to the right, the green to the left and you're both in the same frame of reference and everyone not only agreed where up is, but up is the same for each person involved. It's simple, it's easy, it's doable even for monkeys.

If you ignore the navigation lights pointing you to said overlapping of frames of reference then it is your fault.

However, docking with a rotating station would always be prefereable on the axis of rotation and not offset to it, as your interpretation of the lights as 'traffic lights' would cause you to.

In the real world they try to keep plane landing, for example, as safe and as simple as possible. One of those features is the landing in the middle of the landing strip, not offset to the side. Gives you leeway should the plane slip on touchdown and therefore additional safety. Not having to manage the up and down and possibly left and right thrusters in addition to keeping the rotation steady and the forward thrust going is helpful. That alone would be reason enough to dock in the middle in the slot. A little bit of forethought will also help, e.g. first checking the scanner and the slot for any obstacles and entering/leaving at a reasonable speed (around 80-100 m/s), again, similar to todays planes that also don't land at full speed, but a quite reduced one. Having a jet fighter land with afterburner on would usually result in what is sometimes called a 'lawn dart'.

So, yes, I do see advantages to a simple operation (put red light right) in both interacting with a traffic controller (which we sadly do not have) as well as creating a simple to put in order frame of reference for everyone.

 

[Karnak]

And hopefully you'd be fined heavily, if not outright barred from station, followed by quick laser-y death for doing that repeatedly. Or you'd just meet something large and vey heavy going the other way with the same idea eventually

I've just been the 'meat' (along with a Hauler pilot) in a two Lakon sandwich at Aulin. Which, whilst graphically impressive, did cause a lot of confusion as to who the heck had right of way. Eventually resolved by letting the first Lakon out, by the Hauler and I thrusting back and downward out of the toast rack. Now decent space traffic control could have held us off to let the Lakon out in the first place.

Exactly.

Do that in an Anarchy and well, crap happens. Do it in a corrupt system of some sort and maybe pay a bribe. Do it in a law abiding system and pay a fine the first time or so, but be a serial offender and no longer get landing authorization or even get shot, depending on their mentality.

 

[Majere]

So no-one has heard of removing traffic controls to reduce accidents then?

There are many examples, some described here:

http://knowledge.allianz.com/mobility/transportation_safety/?1841/risker-streets-reduce-accidents

There may end up being some form of ATC but at the moment it consists of asking for permission and severe penalties if you linger where not wanted and that is it.

Perhaps people are asking the wrong question and maybe landing/takeoff clearance is given too eagerly and the time allowed is too great.

 

[ZaphodBeeble]

Eventually resolved by letting the first Lakon out, by the Hauler and I thrusting back and downward out of the toast rack.

Hang on...

What you're saying here is that you applied...wait for it...common sense? You adapted to the situation without any nannying or blaring klaxons and used your scanner and your noggin to get through the busy port. Congratulations, Commander. You have passed Docking Level 1. Your certificate is in the post.

 

[scrufferpops]

Dunno about this 'pass on the left', 'pass on the right' stuff but one noteworthy thing that popped up in new science quite a few years ago (around 1999) was that apparently there IS an 'up' in space.

It therefore naturally follows that theres also a left, a right and a down...and a forward and behind.

Scruff out.

 

[Lobstris]

So no-one has heard of removing traffic controls to reduce accidents then?

There are many examples, some described here:

http://knowledge.allianz.com/mobility/transportation_safety/?1841/risker-streets-reduce-accidents

Heh heh. I'm actually supervising a PhD student who's looking into modelling Shared Spaces and how effective (or not) they'd be in the UK. They only work under specific conditions, when vehicle speeds are very low, and pedestrian have clear 'desire lines' within the space, plus the volume of footfall to force vehicles to behave. Also lots of shared spaces aren't really that 'shared', in that they do still have demarcation between where traffic should go, and where pedestrians move. The Dutch and the Germans are 'streets ahead' (forgive the pun) than us Brits though...

 

[Lobstris]

Hang on...

What you're saying here is that you applied...wait for it...common sense? You adapted to the situation without any nannying or blaring klaxons and used your scanner and your noggin to get through the busy port. Congratulations, Commander. You have passed Docking Level 1. Your certificate is in the post.

What I'm saying is that that situation shouldn't have arisen in the first place.

 

[ZaphodBeeble]

Heh heh. I'm actually supervising a PhD student who's looking into modelling Shared Spaces and how effective (or not) they'd be in the UK.

That's awesome. I think we could cope quite well if we could get used to it. Hopefully his research proves me right.

 

[Lobstris]

That's awesome. I think we could cope quite well if we could get used to it. Hopefully his research proves me right.

I have just realised that arguing over the best settings for sets of red and green lights is pretty much my day job - so I'm butting out now before this becomes too much of a busman's holiday.

 

[Merf]

Keep it simple.

Sort of like "do not fly into other objects on approach". Kinda simple that one.

/Merf - "The enemy gate is down."

 

[Orko]

The different lighting makes no sense to me.

I come with a naval background. In the seas port's have the light's from the view of the sea. Red on the left and green on the right, viewed from sea.
So when you are leaving port you know that you have to keep the red on the right and the green on the left.
It's all over the world practice to have every entrance lighted from sea side. Even the river's follow this. The down towards sea is reversed to the up from sea.

So it would be only logical to extend this naval tradition to space. And makes no sense, in my mind, to have the inside of the space stations lid in reverse order of the outside.

I don't get it.


The right way to do it would be have green on the right for entering and red on the right for leaving.
I'm so set in this that i didn't even notice the different lighting until i saw this thread. And i was laughing and wondering why everyone is leaving the port on the wrong side...


Especial when you think about the traffic control. You need one unified color scheme so you don't have any chance of confusion. And one definition of starboard defined. Having 2 set's totally opposed from each other will only lead to confusion and accident's.

 

[Karnak]

The problem is that the big ships cannot do the left or right thing. They are too big, particularly the Lakon 9.

 

[Sysmon]

I fly with landing gear exposed as little as possible (apply right before touch down, retract right after boosting off pad), in a sidewinder (too busy getting my nose into things that blows me to bits to make significant money).

When hugging the green side of the exit, I'm propelled into the path of incoming crafts. That often ends being my problem, as I'm in the smallest boat there is. Could it be fixed with some sort of auto-guidance? Considering we also seem to have green-red colour blind people here that don't know how arrows work either, I'm not sure it will do much difference. I vote for the simplest possible solution: Keep it as it is (perhaps rig the guiding force to only be active when big ships are heading in/out).

S

 

[[SI] Bobdelion]

The lighting scheme seems a logical solution for me, given the limitations of a single access point (which is a separate issue, but future stations of different types may well employ different designs if for no other reason than variation). The magnetic correction can be a bit annoying but being confident with your positioning and speed seems to negate it's effect quite nicely. By that I mean that if you dawdle about then the auto-correction will throw you all over the place... so don't dawdle - put your foot down and get going! I guess it is more designed for the larger ships anyway which need the full space of the letterbox to enter stations and for those pilots the correction is I'm sure a nice aid (I wouldn't know - I much prefer to be small and nimble).

TBH for me the lighting/right of way issue is pretty moot given that I still see many people trying to go through the opening at right angles! It would seem that some people are their own worst enemies.

 

[Sysmon]

What I don't get is why the stations don't have a port in each end, one for entry, the other for exiting. That should solve the issue, unless the pilots are too dumb to figure out which is which. In which case any mishaps are natural selection.

The Coriolis design is a bit flawed, I reckon. Should be easy to design a hollow axis for any rotating object that we can slip and out of. Also, why is the opening not circular?

In a way, it is almost like the "goold old days" in Elite, when one could line up the perfect entry to a station, just to be smacked in the head by a Fer-de-lance suddenly popping out of the mail slot... Maybe the design is a relict of nostalgia?

S

 

[Nomadski]

The different lighting makes no sense to me.

I come with a naval background. In the seas port's have the light's from the view of the sea. Red on the left and green on the right, viewed from sea.
So when you are leaving port you know that you have to keep the red on the right and the green on the left.
It's all over the world practice to have every entrance lighted from sea side. Even the river's follow this. The down towards sea is reversed to the up from sea.

So it would be only logical to extend this naval tradition to space. And makes no sense, in my mind, to have the inside of the space stations lid in reverse order of the outside.

I don't get it.


The right way to do it would be have green on the right for entering and red on the right for leaving.
I'm so set in this that i didn't even notice the different lighting until i saw this thread. And i was laughing and wondering why everyone is leaving the port on the wrong side...


Especial when you think about the traffic control. You need one unified color scheme so you don't have any chance of confusion. And one definition of starboard defined. Having 2 set's totally opposed from each other will only lead to confusion and accident's.

....if it was an orientation guide you would be right. But its not, and never has been in ED.

As you have noticed it is opposite on the other side of the port. So think about it for a second.

Why would one side be green coming in, and red going out? What on earth could that mean?

There is no point in applying naval orientation logic to space, as the ships aren't moving on all axis, turning upside down or anything else. And green is pretty standard colour for GO, while red is pretty standard for DONT GO.

Even if you start plastering the words up or down on the exterior of stations, it would provide the player with exactly zero useful information whatsoever when it comes to flying through that port.

The only thing that makes any sense whatsoever is to have some kind of signature that smaller ships should be passing on this side, and outgoing small ships will be leaving on that side.

This and That sides cant be defined clearly with no point of reference, so a simple red and green light should be simple enough for people to understand, right?

Right?

This confusion never came up in Alpha...

:S