Magnetic docking

[Ihillway]

Let us magnetize our landing gear.

This would let us land on all kinds of cool things, like megaships, the sides of stations, and grapple other ships.

Imagine hiding from a bigger ship hunting you by sticking your eagle to its hull.

Imagine a few small ships clamping on to a bigger ship to fight against it's maneuverability to make it easier to take down, like wolves on an elk.

Imagine sticking to the side of a rotating station on a surface that approximates downward gravity. Imagine trying to do it on an outward surface and getting flung off!

The magnets would have a certain amount of strength, so the more your mount was moving, the more likely you would be to get flung off. The fewer landing pads with good contact, the weaker the grip.

Think of the fun we will have!

 

[Jappards]

That would be cool, but hard to do. What would happen if the ship that is clamped on activates it's FSD? Either you are transported with it and it functions as some kind of taxi or the ship cannot activate the FSD.

 

[varonica]

Let us magnetize our landing gear.

This would let us land on all kinds of cool things, like megaships, the sides of stations, and grapple other ships.

Imagine hiding from a bigger ship hunting you by sticking your eagle to its hull.

Imagine a few small ships clamping on to a bigger ship to fight against it's maneuverability to make it easier to take down, like wolves on an elk.

Imagine sticking to the side of a rotating station on a surface that approximates downward gravity. Imagine trying to do it on an outward surface and getting flung off!

The magnets would have a certain amount of strength, so the more your mount was moving, the more likely you would be to get flung off. The fewer landing pads with good contact, the weaker the grip.

Think of the fun we will have!

The problem is while we fly in a simulated universe it is, in the end, just that, a simulation and it can only be so accurate. Yes they can probably simulate magnetism in a limited way, but I have mu doubts it can be done galaxy wide for all magnetic surfaces.

 

[moorison]

That would be cool, but hard to do. What would happen if the ship that is clamped on activates it's FSD? Either you are transported with it and it functions as some kind of taxi or the ship cannot activate the FSD.

I think the landing gear is already magnetised while docked somewhere, so you don't slide off while rotating. The way the FSD works is not as well explained yet to say for certain that a larger body glued on a surface won't make FTL travel impossible, we do net to retract weapons, cargo bay and landing gear before a jumo can even happen. Sticking on the outside surface of a rotating station might not be as healthy as well, the force pushing in the direction of the head and not the feet. But I would like to land on asteroids or comets, which are already simulated but not shown as I understand it.

 

[varonica]

I think the landing gear is already magnetised while docked somewhere, so you don't slide off while rotating. The way the FSD works is not as well explained yet to say for certain that a larger body glued on a surface won't make FTL travel impossible, we do net to retract weapons, cargo bay and landing gear before a jumo can even happen. Sticking on the outside surface of a rotating station might not be as healthy as well, the force pushing in the direction of the head and not the feet. But I would like to land on asteroids or comets, which are already simulated but not shown as I understand it.

Clamps. Docking clamps are a thing. However selected magnetised surfaces wouldn't be an issue I think, general magnetised surfaces would be harder, much harder. I would also make it illegal to magnetically clamp to stations, there are no doubt extensive engineering factors associated with keeping stations in one piece, attaching a large number of lumps of metal to the outside of a spinning habitation ring is probably not recommended, specially Conda sized ones! So realsitically, you attach to my station I shoot you type scenario. While some people think pad loitering and etc are over enforced with capital punishment the damage that can be caused by careless pilots, including up to the destruction of the station, certainly justifies serious action in most cases.

 

[dm06]

Programmers will cry implementing this kind of physics...

 

[Avago Earo]

Clamps. Docking clamps are a thing.

Are they invisible?

 

[Lestat]

Now let look at High G worlds and magnets. They would not mix. It could cause more damage to our ships. I think what people need to do is Practice docking a few times until you can do it blindfolded.

 

[varonica]

Are they invisible?

No idea, when I can get out of my ship and walk down to have a look I will let you know.

 

[Avago Earo]

No idea, when I can get out of my ship and walk down to have a look I will let you know.

I've had a look (use the camera), there are no clamps there.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

I very much like this idea, but I'm not sure how easy it is to implement. Try flying to an orbis starport, and as best as you can, match speed and nudge the spinning ring. From what I remembers, this kills you.

What they would need to do is figure out how to attach you to the ship, but if they can do that, this would be really cool, yet not very useful. Other people mentioned what you'd do if those things entered hyperspace or equivalent, in the case of cap ships? Just knock you off.

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

Great idea.

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

Thinking about this some more how about an anchor?

You hover over where you want to attach fire your anchor from bottom of ship and winch your ship down.ballistic anchor is made from hardassmegium and can attach to anything now comes as standard on all ships. Anchors can be synthesized or replaced at station.

 

[Ronzer]

They achieve something similar in X4 and it seems really natural. It's not exactly magnetism, but once your ship is near another ship that has docking, your flight movement and walking around, etc, is relative to that larger ship. Not sure how they do it, but I've always found that sort of gameplay interesting, instead of sitting on top of an object and sliding off or having to drive forwards to simulate being stopped attop a moving vessel.
Would like it, but not sure how possible it is with how ED is though.

 

[trollson]

I would presume that this would only be an option in normal space (not SC), and that the transition to SC or Jump would not be possible with an externally docked ship (same as with open weapons).

What happens to normal space maneuvering? If only one vessel uses its engine, then it has to carry the combined mass _and_ suffer an off-centre imbalance. If both vessels use their engines then we need them to be (near) perfectly aligned and coordinated - and not burn each other in the process. The most likely solution would be to disable engines while docked.

 

[OBYOZ]

What about Sheilds?