Horizons Docking at statiions: elevator Logic:

[indiebob]

I don't know if there's a setting for this somewhere but when you dock, it'd be great if it took your ship went down into the hangar automatically. You more or less have to go down there anyway, for the ship to be turned around before take off. It'd save a lot of wasted time, albeit in chunks of a few seconds.

EDIT: Why are ships even rotated before take off on stations where the pads are on the outside / open or on ground bases?

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

I don't know if there's a setting for this somewhere but when you dock, it'd be great if it took your ship went down into the hangar automatically. You more or less have to go down there anyway, for the ship to be turned around before take off. It'd save a lot of wasted time, albeit in chunks of a few seconds.

I like having the option to stay on the pad.

 

[Ydiss]

No need for it. I'd like the "Enter hangar" button to work the second you touch down, though, and not only after the ship takes a few seconds to align.

And while we're on the topic, are medium pads ever going to use the fast turnaround when launching from the pad? Come on FD, it's only been a year

Small QOL changes, though. Not that important.

 

[Zueuk]

It'd save a lot of wasted time, albeit in chunks of a few seconds.

The whole elevator (plus the useless decorative "blast shields") thing is nothing more than a time waster. Maybe it was amuzing to watch it roll back and forth 1 or 2 times, but after playing long enough it just becomes more and more annoying, until you understand... That the main purpose of this purely decorative "feature" is to waste as much of your time as possible, trying to distract you from the fact that there is just not enough actual things to spend time doing in this game.

At least I don't see any other reason for such useless decoration to exist: it dosn't improve gameplay, it only breaks the immersion - because for immersion, things that happen to you must make sense - but here we have what? landing platforms that insist on you landing in a particular way, only to waste more time rotating you the other way? "blast shields", that are always on the wrong side from the actual blast?

Too bad many players (and probably devs too) got so used to this crap over time, that now think that this kind of thing is normal...

 

[nexxo]

Dude, you want to play Eve Online. Docking and launching just involves a quick and convenient fade, and flying in system is a quick click on a pull-down menu and whoosh, you're there.

Others want a sense of actually inhabiting a world where things happen whether they convenience you or not. So I'm happy with the way things are, thanks.

LOL at all the players complaining they want "more depth" but have fits at the idea of introducing more challenges and want every mechanic stripped back to the bare minimum.

 

[Zueuk]

Others want a sense of actually inhabiting a world where things happen whether they convenience you or not. So I'm happy with the way things are, thanks.

Like 200 tons of goods magically teleporting into your cargo hold, or your 1% hull being repaired instantly?

 

[Ddraig]

I like that the option to go down or stay up there is mine to make.
So I think is fine as it is.

 

[Lightspeed]

I like the space ports mechanics the way they are ! I like:

the sound of the locking mechanism grabbing the ship;
the adjustment of the ship position as it is grabbed;
the little details of smoke rising, either above or below decks;
the details of below decks features;
the sounds of activities and ships muffled when you are below decks .....

I could go on, but if you are determined not to like it, you won't. But honestly, it's the little details that help to make it immersive. So much better than pressing a key to 'dock' or 'launch' and a screen fade transition.

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Like 200 tons of goods magically teleporting into your cargo hold, or your 1% hull being repaired instantly?

Inconsistent - you complain about time wasting, but think how long you might have to wait if 99% of your hull was being repaired realistically

 

[Rankaze]

Elevator function is fine. Medium pads having to wait longer than everyone else could stand to be addressed.

 

[indiebob]

I like having the option to stay on the pad.

You could always return to the surface. I am not suggesting that option is removed. The only difference would be that there would be no ability to face the rear of a station when on the surface since when returning to the surface you'd face the front.

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Dude, you want to play Eve Online. Docking and launching just involves a quick and convenient fade, and flying in system is a quick click on a pull-down menu and whoosh, you're there.

Others want a sense of actually inhabiting a world where things happen whether they convenience you or not. So I'm happy with the way things are, thanks.

LOL at all the players complaining they want "more depth" but have fits at the idea of introducing more challenges and want every mechanic stripped back to the bare minimum.

Try reading my post and answering what I actually suggest.
In a galaxy with busy star ports eager to clear landing pads in the minimum of time, where time is money, they'd take you down ready for launch ASAP and not mess about. Sure if you want to return to the surface, that's fine, do it.
The current way breaks immersion since I very much doubt in 1000 years they haven't managed to optimise this process, but have it your way.
Also: I have played Eve and hated it. How dare you suggest such a thing!

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I like the space ports mechanics the way they are ! I like:

the sound of the locking mechanism grabbing the ship;
the adjustment of the ship position as it is grabbed;
the little details of smoke rising, either above or below decks;
the details of below decks features;
the sounds of activities and ships muffled when you are below decks .....

I could go on, but if you are determined not to like it, you won't. But honestly, it's the little details that help to make it immersive. So much better than pressing a key to 'dock' or 'launch' and a screen fade transition.

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Inconsistent - you complain about time wasting, but think how long you might have to wait if 99% of your hull was being repaired realistically

They could at least repair/reload etc in the hangar... which would be no biggie if, as seems logical, they take your ship down, ready to launch. No one wants to take away your precious sound effects.

Edited Op to include: EDIT: Why are ships even rotated before takek off on stations where the pads are on the outside / open or on ground bases?

 

[nexxo]

Like 200 tons of goods magically teleporting into your cargo hold, or your 1% hull being repaired instantly?

Actually I would like a mechanic for that too: actually see the cargo being loaded and unloaded, and seeing robot arms/machines crawling over the hull fixing things. But imagine the spasms of apoplexy from some players if those "time wasting" mechanics were introduced.

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EDIT: Why are ships even rotated before takek off on stations where the pads are on the outside / open or on ground bases?

So that they face away from large structures on launch?

 

[indiebob]

Actually I would like a mechanic for that too: actually see the cargo being loaded and unloaded, and seeing robot arms/machines crawling over the hull fixing things. But imagine the spasms of apoplexy from some players if those "time wasting" mechanics were introduced.

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So that they face away from large structures on launch?

Doesn't really make sense. Often there aren't any and you are more or less on a flat plane. When it does ships end up with their exhaust and main thrusters pointing towards any large structures...

 

[CMDR Thon Mystra]

Doesn't really make sense. Often there aren't any and you are more or less on a flat plane. When it does ships end up with their exhaust and main thrusters pointing towards any large structures...

Rotation is necessary either way when it comes to the larger coriolis, etc stations, otherwise you would have to turn 180 degrees to get out on launch. I can imagine that being pretty annoying after the first dock.

Lowering of the platform in order to rotate it is also necessary, essentially metal passing through metal as the platform rotates would probably be a huge immersion breaker to many, model clipping is generally not accepted as being representative of a real, or virtual, world....and whilst we can forgive an elves cloak clipping through his legs in some games, there really is no need here to use clipping as a method of saving a few seconds of your time.

Whilst I understand your point about the smaller stations having the room to allow you to take off in practically any x/y direction so facing is a moot point, I would assume that it would be a fair amount of work involved to code in behaviours for particular station platforms and is far easier to have the single platform model asset and animations and to reuse them throughout the whole game. Personally, I would rather they spend the time dealing with NPC AI, rather than docking bay protocols.

However, I do agree that blast shields on only one side is a bit odd.....

 

[Sapient6]

Inconsistent - you complain about time wasting, but think how long you might have to wait if 99% of your hull was being repaired realistically

I would be in favor of such a change. The gnashing of teeth would probably be unbearable, but having to maintain a base of operations and several ships so you can continue to play while your ship is being repaired would be FANTASTIC.

 

[Lightspeed]

I would be in favor of such a change. The gnashing of teeth would probably be unbearable, but having to maintain a base of operations and several ships so you can continue to play while your ship is being repaired would be FANTASTIC.

"

True this ... you could have the equivalent of reverse missions ... like "Come back in a couple of days and we will have it fixed like new,"

and you return to get the message "The mechanic didn't turn up, so can you come back tomorrow? We should have it fixed by then, "

and even messages, such as "We found it was worse than you thought ... we need an extra 1,000,000 credits to get it fixed ..."

Gnashing of teeth, true, but then more like real life !

 

[Bannon_Orcus]

I don't know if there's a setting for this somewhere but when you dock, it'd be great if it took your ship went down into the hangar automatically. You more or less have to go down there anyway, for the ship to be turned around before take off. It'd save a lot of wasted time, albeit in chunks of a few seconds.

EDIT: Why are ships even rotated before takek off on stations where the pads are on the outside / open or on ground bases?

what like pressing two buttons is stressful?!

 

[Yaffle]

I have no knowledge about it, but often wondered if it was a 'loading screen' of some form transiting between the station environment and the flight environment.

 

[Zueuk]

the sound of the locking mechanism grabbing the ship;
(... ... ...)
it's the little details that help to make it immersive.

Doing pre-flight check also was kind of cool for immersion, but fortunately we don't have to do it every time we take off.
But why we have to watch the damn elevators? After 1000th time you see that crap you start thinking - why I should watch this every time? what its the reason for seeing all these things move? why are these things even there? - and then you understand, that it's all just decorations that make little to no sense from the real-world point of view, and - goodbye immersion, you will be missed.

Inconsistent - you complain about time wasting, but think how long you might have to wait if 99% of your hull was being repaired realistically

"Inconsistent" is when people say how they feel immersed by a time-wasting elevator, but don't want to have time-wasting repairs/refuels/cargo (un)loadings.

Actually I would like a mechanic for that too: actually see the cargo being loaded and unloaded, and seeing robot arms/machines crawling over the hull fixing things. But imagine the spasms of apoplexy from some players if those "time wasting" mechanics were introduced.

And that is why developers should fix such things immediately after they are found. It's probably too late now to add significant delays here, but at least a brief 1-2 seconds progress bar animation would be better than nothing.
The elevator anamations still should be adjusted, especially the medium one.

And I'd really be happy if somebody removed the ridiculous "blast shields" for good, their existence (and placement) is just an insult to common sense.

 

[Sapient6]

"

True this ... you could have the equivalent of reverse missions ... like "Come back in a couple of days and we will have it fixed like new,"

and you return to get the message "The mechanic didn't turn up, so can you come back tomorrow? We should have it fixed by then, "

and even messages, such as "We found it was worse than you thought ... we need an extra 1,000,000 credits to get it fixed ..."

Gnashing of teeth, true, but then more like real life !

Haha, there's probably a line that could be crossed there...

 

[Apos]

We should also remove the station mass lock factor and FSD charge time as well if you ask me.

Since we're onto removing time wasters and all.

I like the idea of timed repair that you'd have to use other ships while they are being processed though.