My cat can do it, and he only has one eye and uses keyboard and mouse because he has problems with the HOTASMy 7 year old son can do it. But privacy concerns prevent me from sharing the video
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Newcomer / Intro Docking for newbies is a nightmare (dev's U need to do something)
- Thread starter claretonmyshirt
- Start date
Oh good grief, white dwarfs still scare the carp out of me.. Sheesh. Also, yes, same- docking and undocking requires full attention, the first few times, but happens more or less automatically once you start playing the game proper and get into a rhythm. The only slightly funny thing is when you go from a large freighter to taking a small fighter out for a spin.. It's so much twitchier.. you might embarrass yourself slightly scraping over the pad
Best advice on the subject possible! The "one more trade leg to get your credits to a round number" syndrome has lead to a few displays of extreme sloppiness on my part- where I'm half looking at the screen, mind wandering. It's slightly hilarious, and adds flavour to the game, especially when Space Truckin'(tm).
What made docking in the orginal Elite so hard (at least for C64 owners) was
1. No perspective at the landing bay. You had no depth perception as up close you just had a very large rotating rectangle to signify the landing bay. If you weren't lined up with it precisely, you were dog meat.
2. Joysticks in those days were digital affairs, kind of like a keyboard. roll left and roll right were either on or off, and Bell and Braden were just sick enough to make sure your cobra rotated faster than a space station.
So as you approached the station, you were twitching the joystick spastically because you couldn't actual smoothly match the rotation of the station.
With Elite Dangerous, not only do you have the advantage of perception (you can see past the entry way and it helps you line up, but you also have analog joysticks so you can perfectly match rotation of the ship and with practice you don't even realize you are rotating.
I've seen some of the videos of folks rocketing in with flight assist off and full afterburner from 10 clicks out. thats ballsy right there....
1. No perspective at the landing bay. You had no depth perception as up close you just had a very large rotating rectangle to signify the landing bay. If you weren't lined up with it precisely, you were dog meat.
2. Joysticks in those days were digital affairs, kind of like a keyboard. roll left and roll right were either on or off, and Bell and Braden were just sick enough to make sure your cobra rotated faster than a space station.
So as you approached the station, you were twitching the joystick spastically because you couldn't actual smoothly match the rotation of the station.
With Elite Dangerous, not only do you have the advantage of perception (you can see past the entry way and it helps you line up, but you also have analog joysticks so you can perfectly match rotation of the ship and with practice you don't even realize you are rotating.
I've seen some of the videos of folks rocketing in with flight assist off and full afterburner from 10 clicks out. thats ballsy right there....
Is it really that hard?
What i did was used the docking training probably 3 times before i got it mastered
If your using mouse and keybord that is likely part of the problem, Keyboard controls are kinda a mess.
You should buy a docking computer haha. They're pretty cheap too I think.
lol. My thoughts exactly.
lol. My thoughts exactly.
I am not going to bother reading all the posts. I am sure they are filled with the normal posts. A few well meaning helpful suggestions that are completely buried, by the not only unhelpful, but unnecessary posts. Because of that i will try to make this short and hope the OP sees it or anyone else that is struggling with this.
There are great tutorials built into the launcher to help with this, or if your like me and hate tutorials:
Go to a system that is not very populated. They can be easily filtered in the galaxy map. Fly to a small station in a small ship (more landing pads that way) and just practice. Give it 30-45 minutes of docking attempts and you will surely start to get the hang of it. Look for the clues that tell you which way to face (arrows) and take your time. You have plenty of time on the counter and you can always cancel request and resend if you are going to run out of time. The rush is what will make it difficult more than anything.
It may seem hard (especially if its being glitchy) but it does get easier. Doing this at the large stations is just asking for trouble. Lining up for the mail slot, rotation of the starport, npc's zipping in and out (horribly), CMDR's not using the correct entrance and exit sides of the slot, CMDR's not caring if they blow up or damage a ship. The list goes on.
Good luck CMDR. It does get easier. I promise.
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I find docking to be wayyyyyyyy simpler than the original Elite... what does annoy me though are all the loitering error messages you get while docking now. Go slow and steady (like the announcer tells you in the PA announcements) and you end up with warnings that start timing down and then go away within a second or two... really gets annoying. Only way to stop it happening is to barrel through the opening and then dive at your pad. Same going out of the station... go through the slot like a bat out of hell.
The docking on the other hand is simple. If you want hard docking then go and play Kerbal Space Program lol.
Oh there is one thing about arriving at the space station that annoys me... I can be coming in at a decent rate in FSD and then suddenly the ship speeds up like crazy... turn the speed to zero and the ship STILL speeds up for a while. It's what leads a lot of players to overshoot the target a lot of the time I think. Yet if you come in at 75% speed the sudden increase doesn't happen. Makes no sense!
The docking on the other hand is simple. If you want hard docking then go and play Kerbal Space Program lol.
Oh there is one thing about arriving at the space station that annoys me... I can be coming in at a decent rate in FSD and then suddenly the ship speeds up like crazy... turn the speed to zero and the ship STILL speeds up for a while. It's what leads a lot of players to overshoot the target a lot of the time I think. Yet if you come in at 75% speed the sudden increase doesn't happen. Makes no sense!
Okay, I gotta try it out then. I didn't realize an auto-docking sequence could be cool. So now I got to know. I just have to figure out what I'm going to replace to get it....
Oh good grief, white dwarfs still scare the carp out of me.. Sheesh. Also, yes, same- docking and undocking requires full attention, the first few times, but happens more or less automatically once you start playing the game proper and get into a rhythm. The only slightly funny thing is when you go from a large freighter to taking a small fighter out for a spin.. It's so much twitchier.. you might embarrass yourself slightly scraping over the pad
Best advice on the subject possible! The "one more trade leg to get your credits to a round number" syndrome has lead to a few displays of extreme sloppiness on my part- where I'm half looking at the screen, mind wandering. It's slightly hilarious, and adds flavour to the game, especially when Space Truckin'(tm).
Black holes also make me feel uneasy. I know they're pretty benign now, but I still can't just lay down my controller and leave the room like I'm fuel scooping or flying 400,000ls away. I simply don't trust black holes. I know it's not a rational uneasiness. They're just so ; creepy.
As for scraping over the pad, that's certainly embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as missing the letterbox from inside the station and hitting the wall at 200m/s with many hollow shapes on the radar around you. Funny stuff in hindsight, though.
Good advice here. Just don't rush yourself or panic, both will get you killed in just about any situation.
My biggest problem in learning to doc was trying to figure out the correct direction for the outposts. The direction was obvious for the rotating stations but it was unclear for the outposts until I noticed that you have to land with the engine blast shield behind the ship when it is in the docked position. The engine blast shield is that ramp on the dock that is in raised (angled) position when you land, and it gets lowered before you're allowed to take off. Also, it took me awhile to figure out that I had to be fairly close with landing gear down before the landing guidance would appear on the HUD.
Landing is easy.
It only takes a couple of tries to get used to landing/docking, it's not that hard. I switched from keyboard and mouse to joystick couple of weeks ago, had to learn it again. But like i said, couple of tries and i got the hang of it.
When i first started playing worst part for me was figuring out where's the station entrance and how to position my ship on landing pads.
When i first started playing worst part for me was figuring out where's the station entrance and how to position my ship on landing pads.
Docking etiquette
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]I've not had any problems with docking compared to the original Elite. As a general rule of thumb I get horizontal and level to the dock entrance then rotate so that the dock lights at each side of the entrance have the red(port) on the left side and the green(starboard) on the right. Then as I'm going through I keep to the right side. Ships should always pass each other on their port sides to prevent collisions.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Cheers........Mad Jock [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]I've not had any problems with docking compared to the original Elite. As a general rule of thumb I get horizontal and level to the dock entrance then rotate so that the dock lights at each side of the entrance have the red(port) on the left side and the green(starboard) on the right. Then as I'm going through I keep to the right side. Ships should always pass each other on their port sides to prevent collisions.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]Cheers........Mad Jock [/FONT]
Yep, that's exactly right. Another cue is that a little walkway (that looks a bit like a diving board) appears on the right size of the pad, poking into the yellow hologram. This is useful because outposts can sometimes be rather dark- and the walkway is often visible from a greater distance than the blast shield mentioned above. Knowing which way it's facing in advance lets you sweep in quickly and gracefully, rather than slowly turning on the spot.
That said, this thread is still stupid. If you can't manage the simple control needed to dock, you'll be royally screwed in combat- that needs all the same controls, but under time pressure. Removing this very very low bar will just mean that people who aren't prepared to learn basic controls will whine about the rest of the game instead.
I think you misunderstand. 75% in supercruise doesn't mean 75% of possible speed- it puts you in the middle of the blue zone. In supercruise, this has a special meaning- the ship automatically manages your speed to arrive at the destination slow enough to drop SC safely. If you watch your actual speed (to the right of the scanner), you can see this happening.
The easiest way to deal with SC is to bind a button to 75%. Then head for your destination full throttle. When the countdown timer hits 7 seconds, hit the 75% bind. This will give you a very low effort and accurate approach- reasonably fast, but with no need for micromanagement. For bonus points, approach non-outpost stations (ones with a letterbox) from the planet side, where available, and you'll already be more or less lined up with the letterbox too.
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I did not read the whole thread but last night in a station I saw a module for sale called: Automatic ship docking or something like that and it was cheap.
I m still a noob at docking but I like the immersion that I need to improve by practicing more. Also I learned that playing without a joystick is bad
I m still a noob at docking but I like the immersion that I need to improve by practicing more. Also I learned that playing without a joystick is bad
I never had trouble docking with mouse/kb. It's easier to sync your rotation to the letterbox with a flight stick, sure, but the actually landing is so trivially easy that the controller barely matters.
I 100 % agree docking is a dam nightmare I will be perfectly aligned have the blue circled and be flat on deck and NO DOCKING IT JUST SITS THERE its completely broken and totally random as to wether or not it works you NEED A AUTO LAND FEATURE or fix this crap. so dam frustrated right now.