Large Ships & Docking

[sandkid]

Honestly I ask for this because of the Beluga having cool folding wings...that don't actually reduce the profile remotely. Below are some ideas for making docking a little easier for the unwieldy ships. Some are probably to 'easy mode' but I particularly like #3 for immersion.

1) Match Station Rotation ceases to be a 'setting' and becomes an actual function that, when activated, causes the ship to begin rotating regardless of orientation relative to the station. This would make pulling into the toaster rack at least marginally easier and prevent snafus with the Beluga getting hung up on the rear end and being nearly destroyed or at least heavily fined. That or the range at which station rotation begins needs to be a few hundred meters outside of the toaster rack.

2) Large ships radar deactivates upon entering station and becomes landing pad overview immediately to ease landing procedures at the cost of awareness to ships out of view (though you ARE the biggest or among the biggest present, so you should have right of way anyways). This could be a manually triggered function "Landing Radar - On / Off" as well - which would be very handy for planetary landings...and probably handy on all ships, not just large.

3) Everytime a large ship requests docking permission, station projects 'center lane' of lights for said ship indicating point of entry. Everytime a large ship 'launches', station projects 'center lane' of lights exiting. Same process of green on the side you pass through. This would notify ships both internally and externally that A) A large ship is enroute and B) Whether that ship is exiting or entering. Green lights outside means somebody is docking (so red inside to tell large ship(s) inside to wait) outside of docking port) and red lights outside means a large ship is egressing.

Station would change center lane dependent on order of commands received and would deactivate lanes (and delete queue for those who rush) upon station registering that entity completing their action of landing or egress. OR it could wait until all large ships to exit (that have requested egress) given the shorter time to leave, then allow all large ships queued for dock to enter before allowing the next batch to depart.

Obviously those who will say 'whatever' and rush the port will do so at their own risk - but for particularly NPC-busy stations, this would help a lot if they followed it (which you can program! Yay!).

4) Mentioned in another thread, but I'll put it here as it applies: station security needs a minimum scan range so it stops ramming me mid-entry and nearly killing me as the station grinds my beluga like a sausage-maker and racks up fines to add insult to injury. Scanning isn't the issue - it's the anaconda moving at full ramming speed because I've got silent running on for that criminal passenger. Scan me all day, it's cool, but seriously stop ramming me! This isn't just a large ship docking issue - but I can't count how many times I had to emergency log to prevent a security ship killing me via station torque after ramming me...rather than the more sensible scan and shoot.

5) Make the toaster rack wide (not taller - which would make this easier). The only reason for this is so I don't have to be 'perfectly' centered so that the small and medium ships (NPC or not) rushing in and out around me actually have space to do so. A Wal-Mart parking lot on SuperBowl weekend has more space to navigate than rush-hour at Dublin Citadel in Gateway. Again, this benefits all ship classes.

6) Retrain Surface Flight Control that landing pads on the same side as approach are CLOSER than pads on the far side. There are FOUR LARGE PADS RIGHT HERE PAL - why are you making me fly AROUND and rotate 180 degrees from my current heading? You seen how fast a Type-9 turns? Seriously though, this is a time-wasting, no value-added mechanic that is easily fixed. When requesting to dock, assign the nearest pad please.

7) Retrain Station Flight Control that landings pads at the BACK of the station should be filled first to reduce entry traffic where most collisions occur because I CAN'T SEE HALF THE PADS DIRECTLY BELOW ME AS I ENTER. Exiting traffic knows this because they can see me - but that doesn't help either of us when I have to land among them. This issue doesn't occur nearly as often for large ships as it does my small vessels, but again, fill the pads at the back of the station first, please.

8) Nifty Feature That Isn't Necessary(?): Allow me to dock my fighter at stations and leave my ship on standby in space. I can't change ships (because that means illegally 'storing' a ship in space where it is a risk to traffic) but I can access all station services that relate to my fighter.

This means mission board, market (if I had a cargo rack of some type), contacts...etc. Basically maintenance functions are off because that is conducted through the origin vessel. This opens up some neat capabilities for fighters not just offensively oriented. The ability to equip a non-fighter (such as a basic transporter) would allow delivery of small cargo, such as mission specific items or a handful of passengers, or the ability to purchase cargo in small quantities. For large-scale trading this isn't a time-saver compared to just docking - but for other missions, notably exploration and passengers, it could be very handy.

As far as maintenance goes - you could maybe allow the small ship to 'restock ammo' for the large ship after purchasing a restock than docking back with origin vessel. Repairs and loadouts would still require docking for the origin vessel. Of course during all this my big ship is at some risk - particularly in open play.


So there's my ideas - hope somebody likes one of them. =)

 

[Gunnet]

Number two in particular would be great to have, as long as it included the manual toggle. I only need the landing rader for the very final alignment when landing, and obviously don't need it at all when taking off. I'd rather be able to keep the real rader active as much as possible to preserve awareness of other ships. No more slowly easing up off the pad until your radar comes on before you can find out if there's another ship above you.

Number four would be nice as well. While I quite like how small security fighters buzz large ships, the ramming from larger ones is a bit worrying.

Honestly not a fan of number seven. Sensors can tell me what traffic is like outside my field of view. Almost always flying to the back of the station would take more time and reduce variety.

 

[RaSenche]

the one think really poping out of here is the envelope lights actually warning about incoming/outgoing ships..

as it instantly reminds me of times we boosted into eachother in the envelop and almost wrecked our ships.
or when you want to leave.. time is ticking down but beluga's are invading the envelope.

 

[sandkid]

the one think really poping out of here is the envelope lights actually warning about incoming/outgoing ships..

as it instantly reminds me of times we boosted into eachother in the envelop and almost wrecked our ships.
or when you want to leave.. time is ticking down but beluga's are invading the envelope.

Hey now! I'm one of those Belugas!

In all seriousness, no kidding - Belugas are the worst about filling up the mail slot RIGHT AS YOU'RE TRYING TO LEAVE. It's best when *I* am in a Beluga, halfway THROUGH the slot (so my tail is still able to hang up on the inside) and one of those jerks decides 'Oh, my turn, I'll fit!'

Cannot tell you how many times I have to emergency log because some other Beluga decides to make like the birds and the bees with me in the mail slot while I'm undocking.

 

[MBaldelli]

1) Match Station Rotation ceases to be a 'setting' and becomes an actual function that, when activated, causes the ship to begin rotating regardless of orientation relative to the station. This would make pulling into the toaster rack at least marginally easier and prevent snafus with the Beluga getting hung up on the rear end and being nearly destroyed or at least heavily fined. That or the range at which station rotation begins needs to be a few hundred meters outside of the toaster rack.

Believe me when I say this is already happening just before hitting the toaster rack. The time you might not be seeing this is if you're speeding (above 100). Below that speed, I guarantee you, your ship is matching the rotation. And the best part is that it's not immersion breaking when it happens. You don't even realize it's kicked in.

2) Large ships radar deactivates upon entering station and becomes landing pad overview immediately to ease landing procedures at the cost of awareness to ships out of view (though you ARE the biggest or among the biggest present, so you should have right of way anyways). This could be a manually triggered function "Landing Radar - On / Off" as well - which would be very handy for planetary landings...and probably handy on all ships, not just large.

I like this with one caveat -- one that cannot be programmed I'm afraid -- the landing pad is immediately below the mail slot. Most time you don't need it immediately on if you're going to be cruising to the back of the docking bay.

3) Everytime a large ship requests docking permission, station projects 'center lane' of lights for said ship indicating point of entry. Everytime a large ship 'launches', station projects 'center lane' of lights exiting. Same process of green on the side you pass through. This would notify ships both internally and externally that A) A large ship is enroute and B) Whether that ship is exiting or entering. Green lights outside means somebody is docking (so red inside to tell large ship(s) inside to wait) outside of docking port) and red lights outside means a large ship is egressing.

This seems to be addressing another problem I frequently see with players: perspective from the cockpit for landing. But... Without breaking it down any further I have to ask...

This can all be solved without having to do extra programming if you bought a landing computer. While it might be debated about the malfunctions, all of these problems are instantly solved with this.

Why aren't you using it, then?

 

[sandkid]

Believe me when I say this is already happening just before hitting the toaster rack. The time you might not be seeing this is if you're speeding (above 100). Below that speed, I guarantee you, your ship is matching the rotation. And the best part is that it's not immersion breaking when it happens. You don't even realize it's kicked in.



I like this with one caveat -- one that cannot be programmed I'm afraid -- the landing pad is immediately below the mail slot. Most time you don't need it immediately on if you're going to be cruising to the back of the docking bay.



This seems to be addressing another problem I frequently see with players: perspective from the cockpit for landing. But... Without breaking it down any further I have to ask...

This can all be solved without having to do extra programming if you bought a landing computer. While it might be debated about the malfunctions, all of these problems are instantly solved with this.

Why aren't you using it, then?

The idea behind #1 is outside the station a fair ways - but you are right that it does begin matching in the toaster rack...at the back of the Beluga, not the front. So you'll get grinded if you don't keep manually rolling until in the station.

As for #2, I agree with other posts that this should probably just be made into a function rather than a proximity triggered ui so that it could be activated at greater heights by choice or greater distances for alignment...though the latter isn't as important as vertical alignment. Proximity trigger would still be in place.

Finally, the docking computer isn't really a solution for this as it isn't entirely a problem...so this is more of a suggestion.
A) The idea seeks to address the randomness of NPC pilots, particularly large ship pilots, which block up the mail slot often in one direction. Belugas are the worst given their width, but other large ships also affect this.
B) The lights idea on its own is mostly immersion but it would work rather well in tandem with a programmed dock / launch. As it is, NPCs don't acknowledge a launch or dock request...just like careless players. Being a speedster is cool - that's your risk and time after all - but NPCs, which make up the bulk of traffic, make it awfully hard on large or even some medium commanders.
C) Docking computer has some known issues and it is particularly ineffective with a Beluga - this is more of a problem with the Beluga's actual model than the computer though.
D) Perspective from the cockpit can't really be altered very much, but the radar isn't exactly ideal for tracking other ships on the other side of the mail slot (inside or outside) because the distance is great enough. The lights / programmed launch and dock idea potentially resolves this, but so would an altered radar scale that accurately reflects traffic. Given the small real estate in the cockpit ui...I'm not sure that is feasible. You CAN at least tell if someone is immediately entering the mail slot, but you can't see the other four ships right behind them.

SO...all that said...your question: I don't use the docking computer (personally) because of the time delay, immersion break from piloting my own ship, and malfunctions that are particularly bad for my personal ship (Beluga Liner).

Again, #3 doesn't necessarily solve traffic - but I think it is very doable in terms of programming how NPCs interact with docking / launching from mail-slot stations in regards to large ships. I try to avoid using other games as examples (in the effort to keep ED unique to itself) but the best example I can give is how the lights function on warp gates and stations in X-Universe games, which dynamically react to the current commands they are given.

 

[MBaldelli]

The idea behind #1 is outside the station a fair ways - but you are right that it does begin matching in the toaster rack...at the back of the Beluga, not the front. So you'll get grinded if you don't keep manually rolling until in the station.

If this is true this is a coding problem and a bug that should be reported, not a suggestion to improve QoL. If the ship box of bigger ships are seeing this affect, then the ship box for this to be looked into.

Because I've seen it (matching rotation) from the front on the Sidewinder, the DBS, DBX, Adder, ASPX and Viper IV. I don't have a larger ship yet, as I see no need for it at the present time.

A) The idea seeks to address the randomness of NPC pilots, particularly large ship pilots, which block up the mail slot often in one direction. Belugas are the worst given their width, but other large ships also affect this.

The problem here is to address the NPC AI, suggestions aren't going to fix that ongoing issue. As I understand it, since he introduction of 2.4 the NPC AI has once again lost its mind and is doing the things we've seen prior to Update 2.3 once again. Again no amount of QoL will improve the problem if the NPC AI is still crazy.

B) The lights idea on its own is mostly immersion but it would work rather well in tandem with a programmed dock / launch. As it is, NPCs don't acknowledge a launch or dock request...just like careless players. Being a speedster is cool - that's your risk and time after all - but NPCs, which make up the bulk of traffic, make it awfully hard on large or even some medium commanders.

I admit I glazed over the lights suggestion. As a car driver I don't think twice about it given we're not landing in inclement weather, but remember in the extensive traveling I used to do when I was younger, I distinctly remember planes taking off and landing always had their lights on no matter the weather or time of day. I have no qualms about this suggestion one way or another.

D) Perspective from the cockpit can't really be altered very much, but the radar isn't exactly ideal for tracking other ships on the other side of the mail slot (inside or outside) because the distance is great enough. The lights / programmed launch and dock idea potentially resolves this, but so would an altered radar scale that accurately reflects traffic. Given the small real estate in the cockpit ui...I'm not sure that is feasible. You CAN at least tell if someone is immediately entering the mail slot, but you can't see the other four ships right behind them.

It's been brought up a couple of times -- once even by me -- about something like the back up camera we can see in use in cars today for aiming through the mail slot to help correct with some of the perspective issues that we have in the cockpit. Because I know on the sides, things are definitely magnified and not proportional as they are in the front of the cockpit. . I don't expect it to be camera/CG quality... Wireframe would be more than adequate. Can even use parts of the Cargo Hatch UI already in effect.

SO...all that said...your question: I don't use the docking computer (personally) because of the time delay, immersion break from piloting my own ship, and malfunctions that are particularly bad for my personal ship (Beluga Liner).

Adequate explanation for me.

Again, #3 doesn't necessarily solve traffic - but I think it is very doable in terms of programming how NPCs interact with docking / launching from mail-slot stations in regards to large ships. I try to avoid using other games as examples (in the effort to keep ED unique to itself) but the best example I can give is how the lights function on warp gates and stations in X-Universe games, which dynamically react to the current commands they are given.

There's another problem that seems to be forgotten when it comes to the devs and their current programming. They actually want to keep this sort of occasional cut-throat approach to ATC in stations. That occasional Commander -- player and NPC -- who wants to ignore the ATC queuing to zoom out or into a station. For... reasons. And no matter how often you people keep trying to suggest multiple mail slots or better ATC queing the same thing keeps happening.

I do admire the persistence and fortitude of the player base, but given we're coming up on three years of this game being live -- the best you've gotten from this has been better NPC AI reactions (which once again has broken). It is in my not even remotely humble estimate that this is one fight you're not going to be winning no matter how persistent you are.

So with that in mind, it's my recommendation to continue to file bug reports on the NPC AIs in the meantime and how wonky it's gotten once again. Perhaps with enough of these reports, they'll look into alternatives.

 

[bookmite]

Situational awareness whilst entering or leaving dock is always difficult to gauge, i would suggest that ALL ships entering or leaving dock simply be a flashing icon on the radar, then we would know who or what is entering or leaving, it could be a code written into the docking / launch commands