New design suggestion for landing pads, hangars and the conveyor system

Design suggestion for landing pads, hangars and the ship conveyor system

[down] Each star-port has several rows/rings of landing pads of various sizes, each depicted as being connected to a single hangar. Seems incredibly inefficient and wasteful, each star-port can only dock a maximum of 40 ships at a time and the hangars waste a massive cubic volume of space as well as atmosphere being dedicated as they are to a single ship. Then there is the continuity problem where a CMDR docks at one lading-pad, logs out of the game, logs back into the game later and has his or her ship lifted onto a different landing-pad.

[up] I propose that:

Instead of the single hangar under each landing-pad that is currently depicted in all space stations, settlements and outposts, the elevator and conveyor system that lowers ships and landing-pads from the surface of the dock should actually descend onto a track, a track that rings the entire station under the floor of the dock, accessible to all the landing-pads in that "row" and lined on both sides with hangars of varying sizes. This disconnects the number of landing-pads from the number of hangars eliminating the 40 ship capacity problem. IMO users will not mind if the spaces under the floor are fudged a bit to make it work since those spaces generally aren't seen.
This conveyor would also have at least one avenue that would be used to transport ships across the several rings of landing-pads in the space-station so that the continuity problem of ships being lowered from a landing-pad into hangar then later raised onto a different landing-pad is resolved and rationalized as traffic control.
With landing-pads all connected to a conveyor system, landing-pad blocking will have an avenue for resolution and many more than 40 ships will be able to dock simultaneously with a single station since capacity will be limited to the number of hangars, not the number of landing-pads a station has available.

Imagine: I land on my designated landing-pad and the ship conveyor system lowers my Asp-X onto a track where it slides past a half-dozen (or more) hangars, some empty, some containing some of my other ships or other CMDRs ships before flipping my ship around and depositing it into another one of my hangars where I could get out and WALK between the hangars to my Cutter, climb up the stairs, walk to the bridge, wave to CMDR Bjorn across the conveyor tracks in his T-9 Yggdrasil and call for the conveyor which then pulls my ship out of the hangar, slides it past a half-dozen (or so) ships to a suitable landing-pad and raises it into position for launch. I do not think the eye-candy and modified launch animations would slow the actual launch process much, if at all if managed carefully but it would mean a major graphic re-design..
 
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Great, but the moaners will moan that it takes too long and demand a skip button...

I figure it can be fudged so that the ship never has to be shifted more than a few spaces, adding only maybe 3 to 4 seconds to the animation, not even noticeable if one is trying to get to Outfitting . . . and I like the idea of being moved past my own ships (assuming my ships are at that station) to my hangars. The solution also solves the break in logic where the station has only 40 landing pads, each with a single hangar under it but apparently, somehow still has the capability to store 2000 ships, according to the Wiki.
 
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I'd be fine with it but when others moan that it takes the pad to long to revolve or the blast gates too long to go down, or that it takes to long to request docking and it needs a single key then you know that increasing a 'loading screen' is just going to lead to protests of "my time is being wasted"...
 
When presented with either-or possibilities, why not just provide an extra option/button and/or revamp the ones we have.

Add a "park" or similar button which would take your ship to a parking hangar, as opposed to just the regular servicing bay we're taken to now for outfitting. The current servicing bay can stay just as it is now, same animation, everything. The avenue to the parking hangars would be another level "down" or "outward', however you think of it. So, instead of going one level down, and sliding into the service bay, you'd go directly down another level into the nearest hangar.
To make an extra game out of it, you could select whichever hangar you want at some point, selecting the hangar to the left, or right, or in front.

So with that option being in game, how you exit will determine how you enter, aside from exiting from the pad.
If you exit from a pad, you enter in a service bay (as it is now).
If you exit from a service bay, you enter in a service bay (as it is now).
If you exit from a hangar, you enter in a hangar.

This lets you decide how you want to spend your time, and doesn't need community approval.

Next.
 
for game-play purposes in open/private group all we need is :

- automatic move of ship after 2-3 minutes into hangar
- then auto-move of such ship into 'buffer' hangar

this will prevent people blocking landing pads in open (by going afk for example)

when trying leave station, you will be put into queue and then back from buffer hangar into normal hangar

anything else is just cosmetic (
e.g. the engine is not saving which landing pad you landed on in station anyway so it will not remember it after reconnect
e.g. the numbering major stations is also just annoying (instead of being first rows then number in rows (like 01,02 always being first row)
 
I like the auto-move idea, but make it 10 mins?

I may be mistaken, but I think the OP was also meaning for when elite-feet is in place, and we can walk around etc. so cosmetic a bit.

The engine doesn't have to save the landing pad, only your computer needs to. When you log in, your computer could request the pad it was last at, and if available, you'd be headed there. If not available, have could have option for closest pad or wait in queue. (some folks make opt for the queue, ala getting a coffee etc.)
 
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