Outpost Docking Pads "Bass-ackwards" !! :-(

[PIXEL]

I agree with the OP.. why would anyone / organisation create a landing pad with a big structure in the way of logical forward motion landing in the correct direction - doh!

...certainly not for the sake of those who want to gloat about it being easy peasy

Landing pads like the one illustrated are just plain stupid

...maybe ED have docking computers cos the dock/pad designers have shares in the company that made the landing pads? - maybe they a finger in the insurance pie too (-;

 

[sqzbox1]

Actually I have to agree with Kijarni - it is an outpost, not a station (stating the obvious) so why bother turning the ship? Hadn't thought of that, but I reckon that makes a lot more sense. Make the landing the difficult one by having to land avoiding the super-structure, don't rotate the ship, and take off is then into space and you can do it as fast as you like. Makes a of sense to me.

Although - on further thought - you do land facing the control tower so you would have to avoid that on take-off - unless they put the control tower in the structure so that you land with it behind you.

 

[PIXEL]

Maybe I've been lucky..? everytime on launch my ship has been facing the silly blast pad that protected my ship on landing, despite what direction i was allowed to park it - and believe me i've been able to park the wrong way round a few times in this game. arrrgghhh

Yet - Every time you park your ship successfully the underground systems turn it around for its later launch - so why can't the landing pad enable you to land in the easiest way possible; without having to navigate a control tower / PenhouseSpaceApartment for those with a death wish.

 

[SCADVID]

Every time I dock, I'm thinking, "NASA would never approve this". Literally, every time I think this.

I'm sure NASA has seen all sorts of ideas about space flight, but if there's one thing they (and SpaceX) are about is keeping their lifeboats safe (well, in one piece if they don't cut corners for deadlines). The whole blow up your ship if you land in Y bay instead of Z bay is terrific for MMOs (I would l-o-v-e this everytime a bozo gets on his tundra mount right by a mailbox in WoW), but I got ED to resemble more commercial space flight (ED is a commercial venture by capitalists after all -- I think Borison and his space venture here, not EvE 2). I realize the Buck Rogers thing is what sells the game, yet ED misrepresents so much, so so much about space flight, even how it's done and it's sentiment. You know even Borison wouldn't allow his fleet of tourist boats to be blown up by "station security", as well as NASA not landing without a checklist so long it'll make Supercruise = Hyperspace. ^-^

I'm all for realism if the realism even fits the sentiments in reality.

Billion dollar ships are babied. They have to be as money doesn't grow on trees (FD understands this as well). Real flight is check lists upon check lists as any error to something so costly in not only detrimental to the budget, it's personnel. Astronauts, even in this Cyberpunk style game, are not cheap and they are NOT expendable. They can't be rezzed back once gone.

Even in a Wal-Mart style faceless generic space sim game, there has to be some basis in reality to operate on.

Docking in ED is not that reality (even if all the destruction stuff is taken out), flying into a dock is Buck Rogers stuff, Wal-Mart etc would not approve of the damage it could cause as 90% of all flight disasters are due to pilot error. Ships would be tractor beamed in with a pilot in the seat for emergencies (just like in flying the big jets).

So even in a game where you're nobody, the signals got crossed and there's too much emphasis on you are indeed so special you have to fly a billion dollar ship and free to destroy it on the company's time and dime. People are fired for much much less!

 

[Alvatore]

If OP is truly convinced that nobody would build something so completely pants-on-head ridiculous as to defy all logical explanation, perhaps a little bit of looking outside one's own window (figuratively) is in order. It happens every day, even now; there's no compelling reason why 3301 would be any different.

 

[Stahll Amatin]

What always bothered me is that it refuses to allow you to dock if you are facing the wrong direction. however if you relaunch it will lower your ship rotate it 180 Degrees then launch it. Could you really not let me approach from EITHER Direction and just rotate as necessary? the hardware is clearly capable of it. Seems nit-picky for the sake of being nit-picky

 

[SCADVID]

If OP is truly convinced that nobody would build something so completely pants-on-head ridiculous as to defy all logical explanation, perhaps a little bit of looking outside one's own window (figuratively) is in order. It happens every day, even now; there's no compelling reason why 3301 would be any different.

That is NOT how NASA or the other space programs operate with human space flight ... at all ... in the past, now or the near future.

This is 100% Buck Rogers, and even for actual pilots, nonsensical. If anyone gets an idea this is even RL flight in a Piper, ah, no.

A pilot who spent a fortune on his Gulfstream jet isn't going to fly it to land on THESE docks. FEDEX would NEVER fly there. Wal-Mart would build their own with tractor beams as humans are too costly! lol

Future space flight will not be human controlled, it can't be. It's too wasteful, too uneconomical and impractical -- humans are prone to errors. Space will never be cheap to operate in ever to justify it (cheap space is pure fantasy. It will cost whole world GNPs to operate with any regularity).

 

[Alvatore]

That is NOT how NASA or the other space programs operate with human space flight ... at all ... in the past, now or the near future.

This is 100% Buck Rogers, and even for actual pilots, nonsensical. If anyone gets an idea this is even RL flight in a Piper, ah, no.

A pilot who spent a fortune on his Gulfstream jet isn't going to fly it to land on THESE docks. FEDEX would NEVER fly there. Wal-Mart would build their own with tractor beams as humans are too costly! lol

Future space flight will not be human controlled, it can't be. It's too wasteful, too uneconomical and impractical -- humans are prone to errors. Space will never be cheap to operate in ever to justify it (cheap space is pure fantasy. It will cost whole world GNPs to operate with any regularity).

How fortunate for us, then, that E: D is a game and is not obligated to spend hours considering how people may or may not do things more than a thousand years in the future. OP and some others may have high levels of sensitivity that require significant levels of realism in order to sustain immersion, but if that's the case then I wonder how it's the outpost docking pads that break this immersion and not something else like being able to fly in the outer corona of a star without death by either radiation or roasting.