[QoL suggestion] Mail slot queueing

[QueensPawn]

Compared to the changes y'all have been making recently this feels like a small one, but it feels like y'all have been listening to feedback more lately so perhaps it's worth a shot seeing if I can get a fix on a long standing pet peeve of mine.

It really bothers me that queueing for the mailslot at a starport is entirely dependent on having auto-dock engaged. I feel like regardless of whether or not you have auto-dock, station traffic control should issue you a spot in the queue that you can choose to obey or not, but the AI ships will respect, giving you the berth to enter or leave when you are first in queue. Not only would this make it easier to navigate around other ships going in and out of the mail slot when manually maneuvering a large ship, it would also make it so that taking manual control to avoid a crash when auto-dock does something stupid like fly you straight into a wall doesn't lose your place in the queue.

I don't know how much of the community is actually effected by this, but it would certainly improve my play experience, so I thought I'd throw it out there and see if it helps. Who knows? It might even reduce the amount that AI ships get stuck in the mail slot in high player traffic systems like ShinDez. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the traffic jams there are caused by AI trying to avoid players moving through the mail slot at the same time that they're entering, then getting stuck on the structures around the mail slot when they dodge to the side.

 

[DjVortex]

I don't think many players who don't use the autodock computer would care about such a queueing system. Most of them just go out at full speed (and many even enter at full speed). Does it sometimes cause collisions? Sometimes. No biggie.

 

[Factabulous]

You can do that now - simply fit Autodock, then when you get the go-ahead and start moving you can accelerate yourself to break out of auto-dock and do it manually. Job done.

The rest of us can just carry on docking how we please

 

[aRJay]

You can do that now - simply fit Autodock, then when you get the go-ahead and start moving you can accelerate yourself to break out of auto-dock and do it manually. Job done.

The rest of us can just carry on docking how we please

For those whose build doesn’t include autodock they could just throw a d8 when they request docking then wait that number of minutes before starting to dock.

 

[QueensPawn]

You can do that now - simply fit Autodock, then when you get the go-ahead and start moving you can accelerate yourself to break out of auto-dock and do it manually. Job done.

The rest of us can just carry on docking how we please

Fun fact: That doesn't actually keep your spot in the queue. The moment you take manual control, NPC ships start moving through the mailslot as if you weren't there. I've had situations where I let auto-dock do its queueing thing for a while, then when it finally got me through the queue it was going to ram me into the side of the station, so I took manual control to get it back on track. I tried putting auto-launch back in command, but it had put me at the back of the queue again, and I ended up having to barrel through an NPC ship regardless.

I get that y'all think I'm a noob, and it's fun to clown on me for waiting around. I like ramming my way through the mailslot as much as the next CMDR, but sometimes I like to take things slow and actually pay attention to the world around me, and it would be nice if the world responded to me like I was there, rather than completely ignoring the Cutter moving through the mailslot.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I'm in the Pilot's Federation. Queues are for the plebs.

 

[varonica]

The moment you take manual control, NPC ships start moving through the mailslot as if you weren't there.

Well yes, because you are a human and unpredictable therefore no queuing system could possibly keep you in the queue while you aren't being controlled byt he computer. This is why when you are under control of the computer it can put you in a queue. For all the computer knows, once you have taken manual control you may have decided to not bother docking at all and be going somewhere else altogether, or scanning wakes, or have disconnected due to network connections, or been attacked by a mad pirate, so I am not sure how you expect it to keep you in the queue.

 

[QueensPawn]

Well yes, because you are a human and unpredictable therefore no queuing system could possibly keep you in the queue while you aren't being controlled byt he computer. This is why when you are under control of the computer it can put you in a queue. For all the computer knows, once you have taken manual control you may have decided to not bother docking at all and be going somewhere else altogether, or scanning wakes, or have disconnected due to network connections, or been attacked by a mad pirate, so I am not sure how you expect it to keep you in the queue.

Wait, did you think I meant physically maintaining a straight line of ships waiting their turn to go through the mailslot? I'm talking about something like the traffic controller telling you "we're clearing a berth for you. Please wait, commander." and then if you haven't gone through the mailslot in the time before the queue is opened for you, (which you are free to do any time if you don't mind plowing through AI ships) they send you another message saying "The way is clear. Proceed, commander." and the NPCs stop going in and out until you're on the other side of the mail slot or your docking request has been cancelled. People do this kind of thing unaided by computers all the time irl. It's really not that difficult. The game already makes us request docking access. We're half way there already on having a functioning air traffic control system in our starports.

 

[varonica]

Wait, did you think I meant physically maintaining a straight line of ships waiting their turn to go through the mailslot?

So you are ignoring the part about the computer no longer knowing if you even exist once you have left the autodock system, because it doesn't, it's a computer, not a human, this is not real life, this is not actually a human flight controller, it can't think, this is your problem, it is not a human, it is a computer program, remove yourself from the computer program and as far as it is concerned you don't even exist. If it really worked like that we would have computers controlling airport landings and takeoffs and not humans. The inherent part of human control is that we are unpredictable, the computer can't control ships that, well, aren't under it's control. Leave the autodock queue, and, well, you have left the autodock queue, as simple as that, you are no longer in the queue!

 

[QueensPawn]

So you are ignoring the part about the computer no longer knowing if you even exist once you have left the autodock system, because it doesn't, it's a computer, not a human, this is not real life, this is not actually a human flight controller, it can't think, this is your problem, it is not a human, it is a computer program, remove yourself from the computer program and as far as it is concerned you don't even exist. If it really worked like that we would have computers controlling airport landings and takeoffs and not humans. The inherent part of human control is that we are unpredictable, the computer can't control ships that, well, aren't under it's control. Leave the autodock queue, and, well, you have left the autodock queue, as simple as that, you are no longer in the queue!

Ngl, that part made zero sense. If you turn off auto-dock, your docking request still exists. The timer to get to the pad or out of the station is still there. The computer still knows you're there. Not the docking computer, which is actually not a computer at all but rather a sub-routine of the actual computer the game is running on, which I would hope knows where you are.

The entire point of my suggestion here is to make the queue not part of the auto-dock module, but a general feature of making a docking request. A feature that you can ignore or obey just the same as you can ignore or obey the station speed limit. It's a convenience. Like putting up a traffic light at an intersection that's been plagued by traffic collisions. I'm tired of crashing into people and getting fined because they don't have the preservation instinct to actually make a berth for my Cutter.