I'd like to add my own thoughts on this. I personally believe the idea of the docking computer as a module is a dated one and a new mechanic needs to be developed. The whole "docking computer" module is a bit of a waste and the ships onboard computer should already be more than capable of handling this, after all it can land and takeoff on it's own from a planet surface (dismiss/recall from SRV), so it clearly has more than enough control over maneuvering thrusters, engines, and jump drive. The argument might be that the onboard computer doesn't have enough omph to deal with navigating around dynamic obstacles like other ships, but, and here is where I think this could be more realistically addressed, the stations (super) computers I imagine most certainly do, or they have hired staff to handle remote control docking operations. Perhaps instead of suggesting the docking computer be "built-in" to the ship, instead make it a service of the station. Large, rich, popular, or heavily trafficked stations could offer docking services via a "telemetry control uplink" for a small fee (radio control). Example, when you bring up your side panel to request docking, you could have two options, request docking clearance or request docking assistance for X credits. Smaller, pirate, or just less popular stations may not have the financial resources or space to a hire enough staff or afford a fancy enough advanced traffic control computer to offer such a service and thus you're only option there would be manual docking. Players running casual/occasional mining or trade operations to busy stations could more easily take advantage of docking services and not worry about smashing their ship around or ing off their passengers and also wont have to deal with the annoyance of wasting a slot for a seldom used module. On the other hand, if you're doing piracy or maybe mining in remote regions supported by small outposts, you're taking risk and may have to deal with the fact that docking services just aren't available. As far as the existing module goes, some players wont go without it, others wouldn't dare touch it (either because it's not right or not worth the slot, etc). For one side, stations without the service will force players to learn to fly and dock better on their own. While on the other side, some players may just want to be lazy and not deal with manually docking, so an available docking service would be a nice little blessing. I personally don't have or ever care to equip a docking computer, but if a service were available, there are definitely times where I would happily use it.
