whats that ramp thing?

[GeneralIdea1964]

It's typical of Elite design; slow, pointless, and gets weirder the longer you dwell on it; though at first it looks like it's got a real purpose.

Yes it's Bitterday. >_____>

It's probably a leftover from some early design plan. It lowers when your leaving. but is raised when landing.
kind of looks cool so they've kept it. So as part of the ship launch sequence it's fine, use the time to set next destination.
Oh yea! and don't think about it too much

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

This has been discussed about a billion times..

Give or take rounding errors, it has, yes. And I do not recall a dev ever commenting on any of the threads to explain what it is supposed to be. Which makes me join the 'relic of an old design with no real meaning' camp.

 

[GeneralIdea1964]

This has been discussed about a billion times.. It probably is just a time sink, who knows who cares... Anyway, if you want to compare it to real lif ,forgot about carrier launches, if you actually watch the AI you will see vertical thrusters are always used first before the ship clears the pad.

In the real world, when parked for prolonged periods you have a blast shield behind the engines when parked, this is for engine run up purposes. In ED when AI docks, they face the terminal building, shield is behind the engines, when ready to undock the ship turns around and the blast shield lowers. Makes perfect sense to me.

Did the devs ever fix the medium pad bug?

Like this description, makes some good sense.

btw Medium pads still seem to take longer. I tough that was intentional or are Large pads quicker?

 

[hanks01]

It's the Noobscoop. Noobs launching the first few times and going full WOT at launch hit it - and wildly bounce off into the central area of the station to recover and exit safely.

Of course, sometimes there's an Anaconda parked behind them shouting "Pull!"

I've given you rep for this but just wanted to post to thank you for giving me a proper belly laugh to start my Saturday

 

[777Driver]

Like this description, makes some good sense.

btw Medium pads still seem to take longer. I tough that was intentional or are Large pads quicker?

Med pads are bugged, the larger one is actually quicker. Strange that the haven't fixed it yet.

 

[Iskariot]

So you're basically inefficient so it doesn't bother you. You can select your destination outside while getting out of mass lock with FA off.

The opposite is true. He is being very efficient as he is using that time instead of staring at the blast shield.

Med pads are bugged, the larger one is actually quicker. Strange that the haven't fixed it yet.

Probably not a priority.

 

[babelfisch]

Following recent dev comments on other topics I bet it's a leftover from old alpha builds. They want to change it and put some love in the landing pad but due to more pressing matters it is on the bottom of their to do list.

 

[Rardain]

It's the Noobscoop. Noobs launching the first few times and going full WOT at launch hit it - and wildly bounce off into the central area of the station to recover and exit safely.

Of course, sometimes there's an Anaconda parked behind them shouting "Pull!"

Definitely the best explanation I have seen so far.

Although it does look reminiscent of a jet blast deflector (blast fence) found on an Aircraft Carrier, 1. it's on the wrong side of the platform and 2. it's completely unrequired as your ship uses vertical take-off and landing for the most part.

 

[Forlorn]

It doesn't do anything for me when I do have a course plotted.... starting to think the Gremlins have a personal grudge... wingman target taking stopped working again as well

I had both of these problems... rebinding the same key for each fixed them.

 

[Straylight0]

I've already tried that with "next system", but worth trying again and for the "target take", thanks

 

[Renegade Roach]

Give or take rounding errors, it has, yes. And I do not recall a dev ever commenting on any of the threads to explain what it is supposed to be. Which makes me join the 'relic of an old design with no real meaning' camp.

They probably can't remember:

'Hey,why is X in the game?'
'Can't remember boss, probably seemed like a good idea at the time?'
'K.. I'll tell them it's for gameplay reasons.'

Think that's a 'thing' at Frontier.

 

[Straylight0]

I had both of these problems... rebinding the same key for each fixed them.

Thank You! This time, that worked!

 

[Richard Voorhees]

It's typical of Elite design; slow, pointless, and gets weirder the longer you dwell on it; though at first it looks like it's got a real purpose.

Yes it's Bitterday. >_____>

If you think it's slow now you should have seen it in PB :O

 

[Samosa]

you know, the thing that rises when you dock and lowers before take off. What is it? 0.o

It's a "trade logging ready" indicator.

 

[Iskariot]

you know, the thing that rises when you dock and lowers before take off. What is it? 0.o

We call it the Ramp Thing.
It's purpose is being ramp-like.

 

[Surly_Badger]

you know, the thing that rises when you dock and lowers before take off. What is it? 0.o

It's the deflector. Its job is to deflect all the dust your attitude jets kick up, up and and back into your canopy. And it works pretty well as far as I can see.

 

[Space Fan]

Because it seems to have no blast function, I assumed it was part of the folding away of the deck once it has been rotated, and dropped, rotated, done the okey-kokey etc. I keep meaning to have a proper look whenever I land, to see how the engineering works, but for some reason, I can't be ars*d..

(Somehow expecting there'd be an answer here tho. )

 

[Cradle2Grave]

Could it do it quicker please?

 

[Space Fan]

Could it do it quicker please?

A minor point, but with advances in engineering materials, graphene, etc. - nothing is likely to be that heavily engineered (esp. in space) in over a thousand years. You could prob just get out and kick out of the way.

(All in my new book, published shortly.. )

 

[Eriseley]

We call it the Ramp Thing.
It's purpose is being ramp-like.

I wonder if the ramp lobby had something to do with this.