When the world contains ships that cost millions of dollar and space stations that cost trillions...
- Thread starter Sardu
- Start date
That's how you get gravity in a space station - rotation.
(There's little point in mounting the mail-slot on a giant wheel and counter-rotating it so that it appears to not be rotating relative to the planet, because once through the slot you'd just need to start rotating the ship anyway)
Luckily FDev have gone easy on us and made the ships automatically start following the spin once inside, but you can turn off this feature if you want to experience attempting to dock without computer assist
(Edit: the shape of the mailslot comes from the original Elite game, which in turn got it from the movie version of 2001. So the shape is Because Tradition )
Here's that famous scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oHmVhviO8
This is also why the Docking Computer module plays Blue Danube Waltz
And I assume that the Kubrick chose the waltz as the perfect accompaniment because the docking is a dance that requires each party to be rotating through space in perfect alignment...
(Ooh - and probably also why the grill mesh projecting out from the mailslot is shaped the way it is - check out the docking computer screen in the ship in the clip!)
(There's little point in mounting the mail-slot on a giant wheel and counter-rotating it so that it appears to not be rotating relative to the planet, because once through the slot you'd just need to start rotating the ship anyway)
Luckily FDev have gone easy on us and made the ships automatically start following the spin once inside, but you can turn off this feature if you want to experience attempting to dock without computer assist
(Edit: the shape of the mailslot comes from the original Elite game, which in turn got it from the movie version of 2001. So the shape is Because Tradition
)Here's that famous scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oHmVhviO8
This is also why the Docking Computer module plays Blue Danube Waltz
And I assume that the Kubrick chose the waltz as the perfect accompaniment because the docking is a dance that requires each party to be rotating through space in perfect alignment...
(Ooh - and probably also why the grill mesh projecting out from the mailslot is shaped the way it is - check out the docking computer screen in the ship in the clip!)
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That's how you get gravity in a space station - rotation.
(There's little point in counter-rotating the mailslot so that it appears to not be rotating, because once through it you'd just need to start rotating anyway)
Luckily FDev have gone easy on us and made the ships automatically follow the spin once inside, but you can turn off this feature if you want to experience docking without computer assist
hah...I might try that!
I really don't care, because I like it.
I like approaching a station and adapting my rotation and the whole docking process.
Perhaps the engineers designed it this way because it simply is cool.
Would be a lot more difficult to know where the traffic was flowing... the red and green lights would be harder to understand.
Which of course you never did yourself and only know from hearsay.
@OP
I suppose they could have just kept the stations in a fixed position, wouldn't have bothered me either tbh.
Not knowing if you ask this because you're struggling with your docking approach, or simply looking for the reasoning behind it, i'd say it's a very minor "problem".
It's also not a topic that many have felt the need to post about, so i have to assume people get used to entering that rotating slot rather quickly.
The main thing is, you can set the game to turn the rotation off once inside. It's one of the first things i did.
I see nothing wrong with keeping the option for people who seek a more challenging docking procedure, as long as i don't have to. Pretty much like the FA off/on option.
Then it would be a "Mail Hole" and quite frankly the discussion and level of humour would degenerate very rapidly.
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Exactly.Which of course you never did yourself and only know from hearsay.
You can turn off auto-rotation as well for an extra challenge in landing.
