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Docking mechanics


Murmandamus

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Would be nice to have some kind of element that facilitates docking/connecting/attaching constructs together in various ways.

For one example scenario, it could allow for otherwise inert container units to be swapped out between hauler ships and warehouses and such.

For another example scenario, it could allow two or more connected constructs to all use their engines and fly as a single craft.

And of course another obvious scenario is to allow players to walk between ships and bases and space stations etc. without having to step out into the open.

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I think that docking mechanics are absolutely necessary for DU to work as intended. Without the ability to dock in order to transfer items cargo hauling will be incredibly unrewarding to players, removing an entire ship's worth of cargo by hand would be such a pain. I had to move ore by hand out of a miner on Space Engineers many times, completely mind-numbing.  I would refuse to empty a whole cargo ship by hand, not for love nor money will I ever put my self through that again. 

 

This must be a thing to keep players happy.

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Agree that tedious repetitive tasks should be avoided. But is the docking/conveyor the only and best solution?

 

How about automation? Building and programming small vehicles to go into your cargo freighter to pick up whole containers to place them in base storage room.

System would be quite simple. On paper of course. We just need some tools:

1. Lua functions "go to waypoint" and "turn towards waypoint"

2. Elements that serve as waypoints. With ability to connect them together to create paths.

3. Storage container socket, which can be filled with storage container. It should also serve as waypoint.

4. Element that pick up storage container from socket and place it in another.

 

Why go such complicated route? There are multiple benefits:

1. Immersion. Landing pads and hangars get filled with vehicles going back and forth

2. Force ship builders to create wide corridors inside ships, which leads to more interesting boarding battles.

3. Create weak-spots in armour, if you go for externally accessible containers.

4. It pave the way for even more automation. Patrol boats (unarmed), short-range taxi, ect.

 

BTW those two systems could coexist. Simple piping would the "easy but inefficient way" while containers the "harder but more efficient"

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Errr..... what? No offence Unown, but your comments seem a bit... random recently.

 

Shields have nothing to do with movement waypoints, nor with cargo.


Only relation may be to "weak spots in armour", and that's the reason why I'd rather not have shields in game (except offline-protection). Weak-spots make engineering way more fun and engaging.

 

Or do you mean using shields to transport cargo somehow....?

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@unown006 I'd suggest deleting or editing your post to reduce confusion.

 

Per the topic: I'd prefer to have something like @CalenLoki's suggestion and have to physically move cargo around if you don't want to do it "by hand". However, looking at how Space Engineers struggles to hand its merge blocks, I don't think we'll see this.

 

More likely we'll have cargo containers and conveyors. It still requires engineering and usually creates weakspots, but it's a bit simpler programmatically. 

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On 18/04/2018 at 3:22 PM, AzureSkye said:

@unown006 I'd suggest deleting or editing your post to reduce confusion.

 

Per the topic: I'd prefer to have something like @CalenLoki's suggestion and have to physically move cargo around if you don't want to do it "by hand". However, looking at how Space Engineers struggles to hand its merge blocks, I don't think we'll see this.

 

More likely we'll have cargo containers and conveyors. It still requires engineering and usually creates weakspots, but it's a bit simpler programmatically. 

On one of the NQ vids they showed hooking up storage tanks and transferring material between them via links as well as directly to the players arm/suit. I think 'line of sight' between containers to empty one and fill another is the critical aspect of transferring materials.

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On 4/17/2018 at 3:45 PM, CalenLoki said:

Errr..... what? No offence Unown, but your comments seem a bit... random recently.

 

Shields have nothing to do with movement waypoints, nor with cargo.


Only relation may be to "weak spots in armour", and that's the reason why I'd rather not have shields in game (except offline-protection). Weak-spots make engineering way more fun and engaging.

 

Or do you mean using shields to transport cargo somehow....?

Fixed

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On ‎17‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 9:43 PM, CalenLoki said:

Agree that tedious repetitive tasks should be avoided. But is the docking/conveyor the only and best solution?

 

How about automation? Building and programming small vehicles to go into your cargo freighter to pick up whole containers to place them in base storage room.

System would be quite simple. On paper of course. We just need some tools:

1. Lua functions "go to waypoint" and "turn towards waypoint"

2. Elements that serve as waypoints. With ability to connect them together to create paths.

3. Storage container socket, which can be filled with storage container. It should also serve as waypoint.

4. Element that pick up storage container from socket and place it in another.

 

Why go such complicated route? There are multiple benefits:

1. Immersion. Landing pads and hangars get filled with vehicles going back and forth

2. Force ship builders to create wide corridors inside ships, which leads to more interesting boarding battles.

3. Create weak-spots in armour, if you go for externally accessible containers.

4. It pave the way for even more automation. Patrol boats (unarmed), short-range taxi, ect.

 

BTW those two systems could coexist. Simple piping would the "easy but inefficient way" while containers the "harder but more efficient"

The cargo socket you describe is basically just a docking ring without the ability to let people though it. Coding wise I think the container socket you described will have most of the same problems as a docking ring and the same need for user friendliness like a magnetic force to aid alignment with the socket and will be exploited to be used like docking ring to connect constructs together. 

 

In my view a cargo socket would just be a docking ring. 

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5 minutes ago, DarkbutGood said:

The cargo socket you describe is basically just a docking ring without the ability to let people though it. Coding wise I think the container socket you described will have most of the same problems as a docking ring and the same need for user friendliness like a magnetic force to aid alignment with the socket and will be exploited to be used like docking ring to connect constructs together. 

 

In my view a cargo socket would just be a docking ring. 

The difference is that the only thing you can dock into socket is cargo container. So single dynamic element, not a whole construct.

So it's more like a shelf, where you can put pallets with forklift.

 

For user friendliness I thought about mechanical arm. So player (or lua script) just need to be within range and select which container he want to pick up or into which socket it want to place it. Or if it's small container (i.e. 2x2x4) then you can do it by hand.

But your idea of some assist for temporarily aligning sockets on two constructs could be nice too. 

 

Docking ring would be cool too, but IMO they shouldn't automatically transport any resources (except liquids maybe). Just create rigid connection for modular ships.

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On 20/04/2018 at 5:59 PM, CalenLoki said:

The difference is that the only thing you can dock into socket is cargo container. So single dynamic element, not a whole construct.

So it's more like a shelf, where you can put pallets with forklift.

2

 

That will only work if cargo containers should separate dynamic elements separate from other constructs which that is a bad idea for many reasons,  most importantly the effect of having many dynamic elements being plugged into a larger dynamic construct could be devastating for game performance as the game would have to calculate for at least dozens of elements for a fairly big cargo ship. Having many parts that are able to be connected and disconnected would be too great a risk on game performance for me to be happy with.

On 20/04/2018 at 5:59 PM, CalenLoki said:

For user friendliness I thought about mechanical arm. So player (or lua script) just need to be within range and select which container he want to pick up or into which socket it want to place it. Or if it's small container (i.e. 2x2x4) then you can do it by hand.

But your idea of some assist for temporarily aligning sockets on two constructs could be nice too. 

5

I fail to see how a mechanical arm would be user-friendly. I couldn't be bothered to have to go through that everytime that wanted to get cargo, and if I had a ship that was made solely to transport goods and cargo the time and energy to put in place a large number of cargo containers in my ship manually would kill me. Also, you are getting very close to having mechanical rotors which the devs flat out rejected.

 

All of this gets us to the point which Nanoman  it's just simpler to have one big dumb solution that can be used in all situations rather then have a toolbox of limited solutions which all have specific uses.

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I would be curious to see smaller ships docking into larger ships and space stations. Including a large vessel parking next to a space station and extending out a docking bridge from the side of the hull that would connect with an adjacent bridge from the station.  

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