[RELEASE] ILS Instrument Landing System v1.13

[RockDoctor]

Downside Up!

Am I correct in presuming that ILS always docks upside down?

I've noticed this too. I've always assumed that the code finds the "orientation vector" for the target, does some calculation upon it to get the orientation w.r.t. the view-port's orientation, and somewhere flips a sign in that calculation. Hardly a hanging offence for the programmer (5 strokes of the cat's tail seems more appropriate) but of little consequence. Until someone comes up with a ship and a station with markedly asymmetric docking ports/ envelopes, but I'm not sure if that is possible.

[hiran]

Downside Up!

Am I correct in presuming that ILS always docks upside down?

I've noticed this too. I've always assumed that the code finds the "orientation vector" for the target, does some calculation upon it to get the orientation w.r.t. the view-port's orientation, and somewhere flips a sign in that calculation. Hardly a hanging offence for the programmer (5 strokes of the cat's tail seems more appropriate) but of little consequence. Until someone comes up with a ship and a station with markedly asymmetric docking ports/ envelopes, but I'm not sure if that is possible.

As in space there is no real 'up' or 'down' without setting a reference system and the stations I docked with are constantly rotating this is completely meaningless. At most one could notice the orientation of a docking port on spaceships.

[Slartibartfast]

Hi

but its more nice to read the banners without a headstand.

btw. with Docking-Computer -- i think ~75% -- same (little) issue

[hiran]

Hi

but its more nice to read the banners without a headstand.

btw. with Docking-Computer -- i think ~75% -- same (little) issue

Oh, then there *is* some difference. I did not think of that...

[RockDoctor]

As in space there is no real 'up' or 'down' without setting a reference system and the stations I docked with are constantly rotating this is completely meaningless. At most one could notice the orientation of a docking port on spaceships.

At some point there is very likely to be a "handedness" to real-world docking - I was just having to fill out a (totally pointless), dole-satisfying job application for building gas systems where it matters which line goes to "sample gas", which one to "calibration gas", and which one to "pneumatic supply", using otherwise identical connectors ; connect them wrongly and expensive components die, expensively).
More prosaically, you'd probably object to having your Cobra-III's sewage processing system connected to the high-pressure fuel line, spraying a lovely concoction all over the living spaces.

More prosaically, some of the hangers (Astromine Penal colonies, IIRC) have already got something docked in one corner of the entry bay, which would probably preclude an Anaconda fitting there, even if a Cobra-III would fit. I assume that someone, at some point, intends / intended to make a game point out of that.

[Cholmondely]

After a while, it gets boring...

Dybal - thank you for the update to ILS (v1.15) - I'm looking forwards to landing the right-way up!

Will you be producing a new version for v.1.92 which can then be controlled by one of Phkb's three-zillion-and-one "Fast Activation buttons"?

And what do you think of cag's new version of Telescope (and his Station Options)?

[Milo]

Using 1.15 (and 1.14 until the update), my Kirin Sport starts rotating inside the dock (or loses sync with the station rotation?) during the final moments of approach. Haven't tried with other ships.

[dybal]

Using 1.15 (and 1.14 until the update), my Kirin Sport starts rotating inside the dock (or loses sync with the station rotation?) during the final moments of approach. Haven't tried with other ships.

It rotates a few degrees then switch to the in-station screens? No crash?

If yes, I have seen it too (as my actual commander finally got an usable derelict big enough to require rotation sync for docking).

My guess is that the player ship status reflects his new docked status (the code looks for ship.isInSpace and player.dockingClearanceStatus) before the switch to the in-station GUI and the last frame callback disengages ILS and doesn't update the ship orientation for the station orientation change since last callback.

Fixing it (if my guess is right...) would need a fairly extensive re-factoring of the FCB function code... it's something I want to do for clarity purposes if nothing else (right now the code is really hard to follow), but it's a lot of work and would certainly introduce quite a few new bugs to be squashed - and the last is the reason I haven't done it...

[dybal]

After a while, it gets boring...

Dybal - thank you for the update to ILS (v1.15) - I'm looking forwards to landing the right-way up!

Hopefully... I found something that could explain it and fixed, but I haven't docked anywhere I could be certain of which side of the dock is up since my commander "found" an usable Cobra III-XT (the previous ships didn't require rotation for docking)

Will you be producing a new version for v.1.92 which can then be controlled by one of Phkb's three-zillion-and-one "Fast Activation buttons"?

I haven't looked into it... the only time I compiled the 1.91 dev core game it didn't run because it required a higher GL version than my graphics driver implemented (something related to the rendering to frame buffer they were working at the time).

But ILS isn't a primed equipment, so while more fast-activation keys would be *very* welcome (I have use for at least 3...), ILS couldn't use them without quite a bit of change in how it works.

And what do you think of cag's new version of Telescope (and his Station Options)?

I was a beta-tester for Telescope 2.0 for most of 2020, and very happy to see when I came back that he (finally! ) thought it ready to release. It sometimes crash on me, but I only know it because I play with the Latest.log being displayed, so I see the stack dump, since it recovers "gracefully". The MFDs sometimes lags quite a bit (10s+) to show the ships that got into scanner range, but that's the only problem I remember.

[Milo]

It rotates a few degrees then switch to the in-station screens? No crash?

Yes, no crash so far. I haven't tried it at low speeds so unsure if it's just the final frame.

[RockDoctor]

It rotates a few degrees then switch to the in-station screens? No crash?

Yes, no crash so far. I haven't tried it at low speeds so unsure if it's just the final frame.

I see the same thing on my laptop (which I don't think has a shaders-capable graphics chip) when docking on ILS, but not on those occasions that I use regular docking computers to do the stage-by stage docking to the tune of Blue Danube.
I haven't tried it on the desktop, which I put in a relatively proper graphics card, specifically for Oolite. I'll check that tonight.
For me, the rotation pause lasts about 1 second, which would be 6-10 frames, if that's any relevance.

[dybal]

It rotates a few degrees then switch to the in-station screens? No crash?

Yes, no crash so far. I haven't tried it at low speeds so unsure if it's just the final frame.

I think I found out what is happening... it's not that the playership's show it as docked before the docking tunnel animation, it's that its position in "behind" the plane that "closes" the docking bay entrance (since the ship is actually inside the docking bay) and that's the condition the code looks before engaging ILS (to avoid trying to get to the ILS waypoint through the station...), and the FCB as it is starts with ILS disengaged and looks for all conditions in each iteration... I will see if I can write some small alteration to deal with that (instead of that re-factoring I talked about...)

[Cholmondely]

I can add a warning message

Norby: how do I do this? I fail dismally whenever I try...

If you target the station while another ship is using ILS then you lock on the landing ship - a help to find where it is. If you keep the station in your crosshairs when the current ship arrives into the dock then you get the right to use ILS regardless of whether there are others in the queue.