Docking computer failure!

[stillsick]

After a good long haul, collecting lots of cannisters and killing lots of pirates, I finally came into port with a full load. There was that lovely sense of relief as I pressed C, put my feet up and picked up something to read whilst waiting to auto dock. I looked up a few minutes later just in time to see my ship crash into the station - my ship was heading for the docking bay but wasn't rotating at all.
So, is this a bug or is there just an extremely small chance that this will happen? I didn't cancel the docking computers and I know this because when Press Space Commander came up, The Blue Danube was still merrily playing away in the background (that did make me laugh) and I didn't press any buttons as the controller was a foot away from me.
I do have PA Groove Stations OXP installed and it was a Goldtech Corilis station. Could that be it? I would love to know if anyone has had this!

stillsick

[Cody]

Hi stillsick… unlucky, as they say.

I’m no expert, but I don’t think that the docking computer is 100% reliable… one of the wizards will know more, I expect.

[curtsibling]

Sounds like a one-off glitch?

Hitting Shift-D will avoid this kind of thing -

[stillsick]

Hee, hee!
Just happened again! This time I was looking at my cargo inventory, went back to Foward view just in time to. . . well you can guess the rest! Again, my ship was not rotating at the crucial stage. I wonder if it's the PA Groove Station OXP as it never happened before I installed it. I got rid of a few other OXPs last week as the game kept crashing on takeoff and the hyperspace jump. For some reason my laptop doesn't seem to like them, although I haven't really looked into why. That or I'm cursed! It would be a pity to play Oolite "straight" but maybe I'll have to.
I will try the shift D thing - there seem to be a lot of controls that I don't know about.

[Cody]

Much goodness in the OoliteRS reference pdf, in the main Olite folder.

[Smivs]

I will try the shift D thing -

Just remember that 'd' dumps cargo....there's nothing more annoying than ejecting something valuable just when you are trying to dock.
Having said that, I use shift-d most of the time. It's a good time saver. In real life I should add...I believe it costs about 20 minutes in game-time, which can be crucial if you are on a time-sensitive mission. One of my Commanders is currently building up passenger contract reputation (one of those funny little YellOo Cabs) and he always manually docks...it's the quickest way in game terms.

[stillsick]

Thanks for all the help folks. The reference sheet was a revelation - I've always wanted to dump cargo (such as picked up food or textiles say) and make room for something better and now I can.
Why did I never see it before?!?!

[Cody]

I don’t think that many bother to read the reference sheet… it’s ‘install the game and launch’.
The RS is very useful, but don’t rely on it for ship sizes.

[Smivs]

The RS is very useful, but don’t rely on it for ship sizes.

Just a reminder, I checked and corrected the Wiki entries for all the ships against the .dat files a while ago when I drew up the Ship size chart. The Wiki ship dimensions are right.

[Cody]

Yeah… good point, Smivs.

Someone with the required know-how needs to redo the RS… all the resources are still there on KZ9999’s box, I think. He hasn't been around for quite a while.

[Commander McLane]

Thanks for all the help folks. The reference sheet was a revelation - I've always wanted to dump cargo (such as picked up food or textiles say) and make room for something better and now I can.
Why did I never see it before?!?!

On top of that, the Oolite Mac installation comes with a readMe-file (conveniently named "ReadMe") which contains first of all an extensive list of all keyboard commands. It's a worthwhile read.

[Cody]

Yep, I'd forgotten about the readme, McLane... it's in the Windows installation, as well, so I presume it's also in the Linux flavour.

[another_commander]

Someone with the required know-how needs to redo the RS… all the resources are still there on KZ9999’s box, I think. He hasn't been around for quite a while.

Thanks for that link El Viejo, we could certainly do with an updating of the reference sheet. I just hope that this is indeed the latest version of the source document used for the RS. KZ9999 did a great job with it, but at some point there may have been a version control problem, due to the number of RS versions circulating simultaneously. We also have some source documents in our hands, which have been already checked and confirmed that could be used to update the RS, albeit with some prior amount of work to bring them up to current status. I do think (and hope) that the documents in the link you provided are closer to what we have in PDF format in the distribution, though, which is definitely a good thing.

[Commander McLane]

Following the Reference Sheet-related thread on the board could give a good idea what version of it may be the most up-to-date.

[harry747]

Just remember that 'd' dumps cargo....there's nothing more annoying than ejecting something valuable just when you are trying to dock.

That's why I've edited my keyconfig.plist to un-assign d from the dump function. I also assigned space (instead of a) to fire the lasers.