stationrotation.oxp now available (TRUNK only!)

[Commander McLane]

And here is my first 1.77-only OXP:

 stationrotation.oxp

This OXP makes the rotation of all main stations slower. Half of them will rotate anti-clockwise.

Overview

The OXP first gives all rotating main stations a slower default rotation rate. It also gives some known main station types (built-in and OXP), their own, unique rotation rates. Currently covered are the three built-in station types (Coriolis, Dodecahedron, and Icosahedron), the two types of Globe Stations, and Torus Stations.

The OXP uses the new JS-roll property, which is currently only available in trunk. Its advantage is that the slower station roll can be applied to all main stations during the game, without the need to edit all their shipdata.

Please alert me about other rotating main station types.

The OXP is available for download via the  Elite Wiki.

[superbatprime]

Nice, that will make things much easier.
I like having lots of different types of main station but it can get pretty labor intensive to slow them all.

[Thargoid]

For reference, none of my stations (the various Kiota ones, Lave Academy and Aquarian HQ) will need this as they have Z-radially symmetric docking bays.

I'm of the basic view that if I was the designer of such a spinning entity, the last thing I'd do is make it something that people could easily smack into.

[DaddyHoggy]

It would be good if the Constores had slower rotations - you wouldn't want a potential customer scraping their paint work, it might put them off spending...

[Rese249er]

Awesome! Downloading...

[Commander McLane]

The reason to slow station rotation down is not to make docking easier, but to add to immersion by making them appear bigger, just the way that its slower pitch-and-roll rate conveys a sense of an Anaconda's size to its pilot.

For instance, in my personal game I have also just slowed down the Superhub's rotation. There's no practical value to it whatsoever from a docking point of view. It just looks better (to me). This OXP is for people who feel likewise.

I have however currently limited it to main stations, so most Kiotas (and also Superhubs) aren't affected. But as Thargoid mentioned it, I seem to remember that there is indeed a Kiota main station variant, which I just disabled in my game. So I should look into it as well.

Obviously, stations that don't rotate in the first place are beyond this OXP's scope.

[Thargoid]

The 8-ring habitat Kiota can replace ico's and the 4-ring one can replace dodec's (both at an 0.1 weighting).

Being slowed won't hurt them, it's just that they don't need it and probably won't visually benefit, as they are large and symmetrical. Indeed I'm not sure I agree that a slower rotating station looks bigger, but that's just my personal view.

[superbatprime]

It's not so much that they literally look bigger, it's that they "feel" more epic, mostly I suspect because many people have the cinematic idea of these graceful big structures "slowly turning in the void" etc from countless scifi movies.

For some reason the mental image of large objects rotating in space is always slooow (for me at least) regardless of how realistic it actually is.

That said, I must confess that even though I can manually dock any system station at normal speed no problem... the constores freak me out, I always panic and pitch up at the last second, I have no idea what it is about them that makes me bug out so often.

...and then of course I refuse to slow them because I'll feel like they've beaten me lol.

[Tricky]

The one thing I don't like is being given permission to approach and dock, then as I am injecting in a ship suddenly launches. Requires a small jink in the approach, and much swearing from the pilot I've just buzzed.

[another_commander]

The one thing I don't like is being given permission to approach and dock, then as I am injecting in a ship suddenly launches. Requires a small jink in the approach, and much swearing from the pilot I've just buzzed.

This one should not happen. The whole point of the Docking Clearance thingy is to eliminate precisely cases like this and is the very reason it was developed for. If such events happen regularly, then we may have a problem that needs fixing.

[cim]

There is no delay between the last ship in the launch queue launching, and clearance to dock being granted. If people are coming in on injectors that might well not give the last ship out time to clear the corridor.

[superbatprime]

If people are coming in on injectors that might well not give the last ship out time to clear the corridor.

Pretty sure booming in on injectors is not in the GalCop docking protocol handbook.
If that is the cause I figure that's the price you pay for being a hotshot.

Maybe injecting in ought to carry a fine.

[Wildeblood]

Pretty sure booming in on injectors is not in the GalCop docking protocol handbook.
If that is the cause I figure that's the price you pay for being a hotshot.

Maybe injecting in ought to carry a fine.

Code: Select all

this.shipWillDockWithStation = function(station)
{
if (player.ship.speed > player.ship.maxSpeed)
  {
  station.explode();
  player.ship.explode();
  }
}

[Diziet Sma]

Pretty sure booming in on injectors is not in the GalCop docking protocol handbook.
If that is the cause I figure that's the price you pay for being a hotshot.

Maybe injecting in ought to carry a fine.

Code: Select all

this.shipWillDockWithStation = function(station)
{
if (player.ship.speed > player.ship.maxSpeed)
  {
  station.explode();
  player.ship.explode();
  }
}

That's just... evil..

[superbatprime]

Now that is what you call zero tolerance.