Delightful Docking OXP/OXZ

[Wildeblood]

Autopilot - When docking by autopilot you will often be placed in a queue. Normally your ship is just 'parked' as it is. This OXP causes your ship to be aligned with the station while you wait, allowing you to watch the station and the ships docking or leaving.

I've been meaning to ask about this for a long while; I thought the changed docking AI was included into Oolite 1.76.1?

[Diziet Sma]

I've been meaning to ask about this for quite a while too.. a lot of the time, it orients the ship so the station appears in the aft view, not the forward view.. would it be possible to make it always face the ship to the station?

Congratulations on reaching 1200 downloads, too!

[Eric Walch]

I thought the changed docking AI was included into Oolite 1.76.1?

No, you need this oxp for the orientation. It is in trunk though.

[Smivs]

...a lot of the time, it orients the ship so the station appears in the aft view, not the forward view.

Hmmm, Can't say I've ever seen that, and the 'performFaceDestination' in the AI suggets it should only face forwards. I'm not an expert on AIs though...

[Cody]

I thought the changed docking AI was included into Oolite 1.76.1?

No, you need this oxp for the orientation. It is in trunk though.

I'd forgotten about this. So if I'm parked-up (stationary) in a queue for docking, my ship should orientate towards the station/docking traffic, yes?
Or have I got it wrong, as I just spent two minutes parked-up staring into space - not at the station/docking traffic (r5575).

A question: does this affect NPCs at all?

(Not using this OXP, btw.)

[Diziet Sma]

I'd forgotten about this. So if I'm parked-up (stationary) in a queue for docking, my ship should orientate towards the station/docking traffic, yes?
Or have I got it wrong, as I just spent two minutes parked-up staring into space - not at the station/docking traffic (r5575).

Next time this happens, try switching to aft view.. you'll probably find you can then see the station and docking traffic.

[Cody]

Ha! I tried that - same result!

[Eric Walch]

I think that I know why it goes wrong. Face destination points the ship to the primary target. For some reason, the station is no longer the primary target. This could even be a side effect of a fix I made a few weeks back on an other problem. The station for docking is internally stored in a different variable.

[Smivs]

If it helps, I'm using v1.76.1 (not trunk) and have not seen this.

[Eric Walch]

I think that I know why it goes wrong.

The problem is on an other place than I thought. In 1.76 new ships are always allowed on the docking queue, even when there are pending launches. Only urgent launches get priority.

With trunk, new arriving ships are not put on the docking queue when there are pending launches. In this case, the player or npc is send to the abort coordinates and not added to the docking queue. This abort coordinate is just a position 8 km away from the station. That explains why the station is often visible when looking back. The AI is not executing the STATIONKEEPING part that contains the code for rotating to the station. And when entering the STATIONKEEPING part, something else goes wrong that I can't place at the moment.

[JazHaz]

I uploaded a video of Oolite today to YouTube (this one), only to get YouTube complaining about the Delightful Docking music recording, saying its copyright. I disputed their claim, pointing out that its allowable under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license, as in the OXP:

The Blue Danube Waltz.

This audio file is an edited version of a recording by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
It is released under The Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license.
The license can be viewed at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Attributions:-

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Georg Szell, conductor.

HMV 78rpm disc C.2686 (32-4795, 4796).
Recorded June 23, 1934.
Digital transfer by F. Reeder
Edited by Smivs (to remove introductory movement)

The recording was sourced from http://www.archive.org/details/BlueDanubeWaltz

[Smivs]

Thanks JH.
The video is certainly playing OK - nice one
I think this type of copyright-related problem is common - automated systems are used to flag things, and they are notoriously useless unfortunately.

[JazHaz]

I uploaded a video of Oolite today to YouTube (this one), only to get YouTube complaining about the Delightful Docking music recording, saying its copyright. I disputed their claim, pointing out that its allowable under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license, as in the OXP.

To try to help the dispute I added the full text of the licence and attributes as quoted to the description of the video on YouTube.

Think if anyone wants to put videos up of this OXP then they should do the same.

[Smivs]

That's a good idea
Knowing what a problem these issues can be I was very keen to make the attribution in the OXP as comprehensive as possible to avoid (or at least reduce) things like this happening.

[Smivs]

As you may have seen elsewhere some confusion on my part has led to a bit of mis-information. I had overlooked the fact that the default stations now have a slower rotation in v1.80, and this led to the situation where the documentation suggests that Delightful Docking slows the station rotation, whereas in fact it now slightly speeds them up.
Apologies to all for this.
I am leaving the OXZ alone for now though as the rotation looks fine in game (still slower than the v1.77.1 stations) and it really doesn't seem worth the trouble to do anything about it. The wiki page has been updated to give correct information.
If there is a demand for the new default slower rotations to remain untouched, I can soon issue an updated version, so let me know.