Docking procedure messages misleading

[vaxon]

Docking procedure seems screwed up.
The first message was that they had inbound traffic and my queue position was 2.
3 ships docked after that and then they told me to wait a bit more since they had
outbound traffic and that my queue position was 7 this time.
Finally 11 ships left the station before I got my docking slot.
This happens way too often.

(I'm using oolite 1.80 on Linux)

[mossfoot]

On my Linux using 1.80 I had something similar. I was waiting at a taxi station and the traffic just NEVER ended. I went from waiting in line from 11 to 8 to 9 to 8 to 10, etc... might have been a glitch, but since you mention it I thought I'd add my two cents.

[Eric Walch]

Probably some of the ships bribed the docking master.

[Cody]

<nods> Docking control can be a trifle... how shall I put it... whimsical (which I kinda like). You didn't miss a 'Priority traffic' message, did you?

[Diziet Sma]

Just like in real life, everyone is equal, but the filthy rich and the very powerful are more equal than others.. since, supposedly, their time is more valuable than yours, they get bumped to the head of the queue, and you get bumped down. Just like how Steve Jobs got bumped straight to the head of the waiting-list when he needed a liver transplant. I sometimes wonder who died whilst waiting for a liver to become available, just so that Saint Jobs could get his immediately.

I see it as being the same in Oolite.. the local head honcho, and his entourage, all suddenly arrive, and they get priority over all us proles.. When it happens, sometimes you're told about it, and sometimes they can't be bothered..

[mossfoot]

It just happened so long at the cab station (I waited like 15 minutes in a never ending conga line) that I thought something must be wrong.

[Diziet Sma]

Yeah sometimes things just get insanely busy.. (and I suspect some OXPs just need their scripting tweaked)

On the bright side, having just started a broke-adder game myself (for which I blame you, mossfoot!) I was waiting outside a very busy Lave station for an hour and a half, realtime, for a lift to Zaonce, and I can say with some confidence that the last-second fixes to the docking-queue system, just before the 1.80 release, appear to have worked. Things run much more smoothly than they had during the last days of 1.79. So rest assured, things are not as bad as they almost could have been.

[mossfoot]

Hey, Mossfoot tales of woe no doubt responsible.

I'll start that up again once I have my 1.80 reboot close to where I was before.