Jumping wall inside docking slit of Raceedat station

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:31 am

Hi,

quite some times I've observed this, but since I did use shift-d never worried about it: Quite often I see a wall inside the docking slit of the Raceedat stations, just at the point where a ship has to fly through.

I now gave it a little closer look and observed that with the station rotating, the wall even jumped around, thus reducing the free space even further. It's like separating one third of the docking bay, but when it jumps, the previously larger entrance part becomes the smaller one while the previously smaller one becomes the larger one.

While looking, a GRS ship tried to dock...ran into that wall and exploded. Guess that could happen to any commander without docking computers or with slow docking sequence.

Upon launching and stopping immediately, there were two walls inside that slit, probably the "jumpy" look is caused by one wall somehow making the other disappear when watching from an angle, although both should stay visible. Trying to dock manually, those walls did cause heavy shield damage, destroying cargo.

I've got screenshots, but never did upload graphics anywhere, thus I don't know yet how to include it here. Given an email address, I could send it that way. It doesn't look spectacular, but I don't like the idea that it really causes problems. Shaders are not the issue, I guess those walls should be at the side of the bay or something like that and are misplaced.

Screet
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Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 2:14 pm

Missing info,

1 is this the main station we are talking about... ?

2 is this a custom station...

3 version of Oolite. I assume 1.72.1

4 OS you are using... windows vista 32 bit, right ?

Even then nothing should be jumping around... inside any docking bay.. at least I have never seen this happen, most stations use the standard Oolite dock models. and all native Oolite models does not do this.

you can send your pictures to [email protected], and I´ll post them here...

OR:

www.photobucket.com lets you make a free account, where you can upload pictures... and when hovering over a picture you have uploaded, it even supplies you with the IMG code used to post it here...

Cheers

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:37 pm

Frame wrote:
Missing info,

1 is this the main station we are talking about... ?

Yes. I thought that was obvious from it's name (Raceedat station, not that planet, but the station type).

Frame wrote:
3 version of Oolite. I assume 1.72.1

Correct.

Frame wrote:
4 OS you are using... windows vista 32 bit, right ?

Correct.

Frame wrote:
Even then nothing should be jumping around... inside any docking bay.. at least I have never seen this happen, most stations use the standard Oolite dock models. and all native Oolite models does not do this.

Apparently it's some bug, that it appears to jump. When viewing it from an angle instead of being launched and instantly stopping, the rotation would cause the viewer to see the other side of that wall...and when that happens, it vanishes. Because viewing from an angle always results in one of the walls to be seen from the outside, there's only a "jumpy" wall to be seen, not two.

Frame wrote:
you can send your pictures to [email protected], and I´ll post them here...

As this is faster for the moment, I'll drop you that mail within a few seconds.

Frame wrote:
OR:www.photobucket.com lets you make a free account, where you can upload pictures... and when hovering over a picture you have uploaded, it even supplies you with the IMG code used to post it here...

...and copy this text to my additional oolite stuff for future usage

Docking slowly is weird with that station, and this is also possible to see while watching a GRS ship: The computer first tries to align as usual, but then seemingly becomes uncertain and tries to dock the player at 90 degrees. Both works for docking manually, BTW, and apparently the likelihood of being damaged is reduced, but then the entrance is too small for many ships.

Concerning that it's a custom station: I'm not sure which OXP adds it in that case. I do remember seeing those stations already as a young commander when the ooniverse wasn't that complex.

Screet

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:00 pm

Here are the pictures

I know that is an OXP station... so it is 100% that the set up of the station causing that error....

native stations, are without any extraordinary things... just a docking bay with flashers... and plain boring texture

But I can't identify the station, as I do not have the OXP installed, or ever have,...

someone else needs to reply to tell us what OXP has this station included...

Cheers Frame

wackyman465 · Post by **wackyman465** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:03 pm

I've seen that issue before - it doesn't actually affect docking (you can't hit the middle wall) but it looks weird. It's the Raceedat station from Trident Down, but it appears in lots of systems - i think this is a bug.

Ark · Post by **Ark** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:05 pm

This is a strange mixture of Gritty coriolis oxp with sung textures. How you did that anyway!!!!!!!!

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 5:08 pm

wackyman465 wrote:
I've seen that issue before - it doesn't actually affect docking (you can't hit the middle wall) but it looks weird. It's the Raceedat station from Trident Down, but it appears in lots of systems - i think this is a bug.

My ship hit those walls and got damaged...and the GRS lost one ship while I was watching. Maybe both the GRS and my ship had some bad luck, but it really appeared to be those walls causing it. As I said, even the docking computer get's confused when it attempts to dock there!

Screet

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 9:11 pm

Looks like you’ve got two different docking bays with different orientations. Interesting.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:24 am

Anyway, it seems to be a problem with either the model or the scripting of that station.

Post by **Eric Walch** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:26 am

and the GRS lost one ship while I was watching. Maybe both the GRS and my ship had some bad luck,

The GRS ship has a bad disign: it is a little to big. It almost always suffers from scrap-damage on docking at a default sized docking slit. (If you enable logging for that GRS.oxp this damage is even logged). This was also the main reason to give the Armandillo a higher energy than originally planned. The problem with scrap damage is, that it is proportional to the others mass. Scratching the hull of a double sized station also doubles the damage.

wackyman465 · Post by **wackyman465** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:54 pm

Nice ship - is it The Morrigan?

Svengali · Post by **Svengali** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:19 pm

Eric Walch wrote:
and the GRS lost one ship while I was watching. Maybe both the GRS and my ship had some bad luck,
The GRS ship has a bad disign: it is a little to big. It almost always suffers from scrap-damage on docking at a default sized docking slit.

Eric is right. The ship is simply a little bit too high for standard docking-slits, but it would lose the proportions if scaled down. Could be a nice (read strange) thing to have a tiny ship towing a big buoy :-) Maybe we should move the bridge when launched or when the last stage of docking is reached.

But back to the walls problem .-)

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:54 pm

Hi!

wackyman465 wrote:
Nice ship - is it The Morrigan?

It's a very similar looking model: The Jabberwocky. I was flying the Merlin, which I like very much. However, the model of the Merlin is smaller than that of a cargo canister. This leads to the problems of it being almost unable to be hit by pirates as well as collision troubles. A collision with a Thargon sends it spinning. I was about to resize it, but then thought of the easier solution: Find a ship which does look nice and set it to the Merlins values. I did add a few missile slots for salvage missiles, though. Pretty useless idea, as I've only fired one of the ECM hardened ones so far and a very few times a single cascade one

The outside views are missing, though. Flying that ship appears to be much more fair concerning the pirates.

Back to the walls problem: Someone contacted me via PM and had a suggestion I was practically unable to believe...but it appears that he is right. This goes into the direction of the previously named "two docking bays" idea: that another station is being loaded at the same position, gets destroyed and only it's docking bay remains intact at the position of the other docking bay. Still, this appears to be very unlikely and before I approach the one who created that oxp, I'd like to verify it myself, as there are still a few questions left on how such a thing could happen with this as a reproduceable appearing bug and only this station type.

Any suggestions on how I can transfer a test-player most easiest to a specific system could help me.

Screet

wackyman465 · Post by **wackyman465** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:58 pm

If have a chance, try the morrigan, its a nice fast trade ship - like an IC, but not as unfair, and maybe a little cheaper.

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:10 pm

wackyman465 wrote:
If have a chance, try the morrigan, its a nice fast trade ship - like an IC, but not as unfair, and maybe a little cheaper.

Cheaper? It does cost approximately twice as much as the IC(N) when I see it. I do have more money than I would need for an IC(N), but somehow that idea didn't get me hooked. Currently, I'm just saving money for the time soon when I have some more models at hand between which I could chose

Screet