Oolite Bulletins

Not sure to agree. A transfer hub is a station that also reduces shuttle traffic so that normal ships are not in too long docking queues as well as a means to accommodate large groups of people that tranfer on a space cruiser and on top of that a sort of dry dock.

Design 2 (slightly bigger)

Proposal Hubstation for High tech worlds

@Admin
Could you split this topic in a new tread: Transfer Hub proposal?

Can't get enough of the texturing. Progress of the Superhub station.
Now gonna sleep.

Regarding the playership dock...

I don't know if it's possible, but what about making it a through-hub type of thing? What I mean is, you enter at one end, and exit from the other end, so all traffic is one way, reducing docking queue lengths, since there is no need to give way to ships leaving the dock.

Love the superhub concept, btw...

I like the look of the Superhub idea, but I have a problem with the concept.

It would always be cheaper (in a real-world scenario) to just use shuttles to transfer passengers from big ships to stations.

Airports do it now, to an extent. If there's no room at a gate (or the plane won't fit a gate) then a bus comes out to take the passengers to or from the terminal.

In Elite's universe, that's kind of the purpose of the Autoshuttle that the Cobra 3 carries - albeit taking the pilot between ships rather than between ship and station.

Now if someone could add THAT to an OXP I'd be impressed!

Still, I like the new ship! And I DO like the superhub in a visual sense - it looks cool!

Well, the Superhub could be much more than just a hub... It could be like a resort in space, with entertainment, bars and nightclubs, zero-gee sports, duty-free shopping, casinos, and whatever else you wanted to toss in. It also just happens to be big enough to handle the biggest damn liners in the galaxy!

In short, it's not just a way-station, but a destination in its own right.

About the possibility of the hub in programming terms. There are currently 3 things that could block a technical realisation.

A) you can not set destination positions by script. I requested that 1 year ago but Ahruman thought it was to dangerous when JS could directly alter destination positions. This could be bypassed by only setting coordinates by JS script and than let the AI set destination positions based on these coordinates. Setting destination from coordinates function already exists in AI.
There is currently an even more complicated method possible I am using in the grs stations with the external dockings but probably not advisable to copy.

B) with the grs stations there are still occasionally collisions in the external docks without touching textures. When there is not a very big distance between the ship and its hull you will probably also suffer from it. This would require an even larger hub than you already designed.

C) collision detection of such complex structures it time-consuming. Therefor Oolite decided to don't do it at its best when the player is more than about 30 000 meters away. e.g. when you see an external docker in a grs station and fly away while looking in your mirror, you'll see it explode shortly after the station leaves your scanner range.
Exception on this rule is the positive z-axis for stations. This to allow docking, even with a far away player. In your case it will explode when leaving the hub at its back, when no player is nearby.

Interesting. Perhaps it would have been better to turn off collision detection beyond 50 km and just let things go at that?

I mean, assuming the AIs are decent, can we assume object are flying cleanly when we are not looking? Or is that giving in to people's instinctive desire for a universe that makes sense and runs smoothly ?

Best wishes,
Oscar

Eric Walch wrote:

About the possibility of the hub in programming terms. There are currently 3 things that could block a technical realisation.

A) you can not set destination positions by script. I requested that 1 year ago but Ahruman thought it was to dangerous when JS could directly alter destination positions. This could be bypassed by only setting coordinates by JS script and than let the AI set destination positions based on these coordinates. Setting destination from coordinates function already exists in AI.
There is currently an even more complicated method possible I am using in the grs stations with the external dockings but probably not advisable to copy.

B) with the grs stations there are still occasionally collisions in the external docks without touching textures. When there is not a very big distance between the ship and its hull you will probably also suffer from it. This would require an even larger hub than you already designed.

C) collision detection of such complex structures it time-consuming. Therefor Oolite decided to don't do it at its best when the player is more than about 30 000 meters away. e.g. when you see an external docker in a grs station and fly away while looking in your mirror, you'll see it explode shortly after the station leaves your scanner range.
Exception on this rule is the positive z-axis for stations. This to allow docking, even with a far away player. In your case it will explode when leaving the hub at its back, when no player is nearby.

Actually I changed plans. This station is not a transfer hub anymore but a full replacement for the station in the highest tech level systems or for the richest planets. See it as a full blown orbital city as mentioned earlier in this tread.

Only difference is that also big ships can dock with it. I hope it can be realized. I continue texturing. Sorry for being a bit fast in making this models but I was almost addicted to modeling this weekend. Hopefully a scripter can make something useful of it. Or shall I shelf the project Maybe anyone want the model then to see if the concept is possible?

This station is meant to be then on the same axis as each other station.

BTW isn't time to have a more advance collision detection?

Progress on the station

Name: Gasec Orbitalpolis.
Function: Station/ orbital city/Cruiser dock/Transport hub

Replaces station at Techlevel 13 and up 14. Maybe only from a certain political level also?

Is it me or is this a model just begging for a full work up of normal maps, glows and lighting! Can't wait to see it in-game - go for it groove-meister!

Go pagroove go!!!

Found a nice filter. Station still building (4096 x 2000) texture map

I'm liking a lot!!!