Oolite Bulletins

There has been some talk lately about the possibility of a Capital player ship, one far bigger than the usual player ships. One of the main problems with this idea is that such a ship is too big to dock.
Solutions suggested include giant stations to allow massive ships to dock, and ships with a detachable section which can dock.
The giant stations are achievable, but the Capital ship with a detachable docking module have always been viewed as impossible due to the 'You are the ship, and the ship is You' principle.
As somebody who likes to do 'The Impossible', I thought I'd take a look at this and after some thought I spent yesterday on a demonstration of one way this could be done.
What I have is a large ship (the Slaver Ship from Dizzies WIP) consisting of two parts, the smaller of which can be detached by the player and flown to a station to dock. After re-launch it can be flown back to the Mothership and re-attached.
I have to stress that this is just a 'Proof of Concept' and is not a fully-working OXP, or even at this stage a work in progress.
A video of the demonstration can be seen here.
Although the Module is not actually docked in the video, I have docked and re-launched it several times, followed by returning to the Mother Ship and re-attaching. In a nutshell, it works.
The whole thing is clearly quite crude and would need a great deal of development if it were ever to become a proper OXP, but I'm posting this here as I thought you might be interested.

Interesting concept. How does the docking work though? How do you get around the collision detection between the two models?

I have previously thought about how player capital ships could work. It would need Oolite to have the ability to have multiple player ships, switchable when docked.

The capital ship would include a hanger deck where you could switch to different ships that you own. Your capital ship could be a Behemoth that travels about, and when you reach a station you could park nearby and then switch to a shuttle that could (using the trade screen) unload some of your trade goods, and launch and dock to the station, and trade as normal. You could shuttle small quantities of goods between your Behemoth and the station.

You could also have fighters in the Behemoth. In battles you could decide which ship to fly. If you decided to fly a fighter, your Behemoth could have its own AI to fight alongside you; or if you decide to fly the Behemoth, your fighters could use a combat drone AI. That way combat experience could be more like a fleet action rather than a single ship against the enemy.

Much of what you are suggesting will become possible to a greater or lesser extent in v1.77 where the ability to change ships is to be added. It opens up all sorts of possibilities.
That's one reason I'm not currently putting much effort into this project, although it does work in a different way of course.
I'm actually exploiting the collision - it's the trigger for the ships to 're-combine'.

Smivs wrote:

I'm actually exploiting the collision - it's the trigger for the ships to 're-combine'.

You mean for the mother-ship model to de-exist and the player ship model sub-entities to be restored? I assume that's what you did? If so, the problem with that approach is explaining away how come the shuttle and combined shuttle/mothership have identical performance.

In any case, well done, Smivs.

Yup!
You are dead right...and you identified one of the obvious drawbacks in that both ships effectively have the same spec. As I said it's a proof of concept, not an OXP, but it was fun to do (and fly!) and the technique will be useful in some way...I've had a couple of ideas.....

Trailer Oolite 1.77 now with your very own Spacestation, with dockable Capitalships, fighters defence/offence, crew and all the Human resources issues this would include and your own market, where your own planet(s) industries and agriculture can sell their produce and next you'll want your own galactic empire and to occupy Thargoid worlds?

I see the possibility of having player capital ships as something for the late game, where you have millions of credits and nothing to spend them on. I can't see the average Jameson as being able to afford capital ships for quite some time.

This is good for extending the lifetime of the game.

It's true that a ship of this size would be very expensive, and I have to say I can't really see many actual advantages in having a ship of this size. For one thing a very large ship would have to be slow and ponderous to be believable. On the other hand this does address the issue of both the Mother and Child having the same performance parameters - the large Mother would be quite slow, and the 'shuttle' section (whose sole function is to detach and dock at stations) would not need to be fast.
I have had two thoughts about how this concept could be applied to a 'useable' player ship that is believable in-game.
One possibility is a ship similar to the one in the demonstration - two sections of similar size. This would be a medium-sized ship, still too big to dock when combined, where both the combined ship and both parts when seperated have similar specs (well the same specs!) in terms of speed etc. The point of this one is that if attacked the ship can seperate and the 'Mothership' section and the 'Player' section can both then engage the enemy independantly.
Looking at this from a slightly different angle, another possibility I had considered was a 'Contract Hauler' ship. This would have the detachable section as a large (Anaconda-size) self-propelled Cargo Module with a capacity of 800-1000 TC. It could be much 'squarer' than an Anaconda thus increasing slightly the capacity, and would dock to load/unload. After launch this would then combine with a 'Defence Module'. As a large and sluggish vessel, it would therefore need to rely on missiles and turrets for defence. So the Mothership section would be a large vessel which almost completely encloses the Cargo Module and is studded with plasma turrets etc.

I find the concept intriguing from a scripting point of view. Also the short movie of detaching and re-attaching was intriguing in and of itself. I can see this as a cut-scene. (I have to confess, though, that I'm not subscribed to the idea of capital ships for the player.)

One issue with separation during combat (and not just for docking) is that the separated cockpit section would indeed have the same specs as the combined ship. This applies not only to speed and manoeuverability, but to its weapons. Any turrets attached to the subentity (the bulk of the ship) would have to be removed as well, because technically they'd be attached to the main entity. And if the combined ship would have a rear laser, the separated cockpit would have it, too, which means that the laser would have to be positioned with regard to the main entity, not the combined ship. For side lasers the issue would be the same.

All of that are not real obstacles, but it would have to be dealt with somehow.

These ideas will bloom in 1.77.

Way to go Smivs!

Wow Smivs. This is really a step forward. Are you still working on this concept?

Superhub stations can dock ridiculous-sized capital ships.

Hoopy Casino is in fact a ship -- that could be an intermediate sized capital ship.

The massive player ship could be left like a derelict when the player "ejects" from it to dock with the main station.
Variables could store the massive player ship's cargo, equipment, and whatever else.
A standard version of the ship can be rewarded when you re-dock with it and the stored variables could add the appropriate stuff back.

Switeck wrote:

Superhub stations can dock ridiculous-sized capital ships.

Hoopy Casino is in fact a ship -- that could be an intermediate sized capital ship.

The massive player ship could be left like a derelict when the player "ejects" from it to dock with the main station.
Variables could store the massive player ship's cargo, equipment, and whatever else.
A standard version of the ship can be rewarded when you re-dock with it and the stored variables could add the appropriate stuff back.

Indeed.

----About the superhub remark----
I see new possible options for the SuperHub OXP. Maybe when you approach the Hub in a large ship then the Hub could be 'added' to the ship so that the SuperHub sits arround the capship. This was the original Idea behind the super hub. BTW the little ships are 'transported' within the hud (transported like in Star Trek) through the blue docking orb.

----other ideas that pop up--
You could also have little playerships (normal ship six) . What about a science ship. For example you could get a mission to leave a research module behind in orbit around a planet or sun.

--megaboa--
And Smivs. What about a MegaBoa. ( in fact a boa blown up to the size of a cap ship with more details of course). The detachable cockpit module could be a 'normal' boa clipper.

pagroove wrote:

Are you still working on this concept?

I might be

Smivs wrote:

pagroove wrote:

Are you still working on this concept?

I might be

Sounds intriguing. .