Oolite Bulletins

You just can't trust these dodgy deals in the back of the space port.

I go up to this fella, he says "wanna docking computer? Your approach were mighty shakey. Going cheap". So I pays my money and kicks off to the next system. Get my approach all lined up and then remember the new toy - press "D" and the docking computer kicks into life. It wanders around a bit, I get the "Final approach" message. I relax as soothing music plays over my hardened space suit and my Mark III makes its approach. However, it makes a couple of adjustments on the way in and then it MUCKS UP at the last moment and paints me in a molecular thin layer over the outside of the space station. Wow is that going to cost me and the WIFE is going to be mad at me again.



So - is this by design? Is the docking computer a cruel joke or is it just a little temperamental? I remember the old Beeb Elite scraping the paintwork a bit a number of times but I don't remember an out-and-out wipeout.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

yesterday I too used the DC for the first time in forever. wanted to hear the song and had something else to do.., but the crash gave me quite a shock, before I knew the DC had failed me. I thought I had been very unlucky, but with this report there could be a pattern..

have they recently become a cruel joke?

There's a problem in that the docking computer routines are something I wrote quite early in the game. They're not perfect and do the job most of the time, but sometimes the routine triggers a correction to the docking ship's course or pitch inside the docking bay and this causes the collision (larger ships obviously suffer more from this).

I've got some ideas for the solution to this in mind (by keeping track of the angle subtended by the target to measure how close the bay is and reducing the need for course corrections as the angle increases). I'm working on it.

Docking computers are for wimps. Just make a sharp 90 degree turn about 1km in front of the station to point at it, hit the Witch Space Fuel injectors and shut your eyes!

Shift-D anyone?

Well because it's important to get this right, I've overhauled the docking AI code and the docking instructions it gets sent by the stations/carriers.

The revised routines are a little slower, but the docking is a LOT more accurate, and NPC ships now properly match the orientation of the docking slit (making returning to the Behemoth tricky).

There's been a small development that some may find disconcerting though. Many ships have viewports that are above the line passing through the center of the ship. This means aiming above the center of the crosss of orange docking lights if you're docking manually (after the DC's been destroyed by enemy fire frex.)

cool.
they were getting creamed everywhere.
but the Behemoths idle when they receive docking ships, why is this then more difficult?

aegidian wrote:

There's been a small development that some may find disconcerting though. Many ships have viewports that are above the line passing through the center of the ship. This means aiming above the center of the cross of orange docking lights if you're docking manually (after the DC's been destroyed by enemy fire frex.)

so am I understanding this? manual docking from now on has to compensate for a parallax view?
this lesson from the 80s has to be re-learned?

aegidian wrote:

Well because it's important to get this right, I've overhauled the docking AI code and the docking instructions it gets sent by the stations/carriers.

The revised routines are a little slower, but the docking is a LOT more accurate, and NPC ships now properly match the orientation of the docking slit (making returning to the Behemoth tricky).

I've just compiled Rev 148 and was curious about that changes. I gave it 2 tries: one was indeed pretty slow, but ok. The next time I probably activated the DC too close to the station (just a wild guess, I can't see any other reason). Though the angle was perfect, it suddenly started an infinite "waltz" (pitch, not rolling) in front of the station. After about ten loops and several times switching the DC off and on, I eventually gave up and docked manually...