Okti wrote:... to use an unrealistic behaivor ...
... which is my whole point. It's unrealistic that the player would dock with an invisible station out of the blue in interstellar space. Which explanation can be given for a station popping up out of nowhere and sucking in the player ship? I can't think of one.
The comparison with Planetfall misses the point. While you may just have copied the technical aspect, you seem to have overlooked that in Planetfall.oxp this technique makes sense. There is a planet, and there are landing ports on that planet. That these landing ports are technically realized through a barrel-sized station is irrelevant. The point is that it does intrinsically make sense to land on a planet. It doesn't make sense, however, to land on (or dock with) nothing in the middle of nothing, and again the technical realization is irrelevant to that point.
The comparison with Interstellar Help misses the point again. It does make sense that there are other trade ships in interstellar space. They can have mis-jumped themselves, either accidentally or intentionally. You wouldn't expect the player to be the only person in the Ooniverse who sometimes mis-jumps, would you? And as we all know how deadly mis-jumps potentially are, it also makes sense to assume that pilots would help each other in this dire situation.
In other words: both Planetfall and Interstellar Help add a feature to the game which is well thought-out. Their creators thought about a back story and integrated their features into the known facts and features of the Ooniverse. Therefore their OXPs make sense within the framework of what we know about the Ooniverse (although of course everybody is free to disagree with their back story and therefore to not install the OXPs).
What I'm missing is a similar attempt with Interstellar Rescue. It offers a feature for which there is no back story, no explanation at all within the framework of how the Oolite-universe works. It is indeed simply magic. It is counter-intuitive. Personally I can't imagine why a station would suddenly pop up out of nowhere right in my ship's path, ten meters ahead. Because I have pressed a button? I didn't know that a station-creation button existed in GalCop space. GalCop probably doesn't know as well. Why would they go through the hassle of
building stations, if each ship could easily carry an instant-station with it, popping into existence whenever the pilot wants it to? What about all the people who run this station? The station master? The workers in the docking bay? The equipment-shop-keeper? The traders on the station market? Do they all pop into existence out of nowhere as well? Or do you carry them with you as micro-miniaturized nano-particles until you press the 'N' button?
If your OXP wants to fit into the framework of the Oolite universe, it should give answers to at least some of these questions. It doesn't yet. Perhaps you
can imagine why a station would suddenly pop up out of nowhere right in my ship's path, ten meters ahead. That's fine. I would love to read your explanation of how that works within the laws of physics which make up the Ooniverse. Unfortunately you haven't given your explanation, neither in the OXP itself nor in its readMe.
What I'm suggesting is that you can (and should) think about it and find some answers. Put some effort into integrating your new feature into the world of Oolite as we know it. As it stands now, it gives the player a game-changing advantage without any discernible in-game reason or logic. And that is pretty much the definition of 'cheat', at least in my book.
Note that I'm not opposed to cheating as such. Every player is free to cheat as much as he wants. But we should at least be honest about it. If something
is effectively a cheat (because it isn't explained—even cannot be explained—within the framework of the game rules), it should be called a cheat.
and magic is build in to oolite.
