Another random Idea I thought of was something they showed in the X rebirth advertisements was when you have a large ship and you tell it to dock and trade, you can see all the smaller ships moving the goods to and from the ship. Something else that this could be used for is planetary interaction. Maybe have resource generators on planets and have ships move the resources to and from an orbiting space station where the resources are used to make ships and such, so you can actually see the ships ferrying the goods. May not be too practical, but would add lots of immersion and make the universe look more alive.

MrPerson wrote:Another random Idea I thought of was something they showed in the X rebirth advertisements was when you have a large ship and you tell it to dock and trade, you can see all the smaller ships moving the goods to and from the ship. Something else that this could be used for is planetary interaction. Maybe have resource generators on planets and have ships move the resources to and from an orbiting space station where the resources are used to make ships and such, so you can actually see the ships ferrying the goods. May not be too practical, but would add lots of immersion and make the universe look more alive.

If big cargo haulers are too big to dock on most stations, and haulers have small docked subordinates it should emerge from the AI that the hauler uses the small freighters to unload itself.
If the interface is general enough that you can tell your haluers "transport this from here to there, im not interested how you load" without gaving to babysit them this would be an emergent feature.

And not some hardcoded, forced behaviour

well it may take a while for NPCs to show up if you just put a job out for them to do. So lets just say that the resource moving ships are just drones that go in and out of stations and between orbit and ground to move stuff.

Shuttles to ferry cargo between a planet/station and a superfreighter would be pretty cool.

It would also be pretty cool to have space elevators around some planets with more population/infrastructure. These would tie the planets economy directly to a station orbiting overhead.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:If big cargo haulers are too big to dock on most stations...

Being completely unable to dock with something... in space... is just ridiculous.

Ships should always be able to dock with anything, including each other.
Sure, a ship may be too big to use an internal hangar so it would dock outside.

Ships landing on an asteroid (or a base) has worked several updates ago so all that remains is to say that this confers the "docked" state.
Solves a bunch of fiddly problems. =)

Gazz wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:If big cargo haulers are too big to dock on most stations...

Being completely unable to dock with something... in space... is just ridiculous.

Ships should always be able to dock with anything, including each other.
Sure, a ship may be too big to use an internal hangar so it would dock outside.

Ships landing on an asteroid (or a base) has worked several updates ago so all that remains is to say that this confers the "docked" state.
Solves a bunch of fiddly problems. =)

I just say one thing...




=P

What if the station you are trying to deliver things to is just a tiny outpost or something that the delivery ship may be bigger than the station itself? that is where these drone ferry ships would come in as they are small enough to land in the stations hangar.

Gazz wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:If big cargo haulers are too big to dock on most stations...

Being completely unable to dock with something... in space... is just ridiculous.

Ships should always be able to dock with anything, including each other.
Sure, a ship may be too big to use an internal hangar so it would dock outside.

Ships landing on an asteroid (or a base) has worked several updates ago so all that remains is to say that this confers the "docked" state.
Solves a bunch of fiddly problems. =)

Off-topic for this thread but Gazz raises a really interesting topic of discussion (that I will not have time for tonight because it's 6 AM ).

What kind of ships will be able to dock together, how will it work, and what potential things are there to do when two ships are docked together? Could power (and CPU) be shared between the two vessels? Would it be necessary for exchanging cargo?

Gazz wrote:[Being completely unable to dock with something... in space... is just ridiculous.

Ships should always be able to dock with anything, including each other.
Sure, a ship may be too big to use an internal hangar so it would dock outside.

Yep. You could, with patience, dock a 6 million ton freighter to a cheeseburger.

However, I disagree that all ships should be able to dock with all stations. While its theoretically possible to dock with anything, I imagine it might be rather dangerous to do so if the ship is of a considerable size compared to the station, and they might have a rule against docking. Maybe not too, but its a possibility.

It is also forseeable that some little outpost could have no docking facilities for a larger ship. This doesn't mean its impossible for that outpost to install the facilities, just that they didn't bother.

CutterJohn wrote:

Gazz wrote:[Being completely unable to dock with something... in space... is just ridiculous.

Ships should always be able to dock with anything, including each other.
Sure, a ship may be too big to use an internal hangar so it would dock outside.

Yep. You could, with patience, dock a 6 million ton freighter to a cheeseburger.

However, I disagree that all ships should be able to dock with all stations. While its theoretically possible to dock with anything, I imagine it might be rather dangerous to do so if the ship is of a considerable size compared to the station, and they might have a rule against docking. Maybe not too, but its a possibility.

It is also forseeable that some little outpost could have no docking facilities for a larger ship. This doesn't mean its impossible for that outpost to install the facilities, just that they didn't bother.

The facilities dont need to be large or complex, just a large structural member with a standard docking port on the end.

Works for everything that is large enough for the docking port

Cornflakes_91 wrote:The facilities dont need to be large or complex, just a large structural member with a standard docking port on the end.

Works for everything that is large enough for the docking port

Yeah. But large ships can be... large. Might not be able to squeeze in to position safely.

Not saying its likely, just a possibility. If I have the space equivalent of a trailer home, it may struggle to accommodate the more rotund ships out there, and I might just tell that ship no.. dude... no. Send a shuttle.

CutterJohn wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:The facilities dont need to be large or complex, just a large structural member with a standard docking port on the end.

Works for everything that is large enough for the docking port

Yeah. But large ships can be... large. Might not be able to squeeze in to position safely.

Not saying its likely, just a possibility. If I have the space equivalent of a trailer home, it may struggle to accommodate the more rotund ships out there, and I might just tell that ship no.. dude... no. Send a shuttle.

How should that not be feasible? Maybe the ship cannot maneuver precisely enough to dock with the extended boom, but the room itself should be the last problem you'll ever have in space.

Why should a long stick not give enough clearance if you mount it on a expoaed point of the station

CutterJohn wrote:Yeah. But large ships can be... large. Might not be able to squeeze in to position safely.

A large ship should be equipped with an extendable docking tube.

Direct physical contact really is dangerous with Very Large Ships™. So it's not required.
This also makes it a lot easier to work with different and PGC ship geometries. =)

If you want to use Cool Science instead, make it some kind of flickering force field tube. That explains why there don't have to be matching connectors and seals.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

MrPerson wrote:Another random Idea I thought of was something they showed in the X rebirth advertisements was when you have a large ship and you tell it to dock and trade, you can see all the smaller ships moving the goods to and from the ship. Something else that this could be used for is planetary interaction. Maybe have resource generators on planets and have ships move the resources to and from an orbiting space station where the resources are used to make ships and such, so you can actually see the ships ferrying the goods. May not be too practical, but would add lots of immersion and make the universe look more alive.

If big cargo haulers are too big to dock on most stations, and haulers have small docked subordinates it should emerge from the AI that the hauler uses the small freighters to unload itself.
If the interface is general enough that you can tell your haluers "transport this from here to there, im not interested how you load" without gaving to babysit them this would be an emergent feature.

And not some hardcoded, forced behaviour

With Josh's AI we might even see more original solutions:

• A big freighter that has its own docking facilities acts as mobile supermarket and just puts out its offers for anyone in system. Local ships come to trade.
• The big freighter hires local small ships for cargo transfer

Of course, if many NPCs need to (repeatedly?) figure that out on their own, that might put significant extra load on the CPU. Maybe some NPC memory "that method worked well before" and some teaching (NPC A tells NPC B how to do something) would make sense after all. At the expense of needing more RAM

Instead of having NPCs have to come do the job, I still think it would be better for drones to do or something. That way you dont have to wait for NPCs to show up and its a pretty easy job that I doubt would pay well for an NPC to just move cargo to a station it is right next to.