Discovery Gaming Community

Hello.

In my opinion, docking modules has very little use now. Hide fighter/bomber escort inside caps, or transport them somewhere when the player is not around. Anything else?
My idea: docking on a player ship for repairs in a battle, would not count as PVP death; it is quite realistic for a fighter/bomber to dock on a cap for repairs, if this feature is available, right?
Important rule: the cap the snub docks must be involved in the fight the fighter/bomber is taking part in.
Like this: a police fighter fights a pirate, but he is losing; he begins to flee, the pirate chases after, police sees an allied cap, scans it, sees docking module, hails the cap: "Hey, allow me to dock quickly, I need repairs!" He docks. This is not allowed, or counts as death, as the cap did not engage the pirate originally.
However, in a fleet battle, it would be allowed and quite useful.
This would give some (in my opinion) realistic use for the docking module.
On the other hand, it carries a risk for the cap, too, as the player needs to allow the snub to dock by typing a command, which may distract him from the battle, and if the cap is destroyed while the snub is docked, the snub is quite well out of battle, as he appears 100k below the center; or this can count as PVP death, too.

What is your opinion about this?

To be honest, I was under the impression doing the above was fine already. I'll try and get a clarification when I get home.

I have also been wondering if this would count as a PVP, otherwise the advantage of having a cap with a DM on it are neglegable, except hiding a ship from a fight altogether. If this could be clarified it would be good to know, since if enemies see one of my allied ships dock on me then undock, they might call it foul play. To me thats just the risk they run attacking a DM capable ship.

I don't think it does count as PvP death. The only real issue is that you can only repair hull damage, which in my experience doesn't seem to be enough to engourage people to use it mid battle. If you could restock on it as well I'm sure more people would be interested.

In my eyes, the biggest use would be hiding bombers from enemy fighters between blowing up enemy caps.

A "resupply ammo and bots/bats here" role would be nice yes. Will talk to Matt about it since he's the one who'll have to program this... For the moment, it'll have to remain as-is though.

I'd love to see a resupply function for docked ships.

Each docking module can support a certain number of bots and bats that can be purchased on bases with an FLhook command - after all, stationary battleships sell bots and bats too.

Also, I believe it's currently impossible to dock freighters to ships (except the CSV).
Which is strange, since they can dock (and not moor) on NPC bases, including stationary battleships and liners.

I may be wrong about this though, that's just how I remember it.

That'd be because docking modules decide what can dock based on the size of their cargo bay and not their ship type. Having something docked with a bigger cargo bay than the space taken up by the module itself is problematic for obvious reasons.

Of course, this does also mean there are some other... Funny situations that result from this.

Yes, the bot/bat/ammo resupply would give even more sense for a docking module. I presume this could be made, in a similar way as it works with player bases (I don't know anything about programming, just wondering if it is possible at all).

Maybe the 4.87 brings more types/sizes of docking modules (for freighters or gunboats perhaps).

If clarification reveals this "docking in cap during combat" situation is legit, I think it would be reasonable to add it to the relevant part of the Server rules, just to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.

I've once bought two docking modules for an liner and yet have never used them. There's really little use in having those.

However, how about giving cruisers one docking bay - I could imagine that they'd need them more.