Welcome to the fourth instalment in the Patch When?™ Dev Diary series, today the topic is the Docking Module. Currently, docking modules don't really serve much of a purpose outside of an RP flavor, and being a still-unresolved rulewise case of 'is the player pvpdead or not?' in case of use. This, and a number of other things will change in the upcoming patch.

---

To understand what is new, let's quickly go over the current state of the Docking Module:
- Both ships need to meet up in space as you would expect
- Snub in question needs to press F3 on the target carrier, and carrier needs to select the snub back and type /allowdock
- Now that the snub is docked, it needs to periodically type in chat to avoid getting timeout kicked. The ship onboard can't really do much there outside of repairing hull and equipment, they cannot restock on ammo and regens.
- If they undock and the carrier is in a different system, they're immediately auto-docked on that particular system's temporary base, and they need to launch AGAIN to end up next to the carrier.
- If at any point in this entire process either of the player disconnects, the snub will find themselves 100k below the plane in the last system they were registered in. Not very cool.

---

Now, Player Docking is permanent, and your carrier effectively becomes your 'currently docked on base'! You can dock on your friend's docking bay, log off for a month, then get pinged in an #emergency channel on discord of your choice, log your ship, and be put right in the middle of a battle! You can now also fully restock your ammo and regens while onboard the ship, allowing the carrier to be a true 'home base'.

Also yes, in case of death, you do respawn 'back on the carrier', you do not need to be picked back up by the carrier. As long as you do not dock on another NPC base/POB/Other player ship, you will continue to respawn on the 'carrier base'.

---

Currently, snub presses F3, carrier gets hit with a prompt to selects them and type /allowdock. In the new version, this will also be the case, but with a caveat: Grouped ships are exempt from the prompt, and
This behavior can be overridden by a new command: /dockmode, this command accepts 3 inputs: all, none, group. As mentioned previously, default behavior is set to 'group'.

Now, the docking itself is also riddled with additional mechanics: Docking is no longer instant, and takes several seconds to complete. Both the Carrier and the Snub need to stand still for the duration, otherwise the process is interrupted. During the docking process, the snub loses their shields, and is also unable to use either batteries or nanobots. It makes it extremely dangerous to attempt mid-combat, but the reward is a full restock and repair of the snub, so gauge your chances accordingly!

---

A quick reminder in case anyone is wondering: ships that successfully dock on a player ship do not produce a green 'player docked' message. As such, they are NOT considered PvP dead, and can resume combat at will.

---

As a carrier, you can manage the ships using the two commands, /listdocked and /jettisonship

/listdocked simply lists the docked player ship names, their status and ship type. And if you have any spare capacity, lists it.



/jettisonship is pretty self-explanatory and accepts either the player name or number it's assigned to on /listdocked output.

If a ship is launched, /jettisonship cannot be used on that ship. If the ship is offline, it's removed from your list, and the target ship is moved back to the last POB or NPC base it was docked on. If the ship is online and awaiting launch, it's forcibly launched and removed from your docked ship list. GET OFF MY LAWN!

As a carrier, you're also alerted about ships in your dock being logged onto.

---

From the snub side, the moment you log back while mobile docked, you're informed about the carrier status, For which there are three options:
Offline - You will be notified that launching will put you on the last station you were docked on, which will be provided to you.
Online, in space - You will be notified of the system and sector the carrier is currently in. Launching will put you next to the carrier.
Online, docked - You will be notified of the system and base the carrier currently resides in. Launching will undock you into the same base.

---

Previously, Player Docking put you on a proxy base, that are currently also used by Player Bases. In the new version, you're instead put in a different system called 'Transit' on a special-crafted base containing exclusively regens, and snub-related ammunition. Just in case someone felt like doing a funny and buying battleship missiles to 'restock their carrier with their own missiles' .
You are also no longer 'bounced' between systems on undock, you simply get 'beamed' right to your carrier. It does *sometimes* causes a duplicated player ships to show on the screen, and we're fully aware of the issue, but it's somewhat rare and we weren't able to get to the bottom of it in time for patch. If you manage to consistently reproduce it, do let me know and I'll do my best to patch it up.

Also, last but not the least: To avoid unused ships from clogging up the memory, carriers that did not log in for a full year will have their docked vessels returned to their last docked base.

---

Hope you enjoyed this instalment in the series! In case anything I talked about above is not clear, do feel free to ask questions and I'll clarify.
Next one on the list are Jump Drives Somewhat Soon™!