(airtight) docking-ports

Helmut Heit shared this feedback 5 years ago
Under Consideration

Which proper large spaceship doesnt have one?It would be amazing to have the option to walk between large ships and stations without having to do a spacewalk. I know you can achieve a similar thing by using merge blocks but it looks super clunky and it is almost impossible to get it working correctly at the moment.

I imagine this block working similar to the connector block just with a door inside to walk between ships and stations. Maybe a 3 by 3 block.

In my opinion this block is a fundamental part of every space game and with current considerations of saving the pressurisation feature it would fit perfectly. For the challenge of fitting ports together nicely i would suggest maybe a similar approach to the merge-block.

Thanks for your time.

Replies (13)

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From the game design point of view Merge Blocks are very bad choice for temporary connections, because on connect one of the grids will be de facto destroyed and on disconnect a new grid will be created.


So I am full for some kind of airtight connections.

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Just to clarify: When i was talking about "fitting ports together nicely" i mean the problem that connectors have where there is a gap between 2 connectors even when they are connected. That would look very strange when there is a gap in an airtight connection. So there could be some type of clamps that fit always to an opposite docking-port similar to the parts sticking out of the merge block.

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There is already nice mod for this but without "airtightness" and "no-gap".

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1196973062

This mod can be a "proof of concept" to make it Vanilla version.

The merge_block works fine for "modules" ideas (hydrogen_engine, ion-boosters, Battery_array...) but not sure for temporarily connections as they get random name on disconnect (new grid will be generated from disconnected blocks).

The block itself disable physics between that 2 grids trying to connect for few seconds (as without it, it is impossible to have perfect touch/alignment of 2 grids and will result in instant explosion) The "Gap" you see in Connector_block is to forbid the explosion when one of grids disconnect "while moving". (The connector block has always physics simulation enabled, Merge block do not)

Also i have much simpler approach to this Transfer between grids, just by add "ability/feature" to the connector for teleporting player directly to the attached ship cockpit or other grid connector.

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/player-transfer-by-the-conveyor-system

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I think it is much more fun to construct your own solutions to walk bw large ships and merge blocks is the way to do that, but with this add-on which in my opinion is absolutely necessary to add to the merge block anyway: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/make-merge-blocks-store-grid-names

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I personally love merge blocks. If done properly, they look good, and I've never had a problem with their reliability. As for the name issue, just rename your ship afterwards.

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"just rename your ship afterwards"... So every time I dock my ship I have to rename it? Nooo thanks. Also, it makes it extremely difficult to use scripts on such constructs, because there's no way to distinguish ship from station with the scripts. Because when you use merge blocks there is no longer any such distinction.


Fact. The merge blocks aren't docking clamps. They're not designed to be docking clamps. They're tools to make permanent merges. It's what we asked for at the time they were added, it's what we got.

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I agree, and I also agree with malware. It is pretty annoying each time having to rename your ship each time you dock. the only thing I think that should be added besides what he said is making it so that it’s airtight whenever you dock with another ship, that would be a pretty good change. I would also suggest perhaps making it so that it uses the slanted window type of glitch to make it so it’s airtight and make it so it can extend like a piston, and it only opens the door when it’s connected.

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This Mod with an extractable tunnel of various length went also in this direction.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=506934333

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Yes please. When you've got a ship too large to fit in a hangar bay and a sufficiently-developed station, it feels a little odd to have to jump out into space to travel between them. Still, I feel that because of how pressurization works with the grid system the grids would have to merge in some capacity - maybe a merge block (or an option for the existing merge block) that preserves the information from each grid instead of destroying one...?

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I think it would be also great if they made it so you can just extend it out each other Like positions, this would make it so much easier!

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You should also make a extendable like in Star Wars the clone wars with the extendable docking ports. This would allow more creativity

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And please fix the round window air tightness and other suggestions from this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9SuSueSEbA

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A rotatable docking port so we can use the block for tank turrets as well.

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I would like to add one point on why the merge block is not a good idea for for docking:

- We cannot control the grid name that the new grid takes, or the names the grid takes once unmerged.

So a station may change it's name to the ship grid name, or inverse.

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