Allowing for gender and orientation restrictions for docking ports

[fatcargo]

If the title reminds you of Captain Kipard's Non-Androgynous Docking Port Set then this was intentional.

If there are previous ideas about this, im' not aware of them.

Gender restrictions are already working in 1.0.5  and that's fine, but the orientation i'm not sure it was possible.

The whole "magnetic attraction" concept if not upgraded by game devs, it's underyling mechanics at least should be opened to plugin devs to take a crack at it.

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by fatcargo

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

Tantares has a bunch of good docking ports. Male, female and andro ones. Have you checked it out?

[fatcargo]

Hmm ... i 've discovered a part creation tutorial for soft-docking ports that shows pretty much the same idea from different angle.

But it does suffer from possible bugs : if two docking ports do not engage to make a single craft, game turns off "port magnetism" and ports stop working until separated apart enough for another try, OP of the above linked thread had a lucky shot matching forces in config and part design.

Docking port orientation restrictions / conditions really need to be implemented in game itself to allow safe docking without bugs and hacks.

[nli2work]

all the restrictions are implemented. Squad, nor anyone else, has not set them to maximum probably because it'd be needlessly frustrating for the average player. 

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by nli2work

[fatcargo]

Thanks @nli2work !  I just wanted to know if there is a "legit" way to make ports with orientation lock. BTW : your part tutorials and replies saved me from hair-pulling fits of rage and frustration, especially when i make something and then forget how i did it the frist time when tweaking/remodeling.

[Mister Dilsby]

So glad this thread didn't turn out to be what I thought it was after reading the first 2/3 of the title.

[Superfluous J]

On 4/10/2016 at 5:08 PM, Kuzzter said:

So glad this thread didn't turn out to be what I thought it was after reading the first 2/3 of the title.

This

I wrote up a modman config to set 45 degree orientation lock on ports. I've not implemented it into my games yet because I'm only bug hunting right now for 1.1, but it'll be "my stock" going forward from 1.1 release.

I don't personally want to enforce male/female ports (and didn't even know that was a possibility) so don't have that, but assuming the option is there to turn on, a similar config should be able to enable it.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDockingNode]]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDockingNode]
	{
		captureMinRollDot = 0.999
		snapRotation = true
		snapOffset = 45
	}
}

I don't remember what exactly captureMinRollDot means, but it has to do with how close the ports need to be in orientation to start trying to lock. It doesn't affect that they will only dock in one of eight 45-degree orientations.

Edited May 16, 2016 by 5thHorseman
changed captureMinRollDot to 0.999 from 0.99999, as the latter was too strict.

[nli2work]

Thanks 5thHorseman! I'll have to give that a try. I'm sure it has something to do with MinRollDot values. but it's hard to figure out besides trial an error. Default value is maximum possible float value, negative I guess because the two ports are pointing at each other. That makes me think the roll angles are measured in absolute degrees(or radians). If that's the case it could be very frustrating if MinRollDot values are set to, say 90 degrees, that would mean it's not possible to dock when the two vessels are oriented at 450 degrees, even though relatively they are at 90 degrees. 

Edited April 10, 2016 by nli2work