Coming together: Should KSP2 encourage a "standard" height offset logic for surface docking?

[Rejected Spawn]

Something that a lot of players ended up having trouble with in KSP1 when docking things on the surface of any planet or moon was that the height of the ports didn't always match. To the best of my knowledge everyone just had to "pick a height" and try to remember it to at least be able to dock their own crafts together, but if anyone wanted to download a cool rover or base to dock with they had to just hope for the best with the port offset and adjust their own version to try to make it fit closely enough.

The "all purpose" solution I ended up with was to always use something I call the "one up standard"; all docking ports are always offset by exactly the height they'd end up if they were stuck to the end of one same diameter part on top of an identical same diameter part - essentially a 1,25m port is offset by 1,25m from the ground. The height isn't ideal in all cases but so very easy to remember and to work with since you only need to temporarily stick one or two fuel tanks to any craft to see with utmost precision how high the port needs to be. With the colony system the need for keeping track of ports for mobile pieces might be lower but it could also be higher, since surely many players would like to build spacecrafts that can land and drop an exploration rover that is meant to go out and collect information and then come back to dock with its mothership.

So back to the headline, should KSP2 include a protip to use "1up" as a standard, to make it easier for players to remember how to dock their own creations and also to make it easier for them to dock with stuff made by others - not least because of multiplayer? Should it rather be called "X up" where X can be any number but the default is one? Is there another system that's better somehow? Discussion time! \o/

[Guest]

I think that's just the kind of thing that's interesting for the player to solve. I wouldn't care for a canned solution, nor can I easily think of ways of making it more transparent to the player.

If anything, I would like KAS-style devices to supplement docking ports. Assuming that surface interactions are fixed and craft stay put when parked, the most common reason to want to dock is for resource transfer. If it was possible to accomplish that just by attaching a hose, you wouldn't even need those pesky docking ports, except for things like surface base modules, and making those compatible with each other is all part of the fun.

FWIW my solution is just to dock all of my modules together in the SPH, and do a test-drive too. When adding modules, I keep a reference module to compare against, and test my new ones against that. Suspension travel affects it so I don't think it's even possible to position them precisely without testing. In some cases I've also used Breaking Ground parts to create elevatable docking ports -- that solves the problem tidily when it's appropriate.

[shdwlrd]

Since colony construction will have it's own editor, I don't see a reason to worry about docking base components together. For transferring resources I can see the bases being able to spawn and recover vehicles within a certain radius of the base, or from a specific part. (A hanger, garage or what not.) 

The only reason I can see docking ground vehicles is to help the poor guy that ran out of fuel or supplies. At that point having a hose would be enough. Or they can use a close proximity connectionless resource transfer system like the WBI mods do.

[Pthigrivi]

The easiest solution is adjustable legs and suspensions. If your rover won’t dock because its too low or too high or laden with fuel from mining just lift it up or lower it down. You’d still need to coordinate a bit but the tolerances would be more forgiving. 

Or just a docking port on an arm that automatically telescopes and articulates to the target port when you get close.  
 

More than this I want stock snap rotation when docking. 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[magnemoe]

20 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Since colony construction will have it's own editor, I don't see a reason to worry about docking base components together. For transferring resources I can see the bases being able to spawn and recover vehicles within a certain radius of the base, or from a specific part. (A hanger, garage or what not.) 

The only reason I can see docking ground vehicles is to help the poor guy that ran out of fuel or supplies. At that point having a hose would be enough. Or they can use a close proximity connectionless resource transfer system like the WBI mods do.

Agree, now its still an relevant issue. 
Real world its tend to be two solution, one is to use an movable docking adapter like the walkway connectors airports use to connect to planes.  Could easy see an far shorter version of this being used to dock to say an rover. 
The other then you want to attach something heavy is to lift it on an tilt able and movable platform until it align. 

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Agree, now its still an relevant issue. 
Real world its tend to be two solution, one is to use an movable docking adapter like the walkway connectors airports use to connect to planes.  Could easy see an far shorter version of this being used to dock to say an rover. 
The other then you want to attach something heavy is to lift it on an tilt able and movable platform until it align. 

With the use of mods, you already have the features of a flexible docking port. The mineshafts from Pathfinder come to mind for that. I think it was D'magic that has something similar too. MKS had frames that would allow you to adjust the height of your base parts and move them into position.

If you have the Breaking Ground dlc, you could use the pistons or the hinges to help level your base and to raise or lower the base as necessary.

There are solutions to the problem. But without the bg dlc or the use of mods, it's very limited to what you can actually do in KSP1.

The KSP2 devs know about and understand the limitations of base building and resource transfers. They are adding solutions to make it easier to build functional bases and to do resource transfers without turning it into a chore. The BAE will allow you to assemble or edit your base with local and delivered resources. The devs have said they are planning to automate resource deliveries. All this is pointing to a good possibility that you won't have to dock a vehicle to a base to transfer resources. You won't have to manually dock base components together. The only reason to dock vehicles together is because you want to, not because you have to. And for the rare occasions you will have to transfer resources from one vehicle to another, there are valid solutions mentioned in the post. You don't need to create a rule for a part that will have a very small use case that most people won't care about.

[KerikBalm]

16 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

The easiest solution is adjustable legs and suspensions.

[...]

Or just a docking port on an arm that automatically telescopes and articulates to the target port when you get close.  

Pre-breaking groune, i used retractable landing gear to raise/lower things until they snapped when the height wasn't quite right.

After an update, even without BG, I could adjust spring strength to achieve that (though it may not work on gilly, if even the weakest setting is strong enough)

With BG, I also did articulated arms with a docking port on the end.

But I always built to a mk3 bay standard, with a 1.25m node attached docking port.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

i just want KSP2 to come already... i dont care whether or not it has a standard docking height... i really wanna play the game so badly...