Is it strange that I can enjoy several hours just manually docking?

[tomchk]

So far I've had zero luck with docking, using rodent and keys. The controls seem to be "all or nothing", steering is almost random, and I've crashed repeatedly without being able to survive my first landing reasonably intact. Basically, as I tap the + speed control button, speed is 0, 0, 0 ,0, then suddenly up to 50% or higher and CRASH. The one occasion where I did get the ship to sort-of dock (with extensive hull damage), my character fumbled around the station like some drunken idiot, running full speed into everything any time he moved at all. Until I can get past the control problem, the game isn't playable for me. X3 still works beautifully, but I can't play this at all.

This is so odd--sorry to hear you've had far more problems than I have! Have you already looked through this list? viewtopic.php?f=180&t=402386

[Rei Ayanami]

steering is almost random

What do you mean with "almost random"? You mean you steel right and your ship turns left? And when you steer down your ship turns right?

my character fumbled around the station like some drunken idiot, running full speed into everything any time he moved at all.

What do you mean with that? Delayed mouse movement? Movement commands being delayed? Or something else?

[Honved]

steering is almost random

What do you mean with "almost random"? You mean you steel right and your ship turns left? And when you steer down your ship turns right?

my character fumbled around the station like some drunken idiot, running full speed into everything any time he moved at all.

What do you mean with that? Delayed mouse movement? Movement commands being delayed? Or something else?

I mean that I press to increase speed or walk forward, and the ship or character may either not move at all or suddenly goes full-tilt forward. I try to steer or turn, and the movement varies from minimal to a sharp change in direction. It's in the right direction, but the amount is not consistent, such as 5 degrees in one case, then 40 degrees the next time I try to turn. There's no granularity, all of the control attempts seem to jump in (usually) large increments, and ship speed seems to jump in inconsistent increments of 0-60% of full speed, with no consistency from one attempt to the next. It's like the animations and visuals are smooth enough on-screen, but the controls themselves are suffering serious frame-rate problems or something. I've never seen anything like this before, but it's not playable the way it is. I figured that I must have something set wrong, because there's simply no way that a company would release a game in this broken state. I restarted, but no difference.

If it affected other programs, I'd consider it a hardware or driver issue, but this is the only game where it happens.

[Belphegor2_3]

Strange ?
Maybe. What I know is that the manual docking here in X4 is a real game, as it was in X2: hard enough to be intersting, easy enough to be a game.
The drawback is that it is long and that it canot please everybody, all along the game experience. The autodocking is then a good solution that Egosoft provided us... a little too easily IMHO. While it's perfectrly logic that at this stage every race has access to it, I miss the challenge that finding the docking computer offered in previous games.

This is, to be sure, one very positive point of X4.

[tomchk]

Yeah they deserve a lot of credit for so many things related to docking. I think only the player ship “docked” in XR, and it wasn’t actually a process, but rather a cutscene and model swap. X4 was a massive step forward in that sense!

[Tomonor]

Yeah they deserve a lot of credit for so many things related to docking. I think only the player ship “docked” in XR, and it wasn’t actually a process, but rather a cutscene and model swap. X4 was a massive step forward in that sense!

Well technically speaking, XR:
-had special dock locations only "usable" for the player (as in, it wouls generate a model for the insides of the station with predetermined layouts and randomized NPCs)
-had a special type of dock for M-class traders and miners called "Logistics Dock"
-had the trading installations on stations for L/XL class ships (these are converted into the more logical Piers in X4)
-had special platforms and spawn/despawn points XS ships and drones (these still exist more or less in X4)
-and S-class fighters couldn't dock. It was simply not a feature for these ships to land.

X4 is miles ahead in the docking department. I only wish there were more variety in docks (more layouts, racial designs, more inner-docks with more life). I kind of want the X2-style docking back where you actally fly into the station to get to the platform.