Docking order / allocation of docking bay?

[z1ppeh]

Weird question. I was wondering HOW docking bays are chosen for ships. How is each ship allocated a docking bay?
Take for example https://ibb.co/W6jRWCq

When I send 10 ships to dock, they seem to populate docks 1 / 2. They 'sometimes' dock in these orders 1-1, 2-1, 1-2, 2-2 and so on. On standard orientation it looks like they dock from the 'left' column of docks first then move along columns rather than rows or docks on a standard OOS docking sequence. But this also changes.

Is there any logic behind the docking bays assigned to a ship on approach? I would also like to know how this works for piers as I could then build my stations with thought behind where a pier is placed.

Ideally I want to leave bays in a S/M fab completely free for construction.

[Raptor34]

Well, I noticed that with 3M6S pads that my ships favor landing there over the pads in the S/M fab.
And what about piers? Shouldn't you just put them facing the direction of traffic?

[z1ppeh]

Well, I noticed that with 3M6S pads that my ships favor landing there over the pads in the S/M fab.
And what about piers? Shouldn't you just put them facing the direction of traffic?

Pier wise traffic goes two ways. If ships dock at the appropriate dock closest to their relative position... that would mean I put a pier on the top and bottom of the station. If they dock according to a specific logic pattern, then I will merely build the station in a different place and put a dock facing where they go. I am trying to speed up their runs to make them actually viable. When I go back to vanilla I want to be forearmed with knowledge of these issues to make L transports actually worth having. At the current time with Ms being able to use the highways, and Ls having to use the rear of a gate (grrr) they are just pointless.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Ship initially head toward the plots Icon focus, so by placing the Plot icon toward the top of the plot and then have your docks at the top, your station remains free from ships movements.

I have been crafty with some of my builds placing piers in close proximity to each other. This has no effect on ship docking

One very complex station had just one pier, The large ships all formed an orderly vertical cue.

Then there have been moments of docking mayhem, Ships passing right through each other all docking and un docking at once.

Docking is distance and time dependent, Then clearly a preordained cue order is implemented. What the criterion is , Only the developers can answer that.