Logic for being unable to dock TS/TP to TL??

[Darshu]

Okay, one of my favorite things to do in X2 was to fly around in an Elephant/Hercules, blasting asteroids, then sending out a fleet of max speed Pirate Ships to collect the ore/silicon, then returning to the TL "mothership" and dropping it off.

After looking into the size comparison of TSs vs. TLs, I can't help but wonder why the devs at Egosoft made the decision to not allow this? It makes mobile mining tedious, especially once you reach the point where you could do large scale operations as I described above.

The way I see it, this game is all about progression:

Trade
Manual Trading->UTs->Factory Mogul

Combat
Scouting->M3 combat->Fleet combat

That's simplified of course, but now with the way mining is implemented, you cannot do this:

Mining
Manual Mining->Multiple TS mining->TL base+TS fleet

Just kinda sucks, since apparently you can't even direct wingmen TS to pickup blasted ore. Dumb.

[Cycrow]

the problem with the current TS is that they are too big to be able to dock at a TL

one way would be to have a single special docking port for a small TS, or even a new class of ship, a shuttle craft which will be like the old X2 TS smaller than the new ones and capable of docking in the TL

[TerrorTrooper]

Yup, ill agree with you on the most Part, Mining is just silly in X3 as your
wingmen cant pick up ore, so it makes the whole job more tedious than it rerally needs to be. Also its much more perilouus in X3, its soo easy to die mining in X3 im not sure its worth the risk.


As far as TS's on TL's, i can understand that, as the TS tankers, superfreighters and other larger varients are just too big to fit in them.

i D?O think there should be a compromise somwhere, like take the standard demeter, its a short, stubby TS, it should be able to dock, maybey 2 of the 5 races standard varients should be TL dockable.

[DrunkenPirate]

I enjoyed the elephant mining fleetoperations on the eastern unknown sectors in X2 too.

[BlueSwede]

Yup, ill agree with you on the most Part, Mining is just silly in X3 as your
wingmen cant pick up ore, so it makes the whole job more tedious than it rerally needs to be. Also its much more perilouus in X3, its soo easy to die mining in X3 im not sure its worth the risk.


As far as TS's on TL's, i can understand that, as the TS tankers, superfreighters and other larger varients are just too big to fit in them.

i D?O think there should be a compromise somwhere, like take the standard demeter, its a short, stubby TS, it should be able to dock, maybey 2 of the 5 races standard varients should be TL dockable.

I haven't tried mining in X3, but can't you use the mining drill to mine asteroids, and have 2 TS using the special command software set to "Collect wares" in sector? Atleast it worked in X2...

[Darshu]

Hmm, cannot remember where the sizechart is, but I DO know that someone whipped one up and it shows that TS are in no way too large to dock.

I think what most people get mixed up when they talk size is that a maxed out Dolphin at 14k cargo space is able to accept XL sized cargo yes, but ST sized cargo is much more "voluminous" meaning that a ST unit is huge compared to an XL unit.

So a 34000 ST cargo Elephant is gigantic compared to even a 14000 XL cargo Dolphin.

I haven't gotten that far yet, but I don't think TSs can collect mined ore as "wares", plus they wouldn't be able to dock at the TL mothership anyways, so what's the point of it at all? I suppose you could have three or four jump capable TSs jump in, then seel for best price after picking up, but then you wouldn't need a TL in the first place, it would be easier to maneuver in a TS like the Demeter.

A TL should be able to carry all the various ships in its hangar, except M6, M2 and M1. Remember too, that hangar space is extra above and beyond the cargo area reserved for cargo and stations, so its really silly IMHO to restrict a huge potential area of play out of some misguided size debate.

[KipperTheFish]

Never mind just mobile mining, what about trade operations?
In X2 I could while away the hours by using a trading fleet based with a TL, Fly into a sector and clean up the bargins, transfer goods to TL, sell off anything for a profit and move on to the next sector.
Apart from transporting Fabs, this was the MAIN function of a TL. Mining with it was OK but a bit low in profits-per-hour, my trade fleet made millions very quickly.

[Flector]

Another thing that annoys me, is all the micro-managment necessary to transfer freighters across the universe. In X2 when I needed freighters for factories, I simply bought a set of 10 at a shipyard, docked them in my TL. Then jumped to the destination and deployed the freighters. In X3 I first have to equip M4 ships with a jumpdrive, load them onto a TL. Then jump with the TL to the freighters, exchange the jumpdrives. Distribute energy. And then for every freighter I have to issue the jumpdrive command. Very tedious..

A good in between-solution would be to enable docking for regular TS ships only (so no superfreighters, tankers, haulers, etc.).

[Darshu]

Anyone know if Egosoft will end up fixing this? Or if its how they want it now?

I know there's a script in the mod forum, but apparently there are certain issues with it when docking/undocking, and me being me would prefer an official fix from the devs.

But if the official word is this is the way it is, then I guess I'll go get the script and make do... although as Kipper and Flector both said, the inability to dock Trading ships to a Trading mothership is kind of bass ackwards logic, and impedes a lot of the "think" option in the game.

[Nyax]

The inability to dock TS and TP craft with Capital ships in X3 means that the game is crying out for a light freighter of some sort (I.e. a near Fighter sized craft with a capacity of a couple of hundred tonnes that can carry XL cargo.). This is a ship that CAN dock with Capital ships (yes damnit Destroyers too!)


Sometimes it does seem like Egosoft make each version of X a little less flexible-

X/ X-Tension. Any ship can carry any cargo. Any ship can dock with TL.

X2. Adds limitations on what cargo each make of ship can carry. Means free trading can only be done with TS class ships now. Drasticly limits the players choices in the early parts of the game and slows the early stages down.

X3, in addition to the above adds Limitations on what ships can dock with capital ships making it more tedious then ever to perform operations such as mobile mining, Equiping, Rearming and Refueling capital ships. Also slows down the process of deploying factories, since you can't load the supply ships you will use onto the TL so that they're there ready when the factory is deployed.

[Nanook]

Well, there's absolutely no reason that TS's and TP's shouldn't be able to dock with cap ships. After all, all ships in X3 dock externally to stations, so that should be possible for cap ships as well, regardless of the size of the docking ship. It's just something that didn't get implemented, I'd guess. Hopefully it will in a patch.

As for the mobile mining fiasco, it's tied directly to all the little 'roids added in 1.3. Those are the only ones capable of being mobile mined, AFAIK. The original mappable asteroids are for putting mines on only. So we have 1.3 which added all the little 'roids for mobile mining (making most people's game performance suffer a major hit in a lot of sectors), which aren't mapped on the sector map and thus cannot be targeted by the AI ships when broken up into small chunks. Why they dropped the paradigm for mobile mining from X2 and changed it to its present form is a mystery. IMO, it worked fine in X2. I wish they'd go back to using X2's version. They'd eliminate two problems in one blow.

[fchopin]

As for the mobile mining fiasco, it's tied directly to all the little 'roids added in 1.3. Those are the only ones capable of being mobile mined, AFAIK. The original mappable asteroids are for putting mines on only.

All asteroids can be used for mining.

[PheenixSwiftfire]

Being a mobile miner when I have spare time on my hands, I can confirm that all asteroids are minable. You just have to keep blasting them until the chunks are small enough to harvest.

I agree with the statment that the new mini-asteroids are a pain. While they may add some sort of life to the sector... flesh it out if you will, they degrade performance. Heh... not to mention that you have even more objects to worry about banging into now.

[shodan1138]

As for the mobile mining fiasco, it's tied directly to all the little 'roids added in 1.3. Those are the only ones capable of being mobile mined, AFAIK. The original mappable asteroids are for putting mines on only.

All asteroids can be used for mining.

Yep. You can shoot the GIGANTIC mining-station-sized asteroids with a mining laser, and they'll break apart into chunks.

These chunks are, coincidently enough, very similar to the new 1.3 "asteroid field" asteroids.

You can mine (that is, break up into collectable chunks) those smaller asteroids with any weapons at all; doesn't have to be a mining laser.

Mobile miners should really rejoice at the 1.3 patch; they've got so much more to mine now. And they don't even need the mining laser to do so.

[Nanook]

As for the mobile mining fiasco, it's tied directly to all the little 'roids added in 1.3. Those are the only ones capable of being mobile mined, AFAIK. The original mappable asteroids are for putting mines on only.

All asteroids can be used for mining.

Sorry, brain funk here.

But my point was that the little 'roids were added for the mobile mining, not just for 'prettiness'. And also that they cannot be targeted indirectly. You have to point at them. Thus the AI seems incapable of seeing them, and hence cannot collect them using the current Special commands. Going back to the X2 paradigm would solve that problem, as well as the nasty performance hit most people find in cluttered sectors. Sorry for the confusion.

Mobile miners should really rejoice at the 1.3 patch; they've got so much more to mine now. And they don't even need the mining laser to do so.

Actually, I think most mobile miners hate the 1.3 patch because of the tediousness of collecting the rocks. It's just not really worth the effort involved. It's really just not fun.

[jlehtone]

the new mini-asteroids ... not to mention that you have even more objects to worry about banging into now.

And this I assume to be part of the reason why wingmen cannot collect minerals. At least in X2 the autopilot did use top speed to boom and zoom at the 'containers'. Imagine the space densely filled with collectible debris, squadron of maxed out Caiman ore collectors, and collision checking. Rocky horror show.

ST cargo may be more "voluminous" than S, but that will not allow the Elephant to take more than 34000 ECells. Besides, if the docking bay is separate from the cargo hold, then the size of the hold is less significant. It was sort of ridiculous to have X2 Elephant (11k) carry 30*Dolphin, ie 90k. 12*14k in 34k would be no better.

There are two issues. First is about carrying around jumpdriveless TS ships for equipping. Equipping a fleet is not easy anyway. While letting smaller freighters to dock internally could be "realistic" I doubt that there is any variable that would clearly separate small TS for non-small in TShips file. TP cannot dock either and they are small and distinctive. And cannot haul XL minerals.

The second issue is about transferring cargo. That should not require internal docking. Script that uses freight beamer does exist in S&M. However, it would be logical to externally dock two ships and exchange cargo. Remotely. If that would exist, then an another set of commands could work on top of that.

A TL. A fleet of jumpdrive equipped TS as wingmen. The TL issues command "Gather ...". The wingmen gather ore from space or wares from stations and return to TL, dock, transfer cargo, undock. TL jumps to another sector, and the TS fleet follows. The X2 had "Buy ware" for TS with Mk1 and homed at TL. Technically there is no reason why the TS has to dock into the TL as long as it can transfer the bought ware into the TL.

Similarly, the M2 should be able to be the home of a TS and send that TS to fetch and deliver fuel. No docking. Just more complex operations composited from simpler ones. Some of that can be scripted, but it would be better to have at least the elementary autopilot operations in the off-the-shelf package.


If most of the mobile miners hate 1.3, what did they feel about pre-1.3?

It is sort of nice to have roids that can be mined without touching the ones with potential mining stations. Instead of choosing between building a mine or mobile mining, we now can do both, but must pay in performance. Nasty trade-off. And the mobile laser drill is practically waste of money.

The containers do not remain OOS. What if I fragment a big roid once and leave the sector. Will the smaller roids remain? If I recursively fragment all to collectibles and leave the sector, will they remain? And if they do remain, and I repeat the same feat in every sector, how does that affect the size of the savegame file?

[Darshu]

Can we get a update from a dev/mod on whether mobile mining will be further "refined" to make it more enjoyable and fun, as well as whether or not TS/TP ships will be able to dock with cap ships in the next patch, assuming there will be one?

I must say that I think it was very foolish to make TS and to a lesser extent, TP class ships incompatible with any sort of fleet carrier, it just makes no sense that cap ships use fighters to resupply.

What I would like to see:

TS/TP dockable to all cap ships (TL, M1, AND M2 (give at least one universal docking port to the M2s PLEASE!)

Commands allowing AI controlled freighters to pickup fragments, or code changes allowing them to "see" the fragments; also allow setting of a cap ship as a homebase, so that collected roids/wares are auto-dropped when the freighter is full

Perhaps lessen the new roid field density, I've done several assassin missions in Ghinn's Escape and the TL that spawns blows itself up on asteroids trying to fly to the gate! Performance wise, I don't see any issues, but I have a decent system