[aldo_14]

Originally posted by EdrickV
Hmm. It is built more on the Triton's scale then the Argo's. (Forgot the Triton was so big.) What, in the FS2 world, is the difference between the two?

Freighters carry cargo pods.  That's_about_it, really.  you could say transports carry people, but both can really do that.  (and the Argo can carry cargo like prototype fighters, IIRC.)

[Star Dragon]

IF you're willing, let me know when the big one is ready. There are a few ships that can benefit from a large bulk carrier (vice many more trips by smalles ships). Such as: The Apocalypse, The Odin, The Warlock, The Archangel, and many more of that class size... See what I mean? In certain situations they may need a quick infusion of personel/equipment/supplies and a ship like the Brontes (Or whatever future name) can fill that role superbly cause of its size and flexibility of the types of cargo it can carry.

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by Star Dragon
IF you're willing, let me know when the big one is ready. There are a few ships that can benefit from a large bulk carrier (vice many more trips by smalles ships). Such as: The Apocalypse, The Odin, The Warlock, The Archangel, and many more of that class size... See what I mean? In certain situations they may need a quick infusion of personel/equipment/supplies and a ship like the Brontes (Or whatever future name) can fill that role superbly cause of its size and flexibility of the types of cargo it can carry.

As is, the Brontes wouldn't dock well with most ships. (They might dock with it better, though I haven't tried it with anything bigger then an Elysium.) It's current docking ports aren't well suited for ship docking. I intend to add other docking ports though, but probably won't release the current POF because I do want to retexture the cockpit and that will mean reconverting it. The Brontes could almost dock right with an Aeolus, except that the docking port is far enough forward that the two models would be overlapping. (I'm intending to put a docking port in later that will be farther back, as well as one on the nose and maybe on the top of the center arm.) It may look odd docking with ships that don't have paths designed with it in mind, at least using the ports underneath the arm. Right now it has 2 ports, (both at the same location and sharing the same path) one cargo specific and one generic. And non-repair/rearm ships cannot dock with fighters without code modifications or maybe FRED2 trickery. (Changing the ship type of an already docked ship, which may not work in game.)

As for help with the paths, this is a learning experience that I'm doing to teach myself about how exactly paths work and, in particular, how they work with docking. (The Brontes is an unsual situation due to both it's size and the rather inconvenient location of it's main docking ports.) The docking ports themselves work fine. (And I believe I even figured out why you need 2, which I suspected before but wasn't entirely sure about.)

[Solatar]

Two docking paths are so that they form a cone or something. Then the docking ship follows this cone, right to the dock point.

[EdrickV]

You don't have 2 paths for 1 docking port. (Well, your probably could but I'm not sure it would do anything and they don't go together.) The funnel stuff you do by reducing the radius of each path vertice. ( ships have 4 verts per docking path.) What I was talking about is why you need 2 "Points" on each docking port. They are two locations, one on each side of the actual center of the docking port and are used for ship alignment. (The Brontes was docking with a pod backwards from the path so I switched the point locations and then it docked in the right alignment.) For top/bottom dockpoints they represent forward/aft, for side mounted dockpoints they are up/down. (If a Fenris (which has side dockpoints) were to dock with a Brontes, using the current ports, the ship would be lying on it's side and it's front would be pointing toward the Brontes' left or right. (Not to mention it would be going through the arms.)

[Star Dragon]

I meant that if in the future it's released I would then just Fred waypoints and make it look like they were docking (if it has docking probs with certain ships). The ACTUAL transfer of cargo could be simulated by command messages and mission time delays without real docking taking place. (ok ready to dock, we're docked, cargo recieved, undocking - see you l8tr!) ect...
Mechanics not important, just background for mission...

[EdrickV]

The Brontes, and I am now dubbing the large Brontes as the Brontos, has docking problems when it tries to dock with other ships. Other ships may not have the same problems docking with it. (Though trying to dock a Brontos with a Brontos won't work and is odd to watch.) These problems will be fixed in a later version by adding more dockpoints. (Something that I have intended to do, but which will wait for a version with a better cockpit texture.) I have now added a turret on top of the docking arm. (I may move that turret, and think I need to double check the turret stuff because at times it's seemed to fire at me while it wasn't pointing at me.)