[Darkhill]

I would just search for this but everything I try it says I'm not allowed to search.

I'm having a problem with ships docking, they do dock but getting there is rather odd.  Instead of going up to the path and coming down to the dock they kind of rotate onto their side until about the position of the second to last point where they kind of right themselves and move down.  I've got a dock with two points where one is .5 away from the other in the Z position.  And its given a path number with a path that has four vertices with each getting a smaller radius.  Is there some kind of spacing to the path?  Or something else?  And also in the Path tab there is the subobject box that some FS2 models have numbers in but don't seem to be connected with the path.  Those have anything to do with docking?

[Wanderer]

The exact axis in which the docking points have different values is irrelevant. Points just should have some difference in direction that is perpendicular (not paraller)  to the docking points normal. AFAIK the first point defined the docking location and the second one is used in alignment of the docking point.

[Darkhill]

This what I got:

Point 1
Position   0     37     -15
Normal    0      -1       0

Point 2   
Position   0     37     -20
Normal    0      -1        0

What should I be having here?

[StratComm]

I think that's exactly right if you want the dockpoint exactly on the bottom.  The normal on point 2 should be totally irrelivant.

[Darkhill]

I tracked down the problem on this.  The table entry $Forward decel: was set at 5.8, the ship wasn't slowing down fast enough when it got to the top of the dock path and it makes it spin around until it slows down.  If you give it anything over about 1.0 then it will nose down at the object its trying to dock with.  Something you might want to look out for when you are doing stats for your ship.  Programmer might also want to make a note to have the ship come to a stop before actually following the docking path.

[aldo_14]

NB: this may not be all that useful, but make sure your final path point is not directly on the dockpoint.

The vertice radius' for the path are used to define how close to that vertex the ship has to be to be 'on' the path; if you imagine it as a cone, where the radius at certain points is defined by the vertex radius.  Basically, the closer the docker ship gets to the dockee, the closer it has to be to the path vertice.

I think the subobject paths (if I understand your meaning here) are used for attacking that path; basically so the attacking ship knows when to pull out their attack run, etc.  I don;t think they are necessary, but I believe they're handy.  But also a massive pain.

[Spicious]

Subsystem paths really aren't overly painful. They are quite tedious though.

[Darkhill]

Looking at it closer (ie right above the dock) the ship was flying right over the dock point because it wasn't slowing down fast enough.  The nose dive/roll was the ship trying to drag itself back to the path.  And as for radii I used 1000,100,10,1 and the other weird thing is if the second to last point as was really high, like over 150 then it would work fine with the slow deceleration.  But like I said if I just lowered the number then the ship stops fast enough at the top of the path that it works fine now.

I wasn't talking about paths for subsystems and whatnot.  Those are easy enough because you can get by with only two.  Its the "Turret" frame at the bottom of the tab that has the SubObject edit box.  The numbers in it seem to be completely random things.

[StratComm]

Ok, so what's actually happening here is that the second-to-last dockpoint is far too close to the hull for the ship that's trying to dock.  A general overview of how dockpoints work:  the first point (0) is the start of the dock path.  The second sets rotational alignment along the docking ship's z axis, so that it approaches the target ship head-on.  While moving from the second point to the third, the docker will rotate so that its dockpoint aligns with the dockpoint on the dockee ship, and then will translate from the third to fourth points with its docks aligned.  The final dock point can actually match the dock itself with no consequences; the third dockpoint's placement is the one that matters.

[Darkhill]

Its probably more 'realistic' but I don't think it looks good if a ship has to swing up 200-300 meters above the ship its docking to so that it can get int 'position'.

[aldo_14]

Subsystem paths really aren't overly painful. They are quite tedious though.

But tedium is pain!

[StratComm]

Its probably more 'realistic' but I don't think it looks good if a ship has to swing up 200-300 meters above the ship its docking to so that it can get int 'position'.

The correct distance between point 3 and point 4 (and thus between point 3 and the dock itself) is the turning radius of whatever ship you are designing the dockpoint for.  Lets say you have an argo; if you want the Argo to skim the hull of the ship it's docking with, you have to make sure that it has room to turn and get its forward dock into position in between points 2 and 3.  There's no other way to do it.

[Darkhill]

I didn't realize how that was how it was supposed to be setup.  I guess if you want a large number of craft to be able to dock with it then you have to err on the big side for the top part of the path.