With docking getting some love recently I was thinking about its uses, and how it would be great if you could save your ship with other ships docked to it, and then spawn both ships together already docked. Picture a ship with included escape pods, or a carrier with fighters already in the hangar. A cargo ship with a docked mini-miner etc. I thought of some implementations of this feature, I'm sure you'll have your own ideas too!
1. All docked ships always save together
The simplest solution, any docked ships will always be saved together if connected via Docking Connector or Shipyard
2. Checkbox in the Connector
For a little more nuance - this option would mean that a ship docked to that particular Connector block would always be saved with the BP. It could be toggled to "No" if the player did not want ships docked at that Connector to be saved. This should be toggled on by default as I believe this is the state players will most commonly use.
3. Checkbox/option in the Entity menu
Another option would be a check when you Export your ship, if it has docked entities this prompt would show. It's a little clumsy and might get annoying to tick every time you save though.
Save Feedback Message
This is more of a separate QoL feature, but a little feedback to show that an entity has been exported, along with the information on docked entities which have been exported with it could be great. This is just a quick mockup, but a message like this could pop up in the corner, maybe pulse for 10 seconds then disappear to provide some confirmation that a bp has been saved correctly. Currently there is only an SFX played to let you know that your ship is safe and saved, it would be nice to have a clearer reasurance! : )
With docking getting some love recently I was thinking about its uses, and how it would be great if you could save your ship with other ships docked to it, and then spawn both ships together already docked. Picture a ship with included escape pods, or a carrier with fighters already in the hangar. A cargo ship with a docked mini-miner etc. I thought of some implementations of this feature, I'm sure you'll have your own ideas too!
1. All docked ships always save together The simplest solution, any docked ships will always be saved together if connected via Docking Connector or Shipyard
2. Checkbox in the Connector For a little more nuance - this option would mean that a ship docked to that particular Connector block would always be saved with the BP. It could be toggled to "No" if the player did not want ships docked at that Connector to be saved. This should be toggled on by default as I believe this is the state players will most commonly use.
3. Checkbox/option in the Entity menu Another option would be a check when you Export your ship, if it has docked entities this prompt would show. It's a little clumsy and might get annoying to tick every time you save though.
Save Feedback Message This is more of a separate QoL feature, but a little feedback to show that an entity has been exported, along with the information on docked entities which have been exported with it could be great. This is just a quick mockup, but a message like this could pop up in the corner, maybe pulse for 10 seconds then disappear to provide some confirmation that a bp has been saved correctly. Currently there is only an SFX played to let you know that your ship is safe and saved, it would be nice to have a clearer reasurance! : )
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!