New Game - opens to play in space, but can't land...

[BenjamenMeyer]

not sure if this is bug on the engine or the Asset Production stuff.

I started a new game from scratch - no history previous, this really is my first VS load up. It starts in-flight and the tutorial of how to go through flight, etc; ending back at the planet. However, I can't land. It doesn't seem to recognize the request to do so. EDIT: Tried again, and updating accordingly...

1. It loads up on planet, and I launch out. It might have been I reloaded a saved game, which caused me the confusion.
2. I'm actually having issues with the following:
   • loading the Nav computer (SHIFT+H) doesn't work
   • I don't seem to be able to get close enough to the planet to request docking (ALT+0) or dock (d)
   • I tried a jump point, but it doesn't seem to allow me to jump (j) despite being within the jump point

I ended up quitting from space to get out.

OS: Linux - Kubuntu 19.04

[pyramid3d]

Have you acquired a Jumpdrive? For planet landing: Target planet with P key, on the bottom right VDU it should show the distance to dock (it's pretty close to the planet).

[BenjamenMeyer]

@pyramid3d yes I have a jump drive. I'll try out the targeting with p; I've been using n but hadn't seen a distance on the screen; though my setup is presently complicated by #36 too.

[BenjamenMeyer]

Okay, took a screen shot, and something funky is going on - probably because of #36 - b/c not all of the screen that is shown in the screen shot is actually visible to me, which includes the target display and distance information - basically the lower right hand corner information; I barely see the top of the display containing the planet on the right monitor; this effects everything on the right side of the center line. Everything on the left side of the center line is visible though.

So may have to solve #36 before I can solve this side of things.

Interestingly, the screen shot doesn't show all the unused space on the sides since the image is centered across two monitors instead of just being stuck to one.... just an aside here; but that's what #36 is about.

[nabaco]

Hi @BenjamenMeyer. From the issue description, it's not clear what is the exact issue you are experiencing. Is it with landing/jumping, or with the UI? Is this issue still relevant? If yes, is it reproducible on a single screen?

[BenjamenMeyer]

yes it's reproducible, yes it's still relevant.

@Loki1950 did explain some stuff to me to I have been able to do some landing; however, landing it still a lot harder than it necessarily should be. I've tried to land a few places (mine base, military bases, etc) and just end up crashing every time.

I suspect it's a combination of:

1. Lack of knowledge of how to land or when landing is allowed/disallowed
2. Lack of good feedback when requesting landing clearance
3. Lack of knowledge of which places one can land and under what conditions
4. Overly tight parameters around landing/jumps/etc.

4 wasn't as evident at first as the multi-screen setup (see #36 ) was hiding part of the lower right corner of the screen, including any information about landing. Fixed that so managed to land some; but still having issues.

So some learning on my part; and possibly some tweaking within VS or Assets - not sure which.

[Loki1950]

For landing you have hit the D key just as you enter the green docking square

[BenjamenMeyer]

@Loki1950 yeah...finding that green docking square is the part of the issue. I'll have to record something to show.

[Loki1950]

Also remember you have request docking first no request no square

[stephengtuggy]

Alt+0 to request docking, right?

[BenjamenMeyer]

correct, ALT+0; @Loki1950 I have but I don't always get a clear Green Square for docking.

In one case, I get a green square, but one corner is red. In another case, there seems to be about 30 different small green squares. In both cases, the squares don't seem to be for docking.

Any how...I'll try to get a video this weekend.

[nabaco]

In case the red square is red, it means that it's not in your line of sight. You'll have to do a maneuver to get to it. If it's green, it has to be for docking. It's tricky sometimes to get to it at the right speed and press D at the right moment.

[BenjamenMeyer]

This actually got discussed recently in gitter.im. Basically:

• [ ] For the short term we need to adjust the distance for docking to make things easier
• [ ] For the long term there's a slew of things that need to be done (see conversation below)

J. S. @ministerofinformation 14:51
especially for asteriods, refineries, bases; planets are the easiest - though even there I'd like to tweak the distance so you're not staring at a screen full of planet for 10 minutes before you can land

The norms for landing (at what point/distance for each model do you hand off final approach control) should definitely be revisited. This includes addressing (in a non ad-hoc fashion) issues where large cargo ships try to dock themselves with fighter-scale ports, etc. Re: 10 minutes -- switching from the default "maneuver" relative velocity governors vs. the "travel" governors can make planetary landing less painful, but it mostly goes to show how slowly the ships are actually moving. Last I checked, many craft have governors that would be < mach 1 in atmosphere, which is painfully slow for a planetary approach. On the flip side, setting the governors much higher can lead to a bus-on-ice experience with inertia (potentially a feature, and/or configurable by compensating with unreasonably high accelerations to compensate) and also too large a distance moved between physics frames (which is a fundamental challenge with the current modeling and any low-edit distance variants thereof)

Benjamen Meyer @BenjamenMeyer 14:58
@ministerofinformation I was thinking of changing the distances to object for landing. IIRC WC used 10,000 km and we use
1,000km
At the larger distance more of the planet is in sight and landing can be done; while at the closer distance the entire screen is filled with nothing but the visibility of part of the planet for a considerable time

J. S. @ministerofinformation 15:01
That's a pretty reasonable tweak for planets for the short term, but I think it would be useful (long term) to take some inventory of what the engine is capable of practically supporting from a playability standpoint if we want to eventually have on-planet or orbital infrastructure interactions
As long as its configurable, changing the landing distance from planets is low hanging fruit. One other option might be to consider functions that are proportional to/consider/combine planet radius/gravity/habitation status/etc. rather than a fixed distance, if we want to incorporate other playability/flavor components (e.g. landing distance proportional to planetary size could be calibrated to have similar time-length post dropout from SPEC, etc. for playability or "traffic control/public safety" distances for heavily inhabited worlds being different than random moonbases as a lore+gameplay feature)

J. S. @ministerofinformation 15:09
If we're not interested in lower orbit interactions for the time being, then taking it all the way out to geo-stationary distances would be fine (~36000 Km for Earth, varying by planet)

J. S. @ministerofinformation 15:14
As long as we don't force autodocking at that distance, it doesn't impede additional development of nearer planetary gameplay
I don't find it that hard to land on the non planetary objects just fly right up to the docking square till it's edges are just at the edge of the screen then hit the "d" key.

I think we could definitely improve the visualization of having a docking approach with a well-defined docking zone, rather than a 2D docking zone plane. Extending the current single overlay of "here is a dock" to "here is an approach path, the latter X% of which will accept docking requests" wouldn't be too hard on the engine side, but would require adjustment on the data side, for how docking points are currently defined.

Benjamen Meyer @BenjamenMeyer 15:21
I wouldn't force auto-dock, just make dock work within that radius to make it easier

J. S. @ministerofinformation 15:21
Exactly

Benjamen Meyer @BenjamenMeyer 15:21
The other things are also good to do too
Of course with multiple cities in a planet to dock to one must also be able to select the docking destination
Withilt
With multi-city we probably will want to move to an IL$
ILS type docking system
Select where you want, lock, and follow the approach
Perhaps enable an autopilot ILS navigator

Benjamen Meyer @BenjamenMeyer 15:27
Right now I'm interested in minimally invasive tweaks while we get some major refactoring done. Then we can hit the harder, larger design efforts to make these other features available

J. S. @ministerofinformation 15:27
Yep. May want to also consider whether this is something specific to planets, or to support meaningfully differentiated docking points/paths for any large object (engine-wise). That is, should we be able to support multiple logical "bases" or at least multiple logical starting locations within a base map for any larger object.