Strange Ship Sudden Undocking Issue.

[Bjazz68]

Hi Guys, me again!

I have four ships now due to some great advice here regarding combat and capping, and I had them all docked at the Argon Shipyard at the end of a playing session.

When I loaded the latest game save which had my Buster as the active ship, 2 of my other ships were suddenly shown as undocked in the Argon Prime sector map and in the process of docking back at the shipyard, which luckily they both did. But I have no idea why they were undocked in the first place when I did not instruct this.

Is this normal, has it happened to any of you?

Thanks,
bjazz

[Doktor Teufel]

I've never run into this, or at least I've never noticed it, but did you see the ships visually to confirm that they were physically undocked, or did you only see it happen on the sector map?

That might at least help to narrow it down a bit. It could just be an unusual quirk in the sector map in the aftermath of loading.

I assume you and all of your ships were in-sector at the time (that's what it sounds like, but I'm just double-checking).

I can't right this moment, but I'll head over to a shipyard later and test to see if some of my ships exhibit similar behavior.

[Dreez]

Sometimes playerships can get a low priority on a full docks and i've seen my own ships undock when i enter sectors (very very rare).
Yesterday i had 10 Super Mistrals docked at the Home of Light Terracorp station and one of them
got undocked because an NPC-freighter wanted to dock.

I hope that answers ur question. Welcome to the best 4X game ever made !.

[Doktor Teufel]

I know that NPC stations will boot your ships to make room for NPCs, but I wasn't aware that your ships will automatically try to re-dock. If so, perhaps it depends on what software/commands you're running (if any).

[Alan Phipps]

Shipyards only allocate one bay for player use. Often large military NPC patrols (eg capital plus escort) will arrive and kick out any additional player ships.

Usually your ships with no orders will try to redock when the docks are clear again, but that is not guaranteed and may fail because of reservations from other incoming NPCs.

In the case of player-owned followers/escorts, if the leading ship does not redock right at the first opportunity then the followers will not try to redock either.

[jlehtone]

Shipyards only allocate one bay for player use.

Furthermore, the "traditional/common" shipyard model has only one "hub" for small ships; 5 clamps.

Whan a station can accommodate no more than 5 ships, the competition for the 4 clamps is fierce.


More than once I've been on a delivery mission and refused docking rights to a Factory. Either my other ship was already docked there (using the "one reseved for player" bay) or enroute to the station (rpobably in the same sector).


One can buy an unlimited number of ships from a Shipyard with no traffic congestion. It is only after they undock for the first time that they become "real and counted for".


On the other hand, if I buy 10 ships, make 9 of them follow the 10th, and order that "leader" to dock a different SY, they all try to dock there, but at most 4 of the followers can be docked at any time and the docking/undocking is continuous/frequent OOS.

[Doktor Teufel]

One can buy an unlimited number of ships from a Shipyard with no traffic congestion. It is only after they undock for the first time that they become "real and counted for".

I don't know that I ever knew this. Of course, I've forgotten a lot of stuff in the... seven years since I last played?

At this moment I'm taking my Ariadne to scoop up some CLS training M5s and get them all equipped, and I was wondering about exactly that. Perfect timing. Thanks!

[jorganos]

Just yesterday I wanted to buy a used ship from a shipyard just to resell it at once, and after I talked to its pilot to make the deal, the ship had undocked, and needed longer to re-dock than my at that moment really tight time and financial schedule could tolerate.

It is possible to dock more than one small player-owned ship at a regular shipyard, just not during rush-hour. If you have a hired TL docked to the same ship yard, its escort will often block four of the five available docking slots. Command it to undock, and enjoy five empty docking slots...

[Doktor Teufel]

As long as there's a thread about docking, I might as well ask here. I tried to remotely dock my new Demeter with my Ariadne while aboard the Ariadne, in addition to setting the Ariadne as the Demeter's home base.

The Demeter moved to the external docking port and then seemed to do very little for a minor eternity, even with SETA going. I tried ordering it to home base, thinking maybe something was off, and it promptly exploded.

I'm guessing it just takes a minor eternity to dock when controlled by the AI? Anyone noticed any issues docking TS with Ariadne/Guppy? I just reloaded docked it myself with a docking computer instead, so all's well that ends well.

Edit: It's probably just really, really, really slow... and I might have moved the carrier slightly. All I know is that I sat there with SETA on for a full minute and it just seemed to sit below the carrier at a slight angle doing nothing.

[jorganos]

As long as there's a thread about docking, I might as well ask here. I tried to remotely dock my new Demeter with my Ariadne while aboard the Ariadne, in addition to setting the Ariadne as the Demeter's home base.

The Demeter moved to the external docking port and then seemed to do very little for a minor eternity, even with SETA going. I tried ordering it to home base, thinking maybe something was off, and it promptly exploded.

Docking on carriers often has issues with collision avoidance. I've seen this behavior over and over again with fighter class ships while sitting in a TM or frigate.

One way to deal with it is to move the carrier slightly and repeat the command.

My usual way of dealing with this is to transfer the docking computer from the carrier, transfer myself, dock with the docking computer and transfer the bloody thing back to the carrier.

I'm guessing it just takes a minor eternity to dock when controlled by the AI? Anyone noticed any issues docking TS with Ariadne/Guppy? I just reloaded docked it myself with a docking computer instead, so all's well that ends well.

I prefer to do that while OOS, obviating all collision alert problems.

Edit: It's probably just really, really, really slow... and I might have moved the carrier slightly. All I know is that I sat there with SETA on for a full minute and it just seemed to sit below the carrier at a slight angle doing nothing.

SETA is to blame here. You are taking necessary steps out of the collision avoidance. What works fine against M5 attacking a station works against ships docking on carriers, too.

SETA can also make you miss the event horizon of gates or accelerators if you're approaching in a sufficiently fast vessel. Imagine the same gap crossed by your docking vessel.

[Alan Phipps]

My theory about that is that the AI at that point cannot simply resolve the pathing maths between several non-straightforward route or docking point options. Move or just turn the carrier, or just move the docking ship (I tend to give it a 'fly to the carrier location' command before reissuing the docking order) and it may then be able to choose the best docking path.

Of course if it is already very close to the carrier at that point such that collision is imminent on any unfortunate movement or turn, then I guess that would be an internal war between the docking and collision avoidance orders causing it to go into a coma. Having the docking ship idle or fly away from the carrier for a bit might be an answer, but not guaranteed.

Personally in such situations I transfer to the docking ship and use a docking computer to insta-dock safely.

[Doktor Teufel]

SETA can also make you miss the event horizon of gates or accelerators if you're approaching in a sufficiently fast vessel. Imagine the same gap crossed by your docking vessel.

Sorry, I should have been more clear: I didn't turn SETA on until after the TS had seemed to become motionless. Believe me, I know better than to use SETA when the AI is trying to dock just about anything (smaller ships docking with large stations is usually fine, if traffic is light).

I've not yet had issues docking fighters to the Ariadne, although at one point I punched the throttle before all my fighters had landed, only later realizing that I still had a few trying to land at the low AI docking sequence speed, trailing along behind me for a good minute or two.

[jlehtone]

My theory about that is that the AI at that point cannot simply resolve the pathing maths between several non-straightforward route or docking point options.

Quite likely.

Fighters docking to Carrier in X3R had a similar tendency. Moving the Carrier a bit usually did change to "calculations" favourably.

IIRC, docking to Stations can stall too.


I general there is no place like OOS.

[Bjazz68]

Hi guys,

Thank you for telling me that, I just assumed that once you docked any number of ships somewhere they would just stay there forever or until you sold them.
I now have 5 ships, two of which I gained through capping and they are all at the argon federal shipyard, so I guess I will have to sell them off, I was hoping to slowly build my trading fleet for auto trading, and a wingman small starter fleet for capping. But if this undocking issue keeps happening then it will make it really hard to monitor things throughout each session.

That's a shame, I guess I'll have to figure something else out.
Thanks for letting me know what the deal is,

cheers,
bjazz

[jlehtone]

Argon and Teladi Trading Docks have an infinite docking bay for fighters.

Equipment Docks can hold 15(?) non-capital ships. Likewise, arger Factories (e.g. SPP XL) have multiple docking hubs.

(Some?) Larger shipyards have internal docking bay for non-capital ships. Check Cloudbase South-East, if you are in the Argpn Prime region.

[Doktor Teufel]

Hi guys,

Thank you for telling me that, I just assumed that once you docked any number of ships somewhere they would just stay there forever or until you sold them.
I now have 5 ships, two of which I gained through capping and they are all at the argon federal shipyard, so I guess I will have to sell them off, I was hoping to slowly build my trading fleet for auto trading, and a wingman small starter fleet for capping. But if this undocking issue keeps happening then it will make it really hard to monitor things throughout each session.

That's a shame, I guess I'll have to figure something else out.
Thanks for letting me know what the deal is,

cheers,
bjazz

You don't need to sell them off. As long as you are OOS most of the time, the odds of your ships being harmed due to getting booted from a dock are quite low. I've left my extremely rare Kha'ak Corvette at an NPC shipyard for now, and I'm not losing any sleep over it.

You can mitigate or eliminate the (already small) risk by just parking each of them at different stations. I know it's a hassle, but it's a small one compared to most of the hassles in this game. I'm fairly sure the "player reserved slot" in each station is untouchable by NPCs, but I could be mistaken.

Each race has at least one "super shipyard" (they're not particularly well documented) which I believe can hold far more ships, so those should also be safer. You can find out where each super shipyard is located by checking the Wiki page for each race: http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Races

That said, the only way to truly be safe when docking is to build your own HQ/station... but in that case, you'll need to make sure it's defended from enemies.

[Honved]

Equipment docks have something like 12-18 docking collars, and I've only ever seen a ship of mine kicked out once. Trade Stations are limited for TS class and up, but can hold an infinite number of fighters.

I often spread my "surplus" ships out among several sectors, generally 2-4 per Equipment Dock. As long as you have any asset in the sector, you can see prices, and a fighter works as well as a satellite, except that a docked fighter won't include scanner info. In the early main quest of TC, in Terran space, I often send any bailed "N" class Xenon to the nearest sector patrol base, since I rarely have enough satellites with me to cover it at that point in the game.

Unless it's a unique ship, or I intend to use it myself for something specific, I generally fix it up a bit (depending on how long it takes) and sell it. For a TS in really bad shape, the time generally isn't worth the effort (although there's one mission where you WILL need to put a certain TS back into decent shape, regardless of how banged up it is when you get it), but an M3 fighter can usually be patched up to full condition in a matter of a few minutes, and sold for somewhere around a million credits. That's pretty good money in the early stages of the game.

[Bjazz68]

Thanks Doktor Teufel and honved and jlehtone,

I appreciate that info, I guess it will be easy to spread this amount of ships out in argon prime, and then other sectors later on, I know it is a bit of a fuss and that cannot be avoided.

All part of the process is guess!

Thanks again
bjazz

[Cursed Ghost]

hi

I've run in to this very irritating problem on countless occasions and its down to some short sighted design by Ego see stations used to have unlimited internal docking but when Ego re-did the stations in later games that unlimited internal docking was removed from most stations as a consequence when all the docking clamps are full your ships will be automatically un-docked

Unfortunately there isn't really much you can do about it that's why when i want to store ships i now store them on either Argon or Teladi trading stations because both of these still have unlimited internal docking, or the Aran as that can dock any ship in the game and has room for 30 ships m6 and smaller and 1 capital class ship m7 and bigger and its huge cargo hold makes a grate warehouse or the Player HQ as that also has unlimited internal docking for smaller ships

personally I'm of the opinion that the players ships should never be automatically undocked, because I've lost countless ships due to this issue before i worked out what the hell was going on.

Then again I'm of the opinion that the unlimited internal docking should never of been removed in the first place and Ego need to issue a patch that restores unlimited internal docking to all stations for all ships smaller than an m7 and the external clamps should only be for m7, m7m, TL, M1 and M2 that would largely solve this issue and a whole bunch of other extremely irritating issues like having to hang around for years waiting for the computer to get out the way so you can dock god i really hate the way the computer just idles in the space dock preventing player ships from landing, so annoying i just wish the player had a way to forcibly eject stubborn npc ships when they are being obnoxious and refuse to un-dock.

[Nanook]

Thanks Doktor Teufel and honved and jlehtone,

I appreciate that info, I guess it will be easy to spread this amount of ships out in argon prime, and then other sectors later on, I know it is a bit of a fuss and that cannot be avoided.

All part of the process is guess!

Thanks again
bjazz

Why do you have 'surplus' ships? If you have ships, put them to work doing something. Otherwise, you might just as well sell them and use the proceeds for other things. The only ship types I generally keep idle are various types of fighting ships that I use for different purposes. None of my freighters ever sit idle. And if I don't have an immediate use for a given fighter, it gets sold.