[Tip] Quickly dock when in spacesuit using a nav beacon

[user1679]

The other day I was trying to do a mission to collect a lockbox. But I was still in my starting ship and the lockbox ended up being in
Xenon space, about 100 km from a defence platform. I was able to get the lockbox open and the items collected but every time I tried
to get back in my ship, it would alert a couple patrols and get destroyed. This was due to the fact I couldn't get my ship close enough
with "fly and wait" and the beginner spacesuit is too slow to travel 1.4 to 2.9 km without being noticed.

Since there is no "collect spacesuit" command, I eventually figured out that I can use a nav beacon to help. Here's how I do it, sorry
if this has been posted / suggested before:

** This guide assumes you have: nav beacons and the spacesuit hand laser **


1. Right click on the lockbox and issue "Fly and Wait"
2. Once your ship stops, use the ship menu to deploy a nav beacon in that spot. It will usually end up around 30m from the lockbox
3. Exit your ship and fly to the lockbox
4. Issue a "fly and wait" somewhere in space between 5 km to 10 km away (make sure you're not too close to get pulled along by the ship)
5. Open the lockbox and get the items


The next steps are essential...


6. Fly your spacesuit to the nearby nav beacon (selecting it on the deployables tab helps locate it)
7. Open the map and select your ship (left-click then press T (the default targeting key))
8. Position your spacesuit so it is touching the nav beacon on the side where your ship will be coming from (you should see your ship's bracket in the center of the screen)
9. Open the "deployables" tab , right click the nav beacon and choose "collect deployable"
10. With your ship still selected, press T (default targeting key) to make sure it is targeted and close the map
11. When your ship gets within 1km, start spamming your "dock" hotkey STOP when it says "docking requested" or it will cancel and you won't get picked up


The ship will practically run into you to pick up the nav beacon but because you're in docking mode, it will also pull you into the cockpit. The good news is if your ship
misses you because you're in the wrong position or didn't get into docking mode, it will stop very close to you so it should only take a few seconds to fly to it.

[Falcrack]

Or, alternatively, never get out of your ship in the first place, open the lockbox locks with your ships laser, and pull in the items with the container magnet.

[user1679]

Or, alternatively, never get out of your ship in the first place, open the lockbox locks with your ships laser, and pull in the items with the container magnet.

Irrelevant, the guide is specifically for people who get out of their ship.

There are some people who like the spacesuit or who can't get around the explosives with their ship's scattergun or poorly educated AI pilot. In my case,
my ship's presence kept alerting a raiding party that I was not equipped to handle. For some reason they ignored my spacesuit until after they blew up
my ship.

[Fishille]

You know you can rotate and pan the camera angle in the map screen and the ship can move on all 3 axis. You will find some lock boxes that are 100+km below the normal plane. There should never be a reason to fly over 1km in a space suit from you ship. There are some very specific and very particular exceptions, but a lockbox is not one of them. Fly within meters of it from
The get go, get up and unless you order the captain to fly away it will wait. If you are third party flying it, use the axis and make sure the fly to and wait command is right on the lockbox on all axis. Learning that is essential because some missions requiring building plots above or below of the plane.

[jlehtone]

The thought of spacewalking to lockbox has never even crossed my mind. Always with the ship. Always.

1. Right click on the lockbox and issue "Fly and Wait"

4. Issue a "fly and wait" somewhere in space between 5 km to 10 km away (make sure you're not too close to get pulled along by the ship)

1. Why don't you fly your ship?

4. What is the benefit of being 5-10 km away?

[BelatedHero]

This is interesting functionality to know. I don't think I'll ever be in your specific scenario though. I find lock boxes not worth too much extra effort to collect. There are so many of them it means there is always another easier one to get instead. Also, I tend to rush to teleport research in case I get stuck in an asteroid and need to get out.

However, thank you for posting this. You never know when knowledge like this will come in handy!

[Fishille]

This is interesting functionality to know. I don't think I'll ever be in your specific scenario though. I find lock boxes not worth too much extra effort to collect. There are so many of them it means there is always another easier one to get instead. Also, I tend to rush to teleport research in case I get stuck in an asteroid and need to get out.

However, thank you for posting this. You never know when knowledge like this will come in handy!

I am guessing what the OP is talking about are the missions that send you into usually Xenon space to collect a couple lockboxes and return those can be worth 400k fairly easily, which make them worthwhile as they can actually be completed fairly quickly depending.

[camshaft97]

Here's another scenario that might have benefited from this Tip:
So, there I was, docked at a Teladi trade station, I'd been checking various items on the map. An interesting ship I'd not seen before flys in and docks. I was ready for a break from managing resources, so I walk over to say hi. His ladder was down. Cool. My inner monologue says, why not walk up and get that computer-voice to announce the name of the ship! Great, the nice computer-lady said something, but ...what was that whoosh noise ?

So anyway, I walk back and the ladder wasn't there! Shoot, he'd taken off. I tried talking to the pilot, he even said 'Can I help?' but there was too much of a language barrier I guess. Eventually, I decided to use the space suit to jump off. That worked, now I'm off, and "M" still opens the map. But the closest ship couldn't...(dag-burn-it!) ...dang 1-star paranid pilots couldn't figure-out how to get close enough.

He was still 4-5km away, that's 4000 meters, at best 2-3 km/m or something.. Ah, I reloaded a recent autosave. Fun stuff anyways...

Maybe user1679's post would have helped ? Dropping a nav-beacon? Can spacesuits have/drop nav-beacons ? I saw no "Collect Your Boss" command ! Ha !

[BelatedHero]

I am guessing what the OP is talking about are the missions that send you into usually Xenon space to collect a couple lockboxes and return those can be worth 400k fairly easily, which make them worthwhile as they can actually be completed fairly quickly depending.

You are probably right. He does say "on a mission". 400k at the start of the game definitely is worth some trouble!

[Fishille]

Here's another scenario that might have benefited from this Tip:
So, there I was, docked at a Teladi trade station, I'd been checking various items on the map. An interesting ship I'd not seen before flys in and docks. I was ready for a break from managing resources, so I walk over to say hi. His ladder was down. Cool. My inner monologue says, why not walk up and get that computer-voice to announce the name of the ship! Great, the nice computer-lady said something, but ...what was that whoosh noise ?

So anyway, I walk back and the ladder wasn't there! Shoot, he'd taken off. I tried talking to the pilot, he even said 'Can I help?' but there was too much of a language barrier I guess. Eventually, I decided to use the space suit to jump off. That worked, now I'm off, and "M" still opens the map. But the closest ship couldn't...(dag-burn-it!) ...dang 1-star paranid pilots couldn't figure-out how to get close enough.

He was still 4-5km away, that's 4000 meters, at best 2-3 km/m or something.. Ah, I reloaded a recent autosave. Fun stuff anyways...

Maybe user1679's post would have helped ? Dropping a nav-beacon? Can spacesuits have/drop nav-beacons ? I saw no "Collect Your Boss" command ! Ha !

There’s a trick to moving the fly and wait command to be much much more precise then 5km. Even a complete rookie pilot can get where you want them. You have to change the angle of view on the map screen. This is important to learn, but very poor to explain in words. I will have to look for a YouTube video or maybe make one to help explain this.

[af_2017]

Or, alternatively, never get out of your ship in the first place, open the lockbox locks with your ships laser, and pull in the items with the container magnet.

This seems like instruction to very bored players who dived too deep into role playing.
Also I prefer flak cannons.

[user1679]

Some of the replies make me think my OP wasn't clear.

1. The reason I'm not flying my ship is because I'm trying a playthrough where I am a Commander

Everything will be done by AI at my direction which has the side effect of exposing the weakness of the AI. The only thing I will do myself is in the case of missions
where the AI can't complete it. "Criminal Traffic" and "Destroy Mines" missions are not triggered unless the player is piloting.

And for lockboxes, I have failed many missions because my AI pilot blows them up. My Interceptor has a scatter gun and it's not the easisest
thing to shoot at a lockbox wrapped in explosives.


2. The reason for the arbitrary distance for the ship to wait is becaus I was in Xenon space

I played around for over an hour with different scenarios on this particular mission. Everything I tried caused a patrol to aggro and the defence station to send out
drones if I left my ship parked at the lockbox.

For whatever reason the AI ignores my spacesuit while my ship is alive so parking my ship far enough away not to aggro the patrols and station allows me
to manually collect the lockbox

3. Rotating the map to direct the ship doesn't work

I don't know if this is an AI issue or a poor translation of map-to-space coordinates. One time I ran out of oxygen testing the drag the waypoint method.
No matter how much I rotated the map and dragged the waypoint right onto my spacesuit, the "fly and wait" command never got the ship close enough that I didn't
have to fly an absurd amount to dock.

Because in my scenario I was in Xenon space, I couldn'g have my ship waiting for me to float to it. The patrols and defence station always aggro onto my ship. I
needed a quick pickup so the best I came up with was dropping a nav beacon and when I was ready, issuing two commands "collect deployable" followed by "fly and wait"
several KM away. So even though the patrol got aggro, my pilot was in and out before they got there.



So, as I've mentioned, I want to do a playthrough where I have little hands-on interaction. Being a Commander floating in space ordering my AI fleets around seems
interesting. And given the inadequate AI, it's also very challenging.

[RLSa]

This is a really cool trick to know. Don't worry about negative comments. Some people don't even try to do something different.