Cause of some gate crashes -> perhaps easy to fix

[glenmcd]

Game: X3AP 2.5.3 English, highly modified but that shouldn't matter..
Game start: DiD but should be unrelated

I've had a number of ships exploding at gates and in the past and had assumed that at least some of them were hitting the solid gate edge. So one of the mods I installed gets rid of the solid edges so you're left with just the active part, something to target and swirls. Yet I'm still having ships occasionally explode at gates and it usually happens when I'm rushing to complete a mission before time runs out. So here's my take on what is happening:

At times, a ship although in sector, is not solid ("no clip"). So it can pass through solid things without taking damage. But it can also pass through gates without getting sent to the next sector. Yes I've had that plenty of times. But occasionally what I think is happening is that the ship goes solid again when it's half way through the active part of the gate. As the gate is far more robust than every ship in the game (not to mention invincible), the ship immediately explodes as no clip is disabled.

Fighters can be invincible as they are launched from a capital ship. If you immediately fly through a gate, that's one example of how the above can happen.

Other thoughts:
Could the above could also explain some collisions between ships and stations? During the time when a ship is not solid, does it still attempt to avoid collisions? What about other ships, do they try to avoid non-solid ships? It sure would be nice reduce "unjustified" deaths, especially in a DiD start.

To duplicate using scripts:
undock from a station and immediately force ship position to near gate, set speed to max, ship flying towards centre of gate. Adjust the timing and/or speed of ship to make ship explode reliably.

[Alan Phipps]

This is good theorising but may actually be better placed in either DevNet or S&M as I don't think anything that radical will be done with the X3 engine now.