1.21 Bug - Docking issue (Save)

[Scoob]

Hi,

I know the autopilot that controls docking is a little flaky at the moment, however, it usually works eventually. However, I've just spent over ten minutes waiting for my ship - controlled by a hired Pilot - to dock at a Teladi Trading station. These stations seem to give the AI a particularly hard time. It appears that it cannot see the entrance, nor any way to get to it. It always clips into the super-structure, then gets trapped in between the layers, unable to access the dock. Eventually, the time varies, it'll get suddenly flung off into space, spinning rapidly. If this actually launches it into the docking area, it will dock, but that seems to be luck.

Check out this saved game - rename it first of course, I added a description in the name - and see how it works for you. Mine did eventually dock, but only because it clipped and shot off through the station at the right vector eventually. Not once did it even get close to going through the entrance.

Note: I know I can dock manually without issue, but I like being chauffeured.

Scoob.

[alt3rn1ty]

I have experienced this with 1.30, 1.31

I used a hired pilot to go Galaxy trading, and I stood back away from the seat in the same ship (Falcon Sentinel) and watched

It was a rare occasion that the autopilot missed any station superstructure, most of the time he just literally kept pushing through the bulkheads, and occasionally some of the scaffolding like structure would not let him push through the metal, so he became stuck and I had to take over and figure out how to backup the way he got inside (I think this was also on a Teladi station)

Autopilot was brilliant in X3 Albion Prelude, it seems to have gone very much downhill since then.

What happened Egosoft ?, dont all the stations have any kind of ideal approach vectors mapped for auto pilots, so you made NPC controlled ships able to pass through metal station hulls, but forgot to add this quality to some station parts?. I can imagine this working well out of sector, but in sector and especially if you are standing behind the pilot this is a real immersion killer.

[alt3rn1ty]

Here is a couple of MP4 videos showing the problems

X4 v1.32

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6b4eba9ouucr ... es.7z?dl=0

[alt3rn1ty]

I know this is a well noted issue and solving seems to have become a long term thing you will be getting around to (well hopefully some day soon anyway), but :

2.50 beta 4 is a bit of a regression in terms of pilots bumping into and drilling through objects. When landing on a station, you have solved a few issues, but there are still stations docking areas which still cause problems when entering a dock with an NPC pilot.

NEW TO 2.50 beta 4 - Taking off from stations with an NPC at the helm is resulting in the ship dives into the floor of the dock and drills through. This is not just occasionally, but is happening approximately 80% of the automated undockings that I have experienced since beta 4 was installed. Its possible it was happening before beta 4 too (and I think I do recall a few occasions), but recently it is very obvious it happens a lot more than it used to.

The ship getting caught and drilling through those structures either side of highways is still happening.

The ship approaching an accelerator more often than not at 90 degrees to the entrance, will just drill through the side of the accelerator portal.

The ship approaching a jump gate from the side will drill through the gate structure before it jumps.

If you need us to start documenting which stations and structures, fair enough, but it happens so often I cant understand Egosoft not ever seeing this happen because it is so obviously prevalent throughout the game in every sector, even sectors with few man/race made structures you can still end up burrowing out of a large asteroid or two.