What are you doing (ingame) now?

[JustSomeGuy]

I'm thinking about dropping docking computer from Cutter, it acts weirdly. If it's not stuck on infinite docking queue, then it smashes the ship to the station wall or flies sideways on the landing pad, or gets on top of it and turns the ships so that the nose points to the pad for some reason and then lands. I think it works better with Anaconda, but have not tried after the last small patch. Not sure if the patch even had anything to do with it but anyways..

[JohnLuke]

I haven't had any trouble with the docking computer on my Corvette or Cutter. I typically fly the ship through the slot and then let the docking computer land on the pad from there.

[de Carabas]

After 5 weeks of in-game time I've finally made it to the Empire rank I needed. I'm now the Marquis de Carabas!

Annoyingly, I want a Cutter so I'll have to keep going to get to Duke

[Darr Valen]

I haven't had any trouble with the docking computer on my Corvette or Cutter. I typically fly the ship through the slot and then let the docking computer land on the pad from there.

The docking computer has killed many pilots. If you only engage yours after you're in the slot, your chances are reduced greatly, of terrible death. That's still not a 100% success rate device. My docking computer glitched many times, when docking on the pad, and tried slamming me into another pad.

Outside the station, I won't even use my docking computer on my cutter if the station has hab rings near the opening. If you come out of FTL near the station's rings, and there's not a clear path to the slot, it will smash into the hab pylons if the ship isn't fast enough. Not so much a problem on smaller ships.

As you should know, the cutter is gigantic and hates turning at the best of times. It can carry enough momentum that the DCM goes crazy, and you end up beside the station. That's why I would line up with a shot at the slot from docking range, boost and immediately hit the landing gear and scoop to slow down, and then let the DCM take over. Cuts down on the time it takes to approach, and just ends up working better on giant ships.


TL;DR the docking computer will get you killed.. it's just a matter of when. Still worth using for a bit of aide on the largest ships.

[thebs]

I've never used the Docking Computer, which sounds a little bit like a "Dogbert" Computer (for those into the popular comic strip). Maybe "Catbert" might be more appropriate, as Dogbert usually had an endgame but Catbert was pure HR evil.

Regardless ... for the limited time I had a Type 7 (kept getting jumped, difficult to escape, finally dropped it), which is the only Large Pad ship I've ever owned, I don't remember it being difficult to slot'n dock inside a station and on a pad, respectively. Are these larger ships really that difficult and high-stress to dock?

Call me a sick f'er, but my favorite ship to dock so far is the Federal Drop Ship, although I'll admit it's only a medium pad ship. That utter POS, even looks like a humpback whale, handles like crap, slides endlessly like Michael Jackson moon walking on fast forward, skipping back over and over (there goes my age, Jackson and VHS fast forward), but damn if it ain't fun to glide it at 90+ on pure inertia and just touch the slider/nipple to center oh-so-slightly.

As posted on the Frontier forum ...

"Indeed, the clipper gets it all: the looks, the utility and the survivability. Why then even bother flying for example a Type 7 when it has no strength or selling point to fly one? A Type 7 is a helpless box of cardboard with almost the same price tag and the dropship turns like a whale with a gastric bypass for cargo purposes and has the unconvincing strength of armor in a game where shields are king and people snipe powerplants...."

[Cmdr Kharma]

I haven't had any trouble with the docking computer on my Corvette or Cutter. I typically fly the ship through the slot and then let the docking computer land on the pad from there.

Yep.....

That's what I've been doing lately...Helping a coupla dickheads to get Elite status.....

Never had a problem in the Asp...

But in the newly acquired Python always waiting in a queue......

Nothing else around.....Just queuing for fun......

How quintessentially British.....

[pargyrak]

Made 12 trade runs and gained 12M=2% towards Elite grin...trader. With the current rate need another 378 runs = 31.5 rainy days...

Need to shoot at something

[Darr Valen]

I've never used the Docking Computer, which sounds a little bit like a "Dogbert" Computer (for those into the popular comic strip). Maybe "Catbert" might be more appropriate, as Dogbert usually had an endgame but Catbert was pure HR evil.

Regardless ... for the limited time I had a Type 7 (kept getting jumped, difficult to escape, finally dropped it), which is the only Large Pad ship I've ever owned, I don't remember it being difficult to slot'n dock inside a station and on a pad, respectively. Are these larger ships really that difficult and high-stress to dock?

Call me a sick f'er, but my favorite ship to dock so far is the Federal Drop Ship, although I'll admit it's only a medium pad ship. That utter POS, even looks like a humpback whale, handles like crap, slides endlessly like Michael Jackson moon walking on fast forward, skipping back over and over (there goes my age, Jackson and VHS fast forward), but damn if it ain't fun to glide it at 90+ on pure inertia and just touch the slider/nipple to center oh-so-slightly.

As posted on the Frontier forum ...

"Indeed, the clipper gets it all: the looks, the utility and the survivability. Why then even bother flying for example a Type 7 when it has no strength or selling point to fly one? A Type 7 is a helpless box of cardboard with almost the same price tag and the dropship turns like a whale with a gastric bypass for cargo purposes and has the unconvincing strength of armor in a game where shields are king and people snipe powerplants...."

I was never into using it, since it was so murder happy. But it was near mandatory for doing repeated trade runs, where the angle of FTL exit was always going to be poor, since things orbit in this fantastic game. When trying to shave off minutes to keep the Cr/T high CR, low Time, it could help save 2-3 minutes in docking.

But really it was only faster to use if you are in a super heavy ship. I know 2-3 minutes time savings sounds high when docking to start with, but keep in mind how slow the behemoths of the space lanes are now. Toggled on and off at the right moments can save time and effort. It feels sort-of an exploit of the elite engine, but, docking a 500T or larger cargo ship is problematic at the best of times.

Also, the T series were great ships for piloting, since they have one of, or the best cockpits in Elite. I loved looking down between my legs for speed docking in the large cargo ships in the T series.

[thebs]

I've never used the Docking Computer, which sounds a little bit like a "Dogbert" Computer (for those into the popular comic strip). Maybe "Catbert" might be more appropriate, as Dogbert usually had an endgame but Catbert was pure HR evil.

Regardless ... for the limited time I had a Type 7 (kept getting jumped, difficult to escape, finally dropped it), which is the only Large Pad ship I've ever owned, I don't remember it being difficult to slot'n dock inside a station and on a pad, respectively. Are these larger ships really that difficult and high-stress to dock?

Call me a sick f'er, but my favorite ship to dock so far is the Federal Drop Ship, although I'll admit it's only a medium pad ship. That utter POS, even looks like a humpback whale, handles like crap, slides endlessly like Michael Jackson moon walking on fast forward, skipping back over and over (there goes my age, Jackson and VHS fast forward), but damn if it ain't fun to glide it at 90+ on pure inertia and just touch the slider/nipple to center oh-so-slightly.

As posted on the Frontier forum ...

"Indeed, the clipper gets it all: the looks, the utility and the survivability. Why then even bother flying for example a Type 7 when it has no strength or selling point to fly one? A Type 7 is a helpless box of cardboard with almost the same price tag and the dropship turns like a whale with a gastric bypass for cargo purposes and has the unconvincing strength of armor in a game where shields are king and people snipe powerplants...."

I was never into using it, since it was so murder happy. But it was near mandatory for doing repeated trade runs, where the angle of FTL exit was always going to be poor, since things orbit in this fantastic game. When trying to shave off minutes to keep the Cr/T high CR, low Time, it could help save 2-3 minutes in docking.

But really it was only faster to use if you are in a super heavy ship. I know 2-3 minutes time savings sounds high when docking to start with, but keep in mind how slow the behemoths of the space lanes are now. Toggled on and off at the right moments can save time and effort. It feels sort-of an exploit of the elite engine, but, docking a 500T or larger cargo ship is problematic at the best of times.

Also, the T series were great ships for piloting, since they have one of, or the best cockpits in Elite. I loved looking down between my legs for speed docking in the large cargo ships in the T series.

Maybe I'm sadistic, but when I grinded my first few hundred trading runs, the docking was my favorite part. I never tire of it, and love doing it.

Disclaimer: Please excuse any grammar, pathetic typos, or satanic versus known as "auto-correct" as this was posted via Tapatalk from my budget Honor 5X

[Orkekum]

Docking computers, my 400ton tradeconda has one. Mainly for when i jump and trade between two systems sitting next to eachother. Am lazy >_>
But the conda is easy to dock!