undock and dock

[Cronester]

Hello,

Often I see people undock and immediately dock a small ship to a big ship. Now I am trying to do the same. I can undock, ofcourse, but I cannot dock. Is there some trick to it?

Greetz,
Cronester

[SekoETC]

The big boat has to be there first. Otherwise you have to move for one tick, however slightly, before the list of dockable locations gets updated.

[iavatus]

Welcome to the wonderful weird world, of water. It odd, and crazy.

But for that, you can't dock your smaller ship, to the same larger ship you just undocked from, until a tick has passed. If two larger ships are within the instant dock range, you could shuttle between the two. But you need to wait a tick, or move slightly (not sure if you actually need to move, but welcome to try and find out), before you can.

[Cronester]

odd and crazy... is that an error in programming?

[iavatus]

Don't believe so, more of the way it is. If it could dock and undock, repeatedly, makes it possible to do some sorts of abuse. This way, there's a little more thought and planning required. But yes, it's odd, and takes some getting used to.

[Cronester]

ok... interesting. Abuse huh?

[Moonflame]

A while ago I realised I couldn't dock straight to land after undocking from a ship. I got confused and just contacted the department about it thinking it might be a bug as another player had been confused by it too. Got a reply to say that it was an old bug that they decided to keep and most people have got used to it.

Edit: I don't have much of an opinion on fixing it because I haven't had much experience of it, don't know how much it would annoy me. Would fixing this bug increase my risk of becoming a pile of bones beside a hand crafted mug? Maybe we should keep it.

[Axiom]

A while ago I realised I couldn't dock straight to land after undocking from a ship. I got confused and just contacted the department about it thinking it might be a bug as another player had been confused by it too. Got a reply to say that it was an old bug that they decided to keep and most people have got used to it.

Can we please fix this? The undocking/redocking thing is really weird. Especially not being able to instantly redock to a ship you just left. Also, it would be really nice to be able to instantly dock to land.

[Kyriel]

Yeah... That's not really a good reason to keep a bug. It's certainly going to, and has, trip up new players and people who simply haven't sailed a lot. Having to sail for a tick away from the coast just to be moving is really unintuitive and has messed me up for several ticks before. And in other cases, it may mean the difference between life and death.

[iavatus]

To me, it's essentially the same as land travel. Leave town? Stuck out there for some time. Leave the ship? Stuck from it for some time (unless there's another ship nearby and you dock to it). There's implications and reasons behind it, I think. Stops certain tricks being pulled, or at least, not without giving the ship being docked to, the same opportunities.

Besides, isn't Cantr's middle name unintuitive, and trip up the newfies? Stuff up something, or not know what'll happen if you undock? Seems perfectly Cantr to have it have consequences. When you know what'll happen, ah. Then, you can do some interesting, devious things.

[Kyriel]

The trouble isn't really the wait, so much as that unless you sail away from the land for a tick, even at a slow speed, you will not be able to dock to the beach the next tick. That's the really weird part about it all.

[sanchez]

Requiring a tick to refresh the docking targets after undocking is a reasonable solution to what could be an unfair advantage. I believe there was also some move to prevent the creation of ‘bridges’, though I still like the idea.

Docking directly to land, without a port, is a different issue. I’ve felt it’s gotten more difficult lately to find the precise approach for instant dock (again, this is from sea, not after undocking from a port which would automatically give the optimal position), following the implementation of incremental docking to land. I’ve been told I’m mistaken that it’s changed, but I’ve only managed it once in the past six months. I do wish, that however docking to land is done, it could be the same as docking to a port.

[Marian]

I don't mind a delay in docking, but I just think whatever system there is should be consistent. Automatically being put at 75% is one thing, not having the button appear at all until you sail a little ways is unintuitive and weird.

[Tiamo]

The trouble isn't really the wait, so much as that unless you sail away from the land for a tick, even at a slow speed, you will not be able to dock to the beach the next tick. That's the really weird part about it all.

This only happens with slower boats.
Usually there is some distance between the land location and the open sea (in directions N/NW/W/SW etc., the undock directions). After undocking the ship MUST be in open sea, otherwise all kinds of weird things happen. This distance sometimes is larger than the distance a slow boat sails in 1 tick. This causes the situation.

But it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

I never thought of the 'bridge' Sanchez mentioned (moving large distances by repeatedly docking and undocking to a series of ships or maybe even harbours), but yeah, that should really not be possible. Like with all actions that don't take any time there should be some kind of limitation to it. This one occurred by accident, but is necessary. A more intuitive alternative would be undocking is immediate, but docking always takes at least one tick (like Marian points out).

[Kyriel]

The trouble isn't really the wait, so much as that unless you sail away from the land for a tick, even at a slow speed, you will not be able to dock to the beach the next tick. That's the really weird part about it all.

This only happens with slower boats.
Usually there is some distance between the land location and the open sea (in directions N/NW/W/SW etc., the undock directions). After undocking the ship MUST be in open sea, otherwise all kinds of weird things happen. This distance sometimes is larger than the distance a slow boat sails in 1 tick. This causes the situation.

Not necessarily. I've had it happen with sloops undocking from a larger ship to dock to a location that didn't have a harbor.