endless queues of non player ships at armor stations

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relanat
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The stacking of nonplayer ships waiting to dock at stations (armor dealers) may be because the number of <DockingPorts> is less that the value of dockingPorts= for a station.

From CorporateHierarchy.xml 1.6.3

<StationType UNID="&stManufacturingPlant;"
name= "Corporate manufacturing plant"
sovereign= "&svCorporate;"
inherit= "&baCorporateStation;"

dockScreen= "Main"
abandonedScreen= "&dsAbandonedStation;"
dockingPorts= "8"

<DockingPorts>
<Port x="0" y="101" />
<Port x="67" y="56" />
<Port x="99" y="-9" />
<Port x="72" y="-84" />
<Port x="0" y="-108" />
<Port x="-72" y="-84" />
<Port x="-99" y="-9" />
<Port x="-67" y="56" />
</DockingPorts>

dockingPorts= "8" and the number of <DockingPorts> is eight as well. Never seen it at these.


<StationType UNID="&stArmorDealer;"
name= "Corporate armor dealer"
sovereign= "&svCorporate;"
inherit= "&baCorporateStation;"

dockScreen= "Main"
abandonedScreen= "&dsAbandonedStation;"
dockingPorts= "8"

<DockingPorts>
<Port x="0" y="64" />
<Port x="64" y="0" />
<Port x="0" y="0" />
<Port x="50" y="90" />
<Port x="90" y="20" />
</DockingPorts>

Can be a couple of dozen ships stacked at these. Ships may be trying to dock at one of eight ports of which only 5 exist.


<StationType UNID="&stHotel;" doesn't have DockingPorts= but does have 9 <DockingPorts> cooordinates.

<DockingPorts>
<Port x="0" y="-90" />
<Port x="96" y="-70" />
<Port x="-96" y="-70" />
<Port x="105" y="-25" />
<Port x="-105" y="-25" />
<Port x="68" y="-100" />
<Port x="-68" y="-100" />
<Port x="70" y="25" />
<Port x="-70" y="25" />
</DockingPorts>

so the number of <DockingPorts> is greater than dockingPorts= because the latter doesn't have a value.
Never seen ships stacked at these stations either.


Another discrepancy is Corporate Traders which has dockingPorts="8" and 9 <DockingPorts>. Once again the number of actual docking coordinates is greater than dockingPorts= so you don't see ships stacking up here.

I think I've seen this stacking at another station (maybe in an earlier version?) but can't remember which type. The stacking wasn't anywhere near as bad so possibly there is only one too few docking points (as opposed to 3 at armor stations).

Also the ships that are endlessly circling (in a straight line though) don't show any thrust effects except when they are turning at the end of the line.

Hope that helps.
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StealthX051
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Did you open a ticket at the ministry? I find that shooting a civilian ship (freighter or sapphire) with a low powered weapon usually makes them break away.
NMS
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I added a link in this ticket.
shanejfilomena
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While you might sometimes find a station has listed more ports then are actually set up , the basic idea is to have one port open for the player : the unintended result is ships that can not dock so they have to wait :

there have been several efforts to try to get around this for the traffic's sake because those ships are easy targets, have a high tendency to start trouble for the station if the "holding pattern" puts them in weapon range to fire at hostiles.

I , personally have been trying to make efforts in this but in the end I keep hitting the same problem of not being able to get rid of existing excess ship traffic.

the three options I got on the list that might best address the problem are:
A) set docking port seeking for traffic to 3 instead of " an open port " ( meaning 1 ) for the traffic code itself when a ship leaves a station

B) & C) were more horrible ideas
Last edited by shanejfilomena on Thu Jan 07, 2016 3:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Atarlost
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If a station has more than 2 fewer guards than docking ports NPCs can never dock. If it has more than 3 fewer anything beyond light traffic will cause issues.

The simple solution is to find stations where this is a problem and give them more docking ports.
Literally is the new Figuratively
shanejfilomena
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Atarlost wrote:If a station has more than 2 fewer guards than docking ports NPCs can never dock. If it has more than 3 fewer anything beyond light traffic will cause issues.

The simple solution is to find stations where this is a problem and give them more docking ports.
With Respect, Admiral, I know that has been tried after the traffic was first seen backing up -
I did it myself, while it may make some room, it does not solve the situation because the ships are still looking for that 1 open port ( which happens to be "reserved" for the Player), so setting the ports to 2 or 3 was the obvious first option to attempt

Since I worked with the Korolov traffic codes attempting to help resolve some interesting behavior, I settled on the traffic code itself being the solution :

In my own games it has so far been a reasonable effort - not perfect, but the flow of traffic into the system Vs. the length of the docking is where that issue arises, which is why I said that putting a control over the comTrafficControl Global with a simple

Code: Select all

(switch 
to review available ports before releasing the traffic into the system would be a two pronged attack that might be a better solution for more effective results.

However, You ARE more experienced then I and don't totally disagree with your advice, I just have had no success with doing that being as there are "Just so many" ports you can add while remaining on station .

I would not be very surprised if we all on the right track with this, just we might be not seeing the full picture, only our pieces of it ..
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Atarlost
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shanejfilomena wrote:
Atarlost wrote:If a station has more than 2 fewer guards than docking ports NPCs can never dock. If it has more than 3 fewer anything beyond light traffic will cause issues.

The simple solution is to find stations where this is a problem and give them more docking ports.
With Respect, Admiral, I know that has been tried after the traffic was first seen backing up -
I did it myself, while it may make some room, it does not solve the situation because the ships are still looking for that 1 open port ( which happens to be "reserved" for the Player), so setting the ports to 2 or 3 was the obvious first option to attempt
Setting the ports to 2 or 3 is exactly backwards.

Code: Select all

		<DockingPorts>
			<Port x="0"		y="64" />
			<Port x="64"	y="0" />
			<Port x="0"		y="0" />
			<Port x="50"	y="90" />
			<Port x="90"	y="20" />
		</DockingPorts>
There are 5 ports. If setting ports to another value in the stationtype element does anything at all it will be to ignore any defined docking ports beyond its value.

The problem is the interaction with the ships element.

Code: Select all

		<Ships>
			<Lookup count="2" table="&tbCorpDefenders;"/>
			<Lookup count="1d2" table="&tbCommPrivateCrafts;"/>
		</Ships>
Half the time the armor dealer spawns with all its non-reserved ports already full. Anything in the ships element gets docked first, before even the reserved docking port gets reserved. You have to reduce the total number of possible ships so that it's at most 2 less than the real number of ports and preferably 3 less. Or define more ports in the dockingports attribute, but that's an art problem.
Literally is the new Figuratively
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