Making Ships Dock

[JimTM]

I've been testing ship movements lately and I'm wondering if it's possible to make ships dock (pull in close to a waypoint near an object on the shore).

 

I notice that if you don't keep ships moving in the middle of the river, they start a tight zig-zag pattern when they get close to the shore. For example, a ship will zig-zag when it comes around a river bend if the route is too close to the shore. When I place a waypoint near shore to try to get a ship to dock, the ship starts zig-zagging and sails down the river past the waypoint, whereas it hits all the other waypoints that I place on the river. In one test, the ship sailed merrily on right through a forest.  :-)

 

Here is my test mission:

 

JimTM-TestShipRouteWithStops.zip

 

I added some "off-road" formation commands in an attempt to stop the zig-zags as the ship neared shore.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks!

 

Jim 

[coconut]

Is that new? I was under the impression that ships ignored ground collision (or collisions in general) entirely.

[JimTM]

I don't know if it's new. In my tests, ships passed through other ships and the shore harmlessly, but they appear to be programmed to avoid the shore (except in my "through the forest" test mentioned above).

 

In a basic test, I tried using a single waypoint at the destination. The ship followed the river (just as a vehicle follows a road), but on a bend, the ship zig-zagged. When I placed more waypoints to keep the ship in the middle of the river, it took the bends smoothly, with just a tiny bit of zig-zag.

[Shouwick_Junjun_Nikku]

OK guys, when can we historical docks on Stalingrad on the next update.  I look Volga dozes of times and I would love to recreate to scenes from Stalingrad Movies Titles when Stukas are bombing the 62nd Red Army troops en route to slopes of city.

[JimTM]

OK guys, when can we historical docks on Stalingrad on the next update.  I look Volga dozes of times and I would love to recreate to scenes from Stalingrad Movies Titles when Stukas are bombing the 62nd Red Army troops en route to slopes of city.

 

That would be nice. Perhaps that could be a Question for Developers.

[Shouwick_Junjun_Nikku]

Thanks for the tips, now I'll help my self to hope and pray that the next update I'll be seeing it.

[Jade_Monkey]

Thanks for the tips, now I'll help my self to hope and pray that the next update I'll be seeing it.

 

 

Yes, I think the time between question posted and feature being added to the game is 2-4 weeks on average.

I think the chances are high for your request to make it to the next update if you hurry up and ask promptly.

 

/sarcasm

[fjacobsen]

Yes, I think the time between question posted and feature being added to the game is 2-4 weeks on average.

I think the chances are high for your request to make it to the next update if you hurry up and ask promptly.

 

/sarcasm

 

I wonder why sarcasme should be necessary....

 

This sim has evolved steadily and predictive since the early beta, only with a period of disarray due to the campaign and unlock system.

It´s true that there are still alot of open issues, but development is not at a standstill and for each update more is fixed than broken.

 

I´m sure that most stuff we request will be added at some point.

 

FinnJ

[JimTM]

One thing that I'm really looking forward to in BoS is learning how to get ships to dock. 

[coconut]

One thing I just thought about: I seem to remember that unlike for planes and vehicles, the direction of waypoints was important for ships. If they are zigzagging, it could be because of that. Also make sure the points have a detection radius that's large enough, sometimes my ships ended up navigating circles around waypoints because they kept missing.

[JimTM]

Thanks Coconut, I'll give your waypoint ideas a try.

[Jade_Monkey]

One thing I just thought about: I seem to remember that unlike for planes and vehicles, the direction of waypoints was important for ships. If they are zigzagging, it could be because of that. Also make sure the points have a detection radius that's large enough, sometimes my ships ended up navigating circles around waypoints because they kept missing.

 

 

That makes sense. A while back I worked on a ship escort mission (i gave up on it, too boring) and the ships had a weird behavior when turning, probably related to the direction of the waypoints.

[JimTM]

I tested a single ship with multiple waypoints and the direction set on each waypoint (as per Coconut's suggestion above). I found that the direction did not make any difference to how smoothly the ship sailed. Placing waypoints at the river bends is necessary to keep the ship from hugging the inner shore in the bend and zig-zagging a lot.

 

I think I'll assume that the docking idea is not possible at the moment. 

 

Thanks!

Edited February 24, 2016 by JimTM