Why dock drones?

[desius]

I can understand the need for drones existing as mobile weapon/tool/mining platforms, but drone docking? In a universe which includes ship to ship transport, this is one thing I never understood the need for. Just transport the little guys in and out of their bays.

The same goes for cargo lifters, why not just transport goods on and of the ship? All the long effort over the years to get them to sync up right, not break, actually represent what is being transferred - seems like effort that could've been spent improving mechanics that add to game play instead of an attempt at a fully realized materials hand-off simulation.

[hisazul]

If you mean transporter device that was more of a... workaround in previous games due to their own limitations. I'd certainly prefer actual "docks" for capital ships and skipping the whole drone part. But other then that... can't really agree with you.

[Alan Phipps]

I actually rather enjoyed watching the drone ware transfer process, especially between resource delivery capitals and the CV of a station of mine under construction, or just between my capitals. I was quite disappointed when a version temporarily broke the drone transfer process if the Skunk was IZ/in sight of them.

I also quite liked watching CURVs temporarily docking to recharge and later reappearing in turn on the other side while conducting their circuits of repairs to a capital. All this detail adds to immersion in my opinion.

As to what happens when the Skunk is OOZ/out of sight of them, well anything that simplifies the unseen drone processes and so makes them more reliable - and without introducing gameplay exploits or insta-timings - would be OK with me.

I don't believe that the dev effort to produce this detail was necessarily at the expense of other more important work still left undone. I suspect that each dev initially worked primarily in their individual area of expertise and that they pooled resources and effort when a game-breaking issue needed team effort. I wouldn't know about any of that for sure though.

[Tamina]

I agree Alan Phipps.
Sometimes I just stand at a docking port and wait for capital ships to arrive and start transporting wares.
It gives a really nice indepth feeling.

It is sad that capital ships never get and got utilized by only transporting just a few ressources anyway (sometimes just 1!) and therefore mostly only 2 or 3 drones were utilized.
Would've been really cool to see thousands of wares getting transported.

[Nanook]

....
It is sad that capital ships never get and got utilized by only transporting just a few ressources anyway (sometimes just 1!) and therefore mostly only 2 or 3 drones were utilized.
Would've been really cool to see thousands of wares getting transported.

Not sure what you mean here. When transporting a large load of bulk or energy wares, there seems to be an almost endless stream of drones going between the ship and the dock. The more drones you have on the ship, the more drones the station uses to match them. They do transport thousands of wares, just not individually. That would take a very long time, longer than most players would want to wait, I'd guess.

[Tamina]

....
It is sad that capital ships never get and got utilized by only transporting just a few ressources anyway (sometimes just 1!) and therefore mostly only 2 or 3 drones were utilized.
Would've been really cool to see thousands of wares getting transported.

Not sure what you mean here. When transporting a large load of bulk or energy wares, there seems to be an almost endless stream of drones going between the ship and the dock. The more drones you have on the ship, the more drones the station uses to match them. They do transport thousands of wares, just not individually. That would take a very long time, longer than most players would want to wait, I'd guess.

Not sure what you mean you are not sure I meant
AIs capital ships (and mine controlled by a station manager) mostly only jump to the other end of the universe just to get or sell 1(!) single piece of a ware including but not limited to energy cells.
Capital transporters have a really big storage but I have never seen this storage utilized even close, not even to satisfy demand of a station even close.

Instead there are like 5 capitals waiting to dock just to sell 1 single piece of ware.
Some of those docking ships are not even mine but AI traders filled with much more cargo of many types and yet it just sells me a dozen if I am lucky...

Don't tell me this is just for me ice bear man.

[Nanook]

I thought we were talking about the drones, not the stupid NPC AI. When I'm in one of my capital trade ships, I buy a full load and I can watch the drones load and unload. And there are lots of them.

[ezra-r]

I kind of agree with the OP, although very nice to see, the process can be tedious and slow and it has had all sorts of "brokenness" for long, if it wasn't cargo lifter it was mining drones and if not... And ships manuvering to aling themselves then slowly sending drones, really tedious result (but I insist, nice to see).