There's your ship now learn to fly 3.
24 Jan 2022Tiffany Yür
Bought a new ship and embarked on a short supply run to the next star system. Ever since the docking computers were introduced, I've been increasingly been relying on them. I mean, I can land a ship given enough time. Imagine my surprise on the fact that not all ships nowadays host a stock landing assistant. Leaving the station in space or in a planetary port is of course pretty much routine, just apply a bit of upwards thrust disconnect the landing gear and you're away. The modern starports have the exit gate that's big enough for medium size ships to go through, even slanted, there's no true requirement for accuracy for these. Large ships are another thing, I guess. But. To handle the landing in a rotating environment without a docking assistant, is still a skill not all can handle. So, there I was going towards an iconic starport with the largest (still medium sized) ship I've handled since umm.. 12 years, and realizing I have NO DOCKING ASSISTANT! This caused a mild panic, since, that much I knew, I did not have a fuel scoop either. So there was no way to refuel in flight. I thought that I'll fly to a smaller station but none were very near. The heck. The only place near was a planetary station. I've practiced landing on planets regularly, but not with 36 tons on back. There was no alternative, so planet-bound I went. Missed the entry somewhat, probably due the heavy cargo and ended up 200 km from the station. Boosting the engines regularly got me there eventually, and in flight I had time to train the fine motoring skills of gas and orientation I knew would become handy in the actual docking. A landing on a planet requires way less accuracy than that.
To cut the story short, on my second attempt I got it in. It's nuts what sort of mistakes you can do when relying on the fast responses of the docking assistant for too long. Luckily the station got some docking computers for sale and later i got the fuel scoop as well set in. I'm not talking of the expenses due repairs to the ship after the first attempt. Shame on me. It will take at least a short while before I attempt a manual landing on a rotating starport, and when I try it, it will be on the nimblest cheap boat I have.
Date:two days after the above
I was so shaken by the botched docking I needed to take a day off, the Pilot's Federation official told me that the decision to take out their trash at the planateray port was a good one. Just moved it away at a loss. Gotta help with the clean up of the incident. The station structures are sturdy and most the damage was to the ship.
Today I took out the Viper for a spin. Docked first to an outpost, then to a planetary station, then to an orbis, and then back to a coriolis one. The vessel took only 1% of damage, easily repairable during regular maintenance. So I still can do docking manually. The Pilot's Federation guy said I should at some point disconnect also the rotational stabilizers and try to dock like that. I said to the guy that I plan not to end up in so damaging instances that I would have to resort to driving 20 century style. He just smiled. There are plenty of conflicts in the Bubble, I know, but usually you can avoid all of them. Then there are the pirates occasionally interdicting your low wake, but you can make their profession harder in a couple of ways. How to transport large quantities of valuable cargo safely is though a skill I'm still learning.