Tuesday 4 October 2011

Quick Tips - Dock Bookmarks

This is a fairly basic one, but it might be of use to some of you. You know occasionally when you warp to station and have to power a little way before you can dock? Usually it's only a few seconds so it's no big deal, but what if there are hostiles on station and you're in something especially slow or fragile? Ah, that could be more of a problem.

Not an ideal situation

Whenever you warp to something, you never land at that spot - instead you'll land about 2500m from your actual target in any given direction, but since distance is measured from the edge of the object rather than the centre, it will usually read as much less on your overview. When you warp to a station, you don't warp to the centre of it, but you also don't necessarily warp to the edge of its docking radius (I'm not sure exactly what target your ship warps to, but it seems to be somewhere between the edge of the docking radius and the edge of the physical model). On some stations this means you'll land in docking range every time, while on others you can consistently drop outside of it when warping from particular directions.

The solution to this is the dock bookmark. This is a bookmark well inside docking radius of the station, which you can warp to to guarantee you land in range to dock immediately. The docking radius of the station forms a sphere around the model, so the ideal place for such a bookmark is in an area where the station model dips inwards. Some station models project almost to the edge of their docking radius in one plane (either vertically or horizontally) while having a lot of extra room in another. If possible, you should make your bookmark well away from the undock and avoid any protrusions on the model so that you can warp in from any direction without having to worry about bouncing off anything when you land.

4 comments:

  1. Great tip, and definitely something you should do on every station you dock at more than once.

    Personally, I've never bounced off a station, even if I had the bookmark right on the bottom of it and came warping in from the top. You'll just go right through it.

    When you're fully out of warp, you might bounce off a little, but you click-and-hold that station when warping and release on the dock button when you land anyway, right? =]

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  2. I've found that I already have many dock bookmarks...they are my station cyno bookmarks. Note that a station cyno bookmark meets all the criteria for a dock BM, but not vice-versa. So you can save time and bookmark space by combining these types. Of course, some stations have docking radii that are too small for cynoing, so be careful.

    Also, based on the title I thought this blog entry was going to be about tactical bookmarks off stations. I know you use them plenty but I'm not sure if you've covered them on this blog. Particularly their value in avoiding bubbles on stations.

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  3. For pvping its best to have it at the undock so you can catch people coming out if your thinking aggressive not just safe

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  4. Setting course to docking perimeter while you are in a pod surrounded by enemies is the worst message evar.

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The Altruist is the Eve Online blog of Azual Skoll, PVP instructor and small gang PVPer.

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