Elite Phase 5 results - docking - PC3 (PicoMiteHDMIWEB V6.03.02b3, 378 MHz)
Measured 2026-09-10.

Docking is not a collision, it is five separate tests, and failing any one of
them at speed is fatal.  The slot is a letterbox on one face of the station, so
you have to arrive at the right face, pointing at it, lined up with it, and
rolled to match it.  The last test is what makes docking a manoeuvre rather
than an approach: the station turns continuously, so the roll that fits has to
be flown rather than held.

  1  the station is not hostile
  2  its own nose points back at us, within about 26 degrees
  3  it is nearly dead ahead, within about 22 degrees
  4  and in front of us at all
  5  our roll matches the slot, within about 34 degrees

Below speed 5 a failed approach bounces and costs a little energy.  Above it,
it does not.

Verified with the docking computer flying the approach from 7000 units out,
with the station rolling throughout so the alignment test is only satisfied for
part of each turn:
  docked at frame 1007, energy 255 and shields 255 untouched - a clean entry
  rather than a survived crash

Also in: the docking computer, the launch tunnel, police launched by a station
that has been attacked, and an outlaw record for attacking one.

One bug worth recording.  The check first ran on proximity alone, at 800 units.
Immediately after launching, the station sits a couple of hundred units behind
you and inside that range, so the very first frame read as a failed approach at
launch speed and killed the player before the demo drew a frame.  A station can
only be entered through the one face, so anything behind us is not an approach
at all, and the range is now touching distance rather than a neighbourhood.
