Space Station IV(2001)

Space Station IV

Space Station IV is a space station from the World of 2001

It is a predecessor to the larger and more famous Space Station V. It is built in similar conception as a rotating wheel shaped space station, with two docking bays placed on its rotational axis at the opposite sides of the construction.

Docking is accomplished by getting on centerline and flying nose-first into the docking bay. Match rotations once close. Orions and Titovs and the Aries-Ib come with a “virtual” docking port that doesn't really mate to anything physical, but rather provides good guidance for DockMFD to guide you into the bay. There, docking cradles and arms (shown, but not animated for this release) will snug your spacecraft into place. Your spacecraft might be moved to one side or the other to free up the centerline bay for docking/undocking. In any case, a boarding access arm will move into position over the side hatch.

For the v3.1 release, the side docking ports are usable. You must dock at the centerline port as always; once there, your vessel will be shifted to the first available side port, to free up the centerline port for someone else to dock. If there is no available side port, you'll stay on the centerline, blocking everyone else. So hurry up and unload! To undock from a side port, just undock the forward port. You'll be shifted to the centerline port, where you can repeat the request and leave. If the centerline port is taken, you're stuck. Small craft (pods and Moonbuses) are shifted instead to one of the four small docking ports at the periphery of the bay, staying out of the way of the bigger traffic.

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