Discovery 5.1 - Aftershock: Dev Diary #6, The Little POB That Could

[Aingar]

Discovery 5.1 - Aftershock: Dev Diary #6
The Little POB That Could

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Today we talk POBs! They are getting removed once and for all as Chris Roberts intended a few changes coming up with 5.1.

First of all, the already available updated /base help and /shop menus. I've been tinkering a bunch with the Pop Up Window tech used for those in an attempt to get other functionalities such as crafting/module building to take advantage of it, but sadly, being limited to 3 buttons, one of which needs to be a close button makes for a very clunky interface, so I'm afraid we're stuck with the command line for the time being.

New /shop menu in action

Now onto the New And Shiny things coming to 5.1! One of them is basically an extension of an already announced feature: buy/sell prices. The POBs will now be able to act as a middle legs in a long and perilous journey to ship, for example, Artifacts or Cardamine to Independent Worlds, buying for less, selling for more, with everyone getting a share of the pie. Obviously this feature isn't as critical since we already have refineries processing one commodity into another, but there are still some outliers that aren't privy to this, such as Xeno Relics.

BMM POB proudly broadcasting it's IFF

Rest of the changes are mostly about flavor, and don't truly change much, but they're *neat*, so why not?
POBs will now act a lot closer to an NPC base, proudly broadcasting their IFFs on mouseover, and if nearby NPCs are friends with the base IFF, and not friends with you, the base will lock its bays to your vessels, as well as priming it guns. Assuming you're not on The List, that is.
This also means that the base will be actively shot by NPCs of hostile affiliation, although that will not trigger either the shields, nor will it deal any damage. Again, pure flavor.
Last but not the least, the POBs will no longer just jettison you in front of themselves. Instead, they will play the adequate undocking animation depending on the base model and your ship type. This might mean that some of the... less maintained models might have janky undocking sequences, throwing you facing backwards to where you think you should be pointed at, or straight up getting your ship stuck (shoutout to all Barge Boys, your pain is known). But that's just something that needs fixing.

A Molly fighter being Very Angry about the Bowex POB

The tech used for undocking might mean that in the not-so-near future, ships with docking modules might be able to properly play the undocking animation, but given how that kind of feature is to detriment of the carrier, since it'd need to be standing still, and very few ship having actual docking bay animations, it might end up being a pipe dream for the time being.

And here it is in action:
https://streamable.com/j5sdmt

*Okay Wildkins, can I finally have that unpaid week off? No? D'oh!*