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An example of the recovery system.
The Runway (formerly known as space vehicle recovery system) is a system on spacecraft which is used to recover space vehicles and allow for landing on a spacecraft. The recovered vehicle is automatically placed in an empty space vehicle parking spot within the spacecraft.
Vehicles need to be within 5000 meters of a spacecraft to request landing, using the Request Landing command, default Shift + N.
Once this landing is approved, a virtual runway appears in the space specified in the spacecraft design. The runway appears as a 500 meter long and 20 meter wide set of blue lines, with numbers on the touchdown end of the runway. To land, position the space vehicle on the landing end and fly towards the center of the runway, until the vehicle is automatically placed into an empty space vehicle parking spot.
The spacecraft you are landing on will produce callouts on the Hailcommunication channel while this is happening.
Call for landing using the Request Landing vehicle command. Default key binding is Shift+N. Any non-enemy vehicle can request landing. This will change to a ship policy but is not implemented yet; it is on my short list.
Vehicle must be within 5000m of the ship to call for landing.
When cleared for landing, the landing system is deployed. It appears as a virtual runway in space, numbers at the touch down end. The runway is 20m wide and 500m long.
To land, position your vehicle on the center line of the runway, between the blue lights at the sides. The runway is actually treated as a cylinder, centered on the white line, with radius at the blue lights. No particular speed or direction is required.
Hold your vehicle on the runway for a few seconds and the landing system will grab the vehicle and park it in an empty parking spot. To bring this all together, approach the runway at the landing end and fly along the center line until the system grabs you.
Ship makes radio calls throughout this process, on the Hail channel, at Hail range.
Space vehicle recovery system does not have to be in the hull extents of the ship design. It should be near the ship, so people can find it. There would probably be clipping errors if it was placed a great distance from the ship.
