What is the purpose of the Dock tile?

[Wayward Will]

Is it purely decoration? It says something about it "floating" to walk or carry animals, but I can't seem to do anything special with it.
Is it purely flavor text, and it's just an expensive wooden platform with a nod to explain if you want to make it floating disconnected?

[Packetdancer]

Dock tiles will not collide with other islands, meaning you can build a "dock" off the side of your island with them, fly up alongside another island, and the dock tiles will not prevent you from getting close. Using normal platforms, they will collide and so it may keep you from getting close enough to carry animals without some... creative... parking.

This way, you can park your dock "into" the other island, and so walk between your island and that one (including carrying animals from your island to the other to restore ecosystems).

[AngryChef]

just an expensive way to build bridges to other islands to walk over. NO idea why this overcomplication exists in the game but yeah. Confuses a lot of people cause its just not needed and not intuitive

[Pesky]

So glad you asked. Saved me from wondering.

I had thought that it was a platform you could stand on and then make it move. But I couldn't make it move so I just disassembled it and gave up.

[MantonX2]

What makes it "better" than just using a simple wooden floor/platform to build a bridge is that it doesn't interact with the other island. So it doesn't push your island away or make you have to hover it over the other island and drop down on it.

I resisted using them but one too many times of my island moving when I wasn't looking and almost killing a sheep I was carrying back to an island because I stepped into the void, I used them. Materials worth that peace of mind.

[xitooner]

In the older demo I just made bridges (3-4 tiles forward, and a looong set of stairs down) and they didnt have island interaction issues; just sunk right into it. Never lost anythnig or fell off. I am not at this point yet in the real version but I'll give it a try later.

[Wayward Will]

Understood, thank you for the info. I don't find it the most intuitive thing ever, but I understand the design idea.

Really hoping we get some sort of baby-swaddle-like animal carrier, so we can glide with animals.

[Vental]

This is stupid, this whole time I thought it acted like a pully-lift. As in, an elevator. An easy way to park ABOVE an island and then lower the lift DOWN.

[Honey Badger]

Originally posted by Vental:

This is stupid, this whole time I thought it acted like a pully-lift. As in, an elevator. An easy way to park ABOVE an island and then lower the lift DOWN.

I thought the same thing. Yeah this is dumb.

[WakWak]

Originally posted by Vental:

This is stupid, this whole time I thought it acted like a pully-lift. As in, an elevator. An easy way to park ABOVE an island and then lower the lift DOWN.

That would be a clever idea as well.

I originally thought it would be so you can combine two islands to some sort of island complex, draggin some smaller islands alongside your "Mothership".

[Chashmodai]

Originally posted by Vental:

This is stupid, this whole time I thought it acted like a pully-lift. As in, an elevator. An easy way to park ABOVE an island and then lower the lift DOWN.

why would you do that when you can just jump down

[Aleisis]

Oh, that's brilliant! Thanks! I like making island complexes by parking all the islands in an archipelago next to each other, with walkways in between. It worked in the early demo iirc, but now the collision stops it working. Very happy to hear of this solution, thank you! :)

[Aleisis]

Originally posted by Wayward Will:

Really hoping we get some sort of baby-swaddle-like animal carrier, so we can glide with animals.

I was thinking a balloon that you could tow along, like a big version of the floating resource bags. Love the idea of the animals getting a balloon ride!

[Vental]

Originally posted by Chashmodai:

why would you do that when you can just jump down

Two-way transport. Yes, I know you can teleport animals back to your base but that:
1.) is not immersive
2.) will teleport them to a random part of your island rather than the pen you want them to be in so you would have to carry them anyways.

This would ESPECIALLY be handy if you could attach a chest to your lift. This way you get more storage.

[intentionally blank]

Originally posted by Vental:

... will teleport them to a random part of your island ...

Actually, it will teleport them to the "spawn point", which is a point pre-designated on each island. You can discover where this point is on your home base by gliding around, looking for the exact location of the home icon.

If this spawn point happens to be too close to walls or rocks, animals and players can get stuck inside, requiring console commands and other nasty workarounds to fix (if it's fixable at all). This is a major bug that Astrolabe is currently furrowing their brows over; they are probably going to introduce a new building part that lets you put your spawn point wherever you like (hopefully one for me and another for my animals).

I tried building a dining room at my spawn point, but I always end up respawning on top of the roof! I think for animal teleport purposes, you could "choose" this point as the inside of your animal pen, and fence it off so that new arrivals will go where they're supposed to automatically (assuming your island's spawn point won't land them inside of solid rock).

[Vental]

Originally posted by intentionally blank:

Actually, it will teleport them to the "spawn point", which is a point pre-designated on each island. You can discover where this point is on your home base by gliding around, looking for the exact location of the home icon.

I get what you are trying to correct but if the spawn point itself is arbitrary/not based on anything, then it still is a random point on the island, even if it's consistently that random point.

Originally posted by intentionally blank:

If this spawn point happens to be too close to walls or rocks, animals and players can get stuck inside, requiring console commands and other nasty workarounds to fix (if it's fixable at all). This is a major bug that Astrolabe is currently furrowing their brows over

Hence why a lift could be useful. Which was the question the message you quoted was trying to answer.

Originally posted by intentionally blank:

they are probably going to introduce a new building part that lets you put your spawn point wherever you like (hopefully one for me and another for my animals).

Doesn't the bed already work as that for players? I will admit, a designated "pen marker" would be a nice alternative, though I still say a lift would be more interesting and more useful. Not to say that they shouldn't do both. As you pointed out, the current system is problematic.

Question is, what would it look like. Personally, I like the idea of something akin to a mystic signal flair using the waystones. Something you craft and toss that eventually despawns. I think this is the least obtrusive way to do it. You toss it on the ground, it turns into energy and kinda "evaporates" into mystic particles going up but marks the spawn point for your animals.

I still say the BED is good implementation so far. That's where you go when you die and teleport. Just not where you load into the game at, and that much should be fixed.