Sky Port [aka Bucky's "Cloud Nine"]

[baobobafet]

A hybrid variant with rotating habitat underneath.

[baobobafet]

Updated pic with stabilization and orientation thrusters. Added an auxiliary entrance to the domed city.


An alternative way of entering large dome structures without any need for docking

May be used as an entry to deliver large payloads directly into the dome as well as secondary access for a player's ship.
This might be a nice solution for large domes that are flush with planet surfaces - negating the need to enter from below.

Whenever a player reaches proximity to such an airlock, the doors could open allowing a ship to enter.
Once the outer airlock door had closed and inner airlock door opened, the ship could proceed into the dome interior.
The same procedure could apply when exiting the dome.

Thruster placement

After some thinking on this I have concluded these are best kept 'inboard' since it negates having to match appropriate thruster equipped dome variants with planets that may or may not require them.

All dome stations would be equipped with thrusters (even the primarily floating ones) they just wouldn't use them as often. The main difference being you won't easily be able to tell externally whether a station is reliant on thrusters for staying aloft or not.

Probably the best thruster placement would be a star pattern with 5 main engines (failure of one would not be catastrophic) and some smaller auxiliary thrusters positioned around the rim. This would allow the 5 mains engines to clear any rotating habitat sections underneath and offer some reasonable platform stabilization options. Safety concerns for floating domes could require engines to always be on to monitor and insure platform stability.

[baobobafet]

An aside,
In regards to the proximity triggered auto opening doors
To clarify, this effect would be kept separate from a standard docking proceedure since the player never asked for docking clearance.

If clearance WAS asked for and GRANTED a normal scripted docking sequence would occur once the players ship was within some confines of the docking bay.

Encouraging traffic
It wouldn't be too hard to add other bay doors around the dome perimeter. These might function using a similar proximity trigger effect so as to allow entrance to the dome interior and also be bonified AI understood docking ports to the dome station.

[baobobafet]

Update with possibilities for yet more docking bays

[baobobafet]

updated
Moved small rotation stabilizer thruster positions lower, reconfigured and raised some bays to upper 'city' level.

[FluffyFreak]

My advice for this is to pull it back to the minimum that you need.
So you've got a large central dock, lots of smaller docks/bays around the outside and the rest is effectively decoration / scenery in that you can't really interact with it.
This is good because someone can build that right now using the existing docking waypoints.

Anything additional can then come later.

[baobobafet]

Fluffyfreak, No problem dialing back the actual number of dock-able ports - it does show the station's expansion capability though.

...and on that subject ;)

Two pictures one landing gear folded up the other partially extended for landing.


click to enlarge

Conceptualizing further (with the aim of increasing the flexibility and usefulness of such an asset)
Even though the main engine thrust nozzles are vectorable, I added additional positional thrusters to increase stabilization and maneuverability options.



click to enlarge

Ground asset prepping for touchdown

Telescopic landing legs extend downwards also (when not in use, doubling as water/fuel storage tanks). The landing legs are designed to fold almost completely into the rim superstructure when retracted - appearing generally only as squat protruding cylinders from the rim surface.

When the dome is landed, these legs will keep the central docking port just slightly clear of the terrain surface.
The central core dock becomes unusable for any large ship traffic and could instead be converted to essentially a freight elevator, able to transport heavy equipment, supplies and land based vehicles directly from the surface up to the various levels of the city.
Any rotating habitat underneath would have clearance enough to be able to continue functioning even though the dome city was parked on terrain.

Optional Auto spawn of central core elevator upon city landing
The elevator could resemble a cylinder that would lower down through the central core to the terrain surface, doors would open, allowing vehicles to enter. The player could control the elevator up/down to stop at any one of the available internal docking bays available within the central core in order to access various levels of the city.

For standard ship traffic, all other access and docking bays to the city would behave as normal.

[baobobafet]

Moonbase landed ;)
Removed a few docking bays

Updated with stronger spokes for habitat section. (especially for dedicated terrain variants & heavy G stress scenarios)
A three spoke system would work as well.
Has the benefit of allowing wider access to the habitat rim

[baobobafet]

Some normally 'invisible detail' that shows how the internals of the rotating habitat section might also have rotatable/tilting floor sections inside. These would allow the habitat to utilize any existing (planet) gravity as well as centrifugal force to more fully simulate a realistic 1G environment.

Each section would be connected by access collars to adjacent sections. The habitat access spokes would be connected to the only non tilting sections within the rotating wheel habitat.

[baobobafet]

(re-edited)
Central core elevator conversion

The central core freight elevator is actually a large sleeve with bay doors that sits dormant inside the docking port.
In converting it into an proper elevator 2 half circular floor sections must be slide into place at the elevators bottom.
Once secured, the elevator becomes operational.
An array of tension cables leading up from the outside top rim of the elevator travel up along the docking port walls to winches set in the sides of the docking port. These winches extend up to the very top of the rim of the docking port (city level)

As such they can lift the elevator up to the very top of this rim. Just slightly below the rim is an apeture at which the elevator doors can stop and open to allow vehicle traffic etc.



Accessing the 1G habitat section
Surrounding the central core docking port at city level is the centrifuge ring.
In order for people to enter the habitat section below, they must enter through this centrifuge.
Once in the centrifuge, passengers will begin to accelerate until they have matched speed with the moving habitat's inner (collar) ring section, one floor below.
When the speed of the two adjacent rings become synchronized, passengers are freely able to transfer between the upper centrifuge ring and the habitat's lower inner ring.