Oculus Rex

So I've just started playing the game again after an extended period playing other things. Have the thruster mechanics changed or are stacked "Slices" still the way to go?

This is by no means a new topic as the question has undoubtably been asked before. However I'd like to hear from one of the devs in regards to the possibility of being able to hard dock a smaller ship to a bigger one. Say a smaller mining/salvaging ship to a larger combat ship. It would save a lot of time on swapping out of cards and turrets at the very least.

Can this mod be loaded separately on my computer? I play on a server and when I'm building ships to test I use single player on my computer. It's bloody annoying having to find and hire the crews to test my ships properly and the /crew command would be useful. Edit: Wrong thread, admin please delete.