Planetary landing. The tedious search for a site.

I’ve recently come back to ED, after a long break. I have entered into the Guardian equipment grind, and have a few suggestions.
1. Allow our craft to land automatically. This doesn’t need to be right at the site, but within 1km. Currently all you do is fly around, searching for a site to land, which is a exercise in tedium rather than skill. It’s not like the ship can’t land automatically. Dismiss and recall proves this. I’m not looking to make everything easy, just make it skill based as opposed to a boring trial an error,flying over apparently flat ground, but computer says no. Make the actual landing far more difficult if that fits. But the eternal search for a landing site is dull as dishwater.
2. I’m on a low gravity planet, and in a SRV designed for rough terrain. Then why, for the love of god does a tiny rock stop me dead when trying to turn? I end up in a 3(9) point turn scenario, not to far from the Austin Powers scene, colliding with arbitrary immovable objects. Fine if it’s a pillar or huge bolder, but a football size rock...really.
3. I’ll throw this one in anyway. But this is more just an angry selfish rant. Stop the sentinels tipping me over.
4. This is a bug I’ve now encountered twice in 2 days. Totally wrecking my run. I took my SRV out to farm materials to refuel and re-arm. First time the green dot on radar representing my spaceship dissapeard. I though it had just auto dismissed itself. Sadly when I tried to recall, there was no option to execute this command. This forced me to self destruct my SRV. The next time(in my last SRV), I had to farm mats again. This time I dismissed manually, but had to log out shortly after. The next day logging back in, I spawned into my SRV. When I finished farming, I tried to recall ship. Again, no option to recall. Only way off the surface was to self destruct again. Now I was without SRV’s, and lacking the motivation to continue.

So to sum up.

Please change 1 and 2. Look into number 4.

CMDR out
 
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4. This is a bug I’ve now encountered twice in 2 days. Totally wrecking my run. I took my SRV out to farm materials to refuel and re-arm. First time the green dot on radar representing my spaceship dissapeard. I though it had just auto dismissed itself. Sadly when I tried to recall, there was no option to execute this command. This forced me to self destruct my SRV. The next time(in my last SRV), I had to farm mats again. This time I dismissed manually, but had to log out shortly after. The next day logging back in, I spawned into my SRV. When I finished farming, I tried to recall ship. Again, no option to recall. Only way off the surface was to self destruct again. Now I was without SRV’s, and lacking the motivation to continue.
Try logging out, and loggin into "non-horizons", this should put you in your ship, in orbit, you can then re-log in Horizons; still a PITA I'll grant you, but...
 
1. Sorry, that's on you - either your choice of ship or piloting skills. It's never taken me more than about a minute to find a spot and land at a Guardian site in my Asp. I've found landing my Krait more difficult at some volcanic sites, but that's on me - trying to squeeze into stupid places.
2. Meh, sure, occasional annoyance.
3. That's also on you. Don't get hit (break line of site as soon as you hear the very obvious loud warning), and/or handbrake.
4. Well that sounds crappy. Bug report?
 
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Finding a landing spot is skill based. The skill of surveying the terrain, knowing your ship's footprint and combining those two for discerning landing spot candidates.

Or you use a Viper IV.
 
I’ve recently come back to ED, after a long break. I have entered into the Guardian equipment grind, and have a few suggestions.
1. Allow our craft to land automatically. This doesn’t need to be right at the site, but within 1km. Currently all you do is fly around, searching for a site to land, which is a exercise in tedium rather than skill. It’s not like the ship can’t land automatically. Dismiss and recall proves this. I’m not looking to make everything easy, just make it skill based as opposed to a boring trial an error,flying over apparently flat ground, but computer says no. Make the actual landing far more difficult if that fits. But the eternal search for a landing site is dull as dishwater.
2. I’m on a low gravity planet, and in a SRV designed for rough terrain. Then why, for the love of god does a tiny rock stop me dead when trying to turn? I end up in a 3(9) point turn scenario, not to far from the Austin Powers scene, colliding with arbitrary immovable objects. Fine if it’s a pillar or huge bolder, but a football size rock...really.
3. I’ll throw this one in anyway. But this is more just an angry selfish rant. Stop the sentinels tipping me over.
4. This is a bug I’ve now encountered twice in 2 days. Totally wrecking my run. I took my SRV out to farm materials to refuel and re-arm. First time the green dot on radar representing my spaceship dissapeard. I though it had just auto dismissed itself. Sadly when I tried to recall, there was no option to execute this command. This forced me to self destruct my SRV. The next time(in my last SRV), I had to farm mats again. This time I dismissed manually, but had to log out shortly after. The next day logging back in, I spawned into my SRV. When I finished farming, I tried to recall ship. Again, no option to recall. Only way off the surface was to self destruct again. Now I was without SRV’s, and lacking the motivation to continue.

So to sum up.

Please change 1 and 2. Look into number 4.

CMDR out

1. I'd rather have the option to drop my SRV from my ship while it is still the 'air'.
 
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Finding a landing spot is skill based. The skill of surveying the terrain, knowing your ship's footprint and combining those two for discerning landing spot candidates.

Or you use a Viper IV.

Landing is buggy as hell as the blue alignment indicator often turns red just off the surface. Sometimes I even manage to touch down with the indicator blue but I have to rock the ship all over the place to get it to lock in.
 
One solution that often works on a less-than-ideal site is to zero your throttle a few metres up, select Flight Assist Off, and let gravity pull you down. You're more likely to settle into a suitable position.
 
One solution that often works on a less-than-ideal site is to zero your throttle a few metres up, select Flight Assist Off, and let gravity pull you down. You're more likely to settle into a suitable position.

That doesn't work on low G worlds. Plus the "too fast" indicator blows your landing lock and is WAY too touchy.
 
You get a magic autopilot when you summon your dismissed ship back. But not when you're actually in your ship. We live in this really perverse society that bans AI except when you're not looking at it. Like, a kind of limited technophobia which can be easily cancelled temporarily by sticking your fingers in your ears and saying la la la I'm pretending this didn't happen.
 
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I have the R key is bound to dismiss/recall ship. No issues. I once got stuck under my ship I'm guessing from a rock in the way. Couldn't move in any direction and the tires were spinning. I just dismissed my ship, got unstuck, drove the SRV a km or so and recalled it. It's a pretty simple process once you get the right key/button binds and practice it a few times.

Landing has never been an issue either. Once I'm down to maybe 30 meters from the surface I just putt around watching the screen until it tells me I have a good place to set it down. Honestly I did think planetary landings would be more of a challenge but it turns out they are just as easy as landing on an outpost with a few more instruments to watch.
 
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