A little more data for landing
- Thread starter Decksmeck
- Start date
Lestat
Banned
The only thing I use in the large Stations is the compass. If the dot is due south the landing pad below me. I don't need numbers or anything. Smaller stations I use the compass give me the general direction of the landing pad.
I think someone posted a diagram once, each numbered landing pad is in the same position in every station, if you are landing and taking off a lot then it soon becomes second nature, you know exactly where the landing pad is from the slot front to back and a quick glance inside gives you rotation info for landing. In fact your current alignment compared to the pad is already displayed on the HUD in the compass as mentioned and distance to landing pad is pretty much irrelevant since you will be doing under 100mps while entering and that's plenty slow enough to plan your landing.
It's information that is already partly supplied, and really only useful for beginners, and they do have the landing tutorial and freewinder to practice with, but once you've done it a few times you won't need them anyway.
The compass does help get me pointed in the correct direction. I think they could create a contextual HUD for landing that begins when the landing gear is lowered. On the minalmilist side though, they could just put a colored band that moves around the outer ring of the compass frame. When the band is at the top of the ring you are aligned correctly with pad. Then if they would supply the distance to the landing, I should be able to land like I know exactly where I am going, even when I can't see the pad well.
Yes, you are correct, however, on planet surfaces and certain types of stations I may be facing the landing pad but I still need to turn the ship around to orient it correctly. If i had a separate indicator for alignment as well as distance, with practice, i can bring the ship in from any angle and rotate correctly, throttle down appropriately, and set down the ship in the right spot in a completely simultaneous manner.
Actually, my idea with the compass won't be quite enough. On certain stations I may also be inverted during my approach.
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inverted? what is up and down in space? I choose orientation based on what landing pad should land on. should I have the green lights to my right or left side, so that I will be mostly facing the landing pad when I have entered the station.
For planetary landings, the general rule is that landing pads are "mostly" pointing towards the center of the base. but there are of course some bases that defy this logic.
Also the lit up number, should be where you point your ship towards.
Outposts, are a mess, but they are not that big, and with practice you soon recognize the hangar boxes and identify where you need to go. But I have seen all sorts of configurations on these. I have even seen small landing pads side by side that are pointing in the opposite directions, that was confusing the first time.
The navigation compass/ball can be used in all of these scenarios to give you a bearing towards the landing pad, it is easiest to learn to use it on stations.
The HUD displays (digitally) Lateral/vertical deviation, also distance to the pad. The downside is those numbers are A:Hidden away at the bottom of the HUD
B: Only visible once the final approach hologram becomes available - So in essence pretty useless.
The numbers are in meters.. Would be handy if the info was displayed as soon as you have docking clearance.
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Inverted?!? You do realise that's the easiest way to land most small ships? They have very little downward visibilty but a huge canopy overhead, most of my time in my Cobra and Python I spent flying upside down to the landing pad....on purpose....then doing a quick 180% roll and touching down. Of course I went on to purchase a type 6 then a Krait Phantom for exploration and it's not such an issue with them, but in space down is where your feet are, get used to that and you can approach anywhere in any orientation and be down with a quick flip and touch of vertical thrust faster than most pilots can land the right way up!
For planetary landings I use a similar, but different technique. In (military) aeroplanes on earth we call it a "Tirpitz Arrival".
If the landing pad is in the opposite direction to my approach - provided the planet isn't high g - I fly inverted directly over the pad at a suitable altitude, and when directly over the pad, yaw until my heading is 180° to the approach path, then wait a few seconds. Then pitch the nose up (towards the planet surface) and complete a half loop from the inverted attitude to then be facing the pad on the correct heading for the final approach. (IRL in a Hawk T Mk1 military training jet you need 5,000ft + ;depending on airspeed; above ground level before pulling a Tirpitz Arrival
).Yours Aye
Mark H
I think it took me over a year to learn to not fly "sideways" through the mailslot when entering the space station... no matter what I did, I always ended up rotated 90 degrees.
Well this sort of ended abruptly when I progressed into bigger ships that did not fit "sideways".... and I will never admit on how much time I spent stuck due to this little issue. Lets just say my friends never followed me in for a time....
I vote for ability to toggle the old Frontier approach vector/ bounding boxes and the info you mention above.
This applies for landing on pads as well- there needs to be a clear level indicator because landing nose down works but is silly and with passenger missions there should be penalties for rough landings or bonuses for perfectly aligned and gentle touch-down.
Not that exterior landing pads should CARE about our facing in the first place, you know since we're completely VTOL and all that...but yeah, the compass can help enormously when aligning for a landing--more than the landing pad itself most times. Just keep it at the bottom of the circle but not behind you...and watch for obstructions and ships on the way down.