Any advice on recovering items floating in the atmosphere

[Verson Geterix]

Hello Commanders,

Regarding missions to recover (black boxes, commercial samples etc), where those items are found to be floating in the upper atmosphere of a planet.

The fact that the items are being dragged to the planet makes them difficult to scoop. Collectors are worse than useless for this, so manual scooping seems to be the only option, but nevertheless, difficult. I've experimented with approaching the signal source in such a way that I'm between it and the planet. But that doesn't seem to be much easier. The whole situation is further complicated in war zones, where a fleet of unpleasant trouble warps in about 30 seconds after I drop in - making the job impossible.

Any advice?

Regards

Geterix

 

[Conch]

collector limpet controller?

 

[Verson Geterix]

collector limpet controller?

No good. They spin out of control and can't handle the gravity.

 

[Faded Glory]

collector limpet controller?

Absolutely this...

While it's possible to manually scoop things close to a planet, it's difficult, and as you've experienced, some of these missions have rather aggressive pirates that drop in and attack you, just because. Even using limpets you will likely only have time to collect one canister at a time, so will need to wait for additional signal sources to spawn.

Using collector limpets is by far and away the most efficient and effective way to complete space salvage missions.

No good. They spin out of control and can't handle the gravity.

Hmmm.. Can't say I've ever had that problem...

If that happens, simply abandon that USS, fly a bit further from the planet and wait for another to spawn.

 

[Sylow]

As he also wrote, collectors are not doing the job in this situation. Manual scooping is the only way. As long as you're far enough from the planet, so the stuff is not falling with more than 30 m/s, it can be collected by following it and picking it up, despite the shaking.
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Once it's over 30 m/s this is impossible. In pure theory, you can place yourself in the path of what you collect and wait till it falls into the cargo hatch, but unless i see a demonstration, i doubt that anybody actually manages to do that reliably. (Even the follow and catch method requires a bit of luck, no matter how practiced you are. )
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The same in a war zone, i would abaondon the stuff. Doing that kind of scooping while being under fire for sure is outside of my scope of abilities.
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[amcb10]

From experience I just re-log and 9 times out of 10 they are no longer in the atmosphere so not sure if it is a bug or not.

I found items in the atmosphere were impossible to scoop or capture with a Limpet.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

The best way I have found is to get behind them as they descend towards the planet, so that they aren't moving about too much only falling away from you, then speed up until you are closing on them. It's your closing speed that matters for scooping so you can be going quite fast if the target is falling quickly. Watch the scoop window to get the speed right. Still it's not that easy unless you get directly behind them.

 

[Sylow]

It's your closing speed that matters for scooping so you can be going quite fast if the target is falling quickly. Watch the scoop window to get the speed right. Still it's not that easy unless you get directly behind them.

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Really? Interesting. From what i remember, my scoop window turns red once my ship is over 30 m/s, no matter how fast the object i want to pick up moves. And when i moved just a tad over 30 m/s my scoop never picked something up. Of course, i might've messed up or i remember wrongly.
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[IndigoWyrd]

Collector Limpets work perfectly for snatching these kinds of things, but you have to go about it a little differently than you would for collecting things free-floating in space.

1. Boost past the items you want to collect. You need to get ahead of them so they're falling towards you.
2. Lock on to the object you want to collect. When it comes in range, launch your collector. This will cause the limpet to expire after collecting the item, but it will collect it.
3. Be sure to throttle to zero. Since the object is in motion, if you are also in motion it becomes incredibly easy for the limpet to simply smash against your ship instead.
4. Be sure to deploy your cargo hatch. It should go without saying, but you'd be surprised.

I use this very method regularly and with great success.

 

[NecasekO]

Just a minor correction - there is no atmosphere in these situations, just weak gravity

As for the OP, I found that positioning my ship so that that I can see the planet behind the scooped item (it falls away from me) makes scooping fairly straightforward, although slow. I was never able to reliably scoop items approaching from other directions.

 

[Sylow]

Collector Limpets work perfectly for snatching these kinds of things, but you have to go about it a little differently than you would for collecting things free-floating in space.

1. Boost past the items you want to collect. You need to get ahead of them so they're falling towards you.
2. Lock on to the object you want to collect. When it comes in range, launch your collector. This will cause the limpet to expire after collecting the item, but it will collect it.
3. Be sure to throttle to zero. Since the object is in motion, if you are also in motion it becomes incredibly easy for the limpet to simply smash against your ship instead.
4. Be sure to deploy your cargo hatch. It should go without saying, but you'd be surprised.

I use this very method regularly and with great success.

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Yay! Never tried that, but sounds oki. Thanks.
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[Verson Geterix]

From experience I just re-log

That's not my style of play. The challenge is there, so I'd like to conquer it.

Collector Limpets work perfectly for snatching these kinds of things, but you have to go about it a little differently than you would for collecting things free-floating in space.

1. Boost past the items you want to collect. You need to get ahead of them so they're falling towards you.
2. Lock on to the object you want to collect. When it comes in range, launch your collector. This will cause the limpet to expire after collecting the item, but it will collect it.
3. Be sure to throttle to zero. Since the object is in motion, if you are also in motion it becomes incredibly easy for the limpet to simply smash against your ship instead.
4. Be sure to deploy your cargo hatch. It should go without saying, but you'd be surprised.

I use this very method regularly and with great success.

Thank you. I'll try it that way.

 

[GroundxZERO]

I actually had to use the camera to do this. I’d put the free cam opposite my ship, putting the box between us. With the camera zoomed all the way in on the black box I was able to slowly throttle up with my cargo scoop open and collect them. It was still hard but not as hard as doing it the regular way.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

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Really? Interesting. From what i remember, my scoop window turns red once my ship is over 30 m/s, no matter how fast the object i want to pick up moves. And when i moved just a tad over 30 m/s my scoop never picked something up. Of course, i might've messed up or i remember wrongly.
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It's a closing speed, but if you and it are going fast then it's very tricky to keep within the speed differential.
On a stationary pod the max is 39-40m/s, I tend to use 35m/s to give a bit of a margin (also depends on the ship).

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Forget about them. They're doomed.

 

[sgurr]

If you want to do it with your ship then FA-off is best, otherwise the ship is trying to self right itself and wobbles.

Small inputs mean you can slowly drop behind something and scoop. I needed some practice but fairly reliable at doing it now.

As s an a aside it's worth looking up Maro-Val and their posts about docking a fighter into a free falling corvette.

 

[Arindor]

I find scooping cargo falling to the planet an engaging pastime and it hones my pilot skills in the process.

 

[verminstar]

No good. They spin out of control and can't handle the gravity.

The only time limpets will fail is if ye drift outta range or the limpets do while chasing the targets...works better if ye fly past them and deploy limpets when the target is behind ye. Works on planets with 6.7g when uss hunting...its like a little mini game sometimes of chasing the loot but scooping is just annoying although some ships are better at it than others...thankfully the chief is one such where scooping is literally childsplay, although if the cargo is mission specific, then accidents arent gonna be cheap ^

 

[Han_Zen]

Use an Asp. Everything just falls into that cargo scoop.

 

[UmbraRex]

Hello Commanders,

Regarding missions to recover (black boxes, commercial samples etc), where those items are found to be floating in the upper atmosphere of a planet.

The fact that the items are being dragged to the planet makes them difficult to scoop. Collectors are worse than useless for this, so manual scooping seems to be the only option, but nevertheless, difficult. I've experimented with approaching the signal source in such a way that I'm between it and the planet. But that doesn't seem to be much easier. The whole situation is further complicated in war zones, where a fleet of unpleasant trouble warps in about 30 seconds after I drop in - making the job impossible.

Any advice?

Regards

Geterix

I never ever come closer to the planet than .1ls. I turn out as I hit that distance and run back out to about .5LS, then turn back in and repeat until the MSS spawns.

Gas giants I stay even further out.

As to HOW to scoop them, either chase them down the gravity well keeping YOUR speed below 40m/s as you approach them or get below and let them come to you. Chasing them is easier of the two options.