Are current ships ready for atmospheric flight?

[AdhaiGrey]

Hi,

From the days of Elite II Frontier, I remember, that ships needed atmospheric shielding installed to launch to orbit or land from orbit of atmospheric planet.
It was just 1t, thus all save smallest fighters had it installed.
Other option was just to have lots of shields

As atmospheric planets are not yet a thing in ED, I wonder, what kind of mechanics could be employed in this case?

2nd thought - on the other hand we are fuel scooping stars What happened to scoopable atmospheres of gas giants (imho Ice giants would be better as lower surface gravity, and plenty of other compounds can be mined from them).

o7
Adhai

 

[Fizzatron]

No announcements from Frontier on the subject. I would imagine that when the atmospheric expansion is released those who get it will find that their planetary approach suite will have been upgraded to allow for atmospheric entry.

As far as other things that could relate, I think it would be good to have varying types of hulls that can withstand greater atmospheric pressures and of different types, including ones that would allow submersion into water. Though, it may be more popular to do away with having to manage something like that and just have the upgraded planetary approach suite handle all cases. Would be worth a focused feedback thread when the time comes.

 

[Schmack]

Aerodynamic hulls that we see on some builds would probably be considered capable of flight, while something like the Defender would be a brick you'd not want to be beneath.

 

[metatheurgist]

The ships don't need to be aerodynamic. They have thrusters that can lift the entire hullmass. They might move like pregnant whales and you might not want to fly them in a storm.

 

[varonica]

Yeah you can land on a 45g world, I doubt a regular atmosphere would cause much change in flight model of my brick T6, now a super dense thousands of atmosphere pressure body, that could be an issue!

 

[aRJay]

As we fly our ships in an approximately one atmosphere environment regularly it is difficult to see what extra would be needed, perhaps some minor response tweaks to the thrusters and a little more passive corrosion resistance.

High pressure atmospheres would need compression resistance to be increased and worlds like Venus and worse could be an issue as there is nowhere to radiate heat to.

 

[varonica]

As we fly our ships in an approximately one atmosphere

Sorry, 0.1, one tenth of earth normal atmosphere, nowhere near approximately one, in fact the average would probably be far lower than 0.1, but that would need to be checked to be sure, but I believe it would be.

 

[aRJay]

Sorry, 0.1, one tenth of earth normal atmosphere, nowhere near approximately one, in fact the average would probably be far lower than 0.1, but that would need to be checked to be sure, but I believe it would be.

The stations such as Orbis and Coriolis have air that is presumably at about 1 atmosphere as soon as you fly through the slot, this is why you can go off life support when you have a broken canopy before you hit the pad, at an outpost you need to be on the pad to breathe.

I am well aware that the planets we an land on are in near vacuum conditions.

 

[varonica]

The stations such as Orbis and Coriolis have air that is presumably at about 1 atmosphere as soon as you fly through the slot, this is why you can go off life support when you have a broken canopy before you hit the pad, at an outpost you need to be on the pad to breathe.

I am well aware that the planets we an land on are in near vacuum conditions.

Since the inside of the starport is essentially zero g, and speeds are slow enough that the atmosphere would have zero aerodynamic effect on our ships, I don't see how you can use that as an argument that our ships would perform the same at hundreds of meters per second in one g or more gravity wtih full atmospgeric pressure, the two situations aren't even remotely comparable. Micro-gravity using manouvering thrusters to move around versus full speed through a dense atmosphere in one or more G's? Nope, that's not a comparable situation.

 

[Danieros]

Hi,

From the days of Elite II Frontier, I remember, that ships needed atmospheric shielding installed to launch to orbit or land from orbit of atmospheric planet.
It was just 1t, thus all save smallest fighters had it installed.
Other option was just to have lots of shields

As atmospheric planets are not yet a thing in ED, I wonder, what kind of mechanics could be employed in this case?

2nd thought - on the other hand we are fuel scooping stars What happened to scoopable atmospheres of gas giants (imho Ice giants would be better as lower surface gravity, and plenty of other compounds can be mined from them).

o7
Adhai

There is a module for planetary landings that we got in Horizons, but every ship got an exclusive slot for it and it doesn't cost any power/weigh to outfit it.

With Odyssey we got "thin atmospheres" landing, but either this didn't require a module change or that was automatic.

So I'm guessing if we do get more landable planets, they'll follow this route - you'll just be able to land there with any ship, no specific outfitting required.

 

[Old Duck]

From the days of Elite II Frontier, I remember, that ships needed atmospheric shielding installed to launch to orbit or land from orbit of atmospheric planet.
It was just 1t, thus all save smallest fighters had it installed.

As atmospheric planets will likely be a paid DLC, I'm guessing that DLC will give your ships a "free" (as in, it doesn't take up an existing slot) atmospheric shield or somesuch handwaivum to explain why people who have the DLC can land and those who don't cannot, just like the planetary approach suite given by the Horizons DLC back in the day.

As atmospheric planets are not yet a thing in ED, I wonder, what kind of mechanics could be employed in this case?

A ship that can "float" in no atmosphere will "float" even easier in an atmosphere, thanks to buoyancy. A realistic flight model should add atmospheric drag, meaning a Cobra or Eagle should be able to maintain close to the same max speeds they have in vacuum ( ), whereas a Type 7 might be slowed down a bit in atmosphere, but that's a tricky one since Elite's flight model is far from realistic in space, hence the very slow top-speeds despite there not being any atmospheric drag at all.

Of course, Elite is not the only game with this artificial space speed limit. All the space games I play have it. The one space game in my library (that I play) that has planets with atmosphere totally ignores drag and lift in atmosphere, unless you mod it. If a space game were to emulate drag, I expect it would be incredibly rudimentary, and that's okay. I don't expect Elite or any other space game to try to simulate thousands of surface points like the latest flight simulators. A simple linear equation that gives each ship a drag coefficient and multiplies that by atmospheric pressure would work for me.

BTW, all this assumes a static atmosphere. What about weather, updrafts, jet streams, etc? I don't know of any spaceship simulator that takes this into account, except maybe KSP (no idea). It's no wonder Frontier hasn't tackled this yet, despite everyone wanting it.

 

[HRDiagram]

The Type-10, with its amazing spoiler, is definitely ready for atmospheric flight!
And so is the Type-7 with its wings!

 

[varonica]

As atmospheric planets will likely be a paid DLC, I'm guessing that DLC will give your ships a "free" (as in, it doesn't take up an existing slot) atmospheric shield or somesuch handwaivum to explain why people who have the DLC can land and those who don't cannot, just like the planetary approach suite given by the Horizons DLC back in the day.


A ship that can "float" in no atmosphere will "float" even easier in an atmosphere, thanks to buoyancy. A realistic flight model should add atmospheric drag, meaning a Cobra or Eagle should be able to maintain close to the same max speeds they have in vacuum ( ), whereas a Type 7 might be slowed down a bit in atmosphere, but that's a tricky one since Elite's flight model is far from realistic in space, hence the very slow top-speeds despite there not being any atmospheric drag at all.

It will almost certainly be a DLC in my opinion. The thing about atmospheric drag etc is interesting because it will be different for different atmosphere densities, as will lift and any other effects, a ship that does have any aerodynamic surfaces will react vastly differently in different density atmospheres, it should be interesting to see if FDEV does actually take that into account. I mean some atmosphere are so dense that large ships with a lot of empty space may actually end up floating around like blimps......looking at you Type 9!

 

[Schmack]

As atmospheric planets will likely be a paid DLC, I'm guessing that DLC will give your ships a "free" (as in, it doesn't take up an existing slot) atmospheric shield or somesuch handwaivum to explain why people who have the DLC can land and those who don't cannot, just like the planetary approach suite given by the Horizons DLC back in the day.


A ship that can "float" in no atmosphere will "float" even easier in an atmosphere, thanks to buoyancy. A realistic flight model should add atmospheric drag, meaning a Cobra or Eagle should be able to maintain close to the same max speeds they have in vacuum ( ), whereas a Type 7 might be slowed down a bit in atmosphere, but that's a tricky one since Elite's flight model is far from realistic in space, hence the very slow top-speeds despite there not being any atmospheric drag at all.

Of course, Elite is not the only game with this artificial space speed limit. All the space games I play have it. The one space game in my library (that I play) that has planets with atmosphere totally ignores drag and lift in atmosphere, unless you mod it. If a space game were to emulate drag, I expect it would be incredibly rudimentary, and that's okay. I don't expect Elite or any other space game to try to simulate thousands of surface points like the latest flight simulators. A simple linear equation that gives each ship a drag coefficient and multiplies that by atmospheric pressure would work for me.

BTW, all this assumes a static atmosphere. What about weather, updrafts, jet streams, etc? I don't know of any spaceship simulator that takes this into account, except maybe KSP (no idea). It's no wonder Frontier hasn't tackled this yet, despite everyone wanting it.

I know what happens when I drive my SRV over a geyser. So at least the developers understand streams. Can you imagine "flying" along and you encounter an invisible jet stream that your sensors did not detect because you haven't unlocked the atmospheric conditions engineer? Suddenly you're somewhere else, almost like an interdiction.

 

[Kira Goto]

Since the inside of the starport is essentially zero g, and speeds are slow enough that the atmosphere would have zero aerodynamic effect on our ships, I don't see how you can use that as an argument that our ships would perform the same at hundreds of meters per second in one g or more gravity wtih full atmospgeric pressure, the two situations aren't even remotely comparable. Micro-gravity using manouvering thrusters to move around versus full speed through a dense atmosphere in one or more G's? Nope, that's not a comparable situation.

While not comparable situations, it at least gets around the problem of ‘Can this withstand the pressure’. Something I have not seen raised in this particular thread/discussion(or missed), but I’ve definitely seen it brought up as a counter point to me, elsewhere, for why we couldn’t land on ‘thick’ atmo bodies. Wish I’d thought of it then(and the fact that certain GalNet thumbnails use pictures of cities in Earth-like environments… with the same ships that we do).

Well, that, and atmospheric descent. But I guess we could just close the blinders. And hope that there’s no hull breaches… I still remember when I learned of that one space shuttle(Columbia?)’s demise as it returned from orbit. You wouldn’t want that*.

*I would not actually expect such a mechanic from Frontier if we ever get landings in dense atmospheres. Or even just flying the upper cloud layers of a gas giant.

Oh, and random fact - Maelstrom caustic clouds technically have a rudimentary ‘turbulence’ effect that moves your ship and other free-floating objects around(or counter thrust to some degree). Not that I would expect this to be reused elsewhere, but it’s a thing.

 

[varonica]

While not comparable situations, it at least gets around the problem of ‘Can this withstand the pressure’.

What? That's a ridiculous argument, first because, well there is no pressure!. The inside of the ships are pressurised to one atmosphere, the outside is one atmosphere, therefore according to basic physics, you know that thing that we study to work out how things work, there is no pressure acting on the outside of the ship!

 

[Greasetrap42]

It would be kinda sad if a futuristic "dropship" couldn't land on a planet that has 1 or 2 atmosphere pressure.

 

[Kira Goto]

What? That's a ridiculous argument, first because, well there is no pressure!. The inside of the ships are pressurised to one atmosphere, the outside is one atmosphere, therefore according to basic physics, you know that thing that we study to work out how things work, there is no pressure acting on the outside of the ship!

I didn’t really understand their argument anyway, felt a lot like arguing back for the sake of doing so. I think another of their points was that descending at 2.5km/s through a dense atmosphere would not be feasible and require purpose-built ships with hours-long descent times. While I can’t say whether the ships in Elite could, I would like to think so, given that we have ships which are capable of performing re-entry with, probably, far less advanced construction methods to a human society a thousand years ahead of us. (More than a millenia but you get the point)

If memory serves, I dipped out following that. I mean, seriously, how do you think that people are not using the mainline vessels that basically everyone who is a pilot traverses space with, to land on Earth-like worlds*?

*It may be that I’m confusing things slightly, but I certainly recall seeing the argument of “We can’t land on Earth-likes because our ships are only rated for vacuum”… which I personally thought was ridiculous.

 

[metatheurgist]

*It may be that I’m confusing things slightly, but I certainly recall seeing the argument of “We can’t land on Earth-likes because our ships are only rated for vacuum”… which I personally thought was ridiculous.

This is one of those lack of detail things. In original Elite, even though you couldn't land on the planet, you'd see transporters moving to and from planet and station. In ED, such attention to detail has been lost which is a sadface for a game that claims to be a sim.

 

[varonica]

I didn’t really understand their argument anyway, felt a lot like arguing back for the sake of doing so. I think another of their points was that descending at 2.5km/s through a dense atmosphere would not be feasible and require purpose-built ships with hours-long descent times

It would require good heat shielding is all, and we have heatsinks and shields which will do the trick, since we can fly in the corona of stars to fuel scoop, don't think we are going to encounter much more heat than that. The fastest known re-entry (man made) to earth was 12.5km/s, but most of our current manned ships enter the atmosphere and land at faster than 2.5km/s, the space shuttle entry was between 7 and 8km/s (depends how high they are orbiting), and yes we did lose one but that was a fault in the ship and not the process, they take a while to land because after re-entry they then have to basically glide to their purpose built landing strip, our ships don't so once the high speed re-entry but is over we can just fly down and land anywhere.

So speed of re-entry, heat and landing aren't things we need to worry about, we have already solved all those problems and we will only better as time goes by, the current starships are already landing boosters under rocket power and the new starship being built will also take off to orbit, and land vertically from orbit on rockets, so these are not things that should concern us, all these problems we have already solved.