Atmosphere, hard or easy mode ?

Remus

Remus
One of the questions that I was planing to make for a long time, but never actually bothered making.

So, since I'm pretty sure the devs would also love to know beforehand about this, and since there is still a loooong way before it is implemented, I think it is safe to ask what does the community think of this.

Should entering an atmospheric planet provide players with some difficulty, or should it be like NMS non existent ?

By difficulty I mean give the player a challenge, and that the outcome of failing such challenge will be rather nasty. ( from a damaged hull to straight ship destruction depending on the state of the ship and the nature of the ship ).

I thought that perhaps FD can recycle the interdiction mechanic, only this time instead of avoiding being interdicted the player would fight to enter the planet atmosphere in one piece.

The denser the atmosphere, the more difficult it is to fly trough it.

Or would it rather be just non existent, just like now with barren worlds, point your nose down and mind the gravity ?

What do you think ?
 
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cheesenbiscuits

cheesenbiscuits
The combination of high g and dense atmospheric conditions will no doubt be a tricky manoeuvre.
I'd imagine throwing some weather into the mix could make certain planets very challenging.
 

Vasea Azure

Vasea Azure
I absolutely think there should be some sort of challenge/risk involved in entering a planets atmosphere. At least there should be heat build up from entering the planet from various angles/speed.
 

Dsign

Dsign
To me it is important to feel like you're actually in control when dropping in the atmosphere. Take the current glide that we have we exiting orbital flight for example, I feel like it is doing it's job the way it should. Giving you slight control over basic directions is, in a way, what I would love to get with atmospheric landings.

Of course, like you said, many new parameters would come in play. Wind, air, density, heat, electricity, gaz, ...

Even if in ED we always get the "Technology assists you" answer, I feel like this feature should be a challenge, yes.

I mean, not everybody in the ED universe is a pilot am I right ? If the ships were able to do everything without any challenge then everybody would be a pilot. That's not the case. We're not heroes or legends but we're still a type of people specialised in flying big tin cans all around space... Like a plane pilot today, not everybody can do what these guys do.
 
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[VR] Deggial

[VR] Deggial
I definitely hope, it will be challenging!

In addition tho the influencing factors mentioned already, I hope that the ship choice will have an effect, too.
Smaller ships might handle better in the atmosphere than larger ones, aerodynamic shaped ships better than flying bricks.

How could the effects play out?
During the glide phase when descending:
- Maybe there could be an optimal angle to hold the ship in. When it is missed, the atmospheric glide is broken and the ship possibly damaged. The ship's current speed could affect the necessary angle. This is not so much different to the current situation, though.
- Obviously, atmospheric effects would wobble the ship around, making it constant countermeasures necessary to stay close to the optimal angle. Would this be different enough to the current entering phase?
- with optimized ships, the possible speed could be higher; also the angle could be larger and hence more forgiving to pilot errors.

"Normal" atmospheric flight should be affected, too, of course.
- different (slower) reaction to maneuver inputs
- possition jitter due to wind
- both affected by the ship type

I don't know, how devastating a pilot failure should be, though.
Missing the target (the desired spot while landing or the enemy during a fight - if this will ever be a thing) might be enough of a punishment.
Crashes while flying at low altitudes might still be a threat, of course. At higher altitudes, it will be probably always be possible to regain control.
 
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GODofDUTY83

GODofDUTY83
Defo challenging.
Different flight mechanics for different ships also.
Maybe it can implemented so that actually entering atmospherics will have a greater reduction of hull integrity thrown in aswell.
 

Arindor

Arindor
Excellent question OP, I've often thought about this too. I would assume that atmospheric landings would imply hitting the correct trajectory to attempt such a landing. Hit it incorrectly then you'd overheat quicker, your shields get stripped, then hull damage until boom. So yeah, make it a risky business, otherwise everything in ED will be too easy. :)
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
I think it should be harder than the current system, but not NASA level precision, or it'd be annoying.

I imagined there would be a blue zone in the HUD ladder, which tells you the ideal angle of entry, to avoid burning up.
Too steep and your heat simply increases alot faster, too shallow and it just takes a longer time with a slower heat buildup.
The perfect angle for reentry should allow nearly, all but the hottest ships, to enter without too causing damage.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
 
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ArchEmperor

ArchEmperor
It should be super hard. Only the very best player should be able to land safely.

And on the planet surface there should be engineers with rank 6 blueprints. That way only the best of the best can have the edge.

Also, if you have been ganking people you are not allowed to land, ever. Then you have to go through a teleportation backdoor, through the Planet Core. With much more difficulty. There it must be lots of monsters that are practically impossible to avoid and you get eaten in your ship alive and have to restart with 0 CR and sidewinder again, no rep and all ranks nulled and void.

But if you succeed on the first try, you have access to rank 7 blueprints and is considered the Master of Elites.
 
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CMDRvenerian

CMDRvenerian
If you want to stick to realism, you are mostly going to have to watch your inclination, speed upon entry and angle of entry. The other challenge would be possible storms in the lower atmosphere. I don't think it should be made artificially hard but I do think it should feel realistic.
 
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Hank

H
I think several posts above this touch on some of the difficulties and mechanics ED will need to work through to make atmospheric landings feel realistic. I wrote a few random thoughts on the subject for another thread but never posted them.

I'll leave them here for criticism and comment. Have a nice day.

How do you transition from astrodynamics to aerodynamics? Horizons added the orbital flight HUD so I suppose you can make changes to show you've entered a higher molecular density atmosphere. Reentry heat is another piece of the puzzle and I don't know how that would be simulated but I'm sure its been done before. Once you've entered atmosphere, you are basically in a "flight simulator" mode and forced to deal with air speed, stalls, and how to take off and reenter orbit (would VTOL be the only method for take-off and landing ?).

The next thing is to realize that most of the bigger Elite ships can not land on an atmospheric planet when considering aerodynamics, higher gravity, structural integrity, thrust to weight ratios, and weather effects. Most ED ships don't have a lift body shape or wings. Some of the smaller ships do such as the Eagle, Adder and possibly the wedge ships like Sidey and Cobra. So what do the big ships do to allow the pilot to land on a higher gravity/ atmospheric planet? Use the fighter bay to house a new type of ship designed for atmospheric flight.

The big ships would have to be able to move into an orbital position, set it for autopilot or assign that duty to a crew (similar to how you can send your ship off after landing and launching the SRV). Launching and redocking the "lander ship" with the "mother ship" would be exactly the same as you do with fighters.

Another thing to consider is how do you explore the planet. Either you have "legs" which is coming possibly with Walkers or in a space suit, or you have another class of "lander ships" large enough to house an SRV. Maybe only the big ships such as Condas and Type-9's can house these larger landing ships capable of carrying an SRV. The smaller ships that are capable of aeronautical flight would only have the Legs method for exploration.

... I had a few other thoughts on what kinds of planets to procedurally generate, etc but don't really apply to this topic

Edit: I forgot to answer the OP question. Atmospheric planetary landings should be difficult, very difficult. If you've ever used a flight simulator you'll know. If you mess up, you die in the ship you were flying in. If you try to land a Type-9 on one, it burns up or crashes. Maybe you get a warning saying your ship is not capable of landing on that specific planet. All factors considered, it should be more difficult than landing on the Moon.
 
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TorTorden_VR

T
Is it really that hard physically ?

Just match speed for atmospheric density, and since we have magic space engines the trick to that has been fairly sorted.

As for hard I think it should be perfectly possible to come in and immediately have to dodge trees and whatnot.
 
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verminstar

Banned
verminstar
Hit an atmosphere entry point at the wrong angle and it should be suicidal imo...anything less would be hugely disappointing and not worth playing.

So absolutely, let's have hard mode where lining up the perfect angle of descent should require some skill on the part of the player otherwise what's the point? If it's done purely fer eye candy, then one can only hope other games get it right as its a pretty big deal fer some ^
 

askavir

askavir
I dream of the day when flying the ship amounts to more than just pointing it at the destination and waiting for it to get there.

So my short answer for a binary choice would be "hard". In fact, what I would really love is that things like atmosphere type, pressure, heat, cold, actually meant something, and I had to adapt my flying to the specific conditions, and there were more natural phenomena affecting the flight, both in planets and in space. Right now, besides takeoff and landing, there is nothing to care about when flying in space, just point at a destination and wait.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
Given the absurd TWR and delta-V available to the typical Elite space ship, anyone willing to enter an atmosphere slowly and carefully should have an easy time of it. Keep your throttle in the blue zone, and that should get you down safely... eventually.

The difficulty of reentry during modern space flight is not the actual reentry or landing, but the aerobraking our spaceships have to do because they have to get up to orbital speeds with little margin for error. For people unwilling to waste time on the blue method, this is where difficulty and skill should come in.
 
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