Discussion: in case one day we'll see Atmospheric Landing, would you prefer to...
- Thread starter VR SenseiMatty
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Option one, with the option for option two as well.
Huh?
Yeah, you heard me. I'd love to be able to take my ship down into an atmosphere, but I'd like to have the option to deploy a small craft as well and take it down as well.
Huh?
Yeah, you heard me. I'd love to be able to take my ship down into an atmosphere, but I'd like to have the option to deploy a small craft as well and take it down as well.
Yeah I don't see why they have to be mutually exclusive. Many sci-fi series feature large vessels that carry shuttles for planetary landing, but that doesn't mean the larger vessel can't land as well. Sometimes you might not want to risk landing a ship, if the planet has higher gravity or storms or large scale volcanism, so you park up in orbit and send an away team.
Why limit our options to either/or? Both options likely require a specific module to be installed either way, whether atmospheric shielding or a shuttle hanger. Maybe you only decide to install 1 of them, or you make the choice to get both, but doing so means more mass, which hurts your jump range. How much versatility do you want? Heck you could even have various shuttle types, so you could take a small shuttle with you, which can't carry an SRV, or outfit for a larger model which can, or you forgo the shuttle and have to land the ship itself to use your SRV, but need shielding instead.
So long as there's pros and cons to both options then people can decide what they want to install.
Why limit our options to either/or? Both options likely require a specific module to be installed either way, whether atmospheric shielding or a shuttle hanger. Maybe you only decide to install 1 of them, or you make the choice to get both, but doing so means more mass, which hurts your jump range. How much versatility do you want? Heck you could even have various shuttle types, so you could take a small shuttle with you, which can't carry an SRV, or outfit for a larger model which can, or you forgo the shuttle and have to land the ship itself to use your SRV, but need shielding instead.
So long as there's pros and cons to both options then people can decide what they want to install.
OP is assuming we actually get shuttles. They could be useful if they give us a distinct advantage over flying a larger craft, such as speedier turnround if all we are delivering is data, or collecting a mission, or delivering a passenger, etc.
Otherwise it's Option 1.
Both is best, if the game features encourage both options. I'd like the challenge of having to make a choice.
Otherwise it's Option 1.
Both is best, if the game features encourage both options. I'd like the challenge of having to make a choice.
I just want atmosphere. Clouds, fog, rain, snow, atmospheric drag, buffeting, sulphur clouds, ammonia clouds, blizzards, rainstorms on the ground, hurricanes, etc. etc. and this is why I believe it will never happen because, given FDev's previous performance they will never bother to try and model these things. o7
You could land without atmospheric shielding if you were slow and careful.
But that took a long time and had to be done manually as the Autopilot would kill you.
Considering how much brute power most ships normal space engines have, meaning they can effortlessly hurtle big ship up even in 9g monster worlds, and how limited speeds are in normal flight (for most ships around what is achiavable by modern military aircraft) I don't see any reason to limit ships performance in most atmospheric worlds.
Drag forces in thicker atmospheres could easily exceed those of gravity on even the highest gravity worlds at higher velocities, especially given how large and lightly built most ships in ED seem to be.
Venus is pretty mild compared to some atmospheric worlds in ED and Venu's middle atmosphere is denser than many ED ships and can gust past 100m/s. Even with a thrust to weight ratio well in excess of ten-to-one, you'd feel that. In the lower atmosphere, the winds are much slower, but at 90+ atmospheres of pressure, it's even denser than water, and some of our big ships would have difficulty descending, even with their full boost acceleration, because they'd be too buoyant.
And again there are worlds all over the ED galaxay with thousands, or even millions, of times the atmospheric pressure/density of Venus.
Morbad, I consider many of those super dense atmosphere worlds flukes of Stellar Forge. Some of them have surface pressures on par with major gas giant core....
Off course if we have some kind of atmospheric flight dynamics local surface pressure should affect ships handling. But for Earth likes, Mars likes and such effects would be pretty negligible in speeds with ED's "normal space" flight.
Off course if we have some kind of atmospheric flight dynamics local surface pressure should affect ships handling. But for Earth likes, Mars likes and such effects would be pretty negligible in speeds with ED's "normal space" flight.
Well at least Frontier: First Encounters Autopilot could kill you in various ways. Sometimes by trying to ram your ship through the planet
Murderous suicide pilot....Also featured in Elite 2: Frontier, yes. The autopilot always went for the straightest path between you and your destination, regardless of there being a planet there. Sometimes it could get there if you set time acceleration to max, but other times you just got an explosion and the Game Over screen.Well at least Frontier: First Encounters Autopilot could kill you in various ways. Sometimes by trying to ram your ship through the planet
Provide feedback on how the cruel the world is if we don't get gas giants first.
Atmospheric planets are the same as normal planets with a skin unless elite is going no mans sky, unlikely. At least gas giants there's an exotic setting to do something with all the new gas particles.
EDIT: Also option 2.
Atmospheric planets are the same as normal planets with a skin unless elite is going no mans sky, unlikely. At least gas giants there's an exotic setting to do something with all the new gas particles.
EDIT: Also option 2.
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I’d vote for Option 2 as that allows me to use my own ship or use a speedy shuttle, both of which would be affected by the atmosphere I was in.
I’ve already sort-of tried Option 1, all you need to do is find a small moon with plenty of outgassing and hey-presto you have a barren Mars-like world to experience:
Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_GQF85TJ8
I’ve already sort-of tried Option 1, all you need to do is find a small moon with plenty of outgassing and hey-presto you have a barren Mars-like world to experience:
I "would like to see atmospherics". The how, what, when, blah blah blah of it are so beyond the likelihood that the very idea makes me sad.
So yeah, shuttle? Sure why not; can't see that as that means only certain ships can park in orbit to do it (cos larger than SRV?).. just another level of complexity for a thing that requires none.
So yeah, shuttle? Sure why not; can't see that as that means only certain ships can park in orbit to do it (cos larger than SRV?).. just another level of complexity for a thing that requires none.
It's hard to evaluate the overall accuracy of the bodies generated by the Stellar Forge, but we do know that there are a lot of terrestrial worlds ('super-Earths') out there that almost certainly have far much atmospheric pressure than Earth. Many of those past a few Earth masses are likely gas-giants with rocky cores, or would-be gas giants that have lost most of their atmosphere, but even many that are below that threshold would still be able to retain atmospheres with dozen or hundreds of times the density of Earth's.
Sure, at one atmosphere or less, the effects on most of our ships would likely be pretty mild, but I would expect to be able to land on Venus, or any of a billion other worlds vaguely like it, where a gentle breeze is like a tidal wave and ships at full thrust are slowed to a few tens of meters per second. Given all the time they've spent talking about it, I would also eventually expect to be able to enter the atmospheres of gas-giants, even if the surface cannot be reached. The seas of water worlds shouldn't be inaccessible either, and the distinction between a sea and a thicker atmosphere would be academic in many cases.
Well basically buoance sissue is simple, just allow gas pressurise most of ship, like submarines allow water inside ballast tanks. But I think there should be SOME restrictions when it comes to extremes to environment, like places were atmosphere is essentially rock vapour. Our ships are tough, one can scoop deep inside major stars corona, and bathe in neutron stars furious radiation cone and be there for some minutes, but there has to be some restrictions. Not artificial ones, like you are not allowed to land there, but like, well you can try but you will die type restrictions.
Of course I support idea of having proper atmospheric flight model, that would certainly make things interesting. Especially on places with hot and dense atmospheres, while it does not affect much operations in more mild cases.