Entering an atmosphere

CMDR Von Abrahart

CMDR Von Abrahart
HI y’all. I’ve been watching the Ship 20 being stacked on the booster and they’re finishing all the fiddly heat tiles.

What i was wondering is that if your ship is entering a thick atmosphere planet would the ship need tiles or does the shields act as a heat shield - which I suspect is the case.

If we don’t need all those pesky tiles are we going to see a re-entry plasma like other games round the shields?

Also I wonder if there would be any aerodynamic additions for making use of the atmosphere. Fins?

It might be cool at have an atmospheric pack to save some fuel.
 

Ettanin

E
reentry speed from supercruise is 9000 Mm/h or 2.5 km/s. The FSD throttles the relative velocity upon entering orbital cruise before entering into glide mode (which will kick in at 25 kilometers altitude) up to an altitude of 3 kilometers, from which on the normal thrusters will take control. While in glide mode, space warping still takes effect.

elite-dangerous.fandom.com

Orbital Cruise

Orbital Cruise is a speed less than Supercruise but faster than Normal Speed. it is the initial stage of Planetary Landings. As pilots approach a planet in Supercruise, they will drop into Orbital Cruise. This will allow the player to fly around the planet at a speed suited to covering vast...
elite-dangerous.fandom.com elite-dangerous.fandom.com
elite-dangerous.fandom.com

Glide

Glide is the final stage of Planetary Landings. After approaching the exclusion zone of a landable planet or moon in Orbital Cruise, the ship will automatically disengage the Frame Shift Drive, drop from Orbital Cruise, and begin an unpowered glide for the remainder of the descent. The glide...
elite-dangerous.fandom.com elite-dangerous.fandom.com
 

thistle

T
CMDR Von Abrahart said:
HI y’all. I’ve been watching the Ship 20 being stacked on the booster and they’re finishing all the fiddly heat tiles.

What i was wondering is that if your ship is entering a thick atmosphere planet would the ship need tiles or does the shields act as a heat shield - which I suspect is the case.

If we don’t need all those pesky tiles are we going to see a re-entry plasma like other games round the shields?

Also I wonder if there would be any aerodynamic additions for making use of the atmosphere. Fins?

It might be cool at have an atmospheric pack to save some fuel.
Click to expand...
We only have thin atmospheres currently to land on, so that would likely be the explanation for no heat effects.
 

LKx

L
Vardaugas said:
You don't enter the atmosphere at high enough velocity to generate any meaningful friction heat.
Click to expand...
This.
Despite the indicated speed, you enter atmosphere in a frame shift space distortion, you're actual speed in "real space" is very low (or even stationary, i'm not sure).
Not sure about the glide though, i think it's some sort of hybrid state.

Even if the frame shift was not involved, our ships have thrusters powerful enough (and fuel to sustain them) to not require any kind of fireball reentry
 

CMDR Von Abrahart

CMDR Von Abrahart
LKx said:
This.
Despite the indicated speed, you enter atmosphere in a frame shift space distortion, you're actual speed in "real space" is very low (or even stationary, i'm not sure).
Not sure about the glide though, i think it's some sort of hybrid state.

Even if the frame shift was not involved, our ships have thrusters powerful enough (and fuel to sustain them) to not require any kind of fireball reentry
Click to expand...
Ohhh yeah - be nice to have some effects - we will see in 10 years time
 

Sapient6

S
CMDR Von Abrahart said:
Also I wonder if there would be any aerodynamic additions for making use of the atmosphere. Fins?
Click to expand...

I think it's unlikely, but something like that is on my fantasy list.

I would like it if thicker atmosphere affected flight handling. I would like it if different ships had varying aerodynamic qualities, and not just a flat calculation based entirely upon base hull mass (like, if IIRC, is used to determine SC maneuverability). I would like it if thruster rating played a role there so that "powerful thrusters overcome my type 9's weight, cargo weight, and poor aerodynamics, allowing it to fly smoothly through heavy atmosphere" doesn't work if I downrated all my internals for a fraction more jump range.

Hell, I would love it if some ships just could NOT do heavy atmospheres, and ship launched shuttles were introduced to bridge that gap.

But none of that sounds to me like a game feature developed by Frontier. I think heavy atmosphere in ED will be more like

  • very beautiful, when it's working right, which will be more and more often as time goes on
  • really great sound design
  • maybe some shakiness you have to overcome as a pilot
  • CZ taking place in the upper layers of gas giants
 

Frop

Frop
PBF097-Astronaut_Fall.png

pbfcomics.com

Welcome to the Fellowship

The Perry Bible Fellowship
pbfcomics.com pbfcomics.com
 

LKx

L
Sapient6 said:
[...]

Hell, I would love it if some ships just could NOT do heavy atmospheres, and ship launched shuttles were introduced to bridge that gap.
[...]
Click to expand...

I don't see why a ship able to bruteforce gravity on an airless planet should have any difficulties in an atmosphere (besides maybe travel speed due to drag)
 
Last edited:

thistle

T
The atmos entry effect is there I suspect, in the current glide part, I imagine the intention when Horizons released was to just add effects to the glide when/if atmospheres arrived. Adding heat effects etc would seem to fit that part of the descent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom