Explorer Disaster

HagbardCeline · Mar 9, 2016

Hello CMDRs and Explorers,

There should be not many 'bad' disasters out there exploring and I haven't found to many threads about it.
We all know exploring is not that dangerous, except the return to the 'bubble' can be a little dangerous.

So the biggest threat out there are the stars we scoop from or we arrive at after a jump. We all burned our skin at least once, took module, heat damage and
lost hull percentage. But I think this changed since Horizons quite a bit. Landing can be very dangerous and even deadly. See here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=236856

[ to my calculation I lost about 10Mcr if I would have returned at that distance, plus insurance 1.3Mcr, not about money but I but the game time [downcast] ]

Did you guys lost your ship ever out there in the void due to mistakes, fuel issues and/or self destruction? Let us know. Cause I feel a little stupid right know.

[only 2.2G!!! I landed on worst before [haha] ]

Thanks and right on cmdrs!

/HC

Jackie Silver · Mar 9, 2016

I think you're right about Horizons - I don't remember losing a ship exploring until I pranged my old Clipper on a planet.

I did lose a significant amount of exploration data - millions of credits worth, old exploring money - back in the early days when a bug prevented selling data for a long time and I foolishly decided to carry on with my usual business around the Bubble and I boosted into a letterbox.

disorganise · Mar 9, 2016

Scooping a T tauri is always, err, fun. As is faceplanting the odd planet. But yes, usually only a few percent.
Horizons has brought about the ability to impersonate pancakes and it seems that as a whole, we're pretty good at it.

I'm a bit torn on the subject. On one hand it's good that we finally have to exhibit some degree of care and even skill to avoid repeating Newtons experiments, but on the other hand it's pretty hard to accidentally crash a plane nowadays unless something goes wrong, so why would those safety mechanisms disappear in 1200 years or so? Bare minimum I'd expect a audio warning to "pull up" or something way before the planet acts as though my ship is a fly to swat.

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Oh...and yes. I blew up on a 0.9g near Sag A earlier this week through thinking my ship was a plane and there was an atmosphere. Mostly because i was rushing to land so i could log off to head to work.....i will not try landing prior to work again..or at least unless i have a good half hour or so to take time to find landing spots (the area i chose on a mountain was unsuitable leading me to rush to the plain below)

ToveriJuri · Mar 9, 2016

Not really, but there was a bad spot when I was returning from Sagittarius. I stopped the ship(30Km/s) very close to a small moon and judged the distance with my eyes instead of paying attention to the actual distance. Then I went on reading the forums for a bit. Next time I look at the screen my ship is in glide at around 55 degree angle and I almost had a heart attack.

HagbardCeline · Mar 14, 2016

Jackie Silver said:
I think you're right about Horizons - I don't remember losing a ship exploring until I pranged my old Clipper on a planet.

I did lose a significant amount of exploration data - millions of credits worth, old exploring money - back in the early days when a bug prevented selling data for a long time and I foolishly decided to carry on with my usual business around the Bubble and I boosted into a letterbox.

So you have done it to... I feel a little better now. [praise]

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disorganise said:
Scooping a T tauri is always, err, fun. As is faceplanting the odd planet. But yes, usually only a few percent.
Horizons has brought about the ability to impersonate pancakes and it seems that as a whole, we're pretty good at it.

I'm a bit torn on the subject. On one hand it's good that we finally have to exhibit some degree of care and even skill to avoid repeating Newtons experiments, but on the other hand it's pretty hard to accidentally crash a plane nowadays unless something goes wrong, so why would those safety mechanisms disappear in 1200 years or so? Bare minimum I'd expect a audio warning to "pull up" or something way before the planet acts as though my ship is a fly to swat.

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Oh...and yes. I blew up on a 0.9g near Sag A earlier this week through thinking my ship was a plane and there was an atmosphere. Mostly because i was rushing to land so i could log off to head to work.....i will not try landing prior to work again..or at least unless i have a good half hour or so to take time to find landing spots (the area i chose on a mountain was unsuitable leading me to rush to the plain below)

Tauris are always a err moment, specially if you just honk, scoop and jump. Sure you don't know what star that is... sun burn. [Have audible "Fuel scoop engage" turned off]

For landing should be some kinda STALL alarm implemented, you right. Some formula must exist to calculated, speed, angle, gravity and thruster capabilities in to an alarm...

HagbardCeline · Mar 14, 2016

ToveriJuri said:
Not really, but there was a bad spot when I was returning from Sagittarius. I stopped the ship(30Km/s) very close to a small moon and judged the distance with my eyes instead of paying attention to the actual distance. Then I went on reading the forums for a bit. Next time I look at the screen my ship is in glide at around 55 degree angle and I almost had a heart attack.

Ha... good one to! Also never take a impotent phone call while in the middle of an inter-system jump and not minding the throttle position [HOTAS] and then bragging on the phone that your are 5kly out and didn't get burned yet ...

Thanks everyone for the honest replies and I guess all other commanders are perfect and never make mistakes?!

Yeah right!! So keep them coming. [threads in exploration go down quicker then in DD sub, huh]

/HC

Harpeizanae · Mar 14, 2016

I agree that most of us have probably fried our modules when scooping at one point or another. Horizons has definitively changed things a bit for me, enabling me to indulge in cross-country trundling at 50% throttle over vast open wastes. Which is something I actually enjoy, don't get me wrong.

I'll share two notable minor recent accidents:

Recently I lost 13% of my hull during a landing when I failed to pitch up and burn vertically to bleed off speed. I have landed on plenty of rough planets before setting off again, I felt I needed a bit of basic training before smashing into metals and minerals ten thousand light-years from home. But for some reason, this one time, it seemed to me that the intelligent thing to do was to keep absolutely level and trust the vertical thrusters.
That sickening moment when you realize you're going at 70 m/s faster than you're supposed to do is a rush.
I have since bound RCS to rotaries to give me more control.

Before that I "lost" a Scarab SRV. For some reason it reappeared in my vehicle bay when I logged back in a few hours later, I'm guessing that's not intended.
The way in which I lost it certainly wasn't. After landing on the rim of a crater I decided to trundle down walls into the bowl to have a look around, unfortunately I also decided it was a good idea to try and go fast. Having been a Tribes player I wanted to see if it was possible to ski down the slope. It was.
It was also not possible to really slow down much once you were launched off a precariously placed ramp in the wall. Imagine for a moment a SRV, floating gracefully at breakneck speeds towards the base of a crater several kilometers deep. I did manage to right it and maintain relative control, until it smashed unceremoniously into a rock. I was rather miffed after that and jumped away, noting planet Killjoy in my pad.

I will readily admit that both of these incidents were my own fault.

For shame.

who? · Mar 14, 2016

The biggest danger for me is the System Map. Activate it, and your controls centre, and lock you out. Your head is centred and locked in position, and you have to wait for several seconds while your ship carries on without your control.

Also - certain rings can be tricky, the outer rings are virtually invisible, and quite far out from the planet. Be very careful about doing a high-speed fly-by of any gas giants.

And - as said above - the T-Tauri stars, especially the yellow/orange ones.

goemon · Mar 14, 2016

yes, i lost my ship due to own mistanke on my first trip to sag A*, around 16 k ly out. somehow one night i forgot exciting the game, i simply didn't press "are you sure ....", so when i woke up the other day, computer was still running and ship died due to running out of fuel.

Satsuma · Mar 14, 2016

Back in Gamma I explored in my Freagle (I know, I know - the view from the cockpit was awesome, though!). I took it on a trip to the edge of the thin disk of the galaxy, which is about 1000 light years away. Well, in my ill-equipped Eagle it was more like 800 light years away. Still, it took me about half a week to get there, playing an hour a day or so. On the way back I was interdicted and lost it, and then mis-clicked the "loss" screen, selecting "free Sidewinder" instead of "pay insurance on a replacement Eagle".

It wasn't a big loss, but it was hard for me at the time. I didn't have a lot of gil, so I couldn't simply afford to replace the Eagle Scout. It did provide the kick in the pants I needed to do a few days of rare trading and get myself into a properly exploration-fitted Cobra.

I sure loved that Eagle, though.

iain666 · Mar 14, 2016

Satsuma said:
Back in Gamma I explored in my Freagle (I know, I know - the view from the cockpit was awesome, though!)....
I sure loved that Eagle, though.

I met up with an Imperial Eagle just shy of 65kylies from Sol the other day...

What you love is usually the best thing to explore in.

(on topic silent running once turned itself on and I blew up before I could overcome my panic and work out how to turn it off, it was bound to Delete and it turned on while I was renaming a screenshot and had hit Delete in the process so I think Windows decided it should send the key press to ED as well, as a free bonus. I learnt my lesson, see ship name below...)

Zeeman · Mar 14, 2016

The problem with landings, as that FD have dialed up the damage you take on landing a little too high. I took 5% hull damage on a 0.8g planet a few weeks back because I forgot to turn on my shields - the landing was super gentle, would have been about 0.5m/second (I have analog thruster control, so it's not hard to have a slow descent rate). Basically, I've been on commercial jet liners that land harder than that on a regular basis, and they don't seem to lose 5% of their hull....

Z...

Tafmeister · Mar 15, 2016

HagbardCeline said:
Ha... good one to! Also never take a impotent phone call while in the middle of an inter-system jump and not minding the throttle position [HOTAS] and then bragging on the phone that your are 5kly out and didn't get burned yet ...

Thanks everyone for the honest replies and I guess all other commanders are perfect and never make mistakes?!

Yeah right!! So keep them coming. [threads in exploration go down quicker then in DD sub, huh]

/HC

Beer and falling asleep are my biggest threats to space craft safety.

Early on into my Sag A pilgrimage, I had a few beers after a tough Day at work, and did a bit of Exploration. I eventually fell asleep whilst jumping (Beer accelerated the sleep). The game eventually timed out after inactivity. When I awoke and switched the game back on, I loaded up right next to a sun. Unfortunately I was somehow facing away from the sun and so didn't notice the proximity initially and so missed the gradual heat rise. Before I knew it I was beginning to overheat and so made as sharpish an exit as possible.

Whilst not exactly leading to ship death, the DBX went from 99% hull to 47% and used a good 2/3s of my auto repair module.

Ive since stopped drinking and jumping tired!

Archvillain · Mar 15, 2016

I'm in favour of the danger. With so much hanging on the line, it makes a surface landing a Big Event in the expedition, not undertaken lightly, and demanding planning, forethought, care, and selectivity. Then once landed, you do as much as you can and make the most of it.

On the whole, exploration otherwise feels too evenly paced. I feel like it benefits from something that wildly breaks the established rhythm. Something that is legitimately dangerous if conditions aren't favorable (and really quite safe if enough time is taken) and is a big mission in its own right - that fits the bill to me. (Including sweaty-palms moments that are largely just psychological if you've chosen a low-grav planet and take care.)

Plus, it's a reason to not D-grade your thrusters. Decisions in this game that you need to agonize over (instead of being a foregone-conclusion/following-the-script) those are more meaningful decisions. Previously it was a foregone conclusion that explorers fly the lightest thrusters you can fit. Now it's a meaningful reflection of personal style/preference!

But that's for now - today the primary reason for a landing is to restock materials. If additional gameplay is introduced later that makes more frequent landings more desirable, then I'd be happy to see the danger scaled back a notch to match (so we keep a similar averaged risk despite more landings).

Sniffy75 · Mar 15, 2016

Early on in horizons, I came across a moon that was a mere 1.45 Mm from its parent planet so decided to see if it was possible to fly at space normal speed from one body to the other.
It is possible, however, I misjudged that the travel distance and the ETA is to the centre of the body, not to its surface, when there was about an hour left, I left the game running while i made dinner and came back just in time to see my Asp face planting the moon, lost 87% hull from that one stupid mistake and I'm just lucky that I didn't blow up right then.

I blew up later on while making silly mistake #2 which was attempting to land on a 4G MR planet with my 13% hull. (I have since sacrificed some range for 5A thrusters so that landing in high G isn't quite so hairy)

I guess distractions are my biggest downfall since just today I had a very close call.
I got distracted just before making the final jump before having to refuel, came back a bit over a hour later more than 2 million Ls from the nearest star, not enough fuel to make the jump and having that dreaded main tank drained warning sound ominously while desperately trying to fly back and scoop. I was literally running on fumes with only a couple of pixels showing on my top fuel bar when I eventually reached scooping range. I was many thousands of Ly from the bubble in a mostly uncharted part of the galaxy and having to call the fuel rats would have been very embarrassing.

Roqinn · Mar 15, 2016

I burnt my T6 up when I forgot to zero my throttle. It was the last time that happened! lol