Horizons First Planetary landing. KABOOM

[Cmdr Irenicus]

So I just got horizons today. I checked out all the training videos first so I'd know what to do

I entered glide mode and began descending, then all of a sudden my ship just blows up for no reason!

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It really didn't seem like I had done anything wrong. I was in the blue, was descending slowly, keeping my guages out of the red then I just blew up. Wasn't even near the surface. What did I do wrong?

I am considering submitting a ticket, 9m lost in insurance and I only had 19m

 

[xondk]

So I just got horizons today. I checked out all the training videos first so I'd know what to do

I entered glide mode and began descending, then all of a sudden my ship just blows up for no reason!

<Removed>

It really didn't seem like I had done anything wrong. I was in the blue, was descending slowly, keeping my guages out of the red then I just blew up. Wasn't even near the surface. What did I do wrong?

I am considering submitting a ticket, 9m lost in insurance and I only had 19m

Video evidence would be really nice to have, because it really depends on what you are doing.

Blowing up without hitting the ground sounds a bit odd, are you sure you didn't accidentally activate silent running or such? were there any warnings? sparks? or such before you blew up , or just boom?

 

[Croaker]

Was your route set to the planetary station, or just to the planet? I made that mistake once. Though I didn't end up blowing up, the word "impact" was in my HUD warning me if I kept going. Other possibility...there's some heat generation with the atmosphere system. I don't know the specifics, but make sure to watch your heat levels.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

No warnings, no sparks. For the record I've been playing since original beta and had only 3 insurance claims prior to this in over 400hours. Well 2 really, 3rd happened after 1.6 hit and I got destroyed by OP AI.

So you know....not exactly a noob even if this aspect is new to me.

No video as I don't have shadowplay installed thesedays but I am wishing I did now

I was trying to land on Khun 5 for the engineer there and had targeted his settlement.

Like I said, rate of descent was all in the green (blue) whatever...above the red anyway, and was still about 4k from the planet surface descending very slowly. I just don't know what happened. Ship just instantly blew up

Nope no sparks, silent running could not have been activated since it's on a key on my KB and I had both hands on my Joystick


Anyway, now I'm pretty much completely put off trying to land on a planet again or do engineer stuff since it was my first experience with it, I'm not exactly motivated to repeat that again. Can't afford to lose another ship.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

Think I'll just go back to playing as I did before...feeling like I just wasted $40 on this

Maybe I'll buy a sidewinder and land on a planet..But I don't even know how engineers work, Im guessing I can only upgrade the ship I'm currently flying....so that's pretty useless to me right now. Bah...

 

[Arry]

There are some very very big mountains on some of these planets. You can go from flying at 5Km to boom, in seconds.

 

[PiLhEaD]

It does sound odd as you describe it.

Trying again in a sidey makes a lot of sense.

I think a ticket to support is also sensible - if only to recoup the losses - I'm sure they'll be helpful given Horizons only just landed on your PC... ahem... ;-)

 

[PhanttoM]

<snip>
I was trying to land on Khun 5 for the engineer there and had targeted his settlement.
<snip>

The only thing I can think of is that some of the engineer bases have a really, REALLY high Tower at the center of the base. I've nearly crashed into a couple of times, when gliding. Especially at night time when you can barely see them.
I've learned to avoid them by flying towards the outskirts of the bases.

I don't recall if the base at Khun 5 has that tower though.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

Geez, I'm not blind. There were no mountains, nor anything else near enough to kill me. I was above the surface in planetary flight mode, throttle in the blue, descent meter nowhere near being red, descending slowly as I just said.

I have no issue taking blame for my own mistakes, but I was being very careful and vigilant regarding all the descent meters, speed etc and nothing was wrong...like I said, completely out of the blue, ship spinning with the usual vanishing HUD which means you know you're about to hear the inevitable "eject, eject". That was it. No warning, no impact warning...zip nada nothing.

It's all good I'm just going to refund Horizons on steam as I don't really see the point now. Had this not been my first experience i may have felt differently but yeah, not enticed in the slightest to go back to any planets now. Losing 9million for no reason is not my idea of fun

 

[hunvagy]

Or you were shot by the base defenses. If you were invited it's a bug. If not, AFAIK the engineer bases will destroy you for getting too close. I even had a hostile marker from the Dweller on approach for a while, even though I was invited.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

The only thing I can think of is that some of the engineer bases have a really, REALLY high Tower at the center of the base. I've nearly crashed into a couple of times, when gliding. Especially at night time when you can barely see them.
I've learned to avoid them by flying towards the outskirts of the bases.

I don't recall if the base at Khun 5 has that tower though.

I was 8km from the base, I could see it in front of me, not directly below me....I'm really at a loss as to what happened. One would think one would get a warning if ones ship was in imminent danger of being completely destroyed when I had 100% shields and hull. But nope.

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Or you were shot by the base defenses. If you were invited it's a bug. If not, AFAIK the engineer bases will destroy you for getting too close. I even had a hostile marker from the Dweller on approach for a while, even though I was invited.

I had the invite yes and was bringing the soontill relics to get the 3rd tick so I could start working on blueprints. Is there another base on that planet that would have defenses? I mean even then, I didn't get any warning, like "leave the area" or anything, and didn't see any impacts. So if I was shot down it seems rather strange. Especially as that means I was one shotted if that's the case, as again, my hud vanished, ship spun and then EJECT.

 

[beneuto]

A bit of a long shot but maybe your hull integrity was low? Used to happen a bit in the early days because people didn't realise that they had to explicitly go into repair screen on occasion to fix integrity. I remember one guy getting upset when his Clipper blew up after ramming a Sidey. These days it gets fixed automatically with a "Repair All".

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

Or you were shot by the base defenses. If you were invited it's a bug. If not, AFAIK the engineer bases will destroy you for getting too close. I even had a hostile marker from the Dweller on approach for a while, even though I was invited.

You have me wondering about this now. Because when I initially launched horizons, first thing I got was the "incoming message" with 5 invites to the engineers. So I look on my galaxy map...nothing. Right hand panel, opened Engineers panel: Nothing again. Waited 10 minutes then suddenly all the purple icons appeared on my map and the engineer panel showed all 5 engineers I had invites from. Seems strange but I thought ok, game is just getting itself sorted since its my first time playing horizons, but if the base was hostile to me, why didnt I at least get a warning to leave as I thought that was the case, having seen that in the training videos for horizons?

 

[Xonic]

As is recall there was (is???) a bug with invisible walls above starports and settlements.
Happened to me once during takeoff.

Since i was ascending, it only hit my shields when i crashed into one of those. After relogging, everything was fine.

This was in 2.0, not sure if the bug has been completely fixed

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

A bit of a long shot but maybe your hull integrity was low? Used to happen a bit in the early days because people didn't realise that they had to explicitly go into repair screen on occasion to fix integrity. I remember one guy getting upset when his Clipper blew up after ramming a Sidey. These days it gets fixed automatically with a "Repair All".

Alas no. I repair my integrity every time I stop at a station. I dunno. I'm gonna say it's a bug or something else I am completely unaware of like being shot down instantly for no reason. But still seems very strange. Ahhh I'll get over it, just so depressed as I was so excited when I finally bought the season pass today. It just crushed me a bit..I'll hold off on refunding as I know I'd only be doing that because of this mishap, not because I don't like the content.

I'll go calm down a bit and have another try in a sidey or something lol

 

[Arry]

Geez, I'm not blind. There were no mountains, nor anything else near enough to kill me. I was above the surface in planetary flight mode, throttle in the blue, descent meter nowhere near being red, descending slowly as I just said.

I have no issue taking blame for my own mistakes, but I was being very careful and vigilant regarding all the descent meters, speed etc and nothing was wrong...like I said, completely out of the blue, ship spinning with the usual vanishing HUD which means you know you're about to hear the inevitable "eject, eject". That was it. No warning, no impact warning...zip nada nothing.

It's all good I'm just going to refund Horizons on steam as I don't really see the point now. Had this not been my first experience i may have felt differently but yeah, not enticed in the slightest to go back to any planets now. Losing 9million for no reason is not my idea of fun

Must be a Thargiod thing then. Somewhere in the small print, FD I am sure that FD must have stated, that they cannot be held accountable for; Alien interaction or acts of god.

Put in a ticket; FD are being very generous , these days.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

As is recall there was (is???) a bug with invisible walls above starports and settlements.
Happened to me once during takeoff.

Since i was ascending, it only hit my shields when i crashed into one of those. After relogging, everything was fine.

This was in 2.0, not sure if the bug has been completely fixed

I'd consider that, if I was right above the settlement, but I wasn't. I don't know. Sorry for my rambling. Just a little annoyed. I can easily make the money I lost back in a couple of hours. I had about 50 million last night until I upgraded from a 7b to 7a shields on my Conda, so that's why I'm low on cash now. will go back to my trading route for a bit and perhaps go back with my Asp or something.

Thanks for all the suggestions of the possible reasoning behind my mishap guys, I'm not dismissing everything you're saying, but I do know I didn't get any warnings, so all I can think of is bug or insta-kill by something I didn't see that was below me...but my sensors didn't show anything, or somehow the base 8km away, in front of me at a 45 degree angle shot me down? Still find that a hard one to believe though due to above reasons (no shots fired, no warnings, no impacts).

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Must be a Thargiod thing then. Somewhere in the small print, FD I am sure that FD must have stated, that they cannot be held accountable for; Alien interaction or acts of god.

Put in a ticket; FD are being very generous , these days.

Hahaha thargoids dropped out of witchspace and insta killed me. I'll take that Thargoids confirmed

 

[xyphic]

'twas probably a bug, one of those ones that'll only ever happen once, or at the most inopportune moment. I'm sure that if you explain your plight in a support ticket Frontier will refund your insurance cost (and if not, you still have the recourse of refunding your Horizons purchase). Taking a Sidey -- or even something with a bit more mass, but still inexpensive -- would be a good idea, as the flight model is a bit different when you have gravity to take into account.

 

[Ripbudd]

Seriously first time landing with 9M ship? You deserved it man! I never crashed into a planet (accidentaly) and i fly pretty damn good considering i smuggled tons of slaves to bunch of planets with 3G+ and never crashed. I still used sidey for my first attempt because if you trash it who cares.

 

[hunvagy]

You have me wondering about this now. Because when I initially launched horizons, first thing I got was the "incoming message" with 5 invites to the engineers. So I look on my galaxy map...nothing. Right hand panel, opened Engineers panel: Nothing again. Waited 10 minutes then suddenly all the purple icons appeared on my map and the engineer panel showed all 5 engineers I had invites from. Seems strange but I thought ok, game is just getting itself sorted since its my first time playing horizons, but if the base was hostile to me, why didnt I at least get a warning to leave as I thought that was the case, having seen that in the training videos for horizons?

Could be that since you were still in glide, you approached too fast and they thought it would be fun to shoot you up. I would file a bug report before asking for a refund, it might get you your ship back if it was a game error.