Horizons Hovering

[wargwargwarg]

I'm not sure I like this hovering you do when angling to land in Horizons. I mean I like it but doesn't quite fit the lore of the game.

Stations rotate so there is no artificial gravity in human space. FSD won't work in gravity fields. Thrusters....well they thrust backwards, no VTOL. So by which miracle of engineering is my ship able to hover on a good sized planet (I'd expect 0.7G at least) ?!?

Landing thrusters? Not enough slots.
Actually flying? If no atmosphere out there (or too thin), aerodynamics don't do squat.
Vintage nose up landing on your tail with the thrusters you got? Hm, the landing platform might turn you from vertical to horizontal, after landing... Taking off could be by a sort of maglev rail or catapult system like on carriers..
I'm not sure I understand the "glide" thing, that also depends on atmosphere

Bit of a headache but I'd expect a reasonable answer from such a polished title.

 

[Ozram]

Actually, it is VTOL. Go to your external camera (the debug one) next time you're hovering and take a look at those thrusters at work
I'll put in a couple of pics:

Notice the dust flying up?

Inversely, you can go fa off and crash to the ground.
You can also win a fight by shooting out the thrusters from a ship over a planetary surface:

And watch that gravity at work:

 

[wargwargwarg]

Aren't those the maneuvering thrusters, for space? That may work for fighters or smaller rocks but your honking Anaconda is 400t ! That needs serious muscle...
On larger ships one more slot occupied would not be too big a problem
Where is the limit between ok and too much?

PS. what debug camera?

 

[Ozram]

Aren't those the maneuvering thrusters, for space? That may work for fighters or smaller rocks but your honking Anaconda is 400t ! That needs serious muscle...
On larger ships one more slot occupied would not be too big a problem
Where is the limit between ok and too much?

PS. what debug camera?

I think you'll notice I'm on a low grav planet. Had it been a high grav one I'd have to be far more careful moving about in that heavy beast, but yeah not much is realistic about ED.

 

[Ca$hback]

The maneuvering thrusters have a ridiculous thrust to weight ratio. They can throw the ship in any direction at least 2/3rds of maximum speed. If you feel their too small, remember their just vectored redistribution valves for the main engine. EPS conduits.

To represent it properly, if I was landing my 1100t gunship on a 3G ice world, how deep would the hole be? How tall would the column of steam be?

 

[wargwargwarg]

The maneuvering thrusters have a ridiculous thrust to weight ratio.

Not to be to "techie", but while they're efficient, they're not effective on large ships. The big mass means a lot of inertia that needs to be overcome.
In space, yes, a hairspray jet suffices. But even then, the lateral two thirds speed and instant response is just candy from the devs.
Ice worlds mean low density which means low gravity, thus low pressure on the landing struts, thus probably ok to land.... or get out and shovel if it wasn't

Don't know, which ever way I turn this, it still doesn't sound convincing.

Uhm, an ideea: instead of a engine class 5 for your ship, you could equip it with a class 4 and the remaining space be fitted with a landing thruster system. Trade main thrust for landing. Something like the landing bay and the buggie inside.


PPS. in the class 5 slot equip a class 3 and a bigger landing thruster. Free to do dogfights near planets - not so much in space tradeoff

 

[Ozram]

Not to be to "techie", but while they're efficient, they're not effective on large ships. The big mass means a lot of inertia that needs to be overcome.
In space, yes, a hairspray jet suffices. But even then, the lateral two thirds speed and instant response is just candy from the devs.
Ice worlds mean low density which means low gravity, thus low pressure on the landing struts, thus probably ok to land.... or get out and shovel if it wasn't

Don't know, which ever way I turn this, it still doesn't sound convincing.

Uhm, an ideea: instead of a engine class 5 for your ship, you could equip it with a class 4 and the remaining space be fitted with a landing thruster system. Trade main thrust for landing. Something like the landing bay and the buggie inside.

While it isn't realistic do consider the amount of work those thrusters have to do to change ship directions during boost maneuvers. They are impossibly powerful. Low thrust over a period of time may get something going eventually, but that's not what we do with these ships. Also, despite the huge strength of maneuvering thrusters, they do have their limits. Fly in a big ship, loaded with cargo at even 1.7 G and you will notice it right away. There are also vids of large ships trying to land (and crashing) on some of the heavy, heavy grav planets.

 

[Releeshahn]

I'm not sure I understand the "glide" thing, that also depends on atmosphere

This is the equivalent of your FSD cool down; you are in FSD until glide kicks in, then during the glide everything cools off. I can imagine popping a FSD field that close to a physical surface may have... consequences. It's also possible that the glide allows an override of the normaly very strict emergency drop distance, allowing you to continue toward the surface at a ridiculous speed without the FSD generating a field.

The glide also aborts if certain conditions aren't met, and being stuck under main drive power 278 km from the surface makes me want to swing up and try another round of landing.

 

[Skyfire]

P.S. what debug camera?

NOTE: Only do this when your ship is in a 'safe' mode. Landed/docked is best, but you can do it in normal space or in supercruise. PRESS 'C' and OK the response. You will then be outside your ship and can move the 'camera' around as if you were flying. (this is unless you have reconfigured 'C' to do something else. Check it in controls/key setup)

 

[HalloweenWeed]

Personally I don't like how the "flight assist" 'turns' your inertia when you roll/yaw. That is so unrealistic. Sure, you can turn off "flight assist," but then flying is nearly impossible, especially when landing. I wish there were a setting for inertia changes/redirection when using "flight assist." My god this is 3000, of course you could have the computer automatically stop pitch/yaw/roll when you center the stick. But the way they designed it, it's either all or nothing "flight assist."

 

[Skyfire]

This is the equivalent of your FSD cool down; you are in FSD until glide kicks in, then during the glide everything cools off. I can imagine popping a FSD field that close to a physical surface may have... consequences. It's also possible that the glide allows an override of the normaly very strict emergency drop distance, allowing you to continue toward the surface at a ridiculous speed without the FSD generating a field.

The glide also aborts if certain conditions aren't met, and being stuck under main drive power 278 km from the surface makes me want to swing up and try another round of landing.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'certain conditions' not being met, but I have found the best (and seemingly quickest) way to approach planetary bases to land is to supercruise towards the planet manoeuvring such that the base is almost (but not quite) on the edge of the planetary disk and then head directly for it, but keep your heading just above it. Once you get planetary approach active you can adjust your approach such that distance to the base is roughly double your current altitude. I find it best to keep your nose just above it so that 'glide' cuts in fairly late. Then, you should find a relatively short glide time and you should exit glide somewhere around 15km away or even less. I have even dropped out at 8km before now. Then it's just 'Request Docking' and land!

If you need to avoid being scanned on the way in to planetary bases, I find that lining up with the pad for approach from well out around 6km and then heading in at about 45 degrees down angle at high (maybe full?) speed, and dropping your landing gear (helps slow you down) at the last moment. Best to have good shields though, because until you've had some practice it can damage bits of your ship! .... as well as being embarrassing, and leaving you explaining to the authorities why your ship landed so heavily and damaged their dock!

 

[thirstyfish]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'certain conditions' not being met, but I have found the best (and seemingly quickest) way to approach planetary bases to land is to supercruise towards the planet manoeuvring such that the base is almost (but not quite) on the edge of the planetary disk and then head directly for it, but keep your heading just above it. Once you get planetary approach active you can adjust your approach such that distance to the base is roughly double your current altitude. I find it best to keep your nose just above it so that 'glide' cuts in fairly late. Then, you should find a relatively short glide time and you should exit glide somewhere around 15km away or even less. I have even dropped out at 8km before now. Then it's just 'Request Docking' and land!

If you need to avoid being scanned on the way in to planetary bases, I find that lining up with the pad for approach from well out around 6km and then heading in at about 45 degrees down angle at high (maybe full?) speed, and dropping your landing gear (helps slow you down) at the last moment. Best to have good shields though, because until you've had some practice it can damage bits of your ship! .... as well as being embarrassing, and leaving you explaining to the authorities why your ship landed so heavily and damaged their dock!

The conditions that can result in stopping orbital glide are your altitude (you stop when you get low enough) and your attitude (pitching your nose too far up or down). The angle on the pitch i think runs from like -80-something degrees to -5 degrees (where 0 is perfectly level with the ground). Also, it should be noted that if you try to fly upside down while "on" a planet, your ship will gain a bunch of heat because of your directional thrusters on the the top of the ship working so hard.

 

[Section47ABH]

I'm not sure I like this hovering you do when angling to land in Horizons. I mean I like it but doesn't quite fit the lore of the game.

Stations rotate so there is no artificial gravity in human space. FSD won't work in gravity fields. Thrusters....well they thrust backwards, no VTOL. So by which miracle of engineering is my ship able to hover on a good sized planet (I'd expect 0.7G at least) ?!?

Landing thrusters? Not enough slots.
Actually flying? If no atmosphere out there (or too thin), aerodynamics don't do squat.
Vintage nose up landing on your tail with the thrusters you got? Hm, the landing platform might turn you from vertical to horizontal, after landing... Taking off could be by a sort of maglev rail or catapult system like on carriers..
I'm not sure I understand the "glide" thing, that also depends on atmosphere

Bit of a headache but I'd expect a reasonable answer from such a polished title.

Others have said that your ship has thrusters on the belly that let you hover. And landing an Anaconda on them much past .6 gravities needs to be done with some care and discretion, as I have the repair bills to prove.

And station rotation doesn't mean there's no gravity control in the ED 'verse, it just means that gravity control costs more than spin-induced pseudogravity: architecture is governed at least as much by economics as by physics.

And there's got to be some gravity control in this game or the pilots of some of these ships would be slightly rancid Terrine Of Human in the cracks on the back wall of their cockpits with the accelerations and manoeuvres they're capable of.

 

[thirstyfish]

At what point are we over analyzing this? We are trying to work out the physics of a video game that is set some 1200 years in the future. Just going to put that out there.

 

[Releeshahn]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'certain conditions' not being met

Those conditions are your pre-glide speed, and the angle of decent. Too steep, too shallow, too fast-- and you can cause glide to abort.

If you follow the method you outlined you can sometimes drop out of glide as close as 4 km from an installation. It took a few runs before I started to trust that method at that distance, lemmetellya. The thrusters will keep your ship in place, hovering, if your throttle is neutral when glide ends. I enjoy the VTOL aspect a lot.

 

[Ozram]

Just a pic I thought would be appropriate here:

Another way to see thrusters at work is to go within Orbital cruise range of a planet, drop into instance and roll slowly while moving forward. You will see the thrusters activate to counteract the gravitational pull as they try to keep your ship on the current vector you have set. Eg:

 

[Mike Reacher]

Personally I don't like how the "flight assist" 'turns' your inertia when you roll/yaw. That is so unrealistic. Sure, you can turn off "flight assist," but then flying is nearly impossible, especially when landing. I wish there were a setting for inertia changes/redirection when using "flight assist." My god this is 3000, of course you could have the computer automatically stop pitch/yaw/roll when you center the stick. But the way they designed it, it's either all or nothing "flight assist."

I agree. That all or nothing is a pain. Also the way it controls your speed is a pain.
Fly a 1000 LS and halfway across a red sign flashes up. "Slow Down" and your ship slows rather stupidly. Dammit. You have 500 LS to go. You don't want to crawl.
And then as you approach your station it speeds up or slows right down. When I approach a station that has an orbit I try to arrive vertically so the planet gravity has less effect. Doesn't work. So stupid.

 

[relayer]

Fly a 1000 LS and halfway across a red sign flashes up. "Slow Down" and your ship slows rather stupidly. Dammit. You have 500 LS to go. You don't want to crawl.
And then as you approach your station it speeds up or slows right down. When I approach a station that has an orbit I try to arrive vertically so the planet gravity has less effect. Doesn't work. So stupid.

I see this misinformation keep being passed around - SLOW DOWN is not a command, it is a notice; in this case, that a local grav well is causing you to slow down.

Don't think so? Untarget your objective and you'll still see SLOW DOWN message.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It by the magic of manouver thruster which you could have easily found out by using the external cam, even if it a pain to use.

 

[HalloweenWeed]

I agree. That all or nothing is a pain. Also the way it controls your speed is a pain.
Fly a 1000 LS and halfway across a red sign flashes up. "Slow Down" and your ship slows rather stupidly. Dammit. You have 500 LS to go. You don't want to crawl.

I see this misinformation keep being passed around - SLOW DOWN is not a command, it is a notice; in this case, that a local grav well is causing you to slow down.

Don't think so? Untarget your objective and you'll still see SLOW DOWN message.

Mike: regarding the quoted section of your post, AFAICT this ONLY happens when you pass near a heavenly body. I have traveled 500-300,000 Ls hundreds of times without that occurring.

relayer: I actually don't think that was exactly the intention of the devs, I think it was intended to tell you when approaching a body (as a target destination) that you are going too fast, to "slow down." I personally think it should say "too fast for approach." Unfortunately, as evident by the exact mechanics in the game, it seems to be a bit artificial in nature, and to me it seems like the devs are just trying to punish you for using too much throttle on approach. I have had times where I accidentally changed my target during this event and I immediately slowed down, but I've tried since and can't reproduce that. Also, the effect seems to be exactly the same in intensity and range (when there are no other bodies within affected range, not counting the body the target is orbiting) no matter what the gravity level of the body is, whether it is a huge planet, star, moon, orbital space station (or even a USS?); which doesn't make any sense, which is big argument for the notion that it is just arbitrarily added by the devs to punish you for approaching at excessive throttle.