Improve Planet Landing

[Aerendyl]

The new Mandalay is a great exploration ship... until you have to land in a mountainous region. All we need to land is 3 points within a reasonable elevation of one another, and no intervening spires - but pretty much all the terrain is "unsuitable". Larger ships such as an Anaconda have an even worse time of it.

Please make the ships better at landing!

 

[SlickPBW]

 

[V'larr]

I agree that the game is way too picky about what is a "valid" landing angle, it often makes no sense and depends way too much on random rocks and so on, making it a frustrating ordeal.

That said, the Mandalay has about the easiest time of most ships in the game in spite of the surface landing quirks.

 

[g0oglyeyes]

If you have an auto-dock equipped, you can also auto-land. This usually squeezes you into the nearest valid parking spot that you wouldn't otherwise find.

 

[aRJay]

If you have an auto-dock equipped, you can also auto-land. This usually squeezes you into the nearest valid parking spot that you wouldn't otherwise find.

To qualify for that usually compliment they must have improved it a lot, it used to put you on a poor spot further away from where you wanted to be even if you had a good landing signal when the throttle zeroed.

 

[Ashnak]

Please make the ships better at landing!

I'd suggest you use a ship that's better suited to exobiology - there are quite few to choose from, basically everything up to and including the Cobra Mk.V.

 

[Aerendyl]

To qualify for that usually compliment they must have improved it a lot, it used to put you on a poor spot further away from where you wanted to be even if you had a good landing signal when the throttle zeroed.

I just spent 5 minutes trying to land near some plants I needed to scan, WITH auto-land. It screwed up so much I just turned it off in the end.

 

[Aerendyl]

I'd suggest you use a ship that's better suited to exobiology - there are quite few to choose from, basically everything up to and including the Cobra Mk.V.

Right. One of the best exploration ships is not suited to exobiology... bummer!

 

[Aerendyl]

To qualify for that usually compliment they must have improved it a lot, it used to put you on a poor spot further away from where you wanted to be even if you had a good landing signal when the throttle zeroed.

Yeah it's pretty terrible. It spies some tiny spot, tries it, when it goes down the blue disappears, it goes up again, tries again, gives up.

 

[MacDoom]

I like to call it the mini-game of micro millimetres, and I think to myself while ever so slightly tapping to the left/back/forward/right/up/down, how if I could just switch my ship to auto-hover, get up out of my chair and walk over to the transporter and beam down to the surface. I'd call my ship Scotty.

 

[veryDead]

I have never had a problem landing the Mandalay anywhere. It is perfect for exobiology, anyone that says otherwise is just a poor pilot. The good thing is that everyone is a poor pilot until they are not.

You need to practice landing. That means NEVER use the docking computer. That is just lazy. You can't become a better pilot if you let the game pilot for you. After landing 10 times in difficult terrain you will learn stuff about what the game wants you to do, then you can land anywhere. Unless you're a slow learner, then it may take up to 50 landings.

If you haven't figured it out after 50 landings, you probably never will.

As an aside, a Viper Mk3 is an amazing exo ship, inexpensive, can land anywhere even if you have no idea how to land anything else, and is a lot of fun to fly.

 

[Riverside]

My proposal on improving the finding a landing spot is to change the way the landing radar works rather than changing how the ships interact with the terrain.

I regularly find myself in a situation where the HUD briefly flashed blue but it is frustrating to tweak the ship around to find that exact spot again. If I could see where that spot was on the HUD it would help me get into exactly the right spot more quickly.

Show the blue terrain for potentially suitable landing spots on the landing HUD radar so the pilot can find them more easily, rather than only having the terrain/ship go blue when it is over a suitable spot. Having the HUD indicate not just pitch and roll angle required but also yaw would be a helpful QoL addition too.

I've been using a Cobra MkV recently & it's clear that the fidelity of it's collision model is much finer than older ships, meaning that if I find any blue spot to potentially land on chances are I can actually land there. A rework of the other (older) ships would probably help improve the chances of finding a suitable landing spot too.

 

[AngryAntz]

If you have an auto-dock equipped, you can also auto-land. This usually squeezes you into the nearest valid parking spot that you wouldn't otherwise find.

I tell it to auto land on a nice flat piece of ground, and it decides to move to a bumpy patch and wiggle around for an hour trying to find a spot it can land.

 

[DemiserofD]

They really just need to let us do an aerial deployment, like the Conflict Zone ships. The tech exists, why can't we use it?

 

[Aerendyl]

They really just need to let us do an aerial deployment, like the Conflict Zone ships. The tech exists, why can't we use it?

While that's true, I often want to use my SRV too. Basically my solution is going to be to warehouse the Mandalay and use my DBX instead. Which is a shame.

 

[Aerendyl]

I have never had a problem landing the Mandalay anywhere. It is perfect for exobiology, anyone that says otherwise is just a poor pilot. The good thing is that everyone is a poor pilot until they are not.

You need to practice landing. That means NEVER use the docking computer. That is just lazy. You can't become a better pilot if you let the game pilot for you. After landing 10 times in difficult terrain you will learn stuff about what the game wants you to do, then you can land anywhere. Unless you're a slow learner, then it may take up to 50 landings.

If you haven't figured it out after 50 landings, you probably never will.

As an aside, a Viper Mk3 is an amazing exo ship, inexpensive, can land anywhere even if you have no idea how to land anything else, and is a lot of fun to fly.

Your snarky comments without explaining how you can somehow land a Mandalay "anywhere" do not help at all. I have been playing Elite for many years, have scanned thousands of plants and I'm not a "slow learner" thanks.

 

[DemiserofD]

No reason we couldn't airdrop the SRV too. Heck, we should be able to be on the ground and call in an SRV from our ship WITHOUT it needing to land.

 

[AngryAntz]

Yeah, we need an "I WIN" button so we don't have to do anything in game except push a button.

 

[metatheurgist]

While that's true, I often want to use my SRV too. Basically my solution is going to be to warehouse the Mandalay and use my DBX instead. Which is a shame.

Would love to see an air drop and skyhook of the SRV too. Make it something that can only be done if you have a hired NPC. God knows they need to have more function than just the one.

 

[Aerendyl]

Yeah, we need an "I WIN" button so we don't have to do anything in game except push a button.

We don't need an I WIN button, just a reasonable ability to land where it's clearly possible to land. There's no actual problem with 90% of the places I'd like to land - there's plenty of room - and after I've landed the landing gear is quite often hovering in the air anyway. Star Citizen has its problems but to its credit you can land on any terrain (even if your ship is going to slide down the hill after that).