Engineers Is my Speed Correct?

[Commander Mick]

Was fling my Cobra Mark Three in for landing at Beckman Prospect on the 17th of last month (I did try to post about this earlier, but....) and due to bad decision on when to enter the planet's lower atmosphere. I found myself about 200km from my destination. Noticing it took me about 10 minutes before I was in spitting distance of the base and after I levelled out. Possibly flying the normal height for a passenger plane cruising inter state.

I suddenly realised for the first time since we had a been able to land on these planets. That's seems awful slow for reasonably upgraded Cobra Mark Three. Any type vessel capable of space flight and light speed might almost be embarrassed.

Is this normal?

 

[Ceekay]

Non SC (FSD) speed is in m/s so a Cobra doing say 280 m/s is just over 1000 km/hr so 200 km is going to take around 12 minutes, the normal space speeds have to be in this range (160 ish m/s) for gun combat to be possible much faster and we'd all be lobbing missiles at each other!

Could be worse you might have been in a T9!

 

[The Tick]

Let me assume you logged out in supercruise, and logged in again? Then you need to be aware of the fact that when you log in again, you find yourself in normal space. To get to your planetary destination faster, it's better to ge into supercruise again (hit 'K' on the keyboard) - your speed will be much higher, and it only takes less than 3 mins to get so close to the ground that you'll get into glide mode (=leaving supercruise to land) automatically.

It takes a little to get used how landing on planets works in ED.

 

[d8veh]

200km distance means that you missed your spot. Keep the throttle in the blue zone to avoid that. If it happens in normal space, you can re-engage your FSD to close the gap, but it's more complicated on a planet because of escape vectors. For 200km, it would still be quicker to leave the planet and re-enter. For 50km, it's easier to just keep boosting, though probably still a bit longer.

 

[JetsonRING]

Was fling my Cobra Mark Three in for landing at Beckman Prospect on the 17th of last month (I did try to post about this earlier, but....) and due to bad decision on when to enter the planet's lower atmosphere. I found myself about 200km from my destination. Noticing it took me about 10 minutes before I was in spitting distance of the base and after I levelled out. Possibly flying the normal height for a passenger plane cruising inter state.

I suddenly realised for the first time since we had a been able to land on these planets. That's seems awful slow for reasonably upgraded Cobra Mark Three. Any type vessel capable of space flight and light speed might almost be embarrassed.

Is this normal?

Without FSD a ships speed is measured in meters per second (m/sec). The ships are slow in "normal" space. When trying to land on a terrestrial object, if glide fails for any reason simply point the ship straight up and lo-wake (supercruise), gain a little altitude, adjust your entry and try again. Much faster than boosting 50 km to a landing.

A tip on landing: When approaching a planet, the point directly under your ship on the planets surface will show a marker. As you enter Orbital Cruise your destination should be about half-way between that mark (the point on the planet directly under your ship) and the horizon in front of you. This will give you around a 45-55 degree entry which will become a bit shallower as the curved surface of the planet comes up under your ship. If done correctly this entry angle will exit from Glide Mode about 6 km above your destination. I personally push that angle up until I am pointing the ship at its destination just over the red "no fly zone" HUD indicator, around 58 degrees for the shorter glide and closer approach to my destination.