Newcomer / Intro Is there a way to enter orbit of a planet? I mean actual orbit, not just SC around it.

[Zynniah]

There doesn't appear to be any way to tell your computer to enter orbit around a planet. Admittedly there isn't much need to do so, except when going to stations, which are already in orbit.

The game's physics seams to allow for the possibility of achieving a stable orbit. If you drop from SC close enough to a planet and turn of flight assist, all the forces are there. You've got engines and gravity affecting your ship. So, all that is needed is to work out how fast you need to be traveling and in what direction. Sadly, 34th century computers don't appear to come with that software and I haven't been able to hack into my ship's computer to add it myself.

I'm sort of hoping I'm missing something, but I suppose I could try and do it the 1960's NASA way and do the math by hand. If I did that, could I call myself a rocket scientist?

 

[Chris Simon]

No. Well, at least not by any in-game functionality.

But the gravity works like in normal life so it'¨s just the matter of speeds. Which is a problem, of course, because our ships have a "speed limit" in normal space.
But SRVs don't, funnily enough, and I've seen someone actually putting SRV in orbit of a small moon by simply accelerating to the orbit speed.

I guess you could do it in a ship as well, but it would have to be a really small moon or a planet with a gravity so weak that the orbit speed would be within the range of what our ships can do in F/A off mode.

 

[777Driver]

Funnily enough we were just talking about that, it might be possible. Have recently been doing tests on high g worlds, in this video the ship is accelerating way past the normal space thruster limit, and maintaining altitude..

Didn't a cmdr orbit a moon in a SRV?

[video=youtube;v-pCSKy5gL4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-pCSKy5gL4[/video]

 

[Sapyx]

Ironically, the physics to allow you to go into orbit is all modelled in the game perfectly - but the gameplay overlay then promptly over-writes it and makes it impossible to achieve.

The problem with the gameplay is this: your ship is never not under power. Even if you go FA-off or even switch off all your thrusters in the module panel, they're not truly switched off, they still fire automatically to prevent you from "going too fast". But to achieve orbit, you really need to be "going too fast" - you need thousands of m/s to go into orbit around a moderately-sized planet. So while in theory your ship can drift, powerless, in practice it actually can't.

When you drop down into normal space, the ship's speed is measured relative to the nearest frame-of-reference object: a planet, moon, space station or whatever. But gameplay requires that you never exceed a few hundred m/s from this frame of reference. In order to achieve this gameplay result, your thrusters have to fire to counteract the gravity the frame-of-reference object might be exerting on your ship. In other words, when your normal-space speed is zero relative to a planet, your ship is "hovering" in space relative to the planet only because your ship's thrusters are firing continually upwards, keeping you in that spot and preventing your ship from plummeting down into the planet. Your thrusters are surprisingly powerful at doing this: they can prevent you from falling into a black hole, even when you're only a few km away from the event horizon; a ship would logically have to put out tens of thousands of gees in order to do that. You can get "proof" of this continuous thruster-firing by watching your heat, as you maneuver in space while very close to a high-gee planet (like in a CZ that's right next to a gas giant).

The best you can hope for is a "powered orbit" around a smaller world where orbital speeds are within the gameplay speed range.

 

[Ebel]

Sadly, no

That being said, I often take delivery missions to multiple planetary bases on same planet. Not a problem as you can check the system map/planet view and determine a rough heading to the next base and then stay within low planet oribit and bring the new base into range. This is cool as when you get the "all that tasty cargo" message, you never get to a height they can interdict you. I like the low orbit trick.

 

[ilo]

Sadly, no

That being said, I often take delivery missions to multiple planetary bases on same planet. Not a problem as you can check the system map/planet view and determine a rough heading to the next base and then stay within low planet oribit and bring the new base into range. This is cool as when you get the "all that tasty cargo" message, you never get to a height they can interdict you. I like the low orbit trick.

Happily, yes

[video=youtube;xN__7GePcQ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN__7GePcQ4[/video]

Unfortunately it is only under a limited distance of the body, you can't just have any orbit (e.g. those in use by the station), just like Chris said:

...but it would have to be a really small moon or a planet with a gravity so weak that the orbit speed would be within the range of what our ships can do in F/A off mode.

but hey, all those saying NO NO NO might need to think about it again.

 

[Caramel Clown]

I believe Scott Manley have put iEagle into orbit over some small moon It is totally possible, and not through some fake shoehorned mechanics.

Edit. Here. https://youtu.be/wWJEnogSNFY?t=16m39s
All naysayers can go waste time somewhere else