Landing On a Planetary Body - HOW?

[DutchKnight]

Are there any specific ways to land on a planet? I mean, I tried approaching a station on a planet but did not seem to ever be able to get to it? Are there any directions/keys/tricks to doing this?

Thanks in advance for any help offered!!!!

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

Best thing would be to watch some tutorial videos. I watched one of the FD videos I think and found landing pretty easy. This looks like a decent video: http://youtu.be/JdW2dVBtRak

 

[Chrystoph]

First, you have to have the Horizons content. Second, the astronomical body has to have the landable indicator, a partial circle around it, on the system map.

Since you express that there was a base, I am guessing that you have Elite: Dangerous, but not Horizons. If that is the case, you'll be stuck in orbit.

 

[Sandmann]

If you HAVE the horizons expansion you can approach AIRLESS planets, but not those with atmosphere. There'll be a purple circle around the planet, once you drop below that you'll be in "orbital cruise" and you'll get an airplane type HUD pop up with altitude, attitude etc. Drop below another level and you'll be in "glide mode", drop below a third level and you'll change to normal flight. If you don't have Horizons (You'll know coz when you start the game it'll either say Elite Dangerous Horizons or just Elite Dangerous) and you approach a planet then you'll simply drop out to normal flight when you get too close.

My general plan of attack is to put the base or whatever I want to land at just "over the horizon" as I approach the planet, then use orbital cruise to get to within 250mm of my destination, then angle down to about 45 degrees and leave it there. That usually drops me out of glide about 10-4km away from the base.

 

[DutchKnight]

If you HAVE the horizons expansion you can approach AIRLESS planets, but not those with atmosphere. There'll be a purple circle around the planet, once you drop below that you'll be in "orbital cruise" and you'll get an airplane type HUD pop up with altitude, attitude etc. Drop below another level and you'll be in "glide mode", drop below a third level and you'll change to normal flight. If you don't have Horizons (You'll know coz when you start the game it'll either say Elite Dangerous Horizons or just Elite Dangerous) and you approach a planet then you'll simply drop out to normal flight when you get too close.

My general plan of attack is to put the base or whatever I want to land at just "over the horizon" as I approach the planet, then use orbital cruise to get to within 250mm of my destination, then angle down to about 45 degrees and leave it there. That usually drops me out of glide about 10-4km away from the base.

Okay, this makes it very clear, thank you! I will use this as soon as I have upgraded to the Horizon's, did not realize I needed that until now for Planet landings.

Cheers!

 

[Sandmann]

Okay, this makes it very clear, thank you! I will use this as soon as I have upgraded to the Horizon's, did not realize I needed that until now for Planet landings.

Cheers!

You're welcome. There's a couple of corrections to my previous post.

Firstly that 250mm should read 250km.

I've actually played a bit more and learned some since then. Once you're in orbital flight you want to approach the base at a 30-50 degree angle, so the greater your altitude above the planet, the sooner you should start your dive. To use my above example of 250km away from the base would be right assuming my altitude must be around 200-250km. If I have more altitude, I start my descent at a greater distance from the base. You angle of descent, altitude, and distance from target are all shown on your HUD.

Also shown on your HUD in the bottom right corner is the amount of gravity you're experiencing, expressed as a fraction of Earth normal gravity. For example at the surface on earth it would read 1.0G, whereas the moon as 1/16 Earth normal gravity so it would read 0.166G on the HUD if you landed on Luna. The greater the gravity, the more you're required to think ahead for pulling out of descents and so on. The use of "too much down" on a high G planet might result in your ship "not having enough up" to pull out of a dive, resulting in a sudden, catastrophic, and brief meeting of ship and planet.

Re updating... Horizons will ONLY allow you to approach/land on planets without an atmosphere. When they release landings on atmospheric planets you'll need another update again.