May we finally have "Air drops" in our SRVs please?

[uliando]

Wish we had normal gravity enabled when in srv, not that fake increased one. Or an option to switch.

Just imagine you're falling down from big cliff on low-g planet. Your stupid thrusters accelerate you downwards constantly to take insane hull damage or maybe just leave it to natural gravity and thrust up to keep falling speeds in civil range.
We need proper gravity for SRV. Ships obey this, why not SRVs? Because you could go to space in SRV with that? You can already do that on some planets so give us downward thrust manual control.

 

[Cmdr Snuffler]

Oh God yes, some of these planets have crap terrain and are unlandable or worse you land, and your stuck because the ship cant find a valid landing zone so you drive for half an hour in a direction until you find a parking space to reboard your ship

I was on a planet like this yesterday.
My ship hovered 50m above the ground.
Drove the SRV under it and clicked "board ship"...my SRV was "tractor-beamed" up.
So I did exactly what you said wasn't possible.
Question is, is this a bug?!

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

I am out exploring in an Imperial Clipper, but I will be mothballing the ship whenever I get back to the bubble. Because of the new mapping tool, I am landing on planets a lot more often. Large ships are a pain to land due to the terrain, I will be switch back to my ASPx or the new Krait Phantom when I get back.

 

[Daynen]

The worst part about the "transfer cargo" screen (aside from the fact that it is a whole screen) is that the SRV can only carry a whole TWO ITEMS OF CARGO ANYWAY. Not twenty or two hundred; TWO. That is not worth having an entire extra screen of menu that takes THAT many clicks to transfer it to the damn ship!

I mean...what was the logic? Did they think we'd regularly need to transfer only ONE of our two tons of cargo? Did they think we'd have a million reasons to take cargo OUT of the ship and put it IN the SRV? If they planned on releasing bigger SRV's with a lot more cargo space then fine; get on with it! Otherwise the UI for SRV interaction is utterly obnoxious and a disastrous piece of UI design, full stop.

The FIRST OPTION on the SRV's helm panel should be BOARD SHIP. The single most common thing most of us do when we decide to drive underneath our ship is GET ON THE DAMN SHIP, is it not? Yet that's not only NOT the first option, it's THREE CLICKS DOWN?

I've said it before and I'm not afraid to say it again: There are great things about Elite Dangerous, but their UI designer/s need a few five finger tattoos across the cheek.

 

[Anubite]

The worst part about the "transfer cargo" screen (aside from the fact that it is a whole screen) is that the SRV can only carry a whole TWO ITEMS OF CARGO ANYWAY. Not twenty or two hundred; TWO. That is not worth having an entire extra screen of menu that takes THAT many clicks to transfer it to the damn ship!

I mean...what was the logic? Did they think we'd regularly need to transfer only ONE of our two tons of cargo? Did they think we'd have a million reasons to take cargo OUT of the ship and put it IN the SRV? If they planned on releasing bigger SRV's with a lot more cargo space then fine; get on with it! Otherwise the UI for SRV interaction is utterly obnoxious and a disastrous piece of UI design, full stop.

The FIRST OPTION on the SRV's helm panel should be BOARD SHIP. The single most common thing most of us do when we decide to drive underneath our ship is GET ON THE DAMN SHIP, is it not? Yet that's not only NOT the first option, it's THREE CLICKS DOWN?

I've said it before and I'm not afraid to say it again: There are great things about Elite Dangerous, but their UI designer/s need a few five finger tattoos across the cheek.

Wow, lazy. Can't move 3 clicks? Just...
.......................................................................kidding

 

[Rowander]

Given that the SRV can handle drops quite well by itself, and that it also has thrusters to stop it from dropping too fast... I'll bet that Frontier has it in the to-do list but has not had enough time to implement this feature. Because it's a much needed one that would add some fun to the game while bringing some good QOL.

 

[Wescott]

I have one word for you SRV users: RAMP. 1400 years in the future and we can't have a blasted boarding ramp?

I've chimed in on my aggravation with SRV/ship interaction before, but the short version is that it's ALL wrong. The pickiness of the "boarding" light, the arrangement of the SRV's helm menu (seriously? "Activate turret" is the first option?? Who EVER actually needs that button?) and the sheer, maddening clunkiness of performing ANY action between the two craft--it's inhumane how many button presses we need for the simplest of tasks. Have you ever tried to offload SRV cargo into your ship? It's obscene how much tinkering it takes.

Never had any issues with it myself, perhaps it's you and not the way it is implemented/

 

[Dillon Fallon]

We do need something to justify a class 6 srv hanger. So loving the mech idea.

I'm sure someone once said that the scarab is the sidewinder of srvs, so hopefully there's some ideas going on.

 

[Wescott]

The worst part about the "transfer cargo" screen (aside from the fact that it is a whole screen) is that the SRV can only carry a whole TWO ITEMS OF CARGO ANYWAY. Not twenty or two hundred; TWO. That is not worth having an entire extra screen of menu that takes THAT many clicks to transfer it to the damn ship!

I mean...what was the logic? Did they think we'd regularly need to transfer only ONE of our two tons of cargo? Did they think we'd have a million reasons to take cargo OUT of the ship and put it IN the SRV? If they planned on releasing bigger SRV's with a lot more cargo space then fine; get on with it! Otherwise the UI for SRV interaction is utterly obnoxious and a disastrous piece of UI design, full stop.

The FIRST OPTION on the SRV's helm panel should be BOARD SHIP. The single most common thing most of us do when we decide to drive underneath our ship is GET ON THE DAMN SHIP, is it not? Yet that's not only NOT the first option, it's THREE CLICKS DOWN?

I've said it before and I'm not afraid to say it again: There are great things about Elite Dangerous, but their UI designer/s need a few five finger tattoos across the cheek.

Never really been an issue for me personally. However it

would be more sensible to allow the player to configure his/her own choice of 1st 2nd 3rd position etc. then everyone should be happy. But it probably would bug the hell out of ED and folks would still complain.​

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I won’t lie - Mako airdrops were spectacular in Mass Effect.
Sadly the Mako was barely useful in ME save a few places.

For Elite... I’m mixed. This could be mad fun for multi crew play, or at least mildly useful if NPC’s could operate SRV’s, though they’d need to be replaceable like fighters.

The SRV is an untapped well of potential.

One such example: a mission to pursue and stop an NPC who has taken something from an installation and is heading some direction. In an SRV. You have to intercept them before they reach a ship. Instinct might say “I’ll hunt him from my ship.” But you learn/discover the NPC’s route takes him past multiple surface missile silos, enough to pop your 8A Explosion-resistant Prismstic shields with ease. So an SRV chase is your best bet.

Air-dropping might be viable to shorten the distance but not as a means to complete.

 

[lesscode]

The worst part about the "transfer cargo" screen (aside from the fact that it is a whole screen) is that the SRV can only carry a whole TWO ITEMS OF CARGO ANYWAY. Not twenty or two hundred; TWO. That is not worth having an entire extra screen of menu that takes THAT many clicks to transfer it to the damn ship!

I mean...what was the logic? Did they think we'd regularly need to transfer only ONE of our two tons of cargo? Did they think we'd have a million reasons to take cargo OUT of the ship and put it IN the SRV? If they planned on releasing bigger SRV's with a lot more cargo space then fine; get on with it! Otherwise the UI for SRV interaction is utterly obnoxious and a disastrous piece of UI design, full stop.

The FIRST OPTION on the SRV's helm panel should be BOARD SHIP. The single most common thing most of us do when we decide to drive underneath our ship is GET ON THE DAMN SHIP, is it not? Yet that's not only NOT the first option, it's THREE CLICKS DOWN?

I've said it before and I'm not afraid to say it again: There are great things about Elite Dangerous, but their UI designer/s need a few five finger tattoos across the cheek.

I guess you've never done the Ram Tah Guardian Ruins missions...

 

[Wescott]

It's annoying to fly around for 3 minutes looking for a good place to land. Why we can't just air drop and get lifted up via supension where there is hardly any leveled landmass? This would help a bunch, also being able to control where my ship can land would be great as well.

NO LOL, as the fist time your hot drop landed you badly stranded on one side or in a location you could not get out of, or so far away from where your ship " could land " you would be back here complaining about that, you really want to "air" drop on a 2G world where even your ships thrusters struggle?
Planetary terrain is supposed to be dangerous and challenging and risky a fair amount of the time; Not billiard table flat, smooth and oh so boring, you do realise some of the RL NASA planetary landers/probes etc failed to survive and those guys really do know their stuff.
If you want soppy easy, perhaps you are not attuned to what this game offers.

 

[DaveB]

"Designed in traps"

Cringe. I often wonder what kind of person it takes to go over play data and think "hey, most people go here so I'm going to block it." Like the guy who programs a pine tree in the middle of a narrow, high-speed turn in a winter sports game. I like to picture them cackling, with warty noses and leathery skin.

A good DM is always chaotic good at best

Besides, "trap" is such a loaded term. I prefer to think of them as opportunities for random encounters with "wandering stupid" - there's always a way out, a way through or a way around, but no... they had to try it that way didn't they.. fair enough, time to bring the hurt.

So yes, by all means let us deploy the SRV anywhere within the normal-space instance of a landable body. Your ship is promptly dismissed unless it's landed. Ship "recall" is based on the nearest point on the planet's surface to your SRVs actual position. If you've deployed far enough out not to get captured by the gravity, then you're going to have to kaboom your SRV to get back aboard your ship after you're tired of the "lost in space" experience. If you're a little closer in but don't have enough thrust on the SRV to bleed off that much grav-assisted velocity, the planet will do the kaboom for you. From a landed ship is always safe and undamaging, at any height AGL above zero it depends on how fast you hit and how much integrity your SRV has left. So long as "wandering stupid" isn't in your copilot's seat you should be fine.

Anything is air-droppable once...