New planetary mission type...

Ok, so I think it's safe to say that flying nap-of-the-earth is cool. Hard to argue with that. When you practice and get good it at and go faster and lower, it just gets cooler. This is the basis of my new mission suggestion:

I propose that some super-high security bases have a very large tresspass zone, like they have long range radar or something. Let's say it's a hemisphere about 30km in radius around their base. I think that distance would be about right.

So basically, in order to get close to these bases, you have to come in low and stay 'under the radar'. Now these bases will be so well defended that I think these missions will work best with a hit-and-run kind of setup. Perhaps you have to simply do a flyover of the base at under 1km to take a close range photo of the place (like you had to in Frontier and First Encounters, remember those surveillance missions?). So you have to fly in and stay under 100m or something, pull up at the last moment, get your photo and then get out of there. So it's a mission that requires a fast ship.

Alternatively it could be delivering a payload...although I appreciate that that would involve adding bombs to the game...which would of course be AMAZING!...but I appreciate that may be asking a bit much.

Or perhaps the payload is an EMP that will temporarily disable the base for 5 minutes if detonated right over it, and allow the faction you are working for to come in and assault the place while you get your behind out of there. I like that idea! You see a task force of ships drop in as you are pulling up and heading for the stars.

The 'under-the-radar' mechanic could really be awesome though and I think it could be well fleshed out. For instance, there could be a module that gives you a little graphical readout above the scanner (perhaps similar to the SRV scanner), or could simply replace the ship radar when activated, which would show you side-on, the ground, your position, and where the radar-coverage is above you. So at some points you just have to stay below 200m but then there may be tricky areas where you have to get below 80m for a few seconds as the radar coverage gets lower. Wouldn't have to be a new module actually, it could even be an extra function of the detailed surface scanner. There could also be rules around speed. Something along lines of: if you fall below 180ms for more than 5 seconds, the radar will pick you up. To force the player into the low and fast approach. I want to do this in my Imperial Eagle!

I could riff on this for ages but I'll stop here. I'm sure you get the idea. I think this is genuinely a good one and because of the mechanics of ED, it would also be varied because the mission would be more or less difficult depending on the gravity of the planet. I love the idea of having to maintain that fast and low approach for a good five to ten minutes, keeping your concentration, then the last minute pull up and delivery before jumping out. It's a mission type that's common in modern flight sims like Falcon BMS and I can tell you it's immensely satisfying to pull off, especially when it's genuinely challenging and especially when you're flying with friends and staying in close formation 50 feet above the ground.
 
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I like it. The small ships get ignored a lot as everything is combat based and bigger seems to be better in ED, but something where a small, nippy ship has to do something without the need to land and gives a good chance for players to skim along some mountainous valley-based planet surface, would be pretty cool.
 
Yes, exactly! I still love my Viper and the iEagle but now I've been playing a lot for a few weeks and got some bigger ships, it feels like there's really very little to do in them. I know that finding good moons for fast canyon running is quite a popular activity with some players and would be great to see a mission type like this to give us an in-game reason to have this kind of fun.
 
I just made a post about this same thing actually. I love my old ships like the Courier, Eagle etc.... but the game gives me no reason to use them any more...and I've only actually been playing a few weeks. Seems really sad that they are already obsolete to me.

Your planetary mission idea is superb and imo exactly what the game needs. The missions should specify that it must be performed in a small vessel as anything larger will be picked up on radar and, as you say, you must stay below a certain altitude and above a certain speed in order to evade detection. Wow, I want this!
 
I like this, +1.

This one would not be high on my prio list. But still, good idea.

There are already simple security perimeters that are marked with beacons/posts. So the zero-elevation radar perimeter exists.

This could be tricky to implement with collision detection of base sensors/radar with terrain, but would add nice dimension to the planning of Settlement missions.

Graphical representation conveyed in the cockpit and on maps adds to my enjoyment of the game and this could be a cool graphic update to surface maps and sensor side-display as well.
 
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