Planet landings in a fighter?

[wrmiller]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

 

[bigity]

Once you are 'on' a planet you can launch the SLF, but you can only get so far away from the mothership without the fighter blowing up.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

Nope.

Only NPC's can activate fighter landing gear.

And they say NPC's don't "cheat".

 

[Kaltern]

I always forget just how TINY fighters are...

 

[wrmiller]

Thought so. So much for adding depth to the overall game play beyond pewpew...

And yea, AFAIK the game has always played by it's own rules while forcing players to play by a different set. Maybe it's a societal thing? Dunno.

EDIT: It would have been so cool to have the big three park in orbit around a high-gravity world and use a fighter/shuttle to do system/planet exploration. Oh well.

 

[Watcher]

As bigity says, no, I'm afraid not.
You can leave the main ship parked above the surface and have a fly around but that's about it - fun but probably not what you are after.

Fighters don't have a super-cruise ability.
I've argued for a while that we could do with some sort of class-0 FSD that allows super-cruise but not jumps. This would let you have non-jump capable planetary shuttles for instance. If needs be even restrict the drive to a relatively low maximum multiplies of c limit.
That said I suspect even _with_ this you don't really want fighters doing that, they are meant to be very short range.

Some sort of mini-exploratory drop ship thing would be nice though I agree, though FD would have to work on the mechanics of that.
I still hold out a slim hope for a some sort of extra-small class ship pad that can just about handle a single sidewinder and which could be fitted to the largest ships - having an anaconda capable of hauling a sidewinder would be neat and would fill that drop ship role. Doubt we will be seeing that any time soon though, if ever.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

You absolutely can, but as others have mentioned there are some caveats:

1. You need to stay within 20km (I think) of the mothership. So you cannot leave your ship in orbit around the planet. Your mothership will follow you around like a puppy, even with no crew on board, but your fighter is likely to much much faster than your mothership so keep an eye on the distance. You will receive a warning before you get too far.

2. I use my fighter to scout around a bit, but I think that POIs do not show up when in the fighter (don't think it has the sensors), so scouting is visual only.

3. Fighter cannot land

4. You can transfer back to mothership without a crew, but the fighter cannot auto dock with the mothership. You'll need to do that yourself.

5. Canyon running is a blast when there are no rebuys!

 

[Lightspeed]

Once your landing gear is lowered, you can't launch the SLF ..... unless it changed with 2.3.x

So you can't land on a planet and fly around in the SLF, which is a pain, because it would make a good alternative to the SRV to cover the ground faster.

Then drop a marker buoy (but we haven't got those) at something interesting ... investigate further with ship and/or SRV.

We need more to do with these things !

 

[ZeroAi]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

I just tried last night during my livestream (archive at Mixer.com/TheGamersShow1) - I had my NPC hold position above the top of a mountain and went looking for a landing spot in my SLF.

Not only could I not land my slf, but I got a warning when I got around 15K away from my mother ship.

Nope.

Only NPC's can activate fighter landing gear.

https://s5.postimg.org/wvkhomrfr/Screenshot_0122.jpg

And they say NPC's don't "cheat".

AWESOME Screen Shot!

You absolutely can, but as others have mentioned there are some caveats:

1. You need to stay within 20km (I think) of the mothership. So you cannot leave your ship in orbit around the planet. Your mothership will follow you around like a puppy, even with no crew on board, but your fighter is likely to much much faster than your mothership so keep an eye on the distance. You will receive a warning before you get too far.

2. I use my fighter to scout around a bit, but I think that POIs do not show up when in the fighter (don't think it has the sensors), so scouting is visual only.

3. Fighter cannot land

4. You can transfer back to mothership without a crew, but the fighter cannot auto dock with the mothership. You'll need to do that yourself.

5. Canyon running is a blast when there are no rebuys!

Once your landing gear is lowered, you can't launch the SLF ..... unless it changed with 2.3.x

So you can't land on a planet and fly around in the SLF, which is a pain, because it would make a good alternative to the SRV to cover the ground faster.

Then drop a marker buoy (but we haven't got those) at something interesting ... investigate further with ship and/or SRV.

We need more to do with these things !

Great stuff!

Yeah not only can you not launch your SLF while landed, you also have to be up off the ground - I tried to launch when I was like 20 meters up and it told me I was too low.

 

[Doolittle]

Once you are at the edge of the bubble you are in that would be the end of the rage that keeps the bubble from resetting and destroying your big ship. Same reason the game is so limited in gameplay.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Yep, fighters are tiny. I never really realized just how so until I'd nearly run over this one.
Glad ya like the screenie. Also makes me wonder what really keeps fighters out of pretty much any other ship, since I can't think of a ship that can't have an SRV bay stuffed in it - including the Sidewinder.

Personally, I'd love to see small "scout craft" or "shuttles" introduced, so large ships CAN park in orbit, especially over high-gravity planets, and small craft can be dispatched.
It would also give a means for a large ship to deliver cargo to Outposts, even if only at a fraction of their capacity at a time.
Smallcraft have a lot of possibilities yet to be realized.

There is always the future though....

Also of note - not only can you not launch a fighter with landing gear deployed, you also cannot deploy landing gear while a fighter is out and about.

Now... cruising a planet in a fighter.. IF you have a crew member, they can take the helm and seem to do a pretty decent job following you around, so you're not anchored to 30km of where you deployed. You can also then switch back to your ship from a fighter and have your crewmate dock the fighter if needed - not quite an automatic recall, but it's close.

 

[Ziljan]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

If only!!!!

This is a feature that is sorely missing from Elite.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

There seems to be some confusion, but you do not

need an NPC crew member on board the mothership to follow you around.

The mothership will follow you by itself, no crew required. If it isn't double check the orders for the helm.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

I think I already know the answer to this, but...

Can I park my large ship in space near a planet and use the fighter to fly down looking for landing sites, etc., and then come back to my large ship?

I'd just try it, but I suspect that ED would loose my large ship and I'd be looking at a rebuy screen. Just wanted to know if anyone thinks this is even possible. Can a fighter super cruise? I'd like to think that FD introduced these little ships to do something other than fly wingman in a res or cz. But I could be mistaken...

Telepresence are limited to 30Km... (BUT YOU CAN BEAM PEOPLE FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GALAXY)...

You are thinking wrong why do you think we don't get a "miner" or a "explorer" SLF ?

 

[askavir]

I would have thought that one day we could leave the main ship in orbit, and descend on the planets using a smaller shuttle, capable of carrying a few crewman and some cargo (like pretty much in every scifi show ever). But then, "telepresence" and stuff, so no way to leave the main ship because of the tiny max distance, and anyway we're not even flying the damn things ourselves, they're just lame remote controlled drones.

Anyway it's pointless to use those ships for planetary landings, as like in so many other things, FD only thought about the pew-pew part and these ships can neither land nor dock, have no cargo space, and nothing to interact with anything.

I wish there would be one day some version or similar game to ED but which was much more "star trek" and much less "star wars". I would gladly open my wallet wide open for such a game. But that day has not yet come.

 

[wrmiller]

I would have thought that one day we could leave the main ship in orbit, and descend on the planets using a smaller shuttle, capable of carrying a few crewman and some cargo (like pretty much in every scifi show ever).

This is what I was thinking. But I've never even flown my fighter, probably because when I found out the thing was basically a remote controlled drone I lost interest. But I hoped I could at least use it for reconnaissance or something besides just watching my six during engagements.

Now if I could use it like a shuttle is used in Star Trek, that would be so cool. [up]

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Maybe we get full shuttle functionality with the Panther Clipper, maybe.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

Maybe we get full shuttle functionality with the Panther Clipper, maybe.

Yeah like a proper multicrew... minimum effort bro!

 

[Cervantes01]

It wouldn't be so bad if the range on the telepresence was more than 30km say 1/10th of a light second so we could deploy from orbit glide to our destination and do our thing leaving the mother ship behind in a stable orbit with the ability to recall the ship like you can with an SRV.

 

[biohazard15]

Nothing prevents FD from implementing the ability to dismiss and recall ship after you switch to fighter. Or launch two player-controlled fighters and dismiss ship. Or launch two player-controlled fighters and let NPC pilot control the ship.
All they need is some handwavium. "Telepresence"? Meh. Stop trying to explain gameplay features from "scientific point of view".
Players are able to do it because gameplay demands so. Period.

The only obstacle is a very vocal group of people who claim that it would somehow "break" their so-called "immersion". Unfortunately, FD listens to them.
Thus, we cannot have fun stuff like above until the said group is silenced.