PSA : exercise extreme Caution when attempting to land at any Planetary Base !

[Deleted member 38366]

In fact, what's happening is : an innocent free falling skimmer collides with a naughty ship cruising below its trajectory. The skimmer is likely to be destroyed by the impact. Therefore the naughty CMDR of the ship is responsible for having slaughtered an innocent skimmer, and as a guilty CMDR the base defense will enforce the standard punishment for such an offense : death.

BTW any advice on how to mitigate the risk of planetary approach before this is finally corrected ?!

The way I currently do it :
- in Glide Phase, approach the Planetary Base as to aim a few km next to it
- avoid any steep (50+ degrees) disengage right on top
- carefully fly the Ship until reaching ~3-3.5km from it and at <2km Altitude, check for "No Fire Zone entered" Message
- while looking approx. 45 deg up, slowly approach Base until you see the Skimmers falling out of the sky (ensuring you hit their spawn Trigger)
- proceed with normal Docking Procedures not until the last Skimmer has clearly passed the Horizon or is on the Ground
(Caution : there's actually some "latecomers", on very low Gravity Planets (0.10g or less) a "2nd wave" can drop upto 15sec after the 1st one)

I've made dozens of safe approaches this way, it just takes a Minute longer.

 

[Bryan K]

Two things come to mind:

1. Wait at a high altitiude for all the skimmers to fall before requesting docking.
2. Land >2km away, go to the base in your SRV. When departing, drive >2km away in your SRV, then summon your ship.

Not tested either as I'm out exploring right now.

A variant of the first option works: cutting across the no-fire zone at high speed just after dropping out of glide, then waiting a few km away. Entering the no-fire zone seems to be the "trigger".

Another option that I used for a while was to get directly above the designated pad before/while entering the no-fire zone and going straight down on top of it from high up. Skimmers won't spawn directly above pads, so those areas are safe zones.

Haven't tried the SRV option. Sounds a bit time-consuming.

 

[Dan Bender]

Definitely a bug that needs to be fixed.

However, I noticed in both videos that the ships were both speeding when the skimmer hit. I wonder if this wouldn't have been a problem at legal speeds (like suicidewinders).

This would likely stop the base defenses from slaughtering you, but that's not the only problem - hitting a skimmer causes power loss, so what actually kills you might simply be augering in with no shields or braking thrusters. At 500m or more that'll kill ya good, regardless of how fast you were going at the start. That sure seemed to be what did me in last night

 

[FluffyBob]

I usually line myself up so that I come out of glide to the side of the base with my landing pads so I can set up a nice horizontal approach. If you actually slow down to 100 m/s after entering the no fire zone it gives lots of time for the skimmers to drop before you get to them. I often slow down anyways on base approach because it adds to immersion somewhat for me, I am an old flight sim guy so setting up a proper landing approach is part of the deal with landing.

Skimmers dropping from 8 km is not orbital bombardment, even at +1 g. Most planetary bases are at a fraction of a G anyways. Also the skimmers have propulsion, they are not in free fall, when you see them dropping they really are not moving very fast. These skimmers are much smaller than a Sidewinder, and any medium sized ship can shrug off a collision with a sidewinder. Its like hitting a 16 wheeler with a bicycle and having the truck explode as a result. I like the game too but lets not pretend some of these kludges are not just silly.

 

[Danieros]

I usually line myself up so that I come out of glide to the side of the base with my landing pads so I can set up a nice horizontal approach. If you actually slow down to 100 m/s after entering the no fire zone it gives lots of time for the skimmers to drop before you get to them. I often slow down anyways on base approach because it adds to immersion somewhat for me, I am an old flight sim guy so setting up a proper landing approach is part of the deal with landing.

Skimmers dropping from 8 km is not orbital bombardment, even at +1 g. Most planetary bases are at a fraction of a G anyways. Also the skimmers have propulsion, they are not in free fall, when you see them dropping they really are not moving very fast. These skimmers are much smaller than a Sidewinder, and any medium sized ship can shrug off a collision with a sidewinder. Its like hitting a 16 wheeler with a bicycle and having the truck explode as a result. I like the game too but lets not pretend some of these kludges are not just silly.

Collision between a Sidewinder and a huge ship is different than skimmers. Despite them being smaller and lighter, FDev have made them unrealistically strong because otherwise you could just do your skimmer missions by crashing your huge shielded ship into them.

Hoping they will be fixing this soon, right now I keep looking up, checking if a falling death-rock is going in my direction as I enter the no-fly zone (it's when the skitters spawn a few km up).

Speeding isn't the problem, otherwise you wouldn't get killed by defenses and receive a bounty when using a docking computer.

 

[Tarman]

This reminds me a bit of the Fitars of Death bug, when the fuel coder gave them 100K fuel so they wouldn't gas out during maneuvers, but forgot to talk to the "fuel has mass" coder, so the ships were more massive than a couple of fully-laden Cutters welded together and made excellent kinetic weapons.

 

[aspiringexpatriate]

I'm sure someone else has posted something similar to this, but here's a video with advice to avoid your untimely death.

[video=youtube;K0eyUqFPjEQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0eyUqFPjEQ[/video]

1. Enter the No Fire Zone.
2. Boost away.
3. Turn around.
4. Watch for skimmers.
5. Approach the No Fire Zone slowly and wait there until you see the skimmers fall or the green light of their scanners.

 

[Crash1099]

I'm sure someone else has posted something similar to this, but here's a video with advice to avoid your untimely death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0eyUqFPjEQ

1. Enter the No Fire Zone.
2. Boost away.
3. Turn around.
4. Watch for skimmers.
5. Approach the No Fire Zone slowly and wait there until you see the skimmers fall or the green light of their scanners.

That is dumb bug. Should be hot fixed.

 

[GJ51]

-- Soon --

 

[Red Anders]

Defies belief that they haven't hotfixed this.

 

[Danieros]

Almost a month and no fix yet.

 

[mbar]

I have not died yet but I have seen the "bright flashy objects" falling from the sky. What the heck?

 

[Maxulic]

I have actually avoided playing lately as I use planetary bases a lot after hearing of this. This is not yet fixed?!

 

[raeat]

What is this, a swords and sorcery adventure with spiders dropping from the trees? C'mon, FDev.
The skimmers should be spawning from underground bunkers, not dropping from the skies.