Question about Dismissing and Recalling your ship

Jermus · Jul 2, 2016

Hello,

About two weeks ago my ship made a dodgy landing when being recalled (loosing 2% of hull in the process). This happened on a planet that I can land on safe, time and again. That made me decide to not dismiss my ship anymore when going out on prospecting. In that case, when something goes wrong during landing, I have only myself to blame, which is in my view a lot better than having to blame the auto-pilot.

I found out that when you log out and in again while being in the SRV your ship is back in orbit (or int the bubble when you look at the galaxy map

).

Yesterday I carefully noted down the coordinates where I landed, but when I returned there, I couldn't find my ship. Switching to the GalMap I saw to my surprise that my ship had dismissed itself (naughty!).

So now I wonder: Is it possible to leave your ship on the surface of the planet where you have parked it?

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus

(Who is slightly pre-occupied with hull condition, because he chose a few months back to leave the bubble without shields... [wacko])

Macedonica · Jul 2, 2016

My understanding is that the ship bunny-hops into low orbit if you drive a certain distance away from it or are away for a certain amount of time. I always dismiss the ship when in the SRV but have never known the auto-pilot to land badly afterwards. Thanks for the heads-up on that. At 68% hull, I will think twice now!

goemon · Jul 2, 2016

yes, if you don't go more than 2 km from your ship.

Darth Krayt · Jul 2, 2016

If you're in the bubble or within a few hundred light years, NPCs may spawn and attack your ship while you're driving around. So depending on where you are it might be safest to always dismiss the ship.

dognosh · Jul 2, 2016

goemon said:
yes, if you don't go more than 2 km from your ship.

They increased that recently as I measured it, and no I don't remember the figure

goemon · Jul 2, 2016

dognosh said:
They increased that recently as I measured it, and no I don't remember the figure

i will try it directly, i have a salvage mission running.

goemon · Jul 2, 2016

goemon said:
i will try it directly, i have a salvage mission running.

2,15 km.

Traveller_GG · Jul 2, 2016

Jermus said:
Hello,

About two weeks ago my ship made a dodgy landing when being recalled (loosing 2% of hull in the process). This happened on a planet that I can land on safe, time and again. That made me decide to not dismiss my ship anymore when going out on prospecting. In that case, when something goes wrong during landing, I have only myself to blame, which is in my view a lot better than having to blame the auto-pilot.

I found out that when you log out and in again while being in the SRV your ship is back in orbit (or int the bubble when you look at the galaxy map ).

Yesterday I carefully noted down the coordinates where I landed, but when I returned there, I couldn't find my ship. Switching to the GalMap I saw to my surprise that my ship had dismissed itself (naughty!).

So now I wonder: Is it possible to leave your ship on the surface of the planet where you have parked it?

Fly safe,
CMDR Jermus
(Who is slightly pre-occupied with hull condition, because he chose a few months back to leave the bubble without shields... [wacko])

First time I've heard of someone losing hull integrity from landing - I'm assuming you have shields on the ship and they were on? I've seen mine do some pretty severe landings on high g worlds and not lose a single %

Oh, wait... just seen that you've got no shields.... that's slightly mad when you're trying to land and I guess you will lose some hull, if only by attrition.

Aura Lorell · Jul 2, 2016

Traveller_GG said:
First time I've heard of someone losing hull integrity from landing - I'm assuming you have shields on the ship and they were on? I've seen mine do some pretty severe landings on high g worlds and not lose a single %

Oh, wait... just seen that you've got no shields.... that's slightly mad when you're trying to land and I guess you will lose some hull, if only by attrition.

CMDR Jermus is using a Sidewinder if I'm not mistaken. Internal space is limited, a shields module would severely limit the options.

SMcA · Jul 2, 2016

goemon said:
2,15 km.

5 km for me the other day.
I was at B2 Carinae descending down the inside of the big crater* when I decided it was going to take too long. So I recalled my ship.
It came and floated over my buggy and stayed there. The display said it was approaching or landing, in red. And I could not dismiss it. I was just over 5 km from where it was whiling it time away when I noticed it leaving with a message telling me it could not land. (Nice catch devs) It might have been a timer not distance, though.

* If you go there you will know the one.

Jermus · Jul 2, 2016

Thanks for all the ansswers. I was just wondering if I had missed something, as setting or so, that would allow me to keep my ship on the surface. But as it is, it is just normal game mechanics so I'll have to learn to live with it

Darth Krayt said:
If you're in the bubble or within a few hundred light years, NPCs may spawn and attack your ship while you're driving around. So depending on where you are it might be safest to always dismiss the ship.

Now, I have never thought of that. Probably because I am currently 55 Kylie away from the bubble...

. Thinking of that it makes sense.

I did not measure it up to the yard, but when I am about 2 Km away from my ship it suddenly dissapears (i.e. it goes into orbit / bubble).

Macedonica said:
My understanding is that the ship bunny-hops into low orbit if you drive a certain distance away from it or are away for a certain amount of time. I always dismiss the ship when in the SRV but have never known the auto-pilot to land badly afterwards. Thanks for the heads-up on that. At 68% hull, I will think twice now!

Traveller_GG said:
First time I've heard of someone losing hull integrity from landing - I'm assuming you have shields on the ship and they were on? I've seen mine do some pretty severe landings on high g worlds and not lose a single %

Oh, wait... just seen that you've got no shields.... that's slightly mad when you're trying to land and I guess you will lose some hull, if only by attrition.

I was just a little surprised, because I could land the ship on the planet myself without damage (and more than one time).

What probably also didn't help are my D-grade thrusters....

The last few planetary bodies the ship landed itself just fine, but they were very low gravity worlds (0.09G). So far I can land the ship manually (and repeatedly) without problems on 0.53 G worlds and maybe such a "high-G" planet is just not suitable for how the auto-pilot has been programmed in combination with my D-grade thrusters. I'll try to focus on really low G worlds (and maybe a little experiment to see if the theory holds... and then hoping it doesn't eat more than just a few percent of hull

).

Rhea Lorell said:
CMDR Jermus is using a Sidewinder if I'm not mistaken. Internal space is limited, a shields module would severely limit the options.

I am indeed in a sidewinder and have been thinking hard to get the "right" explorer set-up. A lot of doubt on taking the A-grade stuff, or the the D-grade with the increased jump range. I took off with the following set-up and it has served me well so far:

CMDR Jermus

Aura Lorell · Jul 2, 2016

Jermus said:
I am indeed in a sidewinder and have been thinking hard to get the "right" explorer set-up. A lot of doubt on taking the A-grade stuff, or the the D-grade with the increased jump range. I took off with the following set-up and it has served me well so far:

http://i.imgur.com/rF1IblMh.jpg

CMDR Jermus

I think it's brave you attempt this in a Sidewinder. Wouldn't an A-rate scoop and powerplant be better? Also did you mod the FSD?

Jermus · Jul 2, 2016

Rhea Lorell said:
I think it's brave you attempt this in a Sidewinder. Wouldn't an A-rate scoop and powerplant be better? Also did you mod the FSD?

Or slightly mad, as Traveller_GG suggested

.

You are probably right about the A-grade fuel scoop. I think that I thought back then that the capacity increase for a 2A fuel scoop didn't justify the cost (with 7 M credits spare in the bank...). I don't think an A-grade powerplant would be better, as I don't need the power. Unsure whether it would help in the speed of reloading the engines after boost. I think that a better power distributor is more helpful for that (at the cost of jump range).

I started my holidy on 10 MARCH 302. At that time there were no engineers, so I did not modify the FSD. Maybe for a next trip...

AH_ImADot · Jul 2, 2016

Didn't it used to be, that your ship while landing after being recalled, wouldn't take any damage while the computer was flying it? If the Devs changed out, they should put it back; it's totally unfair that your ship should take damage when you have absolutely no control over it.

Aura Lorell · Jul 2, 2016

Jermus said:
Or slightly mad, as Traveller_GG suggested .

You are probably right about the A-grade fuel scoop. I think that I thought back then that the capacity increase for a 2A fuel scoop didn't justify the cost (with 7 M credits spare in the bank...). I don't think an A-grade powerplant would be better, as I don't need the power. Unsure whether it would help in the speed of reloading the engines after boost. I think that a better power distributor is more helpful for that (at the cost of jump range).

I started my holidy on 10 MARCH 302. At that time there were no engineers, so I did not modify the FSD. Maybe for a next trip...

Haha, nothing wrong with being mad. I'm sure I've read somewhere that A-grade power plants are better for heat management but I may be wrong. I went a level down in terms of power plant to keep the weight down but kept the A-grade: Sappho. With a minuscule grade 1 FSD upgrade, my range is exactly 34.34 Ly. I thought it was a lucky number so I went out like that.

Jermus · Jul 3, 2016

AH_ImADot said:
Didn't it used to be, that your ship while landing after being recalled, wouldn't take any damage while the computer was flying it? If the Devs changed out, they should put it back; it's totally unfair that your ship should take damage when you have absolutely no control over it.

Well, I did have some control over it: when buying my thrusters. I chose to equip my ship with, ehrm, less-then-good thrusters, and with no shields.

This means that, in order to land my ship without damage, the thrusters have to do all the work. Now, if the auto-pilot is designed with A-grade thrusters in mind, I will be in trouble if I deploy (and I did) D-grade thrusters. In that case I might be capable of landing the ship, taking into account my less-then-good thrusters, but the auto-pilot will fail miserably (and you can't blame the poor thing).

I just have to learn to live with the fact that I fly a beautiful, but slightly poor performing ship when it comes to landing on planets. I have to pick my targets with care. That means that despite me being able to land on high-gravity planets like 0.53 G I might have to stick to low gravity planets for the auto-pilot to be able to land my ship safe.

The only thing I have left to do in this chapter is to find out where the division line is between high-gravity and low-gravity planets. In this process I have no objection against finding the low gravity planets...

~~Fly~~ Land safe,
CMDR Jermus