The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[Zorronov]

Dogfights should be great fun. Think of trying to dodge that 5km (3 mile) high cliff on Uranus' moon Miranda or playing tag in one of the 20 km deep canyons. It shouldn't be so easy for the gankers either.

 

[cluelessforumuser65578]

Can you confirm that? Primarily hauling in the T9 for over year, have been at the wrong end of a powerful ships weapons many times.

Thrusters taking severe damage - 'Module malfunction, thrusters revert to a weird FA-OFF mode temporarily'

Completely destroyed - thrusters are completely gone, not just main thrusters. Prior to the wings update we would have to self destruct if we lost thrusters.

I've been away for three months, has 1.3 changed all that?

the last scrap i had with another player i lost all power to my thrusters either through power plant damage or direct damage to engines, was dead in space for atleast 5 seconds

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I had exactly that problem with a Lion transport in FE2. Had to tilt her back onto main thrusters just to touch down.
Kudos to the OP by the way, this thread has a high SQUEEE factor

i cant wait now

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

That's interesting question, I hope ship crashes then - slowly or fast, depending on gravity well.

 

[Morbad]

Am probably overthinking this, but it seems like it could be potentially worse than power plant sniping?

I think PP sniping is a perfectly valid and logical system.

I also think that a ship in atmospheric flight that has a serious thruster malfunction or failure should fall out of the sky. Some ships may be aerodynamic enough, and have backup control surfaces to make this relatively controlled, but some will just fall.

One thing to keep in mind is that no ship in ED is particularly dense, and any planet with substantial atmosphere would result in a relatively soft landing, unless gravity was immense. However, above the planets that are initially opened up, losing thrusters could indeed be catastrophic (no atmosphere = no drag = no terminal velocity...until you hit the surface).

If this is the case, I'll have utterly no problems with it. Far more plausible for my crippled ship to fall to the surface and be destroyed than to magically levitate.

I don't think so, anytime I have had my thrusters shot out it has only affected my forward thrust, my pitch/roll/vertical/horizontal all work just fine and I've been able to maneuver to point toward my high wake target and get out. I would think you'd have to target more than just the main drives to get all of the thrusters offline.

The main thruster module, targeted via drives, affect all thrust vectors on the ship.

Same thruster module is responsible for it all.

Indeed you used to be able to damage the main thrusters by hitting any of the small thruster ports around the ship. I really wish this was reintroduced.

 

[CMDR.Lawrence]

But if you're in a Fer De Lance, you could fire your Huge Cannon like a burst-retrothruster to slow your descent xD

A-Team movie . . . Trying to land a tank in a lake

 

[Pendra]

No landing on planets with atmosphere so no drag or gliding.
Since the drives don't work like conventional rocket-like engines (speed limits in zero g and hard vacuum, non constant acceleration values) hard to tell what will happen. You will not be able to achieve orbit for sure on larger planets (0.45 km/s vs 8 km/s tangent speed on Earth)

 

[Morbad]

No landing on planets with atmosphere

Not yet.

You will not be able to achieve orbit for sure on larger planets (0.45 km/s vs 8 km/s tangent speed on Earth)

Escape velocity only applies to ballistic trajectories. Elite ships are continually powered, and could escape from from any gravity well that doesn't make the weight of the ship exceed the thrusters output, even at one single meter per second.

If you are only referring to loss of thruster while already on an escape trajectory, then yes, unless you are going very fast, and the gravity very weak, you will fail to escape.

 

[Aratoth]

Thinking about combat tactics when Horizons hits - It would seem the fastest way to take someone out is to target thrusters, no thrusters = large brick vs gravity. Reboots take roughly 15/20 seconds? Not much time to avoid becoming a permanent crater on one of these moons planets.

Am probably overthinking this, but it seems like it could be potentially worse than power plant sniping?

LOL good point, I hope this will actually be possible.

 

[Kerrash]

I am just now imagining what might happen if you get interdicted near a planet.
Would you both go tumbling into the gravity well, fighting the velocity vector to compensate?

(I am of course assuming both ships can de-orbit)

 

[Ziljan]

I am just now imagining what might happen if you get interdicted near a planet.
Would you both go tumbling into the gravity well, fighting the velocity vector to compensate?

(I am of course assuming both ships can de-orbit)

You mean interdicted while in planetary cruise right? A normal SC interdiction would probably just dump you both into normal space "orbit" as it does now. Otherwise, crashing into a Black Hole will become very interesting

 

[Morbad]

You mean interdicted while in planetary cruise right? A normal SC interdiction would probably just dump you both into normal space "orbit" as it does now.

Could still be an escape if it puts you close enough to the exclusion zone...which the Horizon player can cross. However, this would be phenomenally unlikely.

 

[Faybs]

You mean interdicted while in planetary cruise right? A normal SC interdiction would probably just dump you both into normal space "orbit" as it does now. Otherwise, crashing into a Black Hole will become very interesting

Do black holes have an atmosphere? Hmmm...

 

[Pendra]

Escape velocity only applies to ballistic trajectories. Elite ships are continually powered, and could escape from from any gravity well that doesn't make the weight of the ship exceed the thrusters output, even at one single meter per second.

If you are only referring to loss of thruster while already on an escape trajectory, then yes, unless you are going very fast, and the gravity very weak, you will fail to escape.

Well, what I meant is that you will not be able to reach a speed where you can keep flying unpowered, like after the the loss of the thruster.
The engines can provide around 30-60g acceleration with afterburner. Probably 10-40g without that. So yes, leaving a planet, where you can exist, would not be a problem.
Interesting question would be how the airspeed would work. Relative to the ground or to the stars. If it was relative to the stars, it would be impossible to land on fast rotating planet because the land below you would move faster than you can. If it was relative to the ground than you may fly with crazy speeds. Your base speed and the planet's rotation would add up making you insanely fast compared to the guys who fly relative to the stars.

If this groud/star border was a sharp one then it would be possible that a guy is flying at 400m/s while the commander 10m below him is flying with like 1500m/s. Would look somewhat dumb. Even if the guy below him turned around and started to speed toward the other commander, he would still be flying with 1100m/s away.

 

[Morbad]

Interesting question would be how the airspeed would work. Relative to the ground or to the stars.

Ground. Even in SC you generally enter the frame of reference of any large body you come close to.

If this groud/star border was a sharp one then it would be possible that a guy is flying at 400m/s while the commander 10m below him is flying with like 1500m/s. Would look somewhat dumb. Even if the guy below him turned around and started to speed toward the other commander, he would still be flying with 1100m/s away.

The transition does seem to be fairly abrupt, but it's already well outside the exclusion zone, and probably doesn't cross instances. So if you can perceive them in normal space, I doubt this phenomena would ever be encountered.

 

[Adeezha]

Distant planetary landings in Horizons.

Is there any information on what planets outside the bubble might have in store for us when Horizons is released? Possibly things like crashed explorer ships, mining outposts, lost colonies, or even things of non-human origin.
I was just pondering on taking a buggy when I go to the black after it releases.

 

[dementia]

Planetary landings on earth like worlds

This may sound a bit like wishful thinking but I have a dream that this would be like the game Far Cry.

Imagine how cool that would be. Skimming over the tree tops to a landing pad, leaving the ship and moving around in a FPS interface in a game world that detailed and interactive. Having missions to do (collect things, meet up with contacts, you name it) before heading back to your ship and back into space and all that.

A man can dream.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

This may sound a bit like wishful thinking but I have a dream that this would be like the game Far Cry.

Imagine how cool that would be. Skimming over the tree tops to a landing pad, leaving the ship and moving around in a FPS interface in a game world that detailed and interactive. Having missions to do (collect things, meet up with contacts, you name it) before heading back to your ship and back into space and all that.

A man can dream.

Yep. Waiting in line with TSA for an hour before you're allowed back into the starport - ah, what a dream.

 

[Vitamin Arrr]

You should be able to pick up a chick at the bar in the spaceport and be like, "I'm gonna take you back to my planet. It's earth-like. We can start a civilization."

Then she could be like, "I'm not ready for that kind of commitment."

"Just a family then?"

 

[dementia]

Will there be any scope for hunting animal life with your 3C Beam laser?

BBQ any one?

 

[who?]

Will there be any scope for hunting animal life with your 3C Beam laser?

BBQ any one?

"'Well Done', Cmdr"!