When should I land?

[Hasaf]

I am well outside of the bubble and any landing carries risk. As such I am not landing much. When should I land? What, if anything should I be looking at to decide that a place is worth the risk of touching down?

 

[Major Klutz]

The risk in landing on a low G planet is extremely small.
Land when you want to explore an interesting planet with an interesting view.
OR
Land when you need to gather materials for FSD boost or AFMU refill.

 

[disorganise]

Agree with Major Klutz. I'd also add 'when you just need to do something different'. Running around in the SRV can be a hoot

 

[Duckfat]

Also surface views can sometimes be stunning if you're on a planet in a nebula, or one with rings or facing a ringed giant, etc.

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

If you have shields the risk is minimal on low g worlds. I used to land my shieldless sidey with no problems (most of the time). As duckfat said above, the views from the surface can often be stunning!

Frawd

 

[Cherokeedog]

I'm just about to finish my first trip out in the black, and I had kind of the same question on the way: when and why would I want to land on a planet.

As far as safety goes, I've been advised to avoid any planet with gravity over 2G, until I get better used to landings and do some tests in the bubble, with nothing much to lose if I slam to the ground. I followed this advise and everything was fine.

Now, about the reasons for landing, there would be 3...maybe 4:
- looking for FSD and AFMU materials, as someone pointed above;
- scenery pictures and selfies;
- hoping to find something, like Points Of Interest (POI) or alien traces and things like that; this is though a very long shot, as such things are very rarely found outside the bubble;
- I've read somewhere that driving around in your SRV should also slightly add to your explorer rank; didn't actually test this, but if it's true and you're looking for rank improvement, it can be a reason.

Honestly, in about 35k ly (my whole distance forth and back) I didn't NEED to land. And I've even used neutron stars to boost up quite regularly, which did bust up my ship on occasions. Every time I landed was because I needed to break the routine, as 'disorganize' pointed out.

 

[Hasaf]

Thanks for the answers. I was mostly wondering if there was something that I should be watching for when viewing the surface map that made certain places a "must see." type of place. I am still on my very indirect route toward the rim.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I am well outside of the bubble and any landing carries risk. As such I am not landing much. When should I land? What, if anything should I be looking at to decide that a place is worth the risk of touching down?

i land randomly when there is something of interest, but to find that something of interest involves a lot of time sink and wasted pointless gameplay.. the beta forum killed detailed surface maps without DSS scanning rocks so you just have to pick and hope

to be honest what this game is and what it could be winds me up sometimes...

so yeah you have to randomly scan rocks, wait 12 seconds or so and cross your fingers hoping there is something interesting there, if not move to next rock- rinse and repeat.

a perfectly round grey rock on the system map could be hiding a massive mountain and canyon, i know because iv'e seen it. most are just boring round rocks with a few craters on though, good luck if you don't go insane searching and praying to the RNG gods

^^ you wont find any clues on the current surface maps, like i say something plain on the system map could hide something interesting on the detailed surface map

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

They do need to add some way to pick out potentially good targets, maybe a score system like the USS have now.

Additional : Perhaps a surface smoothness factor.