The mind boggles... Mate, take a look at the A380 landing strut test.
....
It's laughable that anyone can justify damage at a descent rate of a few m/s
Looks like I'm more on the side of those "laughable"=))) Ok, I can be boring.
The damage "may be" miscalculated, but it must be present.
I continue to look at landing without shield on an unprepared surface as on the case of "emergency" landing. As you have some engines disabled and/or gears broken.
The ratio of successful landing/attempts made on the extraterrestrial body's can be kind of illustration for this.
On the video with landing of the aircraft I clearly saw a damage/degradation of the wheels as part of their mass were vaporized (I dont think that this is exclusively the material and/or occasional water of/on the landing strip). I don't know about "any need of inspection", but most parts of the modern aircraft have a predefined lifetime disregarding their actual state (depends on number of landings, hour of flight, etc) just as the oil in the motor of your car requires to be changed after each NNk km's of mileage. As the landing gear wheels - they are "consumable" items. Also, as I've said earlier, that was the case of aircraft-like landing on a well prepared flat surface (I dont wand to imagine the consequences of the same procedure on an unprepared rocky slope), with all pro and conta.
Also, landing gears of modern aircraft's are supposed to be operational (or at least stay operational) in the vast domain of temperatures and pressures from the point of modern technology, but those domains are really "tiny" comparing to the "reality" of elite universe. Much more requirements to be met resulting in limitations and restrictions on materials that can be used, resulting "jack of all trades" can be in fact very fragile. A can only suppose that "Elite" scientists, having the "shield" technology invested much more effort in that direction than in super-universal landing gears (someone mentioned titanium, while being good in some conditions, in the others circumstances it is rather fragile).
Again, "basic physics" tell you what about helicopters ?
a) first, not a "tiny" helicopter with sled-like gear, but rather one having a dimensions of a 767 and the mass of several dozens tons (at least). All those large have a kind of landing gear with "consumable" parts as mentioned above.
b) in difficult cases (and landing on a not prepared surface is the one of) experienced pilots tend to stay "hovering" to take/discharge any necessary load/cargo if this is possible. The possible damage is not the only reason for this, but... this "terrible" sound of rocks cracking and those rocks visibly catapulting from somewhere beneath the ship - if rocks are cracking, what damage supposed to be done to landing gears?
c) some approximate calculation has been already done somewhere earlier in this thread
As intermediate assumption: while resulting damage may be miscalculated I prefer to stick to normal touchdown speeds of the order of fractions of m/s (i.e 0.1m/s) rather than "few" m/s
btw, on the other side - why the effect of a tigger from winnie the pooh is not so accentuated for ships on low-g planets? I mean at least decaying oscillation as for "jumpy" SRV's behavior mechanics?=))) Ah, "suspension"...
conclusion/solutions/speculations (more of game design ideas), all are imho:
1) some amount of damage to landing gear must be present (may be slightly reduced) in case of not so "accurate" landing without shields.
2) landing without shield on the unprepared surface IS the case of difficult/emergency landing (regarding present state of shield technology)
3) in future, the landing gear can be "separated" from the hull, becoming a separate sub-system (as in fact it is) with it's own damage. At the present state of the in-game mechanics it is not possible - as a ship without landing gear can not dock anywhere at all and there is no way to "repair" it - same as hull damage (assuming necessity to leave your ship to do some repair job of the external components in the open space)
3a) same idea can also introduce some additional content as special "emergency docking at stations/ports" in-game mechanics for te ships with landing gears completely/partially broken. Special Landing Pads/Hangars/Force Fields/Ship Scoop? And may be some special emergency starport services as much as like in nowadays airports "jettison all cargo, burn out excessive fuel, follow given vector - we will catch you - for a fee"-like=)
4) presently reported as a bug the possibility - in some special circumstances - to board an SRV in a "hovering" ship (when your ship cannot find a suitable place to land and stay "hovering" as a result). This can be reintroduced as a brilliant feature along with the opposite - deploying an SRV/jumping out from a hovering ship at a reasonable height. As far I see nothing that contradicts this mechanics at the present state of the game. It's more "realistic", imho. Also while recalling ship a choice for land/hovering modes.
And finally to the topic starter:
Get a courage to say that you simply don't want your ship to take damage as a result of landing "in the wild", don't try to add any reason to this besides yours own wishes, as any reasoning taking into account present "game mechanics" will result in all those endless physics/quasi-physics boring speculations around=)
