Why I like planetary ports for Colonisation.

[AZSlow3]

Since introduction of Engineers, "everyone knows" that planetary ports are "pain". And if you have a choice, you try to avoid them. Should you? Not really.

I guess the conclusion comes from the fact planetary landing is not "self explaining" and most videos about the topic demonstrate how complicated, unreliable and slow landing is. When you see something "everywhere", you believe that is true. I also had the same impression, and when I have realized some construction mats are available on planetary ports only and I have to construct planetary facilities, I was thinking "oh no... why they don't supply all mats from orbitals?". Many players are still thinking such way.

These days, when I have a choice to get Steel from Coriolis or planetary, I choose the second in most cases. Why? That is FASTER (and in hauling the speed is the only variable you can change).

Note: if you fly T8 and use orbital outposts, that is the fastest way. The whole comparison is for T1 planetary vs T2 orbital. Landing numbers are for Currer, from (small) experience also valid for T9, probably also ok for T8 but that is not proved.
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Unfortunately I have not found a single good video tutorial how to land properly. I am sure they are many, I just can't find them. I don't have time and willing to make a video at the moment, so I will write the procedure and explanation in text.

You approach the planet usual way, preparing to enter the orbit at ~53° to the surface (approximately, exact number is not important at that step). Since you don't see numbers till close to orbiting, it can take a while till you do this "automatically" (but since you will do this 100s of times, you will get it).

When you see the height, but not yet the angle, just keep (fast changing numbers) the distance greater then the height (but lower then 1.5 of it). Also simpler after you have done that several times.

When you see the angle, you adjust it to ~53° (the "ring" is between 50 and 55°). Some seconds before entering the orbit, you set "Entering orbit thrust" (more on that later).

You "orbiting" till gliding height, with the same ~53°, eventually adjusting "Orbiting thrust".

In glide, turn off engine, point at 55° ("in front" of the port), till the end of gliding (final break), during which you point over port. At that time, port (ring center) should be at ~40-45° (for high gravity planets smaller angel can be better).

Once there, ask to doc and let computer do the rest.

Sure, (almost) everything so far is known, the evil is in details...
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"Entering orbit thrust" and "Orbiting thrust" have to be correct (for fast and safe landing). In the following, the speed is in "seconds till target".
The speed rules during landing are in general the same as in space "6 seconds" is optimal, "7 seconds" is ok, "5 seconds" is looking for troubles, "8 seconds" is too slow. But at different stages of landing, achieving that is not as strait forward as in space.

The first thing to realize: optimal thrust is planet dependent. Since you are going to land 100s of times, you will know what is good, for each port you use.
From personal experience:

• fastest to land are planets ~0.05 of the earth (normally 3 slots). "Entering orbit thrust" 50%
• a bit slower are bigger planets, ~0.5 of the earth (normally 5 slots). "Entering orbit thrust" 75%. Note: for big bodies you may want increase thrust, up to 100%, before you see orbiting scala.
• tricky are tiny, rock like moons/planets, f.e ~0.002 of the earth (1-2 slots). "Entering orbit thrust" 25% or even lower. Note: for small bodies you may want reduce thrust before you see orbiting scala.

In all cases, after entering orbit, wait several seconds before considering adjusting the thrust. Even if you see 10+ seconds. After several seconds, if/when you see 8 seconds or more (can happened later), switch to the "next level". So 75%, 100%, 50/75/100% for mentioned body sizes. Following that approach, even when at some point speed is (critical) 5 seconds, I had no problems. Speeding too early (f.e. when you see 8 seconds right after starting orbiting) can trigger "too fast" drop out. Keeping low speed makes the landing slower.
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About the approach I have described for gliding. Have you observed docking computer "burst up" instead of landing (periodically hitting center tower)? I guess the answer is yes...
(I think) the reason is vertical speed which computer is unable to compensate, so it decides rapidly "fly away" instead of crashing to the planet. Described procedure seems like keep vertical speed at the end of gliding sufficiently low.

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Even after you can land "good", using described approach or your own, in particular:

• not flying 2 minutes around the planet to start landing (in space or orbiting)
• not "crashing" to the atmosphere (too fast for entering it)
• not dropping in the middle of orbiting (too fast for orbiting)
• not dropping 80km from the port (too fast to glide)

and the whole procedure doesn't take 10 minutes, you still can think:
"Well, all that is good, but I can't 'instant break' with SCA and I am near Coriolis immediately after drop from 1Mm, instead of orbiting/gliding. Planetary can't be faster, no way!"

It can. And in most cases it is. And here are the reasons:
1) when you departure from planetary, you just burst once and you are out of mass lock. Even in case the target system is obscured, you enter hyperspace, SCO (yes, that makes huge difference for using planetary ports) and then jump (immediately, no cooling time after SCO). And in most cases you just jump (turning during charging). All that is fast.
But when you departure from Coriolis, you first have to fly throw the gate, then burst and only then you are out of mass lock. So, for departure the difference is 30+ seconds.
2) planetary on tidally locked planet (or on poles of any planet) is always in the same position relative to the star (and with colonization you can choose where to build). So approching is always the same. Orbitals are moving relative to the planet (and you can't control the orbit), the orbit in most cases is in the "system plane", so your orbital station is obscured half of the time from usual arraving direction. To effectively use "instant break" SCA feature, you have to know if it is obscured in advance. So, the first time you approaching orbital (after significant pause) you use "instant break" at the very end only. And half of the time you need "curved fly" to be in good position when at 7ls for "instant break". That costs time. So yes, SCA give advantage, but not always.
3) after drop, you are sometimes "behind" the station (when you don't use "instant break", you can relatively fast change approaching curve to come from good direction, but then you loose "instant break" advantage...). Flying to the entrance cost significant time. Planet landing is not direction (the side of the port) dependent, there is no "single entrance" there.
4) arrival and departure directions are different when constructing in other system, the first is "to the local star" and the second is "to the target system". So you usually have to "fly around" the station, at least partially, during arrival and turn a bit (or not a bit) when departing. All that costs extra time. As explained in (1), for planetary ports arriving direction is always good and departing direction is not relevant (or fast to deal with).

And so, when you can "instant break" from 5-7ls, you are dropped in the front of entrance and your destination is visible throw the gate when you are departing, then sure, Coriolis is faster to haul from then from planetary port. The problem is that such "perfect conditions" stay "perfect" for rather limited time (if they can be perfect at all, the entrence can be in "bad" direction all the time).

As the result, when I am houling several hours (orbital is definitively not in "best disposition" for the whole period), the end number of trips I manage from planetary is greater then from orbital. Measured with "Trip computer" in my "ED Lonely Architect" construction tracker.
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It is worse to mention that planetary ports are:
a) T1, need no points, not counted as T2/T3
b) faster to build (50 vs 70)
c) way simpler to orient toward required economy


Happy hauling

 

[PilotB]

I don't like planetary landings. They're slower even than an orbital at the back of the planet in most situations. Glide slope is just slow where as getting blocked at the mail slot is not all the common for me. They're far more likely to be occuluded by the planet so that's a whole extra FSD spool up that you have to do more often. Mostly it's simply that they're more work. I don't like babysitting my ship in supercruise and planetary landings require me to navigate the menu twice to turn supercruise assist both on and off so I don't need to fight it on the way into the launch slope and have it slam me into the planet over speed. They're fiddly with multiple speed checks that have to be met well in advance because ships don't slow down.

Ships are faster away from gravity wells so an orbital port behind a planet takes aproximately 2 extra seconds once you know that it's behind the planet. You just boost a few degrees off angle from the planet to expose the back and you can go straight in. The extra distance doesn't add much extra time as you can do this far from the gravity well slowdown.

Between glide slope. Extra trips into supercruise to get the planet out of the way, the reduced speed that you can approach a planet at compared to an orbital and the extra trips into the menu. They're slower and not in a just learn the mechanics kind of way for me. There's not enough benefit, goods aren't cheaper and the mechanics are for me less fun. You're allowed to like them. I don't they're fiddly and the UI gives crappy feedback on the specific magic throttle numbers required. They're not something I want to spend my gaming time on because in their best case they take the same amount of time but more often than not, more time for the same result.

 

[AZSlow3]

I don't like planetary landings. They're slower even than an orbital at the back of the planet in most situations. Glide slope is just slow where as getting blocked at the mail slot is not all the common for me. They're far more likely to be occuluded by the planet so that's a whole extra FSD spool up that you have to do more often. Mostly it's simply that they're more work. I don't like babysitting my ship in supercruise and planetary landings require me to navigate the menu twice to turn supercruise assist both on and off so I don't need to fight it on the way into the launch slope and have it slam me into the planet over speed. They're fiddly with multiple speed checks that have to be met well in advance because ships don't slow down.

I am talking about "Planetary ports for Colonisation". So, the one you build, not someone has put somewhere without thinking about consequences.
They are never occluded when you arrive to the system and you don't use SCA to reach them. There is no "babysitting" normal supercruise, you are several seconds in it. And you need to "babysit" SCO supercruise when you SCO from behind arriving star (no time to activate SCA, and it can't fly in curves in any case), again just several seconds.
I mean you can construct ports so they are easy to use and that is predictable (unlike with orbital stations).

Ships are faster away from gravity wells so an orbital port behind a planet takes aproximately 2 extra seconds once you know that it's behind the planet. You just boost a few degrees off angle from the planet to expose the back and you can go straight in. The extra distance doesn't add much extra time as you can do this far from the gravity well slowdown.

In reality it takes way more then "2 extra seconds". And more then "few degree". Also you have to "babysit in supercruise" then, and you have written you don't like that

 

[AZSlow3]

Extra trips into supercruise to get the planet out of the way

Happens with orbital more often (they are turning fast, unlike planets around the star).

Well, you are allowed to not like planetary ports. It is in fact a bit more "extra manual gameplay" involved. I have posted for those who are ready to use them but think that will be slower, to demonstrate in practice it can be faster.

 

[_Flin_]

I like orbitals more. I see the entrance when approaching in supercruise, adjust course so that i approach from the right side. Only issue is when it is directly pointing away from me, but that is a 1:6 chance. Some stations have an orbit that makes it point away from the sun most of the time, those aren't fun. But it is still faster than planetary from my experience. Yes, getting away from the planet is faster, but during launch i enter the target anyway. So i am already halfway through the door.

Have not experienced faster roundtrips between planets than between orbitals.

What i noticed yesterday, though, is that planetary ports give significantly more population than a coriolis.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I don't mind planetary landings, quite enjoy them as a change from going to space stations, and with the advent of SCO drives, getting off planet is now way quicker.

I see the case for planetary ports in terms of colonization efforts and results, but for travel it still adds a bit more time, no matter how good you are at making an optimal approach.

 

[AZSlow3]

I see the reason. I know the reason. I feel the reason. And I must admit, I still "think" I do things faster with orbitals. Psychology is such a thing

The first time I was a bit confused was loading my carrier with requited mats. I first was "lucky", my carrier was 5-1Mm from Coriolis at the hauling time, the gate pointed toward the carrier, carrier pads "visible" after drop. You know, that is great disposition. But I also had to load from planetary, so I have moved my carrier thinking "the next part will take forever...". By chance, my carrier was parked above planetary. And after loading what I had to load, there was "hmm... the time has passed quick". As you know, an hour can be "endless" or "just several minutes", depending from your current "state" (even when you do the same thing). So I have decided "it took long, I just had a feeling that was quick". But I have decided to measure.

The first "measurements" was just using normal clock. Approximately "base to base was...", "I have played 1/2/3 hours and delivered...", etc. And I knew I can't trust such measurements. You spend different time on stations. Sometimes you just buy Steel in seconds, sometimes you select particular mats or do "real life" things. And the difference in flights is at the end relatively small, "a trip" is 5-10 minutes in total, for everything. So I have written a tool to see all numbers. After flying for a while with this tool, I had to conclude what you see in OP.

I repeat, I still get "this trip was quick, I hope I can keep the speed for the next 1,2,3..." with Coriolis and that never happens with planetary. But after 1 hour of continuous playing I know exact number in deliveries (for exact last one hour from now). When it is good (better then planetary) for Coriolis, I can't keep it stay at the level. The curve to get sight on obscured station is longer and longer, the probability of "mistake" rise (you think you will not hit orbit during 'instant break', but you do... that ruin stats since cooling FSD takes forever).

 

[Markov Chaney]

So over in the other thread you have me convinced that in wall-clock time, a Planetary Port actually is faster than a Coriolis or bigger in orbit, because I hadn't thought about the time that gets eaten up getting around to the mailslot in the first place and the extra time once you are in the station finding the pad.

But an orbital Outpost, the correct side of the planet, is fastest of all. Great news. Unless you want CMM Composites...

Thanks for creating this followup thread, it's really interesting.

After thinking about it a while, I realised I don't really care about this marginal difference because of the amount of messing about that's involved with approaching a planet with no supercruise, judging the 50 degrees, managing it all the way down, possibly waiting for a pad... that all just annoys me so if it's 10% faster I'm going to skip it anyway in order to save the 50% of mental pain.

One thing that I never figured out: when you have a planetside settlement targeted, sometimes you will get the approach instrument working correctly on the bottom-left of console... and sometimes you won't. Anyone know why that happens?

And finally, @AZSlow3 - this whole conversation inspired me to think very hard about where to build my first planetside facility and I ended up combining "nice view" with "near the pole" and so far for every visit my descent has been 5x5!

 

[_Flin_]

So over in the other thread you have me convinced that in wall-clock time, a Planetary Port actually is faster than a Coriolis or bigger in orbit, because I hadn't thought about the time that gets eaten up getting around to the mailslot in the first place and the extra time once you are in the station finding the pad.

Dont become convinced. Measure.
Take a stop watch. Look for two systems with orbitals and planetary settlements around the same planet.

Do a orbital <-> orbital roundtrip and take the time.
Do a planetary <-> planetary roundtrip and measure the time.

The time it's faster to start from a planetary is lost on the approach to the planet. Mail slot placement is not an issue for orbitals, because you can approach from the right side by utilizing the silhouette of the station in the target screen.

Using FSD assist you can get on the right approach vector and then speed up the last 5-10 Ls of the flight to auto-disengage. Can't do that with planets.

I still have to find a route where it is faster to go to a planet than to an orbital, when you have the choice.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Another big advantage of planetary ports is that they take about 16kT less to build (so 20 fewer trips, so ~4 fewer hours) than a Coriolis for the same pad size and often higher cargo stocked.

So even if it's a minute quicker for you to use the Coriolis, you still end up ahead overall with the planetary port unless you make over 240 trips to it, which is enough trips to supply the bulk Refinery components for an entire T3 project. If you're building it to supply onward colonisation, then its successor is probably built in much fewer than 240 trips.

because of the amount of messing about that's involved with approaching a planet with no supercruise, judging the 50 degrees

The trick I find for this is to try to line it up so that the port is actually slightly occluded by the planet when at a distance. Then I can come in at a fairly shallow angle (which is both much easier to judge and means it's safe to hit the orbital cruise line at a higher initial speed), and once a small bit of speed has been lost from being in orbital cruise at all, dive fairly rapidly to lose the rest of the speed and drop out on top of the port. That can be a lot faster than a simple 50-degree straight line dive, even in something as slow to turn as a T-9, and requires less careful measurement (the whole process is over in seconds, you don't have time to take careful measurements)

Certainly depends on your preference for "there are lots of trips needed, so I want to be able to do them as much on autopilot as possible while alt-tabbed" versus "there are lots of trips needed, so I want to be able to get some interest out of them"

 

[Markov Chaney]

Mail slot placement is not an issue for orbitals, because you can approach from the right side by utilizing the silhouette of the station in the target screen.

Yeah. I said that in two threads already including this one.

Using FSD assist you can get on the right approach vector and then speed up the last 5-10 Ls of the flight to auto-disengage. Can't do that with planets.

Yep. That's the part which bugs me about planets.

I still have to find a route where it is faster to go to a planet than to an orbital, when you have the choice.

Since I agree with you that Orbitals are faster, and I prefer them in terms of human factors anyway, I'm not going to invest time in logging it down to the second, thanks all the same... but I think AZSlow3 has done this already anyway!

Edit to add re Ian's point:
And in cases where the settlement is at a high latitude, it's worth getting out of the system plane a little bit too, better chance of finding and approaching the settlement optimally.

 

[AZSlow3]

But an orbital Outpost, the correct side of the planet, is fastest of all. Great news. Unless you want CMM Composites...
...
After thinking about it a while, I realised I don't really care about this marginal difference because of the amount of messing about that's involved with approaching a planet with no supercruise, judging the 50 degrees, managing it all the way down, possibly waiting for a pad... that all just annoys me so if it's 10% faster I'm going to skip it anyway in order to save the 50% of mental pain.

Sorry, I probably had to mention that... the difference I get is in range of 5% (usually less). The point it is not slower, as I was always thinking before.

Note that the difference between T8 and T9/Cutter can be toward 100% (2x faster), assuming the availability of credits, engineering and L pad infrastructure.

Everyone has own "style of playing". For me, remembering about obscured or not orbital, planning the curve to come from good direction (or decision that is not worse the effort or not possible, f.e. when it is toward the planet), 'instant break' reaction time (when at the very end it is visible you are hitting the orbit and so show try to turn) are more "stress" then predictable planetary landing. Other players may think different way. It is just good we have more then one option and both are approximately equivalent in hauling time.

Dont become convinced. Measure.
Take a stop watch. Look for two systems with orbitals and planetary settlements around the same planet.

Do a orbital <-> orbital roundtrip and take the time.
Do a planetary <-> planetary roundtrip and measure the time.

The time it's faster to start from a planetary is lost on the approach to the planet. Mail slot placement is not an issue for orbitals, because you can approach from the right side by utilizing the silhouette of the station in the target screen.

Using FSD assist you can get on the right approach vector and then speed up the last 5-10 Ls of the flight to auto-disengage. Can't do that with planets.

I still have to find a route where it is faster to go to a planet than to an orbital, when you have the choice.

All that is right. Except for the reason I have explained in my previous post, "stop watch" is unreliable measurement device in this case. And one measurement say nothing, you need to do this at least 10 times (and account all "attempts", including "grr... I will never repeat that mistake again..." ).
Also I always get "speed indicator" on the left panel almost exactly as 7ls and I have thought that is the "requirement" to start instant break. Do you mean I should try already at 10ls? If so, in which cases that is desired?

The trick I find for this is to try to line it up so that the port is actually slightly occluded by the planet when at a distance. Then I can come in at a fairly shallow angle (which is both much easier to judge and means it's safe to hit the orbital cruise line at a higher initial speed), and once a small bit of speed has been lost from being in orbital cruise at all, dive fairly rapidly to lose the rest of the speed and drop out on top of the port. That can be a lot faster than a simple 50-degree straight line dive, even in something as slow to turn as a T-9, and requires less careful measurement (the whole process is over in seconds, you don't have time to take careful measurements)

Certainly depends on your preference for "there are lots of trips needed, so I want to be able to do them as much on autopilot as possible while alt-tabbed" versus "there are lots of trips needed, so I want to be able to get some interest out of them"

I will try this method. Should it work for all planet sizes?
I am not pretending my method is the best/fastest, not even one of the best. It will be nice to adopt something better (as long as results are predictable... f.e. in my method I have tried to orbit a tick faster, 90% it works, but in 10% I am dropped 50-80km from the target).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I will try this method. Should it work for all planet sizes?

Yes, though the smaller the planet the larger a braking zone you need (so a tiny moon you might want about an 1/8th of a circumference, whereas a massive planet you can have it basically on the edge, use the top of orbital cruise to brake, then dive almost vertically down (you only need to level out to 60 degrees by the time you reach glide height, it's perfectly safe to dive faster before then) so it doesn't even need to be a particularly precise hit on the orbital line.

(Generally, larger planets are easier to get it right; smaller planets have much better time-saving potential if you do get it right)

If you find yourself coming in too slow, level off (because flight within 5 degrees of level gets a speed boost) to dive more later.
If you find yourself coming in too fast, then so long as you don't hit the glide line, diving faster and then levelling out a bit again gets you closer to the planet and brakes you faster - it'll feel counter-intuitive to start with, definitely, but can work very well.

 

[Markov Chaney]

If you find yourself coming in too fast, then so long as you don't hit the glide line, diving faster and then levelling out a bit again gets you closer to the planet and brakes you faster - it'll feel counter-intuitive to start with, definitely, but can work very well.

It took me a while to have confidence in that last bit of extra braking before the drop zone. You can come in a lot hotter than you think provided you are off the throttle and only carrying the speed, and it will magically scrub a LOT of speed.

 

[Kira Goto]

Have you observed docking computer "burst up" instead of landing (periodically hitting center tower)? I guess the answer is yes...
(I think) the reason is vertical speed which computer is unable to compensate, so it decides rapidly "fly away" instead of crashing to the planet. Described procedure seems like keep vertical speed at the end of gliding sufficiently low.

It can also help to level out the nose of the ship (so go to 0 angle or close to it) before letting autodock engage. I have come into the habit of doing that for planetary landings, to do away with the ridiculous behavior where your (example) Cutter is at a perfectly safe speed but the dumb computer decides to boost you upward and send you out of the 7.5km range where a docking request remains active (on lower gravity worlds where the pull won't slow you down much or at all), for absolutely no reason but it being stupid.

 

[_Flin_]

Do you mean I should try already at 10ls? If so, in which cases that is desired?

It depends on a combination of ship and target.

Best target is a colonization ship, because it is stationary and somehow has rather large disengage area. Havent been able to achieve same speeds for anything else
Best ship i found to be the Type-9. Maybe because it is so sluggish. Faster and nimbler ships like Corsair are worse.

When i was 'investigating" this while building a T3 45k Ls away from system entry point, i found the following:

• max hit speed is slightly under 1c for a colonization ship. Everything above usually overshoots. Nowadays i try to hit the moving targets with below 0.2c, especially with my Corsair.
• the bigger the planet, the better. Gravity is your friend and foe in this speed game. When you approach something orbiting a Iovian, you can step on the gas waaaay earlier. Like 20Ls away or even farther.

So if you have a destination you fly to often, it pays to experiment a bit.

 

[PilotB]

Best target is a colonization ship, because it is stationary and somehow has rather large disengage area. Havent been able to achieve same speeds for anything else
Best ship i found to be the Type-9. Maybe because it is so sluggish. Faster and nimbler ships like Corsair are worse.

The power for the various thrusters is modelled. The T9 has very good retro thrusters compared to it's mass so it stops well. It's useless for colonisation but the fedral dropship family have amazing thruster values for hot landings. The cutter has very weak thrusters compared to it's mass and main engines which makes it fly like it's on ice the whole time. Unfortunately there's no UI for those non primary thrusters so you've got to fly the ships to find the ones with stronger retro thrusters which behave much better during landings.

 

[_Flin_]

The power for the various thrusters is modelled. The T9 has very good retro thrusters compared to it's mass so it stops well.

Was taling about supercruise disengage. Do thrusters matter there?

 

[PilotB]

Was taling about supercruise disengage. Do thrusters matter there?

Yes and no. Grade of thruster doesn't matter but the ship's all have their own handling for their thrusters.

 

[AZSlow3]

The trick I find for this is to try to line it up so that the port is actually slightly occluded by the planet when at a distance. Then I can come in at a fairly shallow angle (which is both much easier to judge and means it's safe to hit the orbital cruise line at a higher initial speed), and once a small bit of speed has been lost from being in orbital cruise at all, dive fairly rapidly to lose the rest of the speed and drop out on top of the port. That can be a lot faster than a simple 50-degree straight line dive, even in something as slow to turn as a T-9, and requires less careful measurement (the whole process is over in seconds, you don't have time to take careful measurements)

I have tried several times, but no joy so far. Probably I do something wrong.

The trick you can be in "red zone" for long time is really working. That can help in many situations. Thanks for info!

With the rest, I still have to understand it (from theoretical perspective) to perform

Yes, though the smaller the planet the larger a braking zone you need (so a tiny moon you might want about an 1/8th of a circumference, whereas a massive planet you can have it basically on the edge, use the top of orbital cruise to brake, then dive almost vertically down (you only need to level out to 60 degrees by the time you reach glide height, it's perfectly safe to dive faster before then) so it doesn't even need to be a particularly precise hit on the orbital line.

(Generally, larger planets are easier to get it right; smaller planets have much better time-saving potential if you do get it right)

If you find yourself coming in too slow, level off (because flight within 5 degrees of level gets a speed boost) to dive more later.
If you find yourself coming in too fast, then so long as you don't hit the glide line, diving faster and then levelling out a bit again gets you closer to the planet and brakes you faster - it'll feel counter-intuitive to start with, definitely, but can work very well.

I get large glide zone (do you mean that by "braking zone"?) on smaller bodies. My (so far preferred) 0.05 earth has 20km. On smallest I have build, it was more then 50km and ridiculously long to fly (if I understand correctly, you can't regulate the speed there). That alone "overweight" any other benefits I can imagine.

When I come at "shallow" angle (which you mean?), I am far from the destination at the time of entering the orbit. Even so I can keep more thrust, when I have tried 100% (right before orbiting... I have not tried to approach the planet with less then 6sec... should I?) the speed was 200 vs 115-130 I have in my method. When the base is "obscured", I have 5Mm to it, vs 1.5Mm with my method. So that is not going to work.

I can "level up"/"level down" when trying your method, but when using my own, I don't need that. In other words, so far using your methods I am 2-3 times slower.

Also it may be good to mention about which time we speak. With my method I get 45 seconds from the time I see "Orbit scale" (2Mm from the port) till I have dropped near the base (can request docking). Planet 0.05 earth.
Till I see "Orbit scale" I approach with 6 second speed, I am not brave to lower that
Total flight times in my case (construction site in primary star slot <-> planetary 40ls in the next system) : 2.5 min in one direction and 3.7 min in another.