SP mission "point blank" - very difficult to land on corvettes

[Bambi]

the corvettes do not sit still or even sail slowly, they turn randomly at high speed, not conducive to landing. it is basically a miracle that I managed the landing without crashing.
from briefly messing with the mission editor it seems like there is not a "hold position" command for AI units so this may be the cause

[Bambi]

perhaps in earlier versions of the game when this mission was designed corvettes did not automatically try to sail to engage targets?

[Meemai]

I do recall the Corvettes doing the silly maneouvers when trying that mission for the first time months ago. What I can recommend is giving the auto-hover function a go when trying to land on corvettes. (Hold flight assist button for a second or so).

Autohover does not just help with static hovering, it will also match the closest ship movement once you are close enough, which should make lining up with the moving vessel somewhat easier.

This should also be useful in other missions for pinpoint landings on a moving carrier, or for resupplying moving ships with the Tarantula, give it a go!

[Bambi]

the tutorial does not include any information on this feature, and in any case it is not very fun to have AI land for you

[Meemai]

It does not land for you, just lines you up.
You will still need to do some work to get down there.

If you want to land full manual, then go ahead and practice a bit more, it is doable and quite fun and satisfying when it works out.

Just suggested the existing feature that can make your life easier while ships are moving around.

[Bambi]

It's doable, doesn't mean it's reasonable or fun. The ships should hold still or move slowly in a straight line to facility landing.

AI holding position is basically doing 90% of the work, so it is landing for you.

[Snork]

if you're concerned about realism, I can verify that real life military helicopters as old as the 1980s russian Blackshark and all newer ones all also include an autohover function.

it just tries to hold you at a stable hover at the altitude you activated it at so you can attend to other functions, generally either landing or operating weapons systems.

(the blackshark was also a one man operated attack helicopter)

it's not infallible and it can still result in a stale air vortex stall (aka vortex ring state), but still incredibly helpful when truying to stay relatively stationary left to right, when using a building or terrain for cover to pop up from for example.

[Bambi]

This is the not same as AI perfectly tracking a moving platform for you.