Does it take anyone else 5-10 minutes to land on a planet base?

[imwithdummy]

I feel like I do everything the tutorial videos say to do...but then end up dropping out of hyperspace way early and spending an inordinate amount of time pressing tab, scooting across the planet at thruster speed....inching my way toward whatever base/outpost.

I'm not coming in too fast, the bar on the right generally just has a couple/few bars underneath the middle line...am I missing something obvious here?
I usually come across the planet towards the base, rather than at a sharp angle downward? I just plane down and ease into it...which I thought was the way to do it but...hell if I know anymore.

Any ideas? I'm down to just avoiding planetary outposts like the plague.

[Husker_85]

I would say that planetary landings are definitely one of the harder things for a new player to learn. Like, where's the planetary landing assist, am I right? XP But seriously, yeah you're gonna want to come in at about a 45 degree decline. You also want to reduce your speed to minimum as soon as you enter orbital range (at least while you're learning). If all goes well, you'll be 100-200km when you enter orbital glide and you should come out of it 6-12km from the landing pad.

P.S. If you find that you're coming in way too far from your target and you have not yet entered glide, you should pull up until your pitch is in the blue zone. You'll hear a loud whirring and you'll start picking up speed. Watch your distance to target on your lefthand panel to see when to dip back down

[Chro]

You must start gliding at something around 120-150 km away from the planetrary base and keep the gliding angle until 10-15 km away from the base, thats how u do it, if u spend more than 1 minute trying to get to a a planetary base you are doing it wrong

[Qrazy]

Quince taught me how to get on the ground fast lol

[imwithdummy]

Okay, good stuff here...I should add that my speed is waaaay slow. Like...I stay at the very bottom of the zone.
But like Chro says, You must start gliding here...and stop gliding at THIS point...I'm not sure how I have any control over that, because I'm automatically put into glide and then popped into thruster speed. I'm sure that your angle and speed has everything to do with this, but how?

It just seems like no matter how careful I am in regards to 'descent slope' and 'speed', I still get thrown into thruster speed way too early. Sorry, I just want to get this down already...one aspect of the game I should grasp by now, you know?

[Straight White Male]

Originally posted by Chro:

You must start gliding at something around 120-150 km away from the planetrary base and keep the gliding angle until 10-15 km away from the base, thats how u do it, if u spend more than 1 minute trying to get to a a planetary base you are doing it wrong

What about those big planets that take longer? :P

[Husker_85]

When you enter orbital cruise you'll see a little bar towards the middle of the screen on the right. About halfway down the bar it will say OC and then at the bottom it says DRP. Your glide begins when your elevation falls under the DRP. If you want to stay out of glide you just have to pull up.

[morgoth13]

Most of the time I try to keep my altitude at 80-100km up until I get to 150-200km away(at this point you're about as high above it as you are away from it in "forward travel") then just aim for the base and mind your angle and when the glide will start. I usually err on the side of aiming down a little too much just before starting the glide, you can pitch up(just keep it in the blue) and cover some extra distance while gliding easier than if you get too close and have to glide straight down. Plus I don't like dropping into normal flight directly above the place personally, it makes the final approach feel awkward.

The usual problem is focusing too much on aiming for the base and forgetting your altitude. In most cases it seems to be around 50km up where the glide starts but it varies by the size of the planet. The bar shows when it will start, not any particular altitude. It makes things a lot less confusing if you roll so that the planet is on the side of your view and control your rate of decent with yaw. That way you can keep the base and horizon in view as you come in and not have to guess as much of what's happening. If you come in at a roughly 45 degree angle you can pretty much go straight to the base which is easiest to line up, but if you cruise along the planet a bit first you'll bleed off a bit of extra speed versus coming in as a straight shot(makes the biggest difference if you haven't had to fly around the planet to find the base first). It always seems like it's on the back side of the planet from wherever I'm coming anyway.

Your speed usually isn't critically important unless you are coming in extremely hot from deep space, but when you are learning you'll have a lot more time to think if you're not using full throttle. If you are traveling a long distance in orbital cruise in the blue angle near level flight you can gain a lot of speed which can be an issue if you are too high, but as you get closer to the planet you won't go that fast even then. Usually I find below about 200km is pretty safe for speed on a "typical" planet. If you get too fast just pull out of the blue and you'll slow down without adjusting throttle. You'll learn to recognize the sound when you get too low and it starts to drop you down to 2.5km/sec(regardless of your throttle) so you can pull back up to prevent it. If you do drop early you can pitch back up and hit orbital cruise again but you'll want to climb back up high enough to re-enable the glide when you come back down.


It's tricky the first few times until you get the hang of it, but before long it will feel like you can do it with your eyes closed and you'll be amazed how sloppy you can let your approach be.

[Chro]

Originally posted by zantar:

Originally posted by Chro:

You must start gliding at something around 120-150 km away from the planetrary base and keep the gliding angle until 10-15 km away from the base, thats how u do it, if u spend more than 1 minute trying to get to a a planetary base you are doing it wrong

What about those big planets that take longer? :P

i mean the gliding sequence :D , orbital cruise can surely take longer depending on the size of the planet

[Phoenix]

Just to clarify some things - at what distance to your target (base in this case) do you drop out of glide?

Normally (as in, if you do it right) you should end your glide 8-10 km from your target. More thatn that and chance is you're doing something wrong. Keep in mind that you automatically drop of glide if you get to close to the surface. Your glide is probably too shallow so you end up too close to the ground far away from your target.

Also 'Glide' and 'Supercruise' are two different things. You exit supercruise once you enter your glide. You can control your speed in sc, but it's fixed in glide.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by FallenCat:

When you enter orbital cruise you'll see a little bar towards the middle of the screen on the right. About halfway down the bar it will say OC and then at the bottom it says DRP. Your glide begins when your elevation falls under the DRP. If you want to stay out of glide you just have to pull up.

This is way handy...I've never seen that pointed out before.
Glide seems okay to me, I've never had a problem with being in glide mode too soon or anything...its being popped out of glide and into thruster speed that really screws me up.

But based on what I've read here, I get the feeling I need to pay a lot more attention to the distance to target and adjust my pitch to where I'm not coming down to thruster speed 600km from the damn outpost lol

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Normally (as in, if you do it right) you should end your glide 8-10 km from your target. More thatn that and chance is you're doing something wrong. Keep in mind that you automatically drop of glide if you get to close to the surface. Your glide is probably too shallow so you end up too close to the ground far away from your target.

I'm betting that this is my issue...I'm coming in at too shallow of an arc...going to try and pay attention to some of the distance measurements stated here and try for a more direct angle. Thanks Phoenix.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by morgoth13:

Most of the time I try to keep my altitude at 80-100km up until I get to 150-200km away(at this point you're about as high above it as you are away from it in "forward travel") then just aim for the base and mind your angle and when the glide will start.

Thanks for all that...but especially this....that's a nice jumping off point; going to give that a shot, thank you.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Glide seems okay to me, I've never had a problem with being in glide mode too soon or anything...its being popped out of glide and into thruster speed that really screws me up.

Chance is that you are, in fact, 'entering' glide too soon (as in you drop into glide when you're still too far away), since the distance you can cover in glide is limited (as you exit when your angle becomes too shallow or you're too close to the ground and your speed is fixed to 2500).

Again, at what distance to your target do you drop out of glide?

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Glide seems okay to me, I've never had a problem with being in glide mode too soon or anything...its being popped out of glide and into thruster speed that really screws me up.

Chance is that you are, in fact, 'entering' glide too soon (as in you drop into glide when you're still too far away), since the distance you can cover in glide is limited (as you exit when your angle becomes too shallow or you're too close to the ground and your speed is fixed to 2500).

Again, at what distance to your target do you drop out of glide?

Whatever distance is about ten minutes away in thruster speed. I couldn't say for sure, but last time I think it was around 1700 km.
Edit, I think you're exactly right though...I'm popping into glide while still waaaay far out from the outpost, thinking that worse case scenario, I could just glide the rest of the way...then of course, I find myself in thruster speed far sooner than expected =P
The first video I watched on how to do this VERY MUCH stressed the importance of taking it easy...and I think I may have taken that to the extreme some =P

[Realigo Actual]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

I feel like I do everything the tutorial videos say to do...but then end up dropping out of hyperspace way early and spending an inordinate amount of time pressing tab, scooting across the planet at thruster speed....inching my way toward whatever base/outpost.

I'm not coming in too fast, the bar on the right generally just has a couple/few bars underneath the middle line...am I missing something obvious here?
I usually come across the planet towards the base, rather than at a sharp angle downward? I just plane down and ease into it...which I thought was the way to do it but...hell if I know anymore.

No. Sharp angle down. You are gliding meaning you are constantly losing altitude. You can trim your descent quite a lot but you are not moving very fast compared to SC, so if you are shallow, then you risk hitting drop altitude before arriving at the base. Also, if you get parallel with the ground you will drop glide too.

And I'm assuming we're talking about glide not SC. Anyway, get better at hitting it at the steepest angle possible without tripping yourself up and causing emergency drop. You'll save time this way.

If you really want to come in at a shallow angle, make sure to aim to overshoot the base, because again, you're constantly dropping downward.