Landing planet for 4 hours - my first play

[dd2player]

I don't know what to think. I launched the game, took the first mission to gather something from ship wreck, reached the planet with a marker and now watched a billion videos on YT on how to land on planet.

The marker under my ship never gets blue.

Please, HALP THIS IS RIDICULOUS

[Mu77ley]

Do you have your landing gear down?

Also, look for flatter/smoother patches of terrain. Ships are very large and need relatively smooth terrain to land

[dd2player]

Thank you, english is not my primary an i was reading that it is "lowering" the gear like itself automagically. But apparently it was commanding me to do so...

Why there is no landing in tutorial for pilot license?

[ShelLuser]

Also note that landing on a planet will be a bit different than landing on a station or such. If you dock at a station you get an indicator to tell you how to land exactly on the right spot on a landing pad, but that obviously does not apply to a random location on a planet. Here the only thing you have to do is find a suitable spot within the terrain, which can also be a bit tricky.

[dd2player]

Well i've landed successfully several times, up and down, around and riding scarab across the crash site - there is nothing, literally. Is it bugged or something?

Maybe i'm doing anything wrong at this phase? https://i.imgur.com/rqzH1ZW.png

[Sighman]

That impact site is on the other side of the planet. (Dotted circle)

For next time, 5.96 Mm is 5.96 million metres away.

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by Sighman:

That impact site is on the other side of the planet. (Dotted circle)

For next time, 5.96 Mm is 5.96 million metres away.

This. You might have noticed that the UI displays objects different if they are occluded by other bodies (i.e. you'd risk a collision if fly twoards them). This is one of those cases.

YOu might also have noticed that your distance to target doesn't decrease in a manner compatible with a non-collision event.

[dd2player]

I admit i'm dumb

The frustrating part is that when assist-orbiting to destination the closest spot seems to be in ~2,5Mm ; should one exit the auto orbiting mode in order to reach the surface from the closest point like this?

Hell, it doesn't even matter if i would continue playing it or not, but this is too much like too much: would appreciate in-game tutorials on all this stuff prior getting missions.

[Doodlewurst]

As far as tutorials go, there is a tutorial for landing on a planet. The pilot licence just gives you the basics that you need to start playing. It's a pretty steep learning curve and the main feature of the game is freedom, so if they had everyone being required to learn everything before allowing them to experience the game then people would give up on it before they got started. Instead, the tutorials are available at any time so that players can access them as they have the time and as they require them. You can come back to them at any time, so you might find it helpful to revisit them, particularly if you don't play often. I definitely recommend trying out each of the extra tutorials. They are accessed from the system panel on the right, on the Home page under Training - default hotkey is F4.

I'm not sure which part of the tutorials mentions the occluded marker, but I do remember it being in there somewhere. Might have been part of the first mission you're given after receiving the licence. When I first played it wasn't long before I had to take a break from it for some months, then when I came back I couldn't remember much so I started with a new profile. I found that pretty useful in that I also noticed things I missed the first time around. If you're not far into it it might be worth your while to delete your save and go again from the start.

The landing tutorial has you land, exit the ship using the SRV (recon vehicle), and using instruments to do some scans. It'll more or less walk you through each aspect.

[Sighman]

Elite is like learning to drive a car. It can be frustrating, but if you give up ... imagine what you're missing.

[Veeshan]

So if you're just not really into this level of difficulty for EVERYTHING in the game, try the game Everspace 2, it's far more "accessible." Meaning the fun part is the gameplay not the learning.

Side Note - What are some other arcade style "casual" space games to refer folks to who dislike the sim aspects? Last one I played was Freelancer...

[dd2player]

Nah it's okay i've figured this out eventually :D thanks guys, grande community

[JL::Jose-Juan Kenobi]

Originally posted by dd2player:

I admit i'm dumb

The frustrating part is that when assist-orbiting to destination the closest spot seems to be in ~2,5Mm ; should one exit the auto orbiting mode in order to reach the surface from the closest point like this?

Hell, it doesn't even matter if i would continue playing it or not, but this is too much like too much: would appreciate in-game tutorials on all this stuff prior getting missions.

Don't feel bad, approaching planets and orbiting/moving around efficiently takes practice, it took me a while.

can offer few tips:
- Bind a key to 75% throttle, useful while on Supercruise
- Lock the planet you are heading to, throttle at 100%
- When there are 8-7 seconds to destination, press key to set throttle to 75%
- Once you get closer to the planet, now pay attention of left hand side speed and distance, the speed should be in the "blue"
- If you need to, set throttle to 0 while getting closer to planet to get your bearings and locate settlement
- If is "obscured" in the other side of the planet, remain in super cruise and shallow angle, very low speed, and sort of orbit planet and heads towards marker (be very mindful if the "sounds" lol and the throttle, better take it slowly)
- Once closer, aim at aprox 45o degree angle and start going down while keeping in speed in the blue (the left marker)
- If everything is fine you should be in "glide" mode
- Keep an eye on the gravity of the planet, high gravity, anything really even close to 1g and certainly higher than 1g is very, very dangerous and you can crash very easy if not careful

If you have landed on a planet, and need to go to an entirely different location on same planet
- Take off, head upwards until you can engage super cruise
- Check your altimeter, and level when the marker reaches the "OC" mark
- Pitch up/down until your HUD is in a Blue zone, and the sound also changes, this is now you Orbiting
- Keep correcting pitch or yaw depending where you going while staying your hud in the blue and at a steady speed
- Follow similar steps once closer to destination, better to "undershoot" than overshoot in my experience.

Pretty sure there are some YT vids, I do agree some in game tutorials would come in handy, but hey, finding this stuff is sometimes part of the fun :-)

good luck!

[Veeshan]

To add to the above tips, I've found good success exiting orbital Cruise mode and entering glide mode when 100 km from destination. The transition from cruise to Glide occurs around 24 km altitude. Although this might change I'm not sure.

[Sighman]

When in glide, heading for a ground base, I recommend aiming slightly above it. You'll glide a lot closer, and as you approach you can dive down towards it. I normally emerge from glide less than 4-5km from the base.

If you use a shallow glide you can emerge 25km away, which is a lot of boosting and waiting to get there.

[jje64]

Here's how I do it...
Watch your altitude, altitude is everything in planetary approaches.

There are some markers on your altitude scale that are important... the OC line is the Orbital Cruise boundary. The OD line is the Orbital Drop Line. The orbit assist is only good if you need to park in orbit for a minute while you get yourself organized, otherwise, it's too high for what you want to do.

Approach the planet and point roughly toward the target. The autopilot is going to try to put you in orbital assist, ignore that, if it takes control, take it right back and keep your ship pointed toward where you want to go.

Once you drop below the OC line, you're in control. Roll over onto your back (so the the dirt is up and space is down) and maintain slight back pressure on your stick to control your altitude. This is so that you can keep the target reticle in view while you're approaching; if you approach facing normally, it could drop beneath the nose or you might inadvertently pitch down toward it and drop early. You want to approach but not cross the OD line, stay 10 or 20,000 m above it, using pitch. Adjust throttle to speed up your approach, 100% is fine if you have millions of meters to travel.

When you get within 150km of your objective, set your throttle to 50%, roll over to normal orientation and start pitching forward for your intended landing spot. Turn on night vision, even if you're in daylight; just get in the habit of doing it here. You should drop to orbital glide somewhere around 24-35km high, ideally you want your pitch to be between 30-40 degrees down.

Ride the glide, adjusting as you go. Ideally you want your aiming point to be just a hair above the target as you approach. Watch for the surface (this is where night vision comes in to play). The goal is to keep the target in a fixed position in your windscreen, if it starts going upward in your windscreen, pitch above it until it settles. If it starts going downward, pitch below it. Ideally you should drop out of glide 5km or so from your intended landing spot.

Continue to approach at your best controllable speed until you get to within 1 km of the landing site and then stop. Stop dead, 0% thrust. Take a second to clean up from the approach and look over the landing area, find good candidate spots for landing, etc. Head toward the objective or your landing spot (note, do NOT attempt to overfly landing pads). Note that on some missions, like locating an escape pod, the target will move. This is where you can adjust until the target stabilizes.

When you get there, stop again. Take a second to do a good overlook on your LZ. If there are dirtballs prowling the area, dumbfire rockets are usually the best way to clear them out. This is also where night vision is helpful because it will highlight them for you; look for moving glowing specks around your landing area. Machine guns and the like are a waste of time, and require precision that is frustratingly impossible and seem to do little damage to troops in the open anyway. Rockets, on the other hand, make pretty short work of any knuckleheads crowding your landing spot. Also, you want to kill them quick now that Frontier has given surface guys rocket launchers.

level out again and drop your landing gear. It's all about thrusters now. Make sure you have them assigned in your settings so that you can control ship movements with wasd and make sure you have keys set to control up/down. Descend using down thrust (think like a helicopter, not an airplane) until your radar switches to surface mode. Now use WASD and the alignment indicators on your HUD to find a workable landing site. Note that sometimes, if you find a flat-ish spot but it wont let you land, if you yaw a little one way or the other, it'll calm down. It seems to be more okay with side slopes than with forward or backward ones, so sometimes just turning a little will do the trick. Try to avoid landing facing uphill, your SRV will get stuck under your tail sometimes if you do. You might want to turn on your headlights at this point, although if I'm approaching a hostile landing site, I usually leave them off both on my ship and my SRV and rely on night vision.

Go do your thing on foot or in an SRV.

Taking off is the opposite; press R until your engines kick in, I tend to vertical climb up to 10km or so, and then raise the gear and pitch up to transition to forward flight and supercruise entry or to jump. I do this because during takeoff you're vulnerable and I've been jumped before while I was departing. If you get threatened, you have the option to punch it to 100% throttle horizontally and boost to clear the area, otherwise you're just building momentum upwards for planetary exit.

So that's my procedure, works every time most of the time. The only time I really miss my landing point is when I get distracted and fly a sloppy approach, otherwise I tend to end up right around 5km. Your mileage may vary, the best procedure is the one that works for you.