Placing your first settlement?

[wolf]

So, the instructions read "fly to a planet and pick a spot"

How exactly am I supposed to do this, what to do when you find "a spot"?

Edit:
Can we pick random spots when flying there,
or is it just the fixed spots and then finding them

[frumple]

There are fixed spots. You can select the one you like but sometimes there may be only a few to choose from.

This info is actually in the player's handbook in your ship Codex.

[wolf]

Well, the land has to be flattened for one, and besides that we can pick a spot in sys map view, but there's also the option to fly to the planet yourself. i'm just not sure what difference that would make. If there's no benefit i.e. free random placement picking then why have the option to fly there?

[dave46563]

Choosing the place for my surface outpost I flew to the planet....a landable HMC. After dropping out of glide I activated my colonisation suite. Camera moves out of ship and you can see outline of the prospective outpost. When it turns green then it becomes available to place.
Honestly can't remember if I picked a landing area in the system map or I just looked at the surface from high up and chose to land at a spot I liked. I placed it next to a huge crater. I had to leave the area and come back, and when I did the site was there and I was able to land and start delivering materials.

[wolf]

Thank you dave That'll do it

(it was the col suite)

[XG99]

Originally posted by wolf:

Well, the land has to be flattened for one, and besides that we can pick a spot in sys map view, but there's also the option to fly to the planet yourself. i'm just not sure what difference that would make. If there's no benefit i.e. free random placement picking then why have the option to fly there?

Not sure if you meant this, but the land gets flattened (or built up) automatically when you place the settlement. I have one on a mountaintop.

I've only flown to the planet and manually picked a spot (you can place anywhere on the surface) so I don't know about randomly assigning a settlement location.

[frumple]

I think having the option of seeing where the settlement will be placed is neat.
It's more convenient to just drop it from the sys map, but more personal to be able to actively go and search for the right spot.

No practical difference though.

[XG99]

Originally posted by frumple:

There are fixed spots. You can select the one you like but sometimes there may be only a few to choose from.

Not for ground sites. Fly to any spot on the planet, aim at the ground and fire the SC-Suite.

[frumple]

Then maybe it depends on the planet? Or the devs changed their minds because it was supposed to be limited by terrain.