Landing mode

[Infinite deaths]

Landing at a specific spot is tricky. Landing on a landing pad in a colony could be even harder (for me at least)

We could do with some kind of landing mode. This could have a visual indicators for projected landing sight, craft direction of travel, horizontal & vertical velocities. Could also maybe have more SAS options like east west & degrees of tilt from pointing up.

Just in general more information and control options.

[Lowi_Sace]

I would like to have an indicator were on the surface you would hit the surface while on a collision course by taking planetary spin into account. Would make it easier to aim for a site while in orbit.

Better would be if there was a maneuver planner for landing burns. Don’t know exactly how that would work, but would be nice for making efficient burns to landing pads and performing suicide burns.

The hard thing with making tools for landing will probably be taking atmospheres into account, but maybe there could be a planning tool for that either.

[Scarecrow71]

I'd prefer to have MechJeb's landing utility.  Click the surface where you want to land and let the computer take over.

[Flush Foot]

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'd prefer to have MechJeb's landing utility.  Click the surface where you want to land and let the computer take over.

A compromise could be that it only worked for colony landing-pads (though I also would like 'fully-automated precise landings' )

[allanp11]

Hmmmm this is a good one. A fully automated "land 'ere" button would be nice, but might also be too easy? Maybe could be a function only available on easy difficulty?

For landing at a specific spot on normal difficulty, having the collision indicator take into account the planets spin would be very helpful.  Also, having a precise landing "bullseye" graphic on the ground in the normal flight view, not the map view that lets you know where you are going to land given your current velocity relative to the ground, current parachute settings (so it will account for your change in velocity when your parachutes open, basically straight down after 1000m altitude if that's your parachute deploy height, and if there's an atmosphere to deploy in) and current atmospheric conditions. 

Another idea, if you have a spot you want to land at, have a geostationary satellite above the target with a special targeting telescope looking straight down.  The telescope would only be unlockable after you have completed a monument mission manually. Switch to this satellite and use the targeting telescope to select your target on the ground (it has amazing zoom capabilities, and you can select a specific target in view such as a ground based docking port!). Then switch to your main ship and tell it to communicate with the geostationary satellite and it will then provide you with guidance on how to get to your destination, almost like a land here button and very accurate, but it only provides guidance. You have to do the actual flying yourself using the landing guidance vector on the nav ball (undecided if SAS should be able to automatically do that for you) and put in the work setting up the geostationary satellite with a telescope.

Edited March 20 by allanp11

[The Aziz]

8 minutes ago, allanp11 said:

Another idea, if you have a spot you want to land at, have a geostationary satellite above the target with a special targeting telescope looking straight down. 

Not all bodies have geostationary orbits. For some it's beyond their SOI.

[Presto200]

I think that landing in KSP is a skill you have to learn much like docking and using RCS in an effective way. I agree that tools that help with numbers and visuals can be nice but I enjoy as a player actually preforming the actions that I want to do and getting better with time. Some of the fun learning KSP is freaking out when your about to land and hitting way too much gas and flipping over  . Later, after developing your skills, you are able to rely on yourself which gives you a great sense of pride. I think if you're a player who wants an automated system it should stay in mod form, if it is part of the base game then players wont develop that skill themselves. If we were to add a tool to the game to help with landing I think something showing where spin of the celestial boy will put the surface when you land would be a fair tool that wouldn't take any real skill out of landing.

[Flush Foot]

11 minutes ago, Presto200 said:

I think that landing in KSP is a skill you have to learn much like docking and using RCS

I do generally agree with you, which is why I felt the 'automated landing at colony-pad' might be a fair compromise (plus the improved visuals)...

You have to land manually (and safely) to start your colony (and/or to target whatever resources we'll be extracting later, if not doing so by rover), but from then on, if you want to auto-land AT that colony (or maybe only once you've unlocked some tech / added a component to the colony), it is available to you. (goes well with their 'do not want to force micromanagement of resources for the rest of time... do it once and then a resupply-route "timer" takes over from then on')

Edited March 20 by Flush Foot
Pointing back to my prev. comment <via link>

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, allanp11 said:

but might also be too easy?

50 minutes ago, Presto200 said:

I think that landing in KSP is a skill you have to learn

I don't think it's out of the ballpark to assume a sentient species that is space-faring - and going interstellar at some point - would have programmed their computers to do this for them.  Heck, IRL our airplanes have automated functions that you could state "we should learn how to do".

If you want to land manually, great.  But there's no reason to assume computers wouldn't do it for you.

[Flush Foot]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

sentient species that is space-faring

[steveman0]

At a minimum, I would like to be able to set waypoints at ground locations and mark these and automatically provided mission waypoints as targets. These targeted waypoints should provide a navball icon just like targeting a docking port for docking. If this takes orbital spin into account (as it should because orbital spin is a factor in ground speed), you could then simply enter target mode rather than surface mode to burn retrograde of target for your landing.

I think the only notable new functionality that might aid this is to be able to point relative to horizontal (pro or retrograde) to adjust horizontal velocity only. Target mode doesn't provide an easy way otherwise to burn off horizontal velocity first above target before during a vertical landing burn. Having a separate indicator for horizontal speed would help here too.

Precision landing then would involve setting your waypoint for desired landing, burning to adjust horizontal velocity towards target, burning to zero horizontal velocity once aligned over target, and finally burning for the touch down landing.

Automation is something that will come with the resource update when we can have the game repeat our flight plans. The the game should still require learning how to execute the landings and provide the tools to do so reliably without requiring odd visual extrapolation without indicators.

[Darta01]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I don't think it's out of the ballpark to assume a sentient species that is space-faring - and going interstellar at some point - would have programmed their computers to do this for them.  Heck, IRL our airplanes have automated functions that you could state "we should learn how to do".

If you want to land manually, great.  But there's no reason to assume computers wouldn't do it for you.

Rocket launches are automated too IRL, but here we are, manually launching rockects because it is both fun and challenging. If landings are fully automatable, it would not be a space simulation game, just a space simulation

[Scarecrow71]

4 hours ago, Darta01 said:

Rocket launches are automated too IRL, but here we are, manually launching rockects because it is both fun and challenging. If landings are fully automatable, it would not be a space simulation game, just a space simulation

I haven't landed manually in KSP1 in years.  Doesn't mean I'm not having fun, nor does it mean it's no longer a game.

[cocoscacao]

1 minute ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I haven't landed manually in KSP1 in years.  Doesn't mean I'm not having fun

I'd prefer something in the middle. A notification on when to start suicide burn. Full automation is boring for me. Reloading quick-saves ain't much better.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'd prefer to have MechJeb's landing utility.  Click the surface where you want to land and let the computer take over.

It worked like smart shells on the Mun, < 10 meter error so you had to miss target to not impact. 
On Minmus the low gravity confused it so I just went manual before it tried to go into final decent, but landing on Minmus to Gilly is not scary. Moho is worse. Tylo you use to scare people with, but found it easier with the KSP 2 nodes. as I can just make an node who kills my velocity above target, or most of it as Tylo rotates to be annoying. 

[Presto200]

I think for a base game tools to help you do it manually is better than having something do it automatically for you. That's also why many don't like the science button doing all the science things at once, it takes away from the experience of the game for lots of people. If you enjoy having the automated things I hope mods come to KSP2 that allow you to do that just like in KSP1, more power to you know.  However I think if it was implemented into the game, new players would just always use that and never learn how to do it for themselves.

[magnemoe]

32 minutes ago, Presto200 said:

I think for a base game tools to help you do it manually is better than having something do it automatically for you. That's also why many don't like the science button doing all the science things at once, it takes away from the experience of the game for lots of people. If you enjoy having the automated things I hope mods come to KSP2 that allow you to do that just like in KSP1, more power to you know.  However I think if it was implemented into the game, new players would just always use that and never learn how to do it for themselves.

I agree while using mechjeb and the K2-D2 a lot as circulation burns are not any sort of challenge. Yes you want it to be low dV, but they are rarely challenging, and then they are mechjeb will not help you. 
Like then your try to circulate with your low twr upper stage, tricks here is to burn partial upward to chase Ap in front of you. This works unless you are way to slow. 1.8 km/s it probably work if you start early, 1.5 km/s and .3 twr and no. 

As for teh science button, later on with the radiation and orbital surveys i think the button fails anyway, but you learn this with atmospheric science