Praise/Gripe/Request for Help

[glen55]

[PRAISE]I'm having a great time with this game. Just as a point of reference, I started playing the Freelancer campaign last week and Freelancer could only hold my attention for a few missions. Since downloading Starshatter, I have quit Freelancer, have already played 5X as many Starshatter missions as I played Freelancer, and am starving for more. And I'm nowhere near to unlocking capital ship combat, which I'm REALLY looking forward to.

[GRIPE]BUT . . . [:@] . . . while I don't mind that the game is somewhat difficult, the fighters are fragile, and it can be difficult to achieve your mission and come home alive, I HATE the crashes that I don't understand or can't do anything about. E.g., after deleting my last character because he had too many deaths (and I've much more gotten the hang of things by now and am ready to start one that I can keep), I ran the 1st 3 missions in the 1st 3 campaigns, succeeded in all 3 missions, destroying 2 minefields and a destroyer, with 9 personal minefield kills and a gun kill on the destroyer, and when I went to park the GD thing in the dock, I crashed for no reason I'm aware of! That's at least 3 landing bay crashes on what I thought were good landings right up til the fatal moment - and there was one other that I saved after it went into the landing animation by hitting reverse thrusters to back out of the dock and try again before I slammed into the far wall.

[REQUEST FOR HELP]So can some veteran who really knows what's going on and never crashes their fighter while landing please tell me EXACTLY how to park my fighter without crashing? Pretty please?

[AncientAngel]

This might help you out some. Never exceed a landing speed of over 150 until you are extremely comfortable with the ship and your control set-up. Always remember to use you "Home" and "End" keys to make quick and temp increases/decreases in your speed. If you still have thrust coming from your engines your speed will start back up again.

The key issue that I have noticed with deck landings is you just can not come into the bay make a full stop and thrust down to land like a Harrier would. For some reason you end up pushing your landing gear right into the hull of the ship causing damage. Your best approach is to come in for your landing with a little nose down and use your reaction control thrusters to push your ship down a little so your glide path doesn't end up where the back wall is. The key point is to make sure your ship sort of glides in and touches down almost to the point where your nose gear hits first. As for manuvers inside the landing area ...anything goes.. you can fly ing up-side down ..side ways backwards etc... and spin her around and then land. I know you can land also like you where about to launch with your nose facing out as well ..

Wonce you have that down ..speed isn't an issue any more .. if you want an added challenge hit your "M" key when your 25km away from your landing and see how badly these ships fly with out computer control enabled. [:)]

[glen55]

Thanks for the reply. Even though it sounds like you have great success, I'm still not sure I quite get it. I thought I was doing all those things. As far as 150 goes, heck I usually land at about 80. And I'm really careful. I try to spot her right in the middle, nose down a little, everything like you said. I just don't get it, and that's what's frustrating.

Like I said, though, I love the rest of the game, and maybe I'll figure out some magic bullet on landing one day.

Thanks again.

[Diabolico]

I have the following suggestions :

1. When you are returning to the carrier, press ALT+I. This will do 2 things :
a) Request permission to approach;
b) Light up the approach glide flight path and change your HUD mode to ILS.

2. When you are close to the carrier, you will clearly see the approach path, which appears like a tunnel.

3. Fly to the beggining of the path and cut the throtle once you are there using the end key. Manoeuver your vessel as to position yourself on the middle of the approach tunnel.

4. Once you are stabilised, accelarate to 100 or 150 and keep your aircraft on the path.

5. when you are very close to the landing pad, you will clearly notice an "X" on the middle of the landing pad. Line up your plane dummy on the hud with it and reduce speed to 70.

6. Keep approaching slowly and when inside the pad, reduce speed to 30.

7. Let the aircraft fly slowly.

8. At that speed and once you are inside the Hangar you can either finish the mission by hitting ESC+1 or wait a few more seconds untill the game freezes and and a "landing sequence completed" message appears.Then you will be brought to the end mission screen.

Voilà!

[se5a]

you don't actualy touch the deck in a carrier landing.
Just hover over the landing spot, the tractor beams or whatever will do the rest

[Duken]

ORIGINAL: Diabolico
I have the following suggestions :
<snip>

Or (if it still works in the full version):

When you can auto on the return to base nav point hit alt-r ; alt-i ; shift-insert. The skipping animation will play and you will get the end of mission screen.

[Gordon]

All excellent suggestions.

One other thing to remember when landing, make sure you get clearance first from the carrier, sometimes you will be #2 in line to land. If you ignore this your fighter will blow up since you are trying to land when one of the other fighters had clearance ahead of you.

[glen55]

Crap, it happened again. Coming in dead center to the bay, speed of 70, gear down, nose pointed just short of the X, and I crashed. That's 2 crashes in 5 landings with this new character, and as far as I can tell all 5 of the landings have been spot-on perfect.

I really appreciate all of the suggestions, but really the only one that I think would help would be to end my mission without waiting for the docking animation. I've been using the ILS boxes, I always radio in for clearance and wait til I'm #1, I come in dead center, gear down, low speed, and I still crash. I love the ILS boxes and getting landing clearance and all that, but apparently manual landing just doesn't work so I'll have to end my missions.

But what really surprises me and doesn't quite make sense, so it makes me think I just haven't figured something out, is that other people aren't responding to this thread by saying "yeah, me too." Instead it's a bunch of suggestions about how to do it, which makes me think that other people aren't having my problem. And yet I've already been doing each and every one of the suggestions that people have made. I just don't understand. . . . [&:]

[Pheagey]

herm, interesting. How fast is your computer? Perhaps try using FRAPS and making a video of a landing that crash's. Maybe we can see something...

It sounds liek your doing everything just fine. This is odd...

BTW: you do have the latest patch right?

P.S.: For all you vet. landing people. Ever done a landing while getting shoort at by enemy fighters? It gets hairy when you hear the missile warning go off...

[Vjolt]

make sure your not upside down when your landing or else you'll try to land on the cieling which is baaad. Thats happened to me a few times :/

[glen55]

What is FRAPS and how can I make a video and post it to the forum? I'd be glad to show the problem.

My PC is a P4 1.7, which I don't think is extraordinarily fast or extraordinarily slow, so I wouldn't think processing speed would factor. A gig of RAM, 64 MB GeForce 3 card.

It has gotten a little better, only 1 more time out of another 6-8 landings. And yes, I'm still stubbornly resisting escaping and ending the missions--except every now and then, the ILS boxes don't show up, and then I end the mission out of an excess of caution, although I have managed to land successfully the first time that happened. Does anybody know why that is?

It's not flying in upside-down. I did that once, and crashed, which wasn't so mysterious. [:)] So I always make sure I'm right-side-up, which isn't hard once you figure out what the carrier looks like.

p.s. Oh wait! I think I see how to show my video ("Click here to upload!"). I just have to know how to make it now.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: glen55

every now and then, the ILS boxes don't show up

I can't remember this has happened to me. If it happens again, make sure your HUD is in ILS mode. There should read ILS in left-side of the targeting reticle. If there reads TAC instead, click it until it changes to ILS.