Manual Flight
Every now and then you will need to land or dock manually, e.g. if your auto-pilot is destroyed or you are landing on a planet to deploy an mining machine. This guide shows you how to get to you destination, and how to land/dock when you get there.
How to:
If you are unsure of the controls, read this guide.
Getting to your destination
When you come out of hyperspace are are usually a long way away from any ports or planets. The first thing to do is find your destination on the map. Press the map button to bring up the system map view, shown below.
Select the system view button to get a 3D view of the system, shown below. You can use the remote sytem view button to view the system that you have targeted for hyperspace. Use the zoom buttons to zoom in closer and find your destination (if there is writing in the way of the buttons, press PageUp & PageDown on your keyborad to scroll it). Once you have found your destination, click on the targetting icon, and then on your destination. If you have selected a valid target a small green box will appear around the target.
Go back to the main view by pressing the eye button. There should now be the targetting tunnels for your destination. Line up your ship so that it is facing in that direction and increase your thrust (view this page if you dont know how to do this). Once you have your thrust set to an amount you are happy with set the star dreamer up to maximum.
When you are about 2/5ths of the way there, start slowing down by reducing your thrust. Your aim is to get as close to your target without crashing! Slowly increase the star dreamer amount, adjusting the speed as is needed. This should allow you to get pretty close.
If you over shoot your target, you didn't slow down enough. Turn around and face the target. It will take a little while to slow down and start heading back towards your destination due to momentumn, the extent of which is dependant on your ship and its thrust.
Now you should be close to your destination, and ready for the next step.
Docking at an orbital port
This is pretty straight forward. Make sure you target the port with your navigation (green) target. Point your ship at it and slowly start moving towards it. When you are close enough you will be able to ask for docking clearance using the phone icon.
Once you have been given clearance by the port, you need to actually get in. This is really simple, just fly at the open door. You dont have to stop perfectly or be perfectly lined up (unless you have a very big ship), just aim for the whole. Once you are inside the port will slow you down and get your facing in the right direction - dont go too fast though! You should now hear the doors close and you have docked, simple huh?
Landing on a planet
This technique is suitable for a rough landing, and also for landing at a planet-based port - although it requires quite a lot of accuracy to land this way at a port.
Approach the planet at a reasonable speed, a few thousand kmh should be ok. When you see an altitude readout on the bottom right set the engines to zero and point your ship at the horizon. An example can be seen below.
Set the stardreamer to the second speed to reduce your speed to zero, once you reach it set it back to normal.
You should now be hovering above the planet. Click on the blue jets from the engines on the navigatin panel. This will turn the engines off and you will begin to descend. Turn the engines on every now and then to slow the descent. You might want to set the star dreamer to the second speed to speed things along a bit. If you set it faster you dont seem to descend at all so leave it on the 2nd setting for now.
Continue descending. When you are about 300m off the ground lower your under-carriage and slow the descent right down to a crawl by using the engines to slow you down. Keep going until the altimeter says you are at about 5m, then turn the engines off. Your ship should then just slowly descend those final few metres and you'll touch down perfectly.
Taking off is simple, just turn the engines back on.