Question on Planetfall OXP

[vino-vero]

hello,

where do I get a landing gear for my Cobra MK III? I tried several high tech systems but found none. Planetfall is installed correctly - I get the landing messages.

Thanks for answering a "mostly harmless" pilot

vino.vero

[Commander McLane]

Hi, vino-vero, and first of all welcome to the boards, and of course to this great game!

There is no actual landing gear for your ship, so you don't need to search for it.

If you are using planetfall.oxp, all you need to do is to very carefully approach the planet surface, preferable in a flat angle, I think. As soon as you're close enough to the surface (you need to be very close!) you will land. There is no real landing, though, it will look like docking at a station (what planetfall does is to create an invisible station around you).

So, just try it!

[Thargoid]

Actually there is (it's planetary landing capability rather than landing gear, but is probably what you are referring to).

It should be available for 5000cr from any tech level 9+ planet (and sometimes tech 8 ). But it will only be available once you have a docking computer and external heat shielding installed.

My guess is that you are missing one or both of those two pre-requisite pieces of equipment being installed on your Cobbie?

Once you have it, approach the planet surface slowly (angle doesn't matter) and follow the instructions. You need to have clearance to land, which can take a moment or two to be granted - planetary control are busy people

[vino-vero]

Experienced commanders,

thank you! I actually miss one of the required items.

vino-vero

[Thargoid]

You're welcome.

It's less being an experienced commander, more that I wrote the OXP

[Commander McLane]

You're welcome.

It's less being an experienced commander, more that I wrote the OXP

Which is why Thargoid's answer was much better than mine.

[Gnudoll]

So now *I* have a question for our esteemed OXP artist: are the markets on the planet and the station linked? what I mean is this: if I buy up all the furs on the station, but still have room in my hold, can I go to the planet and buy more to fill it up? Or will they be out because I bought them all on the station? Thanks again for yet another fine OXP!

[Commander McLane]

Each station's market is independent. Cargo is counted per station, not per system.

Some stations may also set their prices independently. So instead of filling your hold with furs from two different stations, it may even be worthwhile to buy at one station and sell at the other.

[Thargoid]

Or even sometimes simply between the planet and the main station in orbit around it. As noted the markets are different, and depending where you land on the planet each type of location should also be different in terms of what they have to sell, and what price they ask for items or offer items at.

[Commander McLane]

Or even sometimes simply between the planet and the main station in orbit around it.

My statement was meant to include that. Technically the planetary landing sites are stations, after all. But of course I could've made that more explicit.

[Makandal]

To get the Planetary Landing thingy, you need to have the external temperature shield. Important to be reminded.

You will get missions sometimes on the planets, for example in Feudal.

[Ganelon]

With multiple planetary markets and the moons and extra planets (if you have an OXP installed that provides those), it allows for a lot of trade without leaving a system.

The one thing that makes it a little difficult is that the multiple locations on the planet surface you might land at are kind of random, and if there's a way to specifically pick one, I don't know of it. If you try enough times, you can get back to a particular one though, so it works.. But if you have a criminal status at the moment and happen to end up landing at the prison, well, let's say that's kind of a "duh" moment. LOL

The illusion is good enough in most cases, though. If you think about it, the average spacer wouldn't usually know local geography of every planet. So unless there's some particular systems where you spend a lot of time, the illusion works well. The occasional risk of ending up in jail for a little while or accidentally landing at the planet's dump or an empty field actually add a bit to the fun. The chances that you may find something going very cheap on the surface where you know from having just been looking at the main station's market that you can make a killing with a quick trip back up more than compensates for those moments anyway.

Planetfall is great if you've had some setbacks and you're licking your wounds after some fights or trips that didn't go optimally. Or if you're just bored with milk runs and cargo contracts. Since the market at the extra locations won't necessarily match what is usually expected for the system, I find it better to use the "trade route" strategy and buy whatever is at a good price and sell whatever is going at a good price at each stop.

It is not a guaranteed "cash cow", however. Landing gear can get damaged and need repairs and if your just having a run of really rotten luck it can be hard to make much profit. But usually several trips of in-system trade will be a nice boost to your account for the work and at a lower risk level than the usual Oolite system to system trade.

Anyway, it's a great OXP, vino-vero. Thargoid did an excellent job, it adds some really cool possibilities into the game.

And that said, all this talk has got me in the mood to go and do some Planetfall/in-system play. LOL I'm off.

[Thargoid]

There isn't a way to land at a specific location - as you say it's random. By design, to add to the fun of things, and also to not have it unbalance the game too much as I was aware I could end up making a milk-run between the main planet and main station if things weren't done carefully (it can still happen, but only by random chance).

Other OXPs can access the system though (Feudal States is an example of one that does, but it's not the only one) and the PF scripting can be sent commands which override the default built-in locations and force external ones. Oh, and moons and "sub" planets (ie added ones, without the main station in orbit around them) have slightly different locations (or every different in some cases) to the main planet ones too.

[Zireael]

The one thing that makes it a little difficult is that the multiple locations on the planet surface you might land at are kind of random, and if there's a way to specifically pick one, I don't know of it. If you try enough times, you can get back to a particular one though, so it works.. But if you have a criminal status at the moment and happen to end up landing at the prison, well, let's say that's kind of a "duh" moment. LOL

So maybe disable prison as a location if you have criminal status?

And I really hope I have some time to get back to actually playing Oolite...

[TGHC]

perhaps you could lanch a homing beacon immediately after exiting, I haven't got the OXP loaded yet so cannot check.