I know you didn't want a brief comment, but it's pretty simple:

Target the settlement
Fly around the planet until the settlement is about 1/4 to 1/3 the distance from the horizon to a point around the middle of the planet. (ie. not way out on the horizon, and not more than 45-50 degrees below you)
Make sure the time to target is 7 seconds or more. Definitely not less, or you'll need to pull up and go around.
Dive at roughly a 30-45 degree angle, keeping the settlement just below the direction of travel.
You'll enter glide when you hit the DRP point on the altitude HUD.
Keep aiming just above the settlement.
As you get within 15km or so, still in glide, and look like you're going to sail right over the top, dive steeply.
Doing it this way, glide will deposit you less than 4-5km from the settlement. Get docking permission, zoom in and land.

Glide ends when you're a certain altitude above the surface, so a shallow approach means a 100km boost-boost-boost waste of time after glide drops you out.

If I have the time tonight I'l record a video. I always drop out of SC ~30km from my target. My procedure always works.

If you've already figured out landing you're most of the way there, go to your nav panel and lock the destination then just stay in orbit until it appears over the horizon and then slowly drop down to it at about 5-20 degrees. Once you're 7.5km out contact them and request landing like you would going to a space station. If you have a docking computer, let it handle the rest.

The YouTuber GalacticBacon has a guide on how to do this in detail, that's the guide I used to learn. Once you've done it a few times it become second nature.

Just don't forget what I mentioned - shallow glide means a lot more flying towards the target when glide ends. Steep glide emerges right on top of it.

Postat inițial de Sighman:

I know you didn't want a brief comment, but it's pretty simple:

Target the settlement
Fly around the planet until the settlement is about 1/4 to 1/3 the distance from the horizon to a point around the middle of the planet. (ie. not way out on the horizon, and not more than 45-50 degrees below you)
Make sure the time to target is 7 seconds or more. Definitely not less, or you'll need to pull up and go around.
Dive at roughly a 30-45 degree angle, keeping the settlement just below the direction of travel.
You'll enter glide when you hit the DRP point on the altitude HUD.
Keep aiming just above the settlement.
As you get within 15km or so, still in glide, and look like you're going to sail right over the top, dive steeply.
Doing it this way, glide will deposit you less than 4-5km from the settlement. Get docking permission, zoom in and land.

Glide ends when you're a certain altitude above the surface, so a shallow approach means a 100km boost-boost-boost waste of time after glide drops you out.

Thanks. There are quite a few things in there that I don't understand though. I'm wary about asking the questions here because I think it will rapidly become tedious for people not understanding why I don't understand, IYSWIM.

There are a couple of third party tools out there where you can enter the coordinates you want to land at and they will guide you in the right direction with arrows once you are close enough for coordinates to appear (that is, at least orbital cruise). I used to use G19s companion, but its no longer being maintained i think. Was great for finding places in the SRV as well.

Postat inițial de EverySingleTime:

If I have the time tonight I'l record a video. I always drop out of SC ~30km from my target. My procedure always works.

Aim for the top of the target marker instead of the centre. You'll be about 6km from your target when you drop out of glide.

You begin your approach to a planet in Supercruise.

If you correctly reduce speed, you enter the gravity well, and it further reduces your speed.

as you get closer you enter Orbital Flight. You have an altimeter and a nose pitch angle meter, and if you keep the pitch angle at 0 and the altitude the same, you will fly a circle around the planet in low-speed Supercruise.

If you pitch down, you will eventually reach the point at which the gravity prevents Supercruise.

You will enter "glide mode", an unpowered flight state with a speed of 2500m/s, that can only be sustained as long as your nose pitch meter is not in the red bar zone.

When you either pitch down too far, or reach a low altitude, you will drop from glide into regular flight.


so:

use orbit to circle the planet til you are at a 45 degree descent angle from your destination and it is on your side of the world.

angle down towards your destination

drop to glide, continue pointing on target. Loop around horizontally and down and come back in if you are at the wrong angle, this lets you lose height so that your angle will be shallower when you point back on target.

drop to regular flight, and adjust your angle over time so that you drop out ideally at 2-6km altitude and <10km from your target.

Fly the remainder of the way, land in the usual fashion

Thanks.

A few Qs, if that's OK

1. How do I "correctly reduce speed" on approaching the planet?
2. How do I know when it would be a 45 degree angle down to the target while I'm in orbit? Do I just periodically dip the nose until it is pointing at the target and see whether it says -45 deg on the HUD?
3. Once at that position, how do I make it drop from orbit into glide? And how do I stop it doing that before I get there?
4. What do you mean by looping round horizontally if I am at the wrong angle?
5. Sim to Q3, but for the glide/flight transition - how do I make it stay in glide until I am 10km out, and how do I force it out of glide at that point?

Postat inițial de Sighman:

Just don't forget what I mentioned - shallow glide means a lot more flying towards the target when glide ends. Steep glide emerges right on top of it.

That is so counterintuitive, but I think I understand it.

Keep a 7s approsch and you'll be fine. I approach upside down so I can easily look up and track my destination/angle.

Postat inițial de EverySingleTime:

Keep a 7s approsch and you'll be fine. I approach upside down so I can easily look up and track my destination/angle.

I did try being "upside down" yesterday, and it works for a while, but you do get to a point where you have to cross the blue line just to be able to see the target, ant which point you enter orbital cruise, and then in quick succession glide and then normal flight with the screen lighting up red.

What do you mean by "Keep a 7s approsch"?

7 seconds, on the ETA indicator just below your distance to target indicator.

I feel I a missing something here. What about 7 seconds on the ETA indicator?

For most situations, I typically try to approach the planet at 75% throttle (or wherever the bluezone is in supercruise) so my end target is on or beyond the horizon and I kind of glancing blow into the orbital flight mode. Once I reach the orbital flight, stay level toward target until I have a 2:1 ratio of distance:altitude, then I dive to maintain that ratio and transition through glide mode and dropping out about 12-14km from the destination...if I remember correctly. Might be less.

This mostly works fine for me but you will probably need to change the ratio for high G worlds and potentially if you spend a lot of time in orbital flight gaining speed in the blue zone. If judging the approach in to orbital flight so the target is on the horizon though I tend to find it all works out smoothly.