Depends on the planet, if you have an autopilot I find the best way to get "downstairs" is to set it to put you in a low orbit... once your there slow down a bit (about 80% low orbit velocity is a good reference) and use your thrusters to keep your vector indicator just below the horizon. Once you have an altitude reading start slowing down to a few kilometers per second and let your vector drop to about a 45 degree descent angle until you are a few tens of thousands of meters up (10 to 20 klicks up). Keep an eye on your speed and apply braking thrust to keep below about 2 kps once your within a few dozen klicks from the surface. Once you are close enough to see some surface detail (couple thousand meters up depending on the planet) hit F5 to engage the "set speed" flight mode and set your speed to 0. Next hit F8 and select a reduced thruster power that is near or just below the local gravity (I find 5% thrust works on most worlds) and thrust UP. Because activating your thrusters manually overrides the "set speed" mode but your thrusters are set too low to overcome local gravity you will descend but more slowely than gravity will pull you. Lower your landing gear and maintain a vertical speed of around 10 to 20 meters per second... when you touch the ground you'll land automatically. Hit F5 to take off again <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

@NeuralKernel,

That's good advice I might try that trick myself.

Usually I just go into a low, set a low fixed speed (F5) and then speed up time whilst entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle. When I get down low enough and pick somewhere to land - somewhere nice and flat - I set time acceleration to normal, lower the landing gear, and with the speed fixed to zero (0) I thrust downwards in small bursts whilst keeping the ship level.

Andy

I use hard maths.

I point myself just below the horizon then go to about 10 km/s and speed up by 2. Once the altitude gets below about 50k i drop my speed to about 5 km/s. Once below 10k alt i drop the timer to 1x and speed to about 1km/s and start dropping normally.