1. Target the planet by clicking its label, if not done yet.
2. Press F4.
3. Click buttons or use number keys to select autopilot option.

This requires that an autopilot is fitted to your ship, which is not the case with the Lave start.

It's dark at night for sure, and I think somebody was looking at that, but don't quote me on it. Problem with a spotlight is that by the time you're close enough to the ground for it to be effective, you're in trouble.

Personally, I trust the altimeter and hope I don't have to land at night.

Thanks for your response, and sorry about the multiple threads. I kept getting a "SQL" error, and I didn't know that they were actually being posted.

Awesome I think that's a cool feature (the autopilot getting you into orbit.) 

"Problem with a spotlight is that by the time you're close enough to the ground for it to be effective, you're in trouble."

Yea, so true. I've gotten better at using the altimeter. Biggest problem is getting inpatient and hitting your thrust, then the altimeter comes in range and you have no chance of slowing down in time.

I was going to make another thread about this but since I made like 5 duplicates i'll just use this one:

Does anyone know of any really hard planets to land on? I was looking at the Epsilon Eridani system and saw Icarus and just had to try and land on it, and I actually did, and without dying! I just wanted to hear others' stories about landing on hard-to-land-on planets, which I will then proceed to try and emulate and die a lot.

Large airless worlds are the most difficult to land on. They have higher gravity, but no atmosphere to help slow you down on approach. Don't know of any off hand, though.

At the other end of the spectrum, try Titan, in Sol. It's actually possible to land there without using your engines, although you'll end up with some dings in your hull.

What do you mean "without using your engines"? LIke drifting onto the surface? Letting Titan "crash" into me by being in it's orbital path?

Well, try this. Get into orbit around it using the autopilot. Facing the direction of travel (the X marker on screen), take about a tenth of your speed off with the K key, then leave the engines off. You're going to fall down onto Titan. All you need to do is get your wheels down, point the wheels at the floor, and cross your fingers.

Tip: Search this forum for "extreme sports."

Didn't you do a vid of an unpowered landing Brianeta?

Wow that sounds pretty awesome, and scary. Oh, I have another suggestion, lower the volume of the crashing sfx. xD It scares the hell out of me. 

Well i'm going to go try all that.

Edit: Hey just remembered a suggestion. I remember reading something about this already, and I know it's not a big issue right now, but I would love to have a little foliage, and just for the simple purpose to define scale when very near a planet. Starting to get used to looking at the altimeter, but what I really want it for is to put my mind at ease. Landing on planets just looks kinda weird at first. Not sure were the ground actually is, and i'm scared i'm about to hear a loud 'boom' at any moment.

Geraldine: Yes, on Venus and on Saturn. That's why I suggested the search. (-:

Edit: Hey just remembered a suggestion. I remember reading something about this already, and I know it's not a big issue right now, but I would love to have a little foliage, and just for the simple purpose to define scale when very near a planet. Starting to get used to looking at the altimeter, but what I really want it for is to put my mind at ease. Landing on planets just looks kinda weird at first. Not sure were the ground actually is, and i'm scared i'm about to hear a loud 'boom' at any moment.

Yes it's been discussed, someone even provided some generic rocks for the surface but we'd really need an overwhelming variety for it to look good.

Foliage has been discussed too but again it gets tricky quickly.

I think it's just waiting for someone to look into the art asset requirements, someone else to do the rendering support, something like this for example. Then a lot of effort to bring it all together.

Oh yea, you mentioning Saturn reminded me of something else. What's the plan with gas giants? It's kinda weird that they're solid. 

I would also like to say i'm not try to criticize with my questions, i'm just genuinely interested, and very grateful to you devs for such a great game, and plan on joining your ranks in the future. Hopefully not to long from now.

@fluffyfreak, yea I'm just thinking a placeholder for now would do nicely. I would be okay with the same damn ugly rock ever where as long as it helps me not crash into a planet. hehe

Gas giant clouds/atmospheres are wierd but its a representation problem. How do you draw it is the tricky bit, so for now its treated as a solid.

Thanks for all the feedback. I have another quick question? How do you switch your view to aft, or behind you. I knew how but forgot, it's very handy when reducing speed to land on a planet.

Do you have a full length keyboard? If so you can change the view with the numpad keys.

If you've got a laptop without a numpad then you can go into the pause menu (click pause twice or press ESC) then to the "view" tab and change the key bindings to some other keys that you do have 🙂

I had to do this last night too.