Glide Mechanics

[StaticRadion]

Ok, I will admit that at launch I had some fun with Horizons and planetary landings, but only for a short while. I remember thinking I had a good grasp or understanding of all the mechanics but that may have been because I only experimented a few times. So my questions is, how does glide really work?

I have been doing planetary missions, landings, exploring, and collecting rocks for a few days now. I have observed glide behavior changing many different times and wanted to know if there are any set rules. I have been knocked out of glide in anywhere from a -10 to -40 entry at 3 - 25 km away. I was under the impression that glide would last until you were within a set distance from the surface as long as you were within a specific approach angle. Have things changed?

[Nethaufer]

I think it's a combination of time spent gliding, angle of glide, and surface. The thing is, particularly large mountains or craters can throw the glide distance from surface off. I also have a feeling that pitching further down and back up can also reduce the max time spent gliding. Beyond that, I really don't know myself, but I agree it seems to not always work the same.

[TorTorden]

Think Nethaufer is onto something.

Personally I find it best to get setup so I don't have to manouver during glide. And say approaching a port or something is best done from high at least 5-600Km and aim square at the target at 30-40 degrees.

That how I do it now and how I most reliably can exit glide about 5Km from the base.
Well within docking range.

[StaticRadion]

Think Nethaufer is onto something.

Personally I find it best to get setup so I don't have to manouver during glide. And say approaching a port or something is best done from high at least 5-600Km and aim square at the target at 30-40 degrees.

That how I do it now and how I most reliably can exit glide about 5Km from the base.
Well within docking range.

I was in a groove where I would fly around the planet in orbital cruse at about 50 km from the ground and start me decent at about 200km at a -15 degree angle always after reducing my speed by coming out of the blue zone. It works and it is safe even on the planets that have decent gravity because it keeps your speed at entry low because you leave the high speed zone and I have yet to crash my ship. Thing is I am having the problems I already described.

I think I am going to try a much higher altitude and a steep angle like you guys said.

[Nethaufer]

If the glide behaves anything like a proper glide, you have to keep it at a shallow enough angle so you don't stall out, which is the blue area of the indicator. You can angle down and back up, but you're going to lose some of your height and not get it back.

[TorTorden]

If the glide behaves anything like a proper glide, you have to keep it at a shallow enough angle so you don't stall out, which is the blue area of the indicator. You can angle down and back up, but you're going to lose some of your height and not get it back.

Considering we don't have any atmosphere to contend with it don't see why you would stall out.

It's mostly a game mechanic introduced last minute to bridge orbital cruise and actually being close enough to the planet to do stuff.
Blinking in the last 900Km like when dropping in on stations from cruise became very jarring when we already have a large visible surface to fixate on between cruise and regular flight.

Sure approaching close to surface could work. But I found you had not much room for error.
And that, with how hard it is to see where you are going at cruise speeds when close I just find it easier to go out far and then back in again.

[Schmobius]

There are a lot of things that feel more like flying in atmosphere (usually not in a good way), in addition to glide.

For instance, when I drop out of glide, and I'm heading towards a base to attack, my ship bobs all around, kind of like a sniper scope on a low-level player in many shooter games.

If there were wind, this would almost make sense. On an airless rock, it is kind of stupid.

[Darr Valen]

What worked for me was a combination of things.

Firstly, I watched videos of Shuttle training flights years ago, where they'd do a combat type descent over a runway, which is high altitude, steep angle, fast drop to the deck. I took that memory and applied it to the entry angles, and it worked fantastically. If you do it right, you can right the glideslope on the edge of the red and come out 5-7k from the station.

Also, doing a frakload of planetary base to planetary base missions from one side to the other, grinding rep. 50+ hours of that and anyone would be hard pressed to be bad at gliding entry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC8B3PHuzjY

That's the TL;DR version of the video. 9 minutes up, 1 minute to get back down.

[StaticRadion]

I know it is different for everyone but I think I found my sweet spot for landing by the numbers. I still need to try my new setting out on a few higher G worlds but on .1 to .4 it seems to be down right perfect.

The real trick for me was finding the distance to surface that gives me enough of room to work with because of course distance covered and still allows good speed in OC. I think 70-75 km from the surface is the sweet spot for me with entry starting at about 300km from the target at -15 entry angle with the throttle zeroed. I basically coast in gradually decreasing entry angle to about -35 to -40 and end up leaving OC at about 60-40km from target. The final 30-50km is cleared in glide and is a lot faster than I originally though it would be and in general close to straight down.

So I guess now i need to really challenge myself to see if it works because from what I have read on the forums and reddit I fly a lot close to the surface than most people. Anyone have a list of some high G worlds I can crash into if it fails?

[Loriath]

Glide is also affected by the Gravity of the object you are approaching. I did several landings on Achenar 3 (6.9G) and it would toss you out of glide with a more narrow angle window than a 0.02G body.

So its based on Distance, Angle and Gravity metrics.