I don’t like cap ships or large ships as far as that goes landing on planets. Space isn’t the same as atmosphere. Gravity is different closer to the gravity well then not. PSI will change things as well. Chemicals react differently under presses.
Ships can be made to go under water. The cost of making an aircraft carrier submersible is prohibitive. As I would think the cost of adapting a large space ship to operate on a planet.
Prohibitively expensive for who, exactly?
The civilization that builds fighter-jet sized SSTOs that can make surface-to-orbit in less than 30 seconds as a matter of course? That considers energy to be so cheap that simply thrusting against gravity constantly is considered a viable way to make a flying car? Where civilians can buy knock-off Millennium Falcons like used cars?
I’d just like to point out:
I’m pro atmospheric flight for large ships.
I’m against landing for large ships.
Having a capital ship be able to hover ominously above a city and re-supply by sending down a whole bunch of cargo shuttles would both look awesome and cut-down on time needed to ferry supplies to and from the ship.
Having I-Novae need to do a ton of extra work making a realistic system for actually landing the things in a city, on the surface itself, is rather wasteful. It wouldn’t look as cool anyway.
*Edit - I guess the most serious issue with it is what to do about a capital ship that gets shot down while sitting a little way above the ground… The old fallback of ‘Play explosion animation’ ‘remove ship model from game’ method is archaic looking now… but removing the chance of such an eventuality seems equally backwards to me, perhaps more so.
Then again, the exact same issue would happen with atmosphere-less moons.
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Now your getting into putting an engine on a planet and driving it around the universe.
You can have one capital ship that can land on the ground or fifty that can’t.
Your assuming there using energy.
Your being two dementional. (spellchecker failed me)
So they can hover at what altitude? 1km? 500m? 10m? Where is the distinction between hovering and landing?
One is resting on the ground which requires a certain type of structural construction and integrity whereas the other does not
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Ha! From the man himself, no landing on the planets for big ships. 
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Wheather the weight of the ship is supported on thrusters or on physical struts is irrelevant in terms of structural integrity requirements.
… Unless we’re using some magic that applies thrust to all parts of the ship simultaneously but we know that isn’t the case because of the glowy thrusty things at the back.
[quote=“cybercritic, post:768, topic:582, full:true”]
Ha! From the man himself, no landing on the planets for big ships.[/quote]
He answered my question on the difference between landing and hovering (although missing the point). He didn’t say no landing…
PS. I’m not pro or anti-landing. I just want the mechanics to be believable if its decided that caps can’t land.
Ships better have inertialess drives or the crew is jelly on the wall.
Ships can still have rocket drives (chuckles) if the ship itself has Star Trek style inertial dampers. The entire ship becomes a single quantum object, and pushing on any part of it pushes on all of it.
I’m more inclined to say that the glowie bits in the back represent some kind of field effect exhaust. It’s not the propulsive force, but rather a glow from venting some drive byproduct.
If ships have inertialess drives that affect everything within M meters of the drive, and the effect propagates (if I’m within M meters of the drive and you’re within M meters of me, you’re affected), then moving near a large mass not already affected by a drive would cause a sudden shock to the drive. The larger the shock, the greater the potential for damage.
Entering an atmosphere would immediately shock the drive into next week. Landing on an airless world would do the same. (Humorously, ships flying through a planetary ring would end up toting around a whole mess of debris that got within M meters of the ship)
So why not just float down to within a couple millimeters of an airless planet’s surface and then turn off the drive? Because the M value above is much larger than that. So now the capital has to be dropped from M meters onto something that catches it. Or the ship itself has some more conventional means of dealing with the drop. Small ships, maybe. Large ships, no.
Ugh. Inertial dampers could catch pretty much anything. So no inertial dampers. But if there are no rockets, we don’t need them. The drive ‘field’ takes care of the inertia aspect, and we’re turning that off in order to avoid damaging it, so we’re back to falling. No capital landings.
In contrast, a capital can coast up to a space station, switch off the drive at beyond M meters, then the station can extend an M meter long docking port.
Remember: a unique fiction can always be manufactured for any unique situation. A landing is a unique situation, so some unique trait of landings can be leveraged to make the fiction work. Either way. Landing or no landing.
As @Lomsor says, go back to the board game level and focus on gameplay. The fiction will work itself out.
I think 200 meters would be a good cut-off point. Most frigates and light haulers would be able to land, but anything above that starts to get into ‘capital’ ships, and would probably be impractical anyway.
No. I’m expressing incredulity at the idea that capital ships entering an atmosphere would prohibitively expensive in a society where a hundred-meter interstellar-capable spacecraft can be acquired as easily as a Cessna would be today.
Are you really saying that making a spacecraft capable of entering the atmosphere of a planet would increase it’s cost by fifty times? It seems that my incredulity knows no bounds today.
Let me remind you that this is a society where starship technology is so cheap that it is within the capability of the average citizen, such the players are likely to be, to own and operate interstellar spacecraft.
The ability to enter the atmosphere of an earth-like planet wouldn’t even be a factor in the price.
I am assuming the spacecraft in question are applying force, such as to resist acceleration due to gravity, maneuver in a dogfight, and other such activities. Doing so in such activities requires the use and application of energy, as work is being done.
How do you mean, and, more importantly, how is that even relevant?
I would treat it as a check. Is the spacecraft in contact with another surface? If yes, it’s landed. It no, it’s hovering.
@JB47394
I’m fine with that, but that means caps can’t come too close to planets, including hovering. (I’m fine with that too.)
@TerranAmbass
My point was that if you can hover a few metres above the surface then that is pretty much equivalent to landing.
The fiction that I presented was for the no-landing gameplay. It can be reworked to allow everything from capital landings to capital hovering to the inability to enter any atmosphere at all.
Say that the propagation effect only kicks in for a given density of gas. Or the shock effect is relative, allowing a ship to slowly move into ever-denser atmosphere. As the density increases, the ship must slow because the greater the change in density, the worse the shock (wind gusts are bad). A battleship trying to reach sea level on Earth would find that it has to move at 1mm per day by the time it got to 10km from the surface. Any faster, and it’ll start shocking the drive badly. Ultimate effect: battleships don’t reach sea level on Earth.
Dust in the atmosphere could also change things around or have no effect at all. Or only have an effect if it’s a certain type of dust. Or if it’s above a certain temperature. And so on.
There are piles of effects that can be included. It’s just a matter of choosing the gameplay. The fiction can be worked out from there.
“Context” if one were to suggest a sort of back story for last weeks screenshots. 
the fleet has now attained a higher orbit.
First image, a variation on the screenshots from last week.
The next 2 images show the fleet in a “Low Planetary Orbit” Each shot has a different parent star temperature, which explains the colour variation between the two.
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They’re only orbiting if they’re in free drift and the path leaves them following some elliptical course around the planet. I assume these ships are leaving the planet - and I can only assume that this is a tourist run because they’re sightseeing the planet instead of diligently pursuing their destination. That, or it’s a victory parade flyover for the peasants on the ground. I would expect a departing flight to go straight up. I have no intention of spending five minutes game time just getting 100km up.
The second one is awesome, Hutchings. I think I’m a bit burnt out on rings, but I also love the inky blackness of space. It underscores the fact that it’s a hard vacuum, the realm of spaceships. The first one makes me think of blimps. The arch of the ring in the third makes me think of ships passing under a bridge.
The second one does what I’ve been asking for - it finds the cool in space.
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I think these screenshots have mutated into writing prompts…
Well as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I sense a novel coming on 
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I think these pictures, more than any before them, really capture the scale of what Infinity has in store for us. Really impressive!
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Common misconception. As it happens, if you wish to get into an orbit you’ll actually spend more time accelerating horizontally than vertically (by an order of magnitude, ignoring drag, on Earth-like bodies).
You don’t know how there economy works.
Traveling interstellar may be as cheep a buying new shoes. Making a new ship may be as expensive as keeping your family alive. I can’t think Infinity the MMO will be Christmas land.
I’m assuming this isn’t candyland. I’m expecting to have to work hard to get a good ship. In Battlescape I expect the military will be handing out ships. I expect a meritocracy. (I’m doomed)
(in answer to your being two dementional) Your only looking at the subject from one point of view. The big point. I doubt Infinity has the economy dun. (every body might be wrong 
Space wales, porn, a major disease or me just needing to get the game.
Game me.
The more topical misconception is that Infinity ships need to orbit. These things are capable of such high accelerations that orbits are passé. Orbits are for vehicles that live on a budgeted specific impulse. Given that the Isp of Infinity ships is infinite, there’s no need. Just leave the planet and go where you need. Straight lines, not Hohmann transfer orbits.