Docking & Landing Operations Guide

Before any technique, understand the anatomy of an arrival. Every dock — station or planet — breaks into the same phases. Optimising means spending the least total time across all phases, not flooring it in one and crashing the next.

The two biggest, most recoverable leaks are at the ends: a sloppy drop that lands you far out, and a sloppy final 200 m where you drift, re-orient and re-approach the pad. The middle phases (cruise, slot, glide) reward smoothness over raw speed. Internalise this order of priority:

• Drop placement — the single highest-leverage skill. Drop on top of the target, facing the way in.
• Permission timing — request docking the instant it un-greys; the grant often lands before you reach the slot.
• One-pass entry — thread the slot / nail the glide on the first attempt. A re-align is 15–40 s gone.
• Pre-rotated descent — be facing the pad's arrow before you're over it.

Every arrival starts the same way: select the target, point at it, and manage the right-hand approach indicator. This is the phase where overshoots are born — and where the assists earn their keep by never overshooting.

The mechanic, precisely: with the target selected, the indicator's blue band shows the speed range that will let you disengage at the target rather than past it. When your marker sits in the blue and you're inside range, a seven-second countdown appears — let it run and you drop cleanly. The most reliable manual technique is dull and effective: set throttle to roughly three-quarters and leave it. The band naturally pulls the marker to centre as the distance closes. Only intervene if the marker creeps into the red (ease off) or you want to squeeze the last seconds (hold high, then chop late).

The big rotating starports hide every pad behind a single rotating letterbox — the "mailslot." Threading it cleanly on the first pass is the whole battle. Where you drop, and which way the slot faces, decides whether that's a 10-second move or a 60-second loop.

Two things are happening as you approach in normal space. First, the station's defenses enforce a no-fire zone — retract your hardpoints, and don't loiter without permission or you'll be warned, then fined, then fired on. Second, the slot is on a rotating face, so its orientation is constantly turning. You don't fight the rotation — you match it.

1. Drop on the slot side, facing in.

   Note which way the slot faces during approach and aim your drop there. This one habit removes most loops.

2. Request docking immediately

   Left panel → station → Request Docking, the moment it un-greys at 7.5 km. The grant and your pad number usually arrive before you reach the slot. Retract hardpoints. Throttle down to a controllable speed.

3. Match roll, centre, thread.

   Roll wings-level with the slot, keep the opening centred, fly straight through. Don't clip the edges — that's hull damage and a stall.

4. Carry into the interior

   Hold ~100 m/s and start scanning for your pad number as you emerge.

Inside, the rotating ring is your "ground." Pads are numbered and your assigned one glows. This is the second great time-sink: drifting over the pad, then slowly rotating to face the right way. Fix it by rotating en route.

1. Read your pad's position

   From the holographic number as you enter, start translating toward it immediately (lateral + vertical thrusters).

2. Pre-rotate to the pad arrow

   On the way over — don't arrive square then spin in place. Yaw/roll so your nose already matches the facing as you arrive.

3. Deploy landing gear late.

   L by default. Gear-down caps your speed, so dropping it too early makes you crawl across the bay. Drop it once you're nearly over the pad.

   This is a real time-saver people miss: gear is a speed limiter, not a "get ready" toggle.

4. Use the landing-assist box

   Centre and align with it, then descend straight down until contact. Done.

Outposts have no mailslot — the pads sit on exposed arms in open space. There's nothing to thread, which makes them faster in principle, but the pads can face awkward directions and there's no enclosing wall to stop an overshoot.

• No slot, so drop closer and come straight at the pads. The whole "match roll, thread the letterbox" phase simply doesn't exist.
• Check pad size before you fly out. Most outposts have only small and medium pads — a large hull (Type-9, Python Mk II on a large pad, a future Corvette) physically cannot dock. Confirm in the system map first.
• Pads point every which way. Approach from the open side, line up with the pad's arrow, and descend. The same pre-rotate rule applies.
• Still request docking at 7.5 km and retract hardpoints — outposts have the same no-fire / no-permission rules.

Planetary arrivals are where most time is won or lost, because normal flight near a surface is painfully slow. The entire trick is the glide — a fast controlled descent — and arriving from supercruise directly above your target so the over-surface crawl is as short as possible.

Step by step: approach the planet so the target sits roughly under your flight path — orbit lines and the target indicator help you judge this. You'll transition into orbital cruise automatically; your speed is now governed by altitude. Keep the nose toward the surface target and a "drop to glide" prompt appears when the angle and altitude are right. Pitch down to enter the glide and keep your velocity vector inside the glide funnel. Hold it until you exit low and close, then it's a short normal-flight hop to the pad.

Odyssey ground settlements follow the same orbital-cruise → glide profile as any planetary target, with a couple of settlement-specific wrinkles for the final approach.

• Many settlements have a landing pad with its own pad controller. If so, request docking exactly as you would at an outpost — you'll be assigned a small or medium pad and land normally.
• Some have no pad (or you only need to be nearby for SRV/on-foot work). In that case, exit the glide near the settlement and set down on flat ground close by, then disembark or drop the SRV.
• Pad size still matters. Settlement pads are small/medium — your large hulls can't dock there; bring a small or medium ship (your Cobra Mk V or Viper are ideal settlement runabouts).
• Watch the security response. At occupied/secure settlements, loitering low without authorisation, deploying weapons, or trespassing triggers a response — land deliberately and mind the scan zones.

Two modules, two jobs. Supercruise Assist owns the cruise/approach and the disengage; the Docking Computer owns the slot-or-glide and the final landing. Run both and arrival is genuinely hands-off — at the cost of some speed.

1. Target the station/settlement

   Then engage Supercruise Assist (full).

2. Disengage

   SC Assist disengages you at the target with no overshoot.

3. Request docking

   Do it the instant it's available at 7.5 km. (You still have to do this — the computers won't ask for you.)

4. Throttle to zero.

   With permission granted, the Docking Computer takes over — slot, interior, pad, or surface landing — and docks you. Cue the Blue Danube.

The fastest dock in the game is a clean manual one. The signature move is the flip-and-burn: carry speed to the door, then dump it in one decisive flick using flight-assist-off. It feels reckless; done right it's surgical.

1. Drop on the slot side, facing in

   (Diagram B.) Request docking immediately; retract hardpoints.

2. Boost toward the slot

   Throttle high. Carry the speed — don't trickle in.

   You're betting that you can shed it on time. That's the whole skill.

3. Flip-and-burn at ~1–1.5 km.

   Flight-assist off, rotate 180° to face retrograde while your momentum still carries you toward the slot, throttle to decelerate, flight-assist back on to stabilise.

   You're now drifting slot-ward but slowing hard — the fastest possible bleed.

4. Re-face the slot, match roll, thread

   Thread at a controllable ~100 m/s. Roll wings-level with the slot, centre, straight through.

5. Translate to the pad while pre-rotating

   Pre-rotate to its arrow. Gear down only as you arrive. Centre on the landing box, descend, contact.

Neither path is "correct" — they optimise different things. Manual optimises raw time and module slots; assisted optimises attention and consistency. Here's the honest trade.

• Wrong target → far drop. Locking the star/planet instead of the station signal is the #1 cause of a "way too far out" drop. Verify the name.
• Gear deployed too early. Landing gear caps your speed — deploy it only over the pad, or you'll crawl across the whole bay.
• Loitering without permission. No docking grant + sitting in the no-fire zone = warning → fine → station guns. Request early, or stay out until granted.
• Permission lapse. The grant only lasts ~10 minutes — don't sightsee, or you'll have to re-request.
• Pad too small. Outposts and settlements are usually small/medium only. A large hull can't dock there at all — check before you launch.
• Slot clipping. Hitting the mailslot edge is hull damage and a momentum stall. If you're not aligned, slow down rather than force it.
• Glide too shallow / too steep. Shallow skips you back to orbital cruise; steep overshoots far. Descend onto the target, not toward it across the surface.
• Mass-lock / interdiction. Being yanked out en route isn't a docking error — it's a separate event. Submit, boost, high-wake away, and re-approach rather than fighting in the well.