When you return from your trip to Black in Star Citizen, the first thing you need to do is land your ship. You can land your ship in Outposts and Cities, both of which provide services for you and your ship.

But this doesn’t mean that these are the only places you can land - unlike real-life aircraft, it doesn’t require a specific airport. You can also land anywhere outside of these locations, or travel freely across the planet’s surface as described in this guide, or complete cargo delivery missions between locations to earn Star Citizen aUEC.

No Fly Zone

Some places in Star Citizen, especially cities, have No Fly Zones. This means that you can’t fly freely in these cities.

There will be a circle of colored grids around No Fly Zone. If you get too close to it, the autopilot will warn you and guide you away from these areas.

Request Authorization To Land

Before landing at major locations such as Area 18 and Lorville, you need to request authorization from them. When you tell the local Landing Services about the size and availability of your ship, it will assign you a landing pad, bay, or hangar based on this data.

Usually, Landing Services will appear on your Comms list when you are about 5-7 kilometers away from the landing site. You can use the following two methods to contact local Landing Services.

Ship HUD

Most ships have multiple Heads Up Displays (HUDs) that enable comfortable visibility of all the ship’s information and easy switching between them.

There is a menu button in the upper left corner of HUD. You need to hold down F, then click this button and select Comms. This will allow you to contact local Landing Services as long as you are within the specified range.

MobiGlas

Your MobiGlas is a personal assistant that can help you organize your inventory, contract list, and even solve your communication channels. If you want to use MobiGlas to access Commlink page, you need to hold down F11 key on your keyboard and it will appear immediately.

As long as you are within the specified range, Landing Services will appear in the left menu under Friends menu. In addition, Spaceport will always be at the top of this list, and you can call them by clicking the arrow next to Landing Services.

It is important to note that Outposts and other locations may not have Landing Services, but you can still land on some available landing pads.

Landing In Designated Area

If you are in a busy period, they may ask you to wait. Once you are authorized, a new flight path will appear above some stations, leading you to the landing point. When you are ready to fly, make sure to follow the designated route, otherwise the autopilot will automatically engage to ensure safe driving.

At this time, an icon will appear on your HUD to help you find your pad, bay, or hangar. When you go to these locations, you will also see the type of landing point: pads and hangars are usually vertical landings, and bays are fly-in landings.

How To Land Safely?

For novice players, HUD in the spaceship can provide you with a lot of information, including shield status, power distribution, and the speed limiter. Among them, mastering the speed limiter can help us better control the safety of landing. When you use the mouse wheel to slide up and down, you can adjust the maximum thruster speed.

For landing in space station hangars, it is recommended to set the speed slightly above 0m/s dead zone. This will allow you to better control the spaceship through infinitesimal movements, thereby reducing the occurrence of accidents.

This limiter determines how much power is sent to the thrusters. If you set it above the dead zone, there will be enough thrust to operate a very calm, controlled landing with a high tolerance rate. However, if it is set too high, accidents may occur during landing.

Once you have the landing authorization, you first need to position the spaceship directly above the pad/hangar entrance. You need to use the space bar in order to lift the spaceship up and gently tilt it forward using the mouse. In addition, you can also hold down X key to keep the spaceship level and fixed in place so that it does not move away from the previous position.

Once you are positioned despite that, you can begin your descent. A good tip at this point is to use the third-person camera view to put the ship in a top-down position when landing so you can check your progress during the descent.

Once you have ensured that there will be no collisions, you can hold down CTRL to begin a gradual vertical descent until you land safely. Once you have landed successfully, you will receive a message from Landing Services that you have landed successfully, and you can leave the ship and start enjoying your trip!

Master Modes arrived in Star Citizen in Alpha 3.23, and they represent a tremendous change to the way flying and fighting in the game is done. After a few weeks of getting used to it, now seems like a good time to start reflecting on those experiences.

Here we’ll explore how the gameplay has been affected by the addition of Master Modes, and what that might look like in the future. We’ve specifically looked at what it means for non-combat ships, and how that might be improved.

I must caution you that this analysis is from the perspective of someone who does some PvE combat and many other things in the game. As such, it will certainly influence the thinking that follows. Also, as this is an early release for Master Modes, it will probably continue to evolve, benefit from tweaks, and mature over time.

Core Mechanics

In summary, the core of Master Modes’ design seems to revolve around two elements: Squadron 42 single-player experience and Dogfighting combat experience. It makes combat closer, slows it down, and wants to provide combat that’s more akin to what you’d see in some of the great sci-fi epics.

In the context of Squadron 42, this makes sense. But given that the entire system seems designed to address the combat experience, it feels like the combat experience takes precedence over the non-combat experience, which is an inherent problem with the rest of Star Citizen’s gameplay loops.

This results in Miners, Salvagers, Haulers, even Space Yachts, being poor candidates for Master Modes. At the very least, having Master Modes is an inconvenience for these ships. They tend to be slower than their combat counterparts, so the changes to Flight Models will hit them harder.

Disengagement Will Be Punishing

But it doesn’t stop there. One of the design choices for Master Modes was to force fights in close, and the system was designed in part to achieve this by severely punishing ships that try to disengage. Ships that don’t want to continue the fight are punished more harshly by the system, which completely defeats the offensive and defensive capabilities of ships that try to get away quickly.

This is an inherent problem for ships like Prospector or Vulture, which are really no match for a dogfight with a fighter, and whose only plan when engaged is to flee. Master Modes severely limit this choice, which only increases the vulnerability of these ships in the process of getting away.

Some players will argue that these industrial ships exist only to be preyed upon by fighters and to satisfy the needs of PvP players. But I personally think that the extensive Mining, Salvage, and Hauling gameplay loops are content in themselves.

Some may argue that this issue will be solved in other ways, such as through a future reputation system that punishes those who prey on the helpless. Ultimately, that is an unknown until it is in front of us.

No Guarantee That Everyone Has A Combat Escort

Similarly, there will also be arguments that non-combat ships have a duty to employ Combat Escorts. However, in my opinion, this is a question of proportion. In dangerous space, perhaps like Pyro, an Escort may be necessary, but not everywhere.

For a large multi-Crew Reclaimer, it may be more reasonable to expect Turret Gunners on board to help keep the ship safe. But for a single-player Prospector or Vulture in the safe space around Stanton, it seems unreasonable to expect them to always have an Escort.

Partly because Star Citizen aUEC gains from these events are so low, but also because expecting a ship designed to be operated solo to only be operated as part of a team kills solo Mining or Salvage. Doing so prioritizes combat over all other gameplay loops, and feels like a poor design choice for anyone who prefers non-combat games.

Potential Solutions

Even within the context of Master Modes, there are a number of possible solutions. For example, a ship’s defensive capabilities take a hit when switching to Escape or Travel mode. 

Without shields and countermeasures, this is clearly not suitable for a peaceful little Prospector. But if the ship’s offensive capabilities were further hit, such as by shutting down weapons and missiles for a long time after switching modes, but retaining shields and countermeasures, the mode would become less punishing for a ship that is clearly designed to escape.

It’s still possible for a well-organized or skilled attacker to destroy the ship, and it’s also possible for a well-organized or skilled defender to evade the attacker. But that’s just one possible option.

If the impact on dogfights is a concern, perhaps different rules could be made for fighters versus other ships. But this is just one potential solution, and there are undoubtedly a lot of holes in it.

Ultimately, the major concern for the peaceful industrial player is adding extra burden to an already fragile ship. Perhaps this is a conscious choice, but if not carefully balanced, it could ultimately result in fewer players doing these gameplay loops.

In conclusion, what do you think of this Master Modes? Do you have any better ideas for solving these problems? Let’s discuss. See you next time!