Any RL scientists in the house?

[Vavrik]

I don't doubt you are right, but there is that notorious concept image of the cab detaching with a background of blue sky with clouds atmosphere.

Yeah, but those are concept images, and I don't see the need to land it on a planet or moon. Not the whole thing anyway, maybe there's a reason to land the front, but not the whole dam thing IMO.

 

[Sirus7264]

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Yeah, but those are concept images, and I don't see the need to land it on a planet or moon. Not the whole thing anyway, maybe there's a reason to land the front, but not the whole dam thing IMO.

not a bad point at all, the problem with a ship which was announced at the the concept stage and has had no other work announced for 5 and a half years, is that concept is still all the info we have to go on. Point taken though, but also turned round on you by saying they could reconcept it into an atmosphere only Air Ship science station ;-) :-P

I was always of the opinion my drive/workshop section was space-bound like a few of the other largest ships are going to be but with the removable cab so if I do get caught in a gravity well I'll still be able to escape my dooooom... but then again with 9 forward drive engines (including the two on the cab) I'd expect to be able to brute force my way out of problems like that.

If I can work out orbital trajectories correctly, I might be able to crash the thing on an enemy base and survive by uncoupling the cab at the last moment. Why waste money on Torpedoes when you can plough irreplaceable multi-million UEC research facilities into them?

 

[Grimbli]

Thats easy. It breaks apart and burns up.

In all seriousness I'll bet an Aurora LN that only the front ship can go into atmo the hab domes are going to be space only.

I'd imagine it doesn't break apart, but the ship will definitely not have enough VTOL to keep it afloat. I would bet anything that entering too far into a gravity well will just have it sucked down to the surface where it will crash, but not be going terminal velocity as the ship has to have at least some thrusters on the bottom. Probably some heavy damage and requires an SRV or two to get it back into space.

I don't doubt you are right, but there is that notorious concept image of the cab detaching with a background of blue sky with clouds atmosphere.

That could simply be from low-ish orbit or possibly a planet like Crusader with a weird buoyant atmo. The main bit has to have some bottom thrusters just to allow it to maneuver in space, but they've said it can't land and take off. Possibly because some of the modules actually hang down underneath, such as the hangar, and it doesn't even have proper supporting landing gear.