Idea: Limit main engine when landing gear is down

[Keeper]

There are two in-game reasons why doing this would make sense:

1. Safety, as it makes landing manoeuvres more predictable and less likely to have a pilot fire the main thruster and forget how much stronger it is, accidentally flying into a building.

2. Ship integrity. The forces caused by the main thrusters could be damaging to extended landing gear which aren't designed for high lateral force. Thus the ship goes into a "landing thrust mode" when the gear is deployed.

I imagine two possible ways this could be implemented. Either change the forward_thrust value to match the reverse_thrust value when landing gear is deployed, or change the forward_thrust, reverse_thrust, left_thrust and right_thrust values to whatever the lowest default value is on the ship (i.e. make all thrusters -- other than the up and down thrusters -- fire at the strength of the weakest thruster), thus making adjustments predictable to the pilot as the ship descends toward the landing pad.

Naturally there should be delay when retracting the gear before setting the thruster(s) back to full strength, to match the time it takes for the gear to retract.

I figure the up/down thrusters are exempt from this, as the gear is designed for these forces, and you rather don't want to limit the up thrust so you can abort, take off, hover, etc.

Perhaps the thruster graphic display could be changed from white to yellow when in this mode, as a subtle reminder that your thrusters are in a different condition.

What do you think?

[nozmajner]

Sounds reasonable to me. I find myself overshooting with the mains during landing lots of times. Nothing building ramming, just annoying.

[impaktor]

Not sure. When we impose limitation for "saftey" (like jumping etc.) we usually also want to have a way to force it anyway.

[Keeper]

Perhaps a ship hack you can buy in certain systems...

[nozmajner]

I'd imagine it more like a setting for the ship/flight system you could access and toggle, akin to the thrust limiter.

[Keeper]

Would there then be perhaps a law about always using it within a certain distance/altitude of an outpost (to eliminate danger of window-shattering full-thrust blasts)? So then it would be similar to the illegal hyperdrive button. Perhaps a new state to the manual/set-speed button, if three states isn't too many (though this third state only would be available when gear is deployed). Otherwise, simply a temporary button when gear is deployed for those who want to override the safety setting.