Landing At A Starport

Even the greatest explorer in Elite Dangerous has to come back at some point, and landing at a starport can be an amazing experience. There are many different types and the first time you land at a tourist station will be something to remember. Also, there’s something about coming back to your home starport after a long trip into The Black that just relaxes all those muscles and makes everything OK once again.

You could make your life easy and just go for the Advanced Docking Computer and, if you take my advice you will. See previous posts for my views on these. There’s nothing better than just kicking back and letting the CPU do the work. You’ve got a hold full of cargo or a blade full of exploration data, why risk it to twitchy controls in a small space?

Even with a docking computer you’ve still got to get to the point where landing at a starport is simple.

You’ll have picked your station in your System Map and be heading towards it in supercruise – faster than light travel. Make sure you keep the starport in the middle of the yellow circle and keep an eye on your timer! When it says 7-8 seconds away in supercruise, slow to about 70 – 75% speed. You can easily set a keybind for this in the ‘settings’ menu at the start of the game. Voice Attack will do the slowdown for you – if you ask nicely.

Then. Just sit there at that speed and wait until you get to within 1000km of the station. When you’re at that distance, your HUD will tell you to ‘press j’. This will drop you out of supercruise. Simply hit ‘j’, or ask Voice Attack to drop out of hyperspace. If you’ve done it right, you’ll drop about 8km from the starport. If you get it wrong…. Well! Just go around again… We’ve all done it!

From here, drop your speed to about 100ms until you get to within 7.5km of the station. At that distance, cut your engines (‘x’ key) and request a docking bay. Voice Attack will do it for you – just ask, or you open the left panel (‘1’ key) then over to ‘contacts’ using the ‘e’ key and then ‘right arrow’ and click the button to ‘Request Docking’. They’ll assign you a pad and you can sit back and wait until you land using the Advanced Docking Computer. Or you can fly in yourself. Good luck with the letterbox! As a new pilot, I’d wait until you’re a bit more proficient with the controls.

Normally, they’ll let you land straight away. If there are no pads available you may have to wait a while and try again. Watch for ships leaving and ask again then. It won’t take long – usually. Also, take note of the speed limit. Nothing will happen if you speed, unless you hit another ship. If that happens, you’re in trouble!

Once you’ve landed on the pad, you can head for the underground bay and finish up any business you may have, or restock and refuel, or choose yourself a new ship and fit it out with your earnings, or you can simply kick back and enjoy the fact that you’re home.

That’s all there is to landing at a starport.