Originally posted by Kaspar H.:

Would it be possible to just slap some parachutes on a Large Cargo and send it flying?

Yes, just don't forget to add batteries too.

batteries AND landing gear...

If you already scouted the surface for a good spot to have your base, it can sometimes be easier to build it in space and add parachute and some landing gear, then once it's landed, go down and use a merge block to bond it to the surface after removal of the landing gear... practice the technique on a copy of the save or similar world first, it can be tricky getting things just right and it's best to know how the system works first ;)

SP or multi?
SP is a lot more forgiving...
But yeah pretty much as above "NEED THE BATTERY" no power source will get cleaned up!!!

...And eventually you can automate a drop pod to move supplies for you like a space elevator XD
I tried spawn pods once, launched them from titan to all the planets i know you can just respawn in a rover but that was yearrrrsssss ago not sure if it will work now with all the optimisations over those distances...
But dropping stuff to the planet you only need one shoot and battery for it to not crash XD

Remember balance tho... If you put the shoot on one side that side will end up being up, so dont put them on the bottom of your ship unless you want to land upside down lol

Oh so, only one chute ist allready enough? No matter how large or heavy the object is? (+ the battery course, thanks for mentioning that haha)

Oh an I'm playing on a SP Survival World

One shoot should be plenty if its perfectly centred in the top middle of the ship/grid I dont think weight is a factor.. But best to check it with a test run XD
For your purposes though one should be fine :)

Ya like said, I just want to dumb large Cargos. I do the building on the surface. Thanks for the hints and answers everyone!

Originally posted by Kaspar H.:

Ya like said, I just want to dumb large Cargos. I do the building on the surface. Thanks for the hints and answers everyone!

Which planet?
I like titan but earthlike and alien have some epic views to enjoy XD

Hm, looks like earth I think. Didn't plan to go to another planet or moon, but hey, maybe I build a base on everyone of them :D

Originally posted by Kaspar H.:

Hm, looks like earth I think. Didn't plan to go to another planet or moon, but hey, maybe I build a base on everyone of them :D

XD if you like i can throw you the planet locations :)
I have issues with the in game gps its kinda unique to me, i can crash my game if i'm not careful and use too many so i use the steam notepad its great for storing gps locations. Then i copy them to the clip board and then into my gps with ctrl+c using the ingame overlay XD

Originally posted by Kaspar H.:

Would it be possible to just slap some parachutes on a Large Cargo and send it flying?

That's what I do! However the game can glitch and drop pods can get "stuck" during their decent. This happens when a grid stops rendering (at least it used to). A couple ways to negate this are:

1) Increase grid render range (in single player it really doesn't affect performance)
2) Place a camera and antenna on cargo drop pod - remote viewing forces grid to render
3) Autopilot? I've not tried this, but in theory, just having a Remote Control block "should" allow an unrendered grid to continue to move.. This one needs verifying.

But yes, parachutes are wonderful! I use them all the time. Of course this implies a planet with atmosphere. On a moon, you can use an event controller and the aforementioned autopilot to perform a SpaceX like landing (burn on final approach) to save fuel.

To clarify - you only need a single parachute hatch *block* - the number of parachute *canvas* items will auto-scale to match the mass of the item being dropped, so it should be filled with those to its capacity once the item to be dropped is completed and loaded.

It may be safest to save/exit/reload and verify the full loaded canvas before the actual drop is done, because, Keen. ^.^

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

Originally posted by Kaspar H.:

Would it be possible to just slap some parachutes on a Large Cargo and send it flying?

That's what I do! However the game can glitch and drop pods can get "stuck" during their decent. This happens when a grid stops rendering (at least it used to). A couple ways to negate this are:

1) Increase grid render range (in single player it really doesn't affect performance)
2) Place a camera and antenna on cargo drop pod - remote viewing forces grid to render
3) Autopilot? I've not tried this, but in theory, just having a Remote Control block "should" allow an unrendered grid to continue to move.. This one needs verifying.

But yes, parachutes are wonderful! I use them all the time. Of course this implies a planet with atmosphere. On a moon, you can use an event controller and the aforementioned autopilot to perform a SpaceX like landing (burn on final approach) to save fuel.

Remote blocks used too work but since the last update there's been a lot of optimisations i can't say for sure anymore...
I use them for parking/docking with a camera on. I can dock straight then so i'm not trying to line up in 3rd person with the camera zoomin in and out as grids get in the way of the view lol

Originally posted by Rox:

batteries AND landing gear...

In theory you could position the drop pod to land directly onto a connector at the ground base. Someday I'm going to try this. If the ground base is aligned to gravity (should be), using a projector to create an alignment hologram (creative mode super-long pillar tower) to position the drop-off point, which could then be replaced with a gps marker, should allow for perfect alignment for such a drop. After all, there is no "real wind" in SE, even during storms.

Or is there? Wind in storms... Hmm.... I don't ever remember being pushed around in winds.

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

... position the drop pod to land directly onto a connector...

That may be possible in a single player local game IF you extract and use the precise coordinates at full resolution from the save files, but any manual intervention on a live game will introduce rounding errors, and such things are inherent in multiplayer. From memory I think the closest I've got was within a 2x2 (large) block square on a hand controlled drop on a mp server. (The trick is to visually align surface GPS to planet centre GPS)

Originally posted by Rox:

Originally posted by Captain Canard:

... position the drop pod to land directly onto a connector...

That may be possible in a single player local game IF you extract and use the precise coordinates at full resolution from the save files, but any manual intervention on a live game will introduce rounding errors, and such things are inherent in multiplayer. From memory I think the closest I've got was within a 2x2 (large) block square on a hand controlled drop on a mp server. (The trick is to visually align surface GPS to planet centre GPS)

What about a dropped cargo pod with horizontal atmo thrusters to course-correct during final decent? I wonder how the autopilot would handle this, since vertical motion would be controlled by the parachute. I gotta try this!

Of course this makes the drop pod more complex, but not too much. You already need a battery to operate the chute, so you just need 4 thrusters (square small flat thrusters on the horizontal cargo access ports), a connector, and a remote control block.

A question I have for the OP is where is he going to "live" - will he live in space and drop cargo down to an automated base station on earth, or will he live on earth and have his space station automatically send him supplies? If he's down on the planet, then he can just drive / fly to wherever the drop pod lands and not worry about fancy automated "connect and unload" systems. Instead, he'll need to figure out an automated "build container, fill container, launch container" system. Either way, it sounds like a fun engineering project!