| Landing Gear | |
|---|---|
| |
| Category: | Functional Block |
| Status: | Functional |
| Function: | |
| Landing gears allow a ship to magnetically connect to the surface below. | |
| Fits small ship | |
| Mass: | 77 kg |
| Fits large ship and station | |
| Mass: | 3,324 kg |
| Data Controls: | [edit] [purge] (?) |
Landing Gear allows a ship to lock onto any voxel surface and most block structures. Configure your Cockpit Controls if you want pressing (P key) to cause any landing gear on the ship in proximity to unlock, or lock onto to the surface or object below them. This behaviour (as well as autolocking) is configurable.
Once locked, depending on the size of either ship, when one changes motion, the other will move with it. E.g. a ship can use landing gears to carry smaller debris, and large ships can carry smaller ships, and so on. Locking a ship to a station or voxels will arrest all motion until you unlock.
Make sure to actually unlock the landing gears — switching them off is not enough. Landing gears are magnetic and do not require power to lock on to a surface. This makes them ideal for temporary locks, even against enemy craft, or as stabilzing supports when building grids that have no power yet.
See also Magnetic Plate for a more compact variant with the same functionality, and Large Magnetic Plate for a large variant.
Usage Examples[]
The landing gear allows for several usages:
- Large jump ships can have functional hangar bays where smaller craft can be safely docked, smaller ships can also maglock to the outer hull.
- Salvage ships can magnetically grab wrecks and floating block debris like a grapple, and drop them into grinder pits.
- "Tugs" can haul cargo modules into storage, can position salvaged grids and batteries next to Merge Blocks, and pull disabled ships through welder pits.
- Boarders and breaching drones use landing gear to lock onto enemy ships.
- Dropping a landing gear when building will lock it to the surface even before the block has been welded. This makes landing gear the ideal foundation when building a new mobile grid.
- Mobile large grids cannot use wind turbines, but wind power will work while the grid is made stationary with landing gear against a stationary grid.
Locked landing gear do not, however, connect the power grids, the conveyor system, or the terminal networks of the two ships or stations. For that, use 
Connector blocks.
Landing gear cannot magnetise to floating items, you will need a 
Collector to catch them.
Physics[]
Inertial Dampers: After docking a smaller ship to a carrier, turn off the docked ship’s thrusters and Inertial Dampers, otherwise the docked ship's thrusters will fight the carrier.
Inertia: When magnetic locks are disengaged, both ships retain their inertia. It is important to keep this in mind when disconnecting from a ship in motion. For example: when undocking a small ship from a moving carrier, it is generally a good idea to turn on Inertial Dampers right before unlocking the landing gear.
Break Force: When constructing ships designed to be transported by larger ships, keep in mind that, if one of the ships accelerates too quickly, the inertia of the second craft can apply enough force to break the lock or destroy the landing gear. It’s safer to not rely on just one. Make sure you have enough landing gear installed to handle the mass of your ship under acceleration. If not, the carrier must avoid rapidly changing directions. You can set the break force purposefully low if you want the lock to be temporary, for example when passing on grid fragments between two tugs.
Design Ideas[]
The landing gear attaches to whatever is directly beneath the pads and is unaffected by objects next to them. This allows landing gear to be recessed into the hull for a more streamlined appearance, similar to Magnetic Plates.
- It can be effective to build an armor skid plate around landing gear as armor blocks are more resilient to impacts. This can allow a small ship to perform a "combat landing" with reduced risk to the landing gear. So long as the landing gear itself is not damaged, the ship will still be able to engage magnetic locks. The damaged armor segments can be repaired later.
- Another option is to use large ship landing gear or Magnetic Plates as a landing pad for smaller ships, and double-lock them (both large ship and small ship engage their landing gear). This has the advantage that large ship landing gear have a longer locking range than small ship landing gear do. If the small ship's landing gear are flush or nearly so, this can result in the large ship gear also grappling the small ship's hull, for added strength.
- Landing Gear and Magnetic Plates can magnetise through thin blocks (such as Windows, Catwalks, Panels).
Status Colours[]
The "foot" of the landing gear has a colored ring around it that provides status info for troubleshooting. You can see the same info spelled out on the Control Panel Screen and inside the toolbar slot as well.
- White - The gear is not within range of a suitable surface.
- Blue - The gear is in auto locking mode and will lock as soon as any mass is in range.
- Yellow - The landing gear is not yet locked, but is within range of a suitable surface to attach itself to.
- Green - The gear is magnetized to a surface and secured.
- Red - The gear is Turned off or has no power.
An indicator in the HUD informs the player whether landing gears are engaged.
Control panel[]
Several properties of the landing gear can be adjusted from a ship's control panel.
- There are buttons to toggle the landing gear on and off manually. When it is switched off, the magnet will not unlock.
- There are buttons to manually lock or unlock the gear.
- The "Autolock" checkbox, when enabled, allows the landing gear to automatically lock when any object comes into proximity.
Autolocking is not always desireable: When you want to quickly grab floating a grid, or just touch down in an emergency, or if your drop pod is rolling down the hill, autolock may save the day. On the other hand, a crane grabbing a block from a specific angle, or a utility vehicle that uses Landing Gear for stabilisation, can benefit more from manual locking.
Recipe[]
| Landing Gear | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component | Large Ship/Station Required | Large Ship/Station Optional | Small Ship Required | Small Ship Optional |
 Motor | 6 | — | 1 | — |
 Construction Comp. | 20 | — | 5 | — |
 Steel Plate | 100 | 50 | 1 | 1 |
Video[]
Video from the release of the autolock feature and break force slider.
Video from the release of magnetic locks on landing gear.
