Would sustained damage in fights prevent you from landing on a planet?For example, if you get into an engagement and lose panels, wings, or any other parts of your ship, would that be harmful for re-entry and atmospheric flight?asked by PoisonTaco
TL;DRDamage preventing landing has been debated; they assume a badly damaged ship can still get down once cleared to land and would need repairs before taking off, with free-flight atmospheric damage effects possible later.
That's a question we've debated on a design side.I think what we assume is that if you can get into the orbit of the planet and you can communicate and request for permission to land, then we assume, even if your ship's pretty badly shot up and damaged, that they get you down there, then we see the sequence, then you're down on the landing pad, and then of course you have to get it fixed. You may not be able to take off until you've got all that stuff fixed.But we probably wouldn't make it so someone would show up in orbit, and then just be stuck there and have to eject or something.Who knows, in later stages, not v1, but as we get further into development where we actually have some free flight down on the planets, whether that would be effective and the damage would affect it. It probably would, 'cause it would affect it in space.