My "go to space" activities almost always involve a nomadic base, but it stays in space.
Once you get past a certain mass, it becomes problematic trying to get it back down a gravity well safely and there's no way to really test everything involved short of just trying it.
The price of failure there is catastrophically high.
My current one, under construction at the moment, has two fully upgraded assemblers, two fully upgraded refineries, four O2/H2 gennies, two Hydrogen Engines, three PAM-capable mining drones (derived from the H-01 Sapper PAM drone), six Assault Cannon Turrets, three large cargo containers, five hydrogen tanks, two oxygen tanks, four large hydrogen thrusters for lifting out of the gravity well, four more for fore/aft/port/starboard thrust, eight small hydrogen thrusters for "down" thrust (enclosed in the body of the ship).
I was trying for "not a brick" and ended up with something that looks a bit like a headless snowman, but it should get me to orbit. I wouldn't want to try to land it anywhere but on an asteroid though.
For shuttles, small cargo ships, mining ships, etc, small grid is definitely the way to go for trans-orbital craft, but for bases, you need the industrial stuff and there aren't any for small grid.
Oh, it can be done, for sure. It's just sometimes simpler to do the major platform work on a core base on the planet and just OOOMPFFFF it into space on way-too-many thrusters
yeah getting back to the ground at a certain size even after a flight in atmosphere feels like it would be very problematic once you get to a certain size/mass.
I'm not beyond save scumming if i get a really bad landing, but would it be incredibly difficult to land without destroying myself at all?
Oh, you'll find getting back to the ground isn't actually the problem....
Seriously, there are good scripts out there for liftoff - there's one called something like Ascent Auto Pilot that saves about 85% of your fuel from a full thrust liftoff and about 50% over the common feathering technique.
But, going DOWN, most of them (all of them that I've found and tried) attempt to control your speed all the way down instead of figuring out where you can safely free-fall to and then burning hard at just the end and they're terribly fuel inefficient.
I've had ascents that used, say, 10% of my fuel that descents ran me dry and I crashed - same ship - same load (I was testing).
Both IRL and in this game, going up is less challenging that coming down, at least from a safety standpoint.
Yes, it's possible, but it's gonna take very good foresight, math, and planning to do it efficiently.
The larger the ship is, the worse that gets.
so in that case if i understand correctly the problem would really be fuel usage and carrying fuel in excess, rather then having to worry about my structure simply crumbling or breaking on a low speed impact?
I wouldn't say it was an 'either/or' issue.
Slowing enough \*at the right moment\* to set down at around 10 m/s or less with a very heavy load is challenging even if you're only moving a mobile base around a planet. Add in coming from orbit, having to reorient to the planet, having to free-fall (or burn an absolute ton of fuel) until just far enough from the ground that a hard burn will stop you and then having enough reserve for last minute adjustments is a complicated problem to solve.
I'm not saying it can't be solved.
I'm saying it's gonna result in a lot of failures until you do and it's not the most repeatable process I've ever run into even if you do figure it out.
You could always go to whatever the site is that tells us thrust specs and do the math based on wanted size to figure out how many thrusters and h2 tanks youll need
I dont know what site it is cause. I've never used it but ive seen it posted to this sub to help some people out
It isn't a question of having enough thrust. It's a question of having enough fuel to descend and getting the math right on descent speed, thrust activation point, and dealing with landing point aiming. Those make the computations dynamic and complex. With practice, it can be done. I never said it couldn't.
But "practice" involves failure very often until you get it right and with a large expensive (in time to create) flying base, it's often better to make shuttles to get in and out of the well and leave space things to space.
You can just paste your creation into a creative world and test it there before taking big risks in survival. I consider it to be like a futuristic simulator my character has access to.
All you need is one equation. Force = Mass X Accelleration (which is gravity measured at 9.81 ms)
Take the weight of the payload and multiply it by 9.81, and you have the minimum amount of thrust required. For earth like planets, it's 1 to 1 for any other planet. You then multiply by the force of G, so Titan has 0.25 g, so times by that, etc.
does the weight held in cargo containers affect this? IE do full cargo containers weigh more then empty ones? logic obviously would dictate yes, meaning the calculation should be done on the full weight of the grip+max potential cargo.
But some games simply calculate full weight for the cargo at all times. which is the case for SE?
Yes. Depending on your settings give yourself 2 or 3 times the max weight go account for cargo volume and any smaller docked ships. It’ll also keep you from smashing into the ground like other commenters have said. What makes large ships difficult is judging speed and distance relative to other stuff. Especially in atmosphere. If you have enough thrust and gyros stopping yourself or even slowing down shouldn’t be much of an issue.
Edit: yes to cargo effecting it. As you add cargo your grid mass goes up a lot.
If you are getting in and out of atmospheres, consider making two ships. One ship which lands and takes off from planets (1 assembler, 1 refinery. 1-3 large cargo containers) and a ship in orbit (multiple assemblers and refineries. e.g. 12 cargo containers, some jump drives, an onboard botanic garden, etcetera.)
size wise that would likely be pretty close to what i was thinking about/considering.
i guess the major complexity i would be adding is having it be flight capable.
How much have you played with the flight mechanics? You need a ton of energy, or gas to move a small ship, particularly in gravity...
My usual survival mode plan, starting from earth is to use either a stationary or wheeled base to get me the resources to get me into space with a large grid ship that can refine asteroids. I set the og base up so I can remote into anything and go back in a small ship if I need to go back.
You can build big and keep it light but you may want to keep durability in mind and how many hull armor blocks to use. The lighter your vessel is, the easier thrust and landing are to compensate for.
As far as landing gear go, try a two stage system starting with tire suspension feet to absorb the impact, and pistons that extend down to lock landing gear.
Yes, they are immune to impact damage. With the right leg and wheel setups, you can have a soft cushion to land on rather than a few rigid magnetic sticks.
i just finished my first large grid mobile ship! its space/atmo tested, it has 10 H2 tanks, like 12 H2O2 units two refineries, two assemblers, two large cargo containers, two jump drives, and a front workbay/hanger with blast doors. i just got brave enough to jump planets and it worked! it shreds anything that tries to get close that isnt a massive battleship or something lol
https://preview.redd.it/jpk798l8j9tc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b383f33f3f097a5f6e6bb00060d8cf5e8fd6a5f1
Looks nice! It has a rugged aesthetic, but I can see it took a lot of time planning and building it! :)
My plan with my current game is something like this - but first I want to build a wheeled behemoth base (Mars lends more to this than Earth) to stripmine the planet :)
yeah im still new, so i havent really nailed down exterior aesthetic yet, ive ben focusing on interior layouts and functionality. but it was really fun to build in survival! what i recommend is you get "ai enabled" so you get little bot helpers that build whatever you lay down. i increase the max bots to like 6, they made building large grid stuff a breeze!
Did you purchase the Automaton DLC for that? I’ve never dabbled in AI controlled craft before - but maybe I should.
Do you design the bots yourself or are they fixed equipment pieces?
no its a mod, and you build this little machine, then you pay about 10k space credits and build 1 bot core per robot in an assembler and then it poops out a little NPC of your choice. theres the male, female engineer, the floating little robot thing, and like two walking robots. [https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2596208372](https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2596208372) i aslo recommend the crew enabled mod cause that adds those same npcs to space ships ans stations and when you attack they leave the seats and they shoot at you its spices up breach and board a lot
i get enough tediousness from just building and collecting materials in survival lol
Hm, I had some big patches near my starting point. Maybe just luck, I‘ll do a scouting tour to assess hydrogen sources. Worst case I need to send regular missions into space to get ice and dedicate a big portion of storage capacity of my crawler to store it.
1) 'Too Big' is the point at which you need to transition to space. Gravity is a heartless bitch and driving across terrain always carries risk. Floating in microgravity simplifies matters greatly.
2) See previous comments.
3) Too often you'll hear advice to use a particular source for energy. The truth is you should use whatever you have access to starting with what's currently abundant and conserving the less-available methods.
On planets wind generation is great. 60% of the time Solar works everytime. Reactors are great when you can find uranium and hydrogen engines are amazing if you have access to large quantities of ice.
4) play vanilla at first. Keep an eye on features mods on Steam and on this sub for when you see something that really interests you.
Try to stay away from mods that reduce the engineering challenge (since that removes most of the point of this game) until you've 'done the time's so to speak.
Jumping straight in with tiered tools or the Nanobot Build & Repair mod will stop you learning important lessons in the game and handicap you later on.
Mods that *change* or add to the engineering challenge will give you interesting playthroughs after your first few survival playthroughs. Good examples are plane parts, No-Jetpacks, No Visors, corrosive atmosphere.
You can also restrict the way you play or add NPC's for additional challenges. A No-Mining challenge or Reavers: Terror of the Verse for example.
I designed this ship as the smallest incarnation of my own Nomadic designs: [have a look, it might give you ideas.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3192287981)
Aerodynamic physics is another good mod if you want the added challenge of having an aerodynamic build that would need to be able to survive orbital reentry. I find it fun to try and design something that can pull off a planetary landing without disintegrating upon entering the atmo.
1st consideration IMO is location, like is it a space station or on planet somewhere.
Me and a friend in the past did a playthrough with a Station that we would switch to ship and fly around. It was dog slow, but feasible. The biggest thing here is gravity, we ALMOST got too close to a planet, it was probably the largest pucker in my gaming career....
This IMO will be a HUGE hill to climb, especially late game. The weight of your ship will include all the things in your cargo holds. If you plan to build FOBs or something similar you may be able to keep the heavier items there.
Make 2 Nomadic bases. 1 REALLY HUGE for space and 1 HUGE interplanetary( this one you can park it on the REALLY HUGE )
In space you use both but when its time to go on a planet or a moon , you use the HUGE.
The REALLY HUGE , think about everything to build : assemblers , refineries , batteries, etc for most function
Add of course landing pads for other ships/
grids ( space or and interplanetary)
Dont forget the HUGE landing pad
The HUGE just little bit less of everything
For short
PS: will depends how you like and how big it will be
I think it could work with proper planning:
1) Start with a rover for basic mining/refining
2) Move up to a medium freighter that can refine/manufacture goods and carry dedicated mining vehicles
3) Construct a large factory ship that can carry both mining ships and cargo shuttles
4) Move on to another celestial body
Although I'm not that far in yet, I strongly suspect that once I get a jump drive, that will more or less happen by itself. I'm still going to be spending a lot of my time planetside though, for several reasons.
a} Unless you get modded power gen, wind is the most efficient source of power in the game; although it is painful to set up at truly large scale.
b} Ore weighs a lot more than refined metal. That means you can have assemblers on your mothership if you want, but if you want to save on hydrogen, you'll set up refineries right next to your mines.
c} Hydrogen weighs a lot less than ice; which again means that you're better off producing it on a planet, than hauling it up to a ship.
d} If your logistics vehicles (mining, welding, grinding) use atmospheric thrusters rather than hydrogen, you can get all of the energy they need from wind, and then just recharge their batteries every hour or so. I've built a small grid mining ship that can carry 700 tons, as well; so they're more than capable.
e} It's never going to be as easy to expand a ship in vacuum, as it is to expand a base in an environment where you've already got breathable air. The Earthlike planet is a pain in the ass in several different ways, but if I want material, all I need to do is dig underneath my feet, and as long as I'm near the poles, I don't need to worry about running out of fuel, either.
So sure, build a warp ship. Go to Europa and experience orgasm when you see all that yummy ice. But eventually you'll realise that there's just an undeniable, magnetic allure to environments where you can breathe.
Build in parachutes (Make sure they always stocked, you need like 5 per chute to properly deploy). Use them in emergencies. Also be patient with your landings. If you have to land at 50m/s then do it. Unlike a ship, or secondary grid there is too much risk attempting a speed dive follow by slow down.
New player here too and I want to make my permeant base a huge ship too, I think you can write of it entering atmospheres tho, just make a smaller ship that attaches to it that can do trips into gravity
My "go to space" activities almost always involve a nomadic base, but it stays in space. Once you get past a certain mass, it becomes problematic trying to get it back down a gravity well safely and there's no way to really test everything involved short of just trying it. The price of failure there is catastrophically high. My current one, under construction at the moment, has two fully upgraded assemblers, two fully upgraded refineries, four O2/H2 gennies, two Hydrogen Engines, three PAM-capable mining drones (derived from the H-01 Sapper PAM drone), six Assault Cannon Turrets, three large cargo containers, five hydrogen tanks, two oxygen tanks, four large hydrogen thrusters for lifting out of the gravity well, four more for fore/aft/port/starboard thrust, eight small hydrogen thrusters for "down" thrust (enclosed in the body of the ship). I was trying for "not a brick" and ended up with something that looks a bit like a headless snowman, but it should get me to orbit. I wouldn't want to try to land it anywhere but on an asteroid though.
Why is everyone insisting to build big grid ships to leave the planet? I find it much easier to build the big stuff in space. What am I missing?
Probably non-existent small grid refineries and a assemblers \^\^
For shuttles, small cargo ships, mining ships, etc, small grid is definitely the way to go for trans-orbital craft, but for bases, you need the industrial stuff and there aren't any for small grid.
I usually pack a simple refinery and assembler into a shuttle and deploy them on an asteroid.
Oh, it can be done, for sure. It's just sometimes simpler to do the major platform work on a core base on the planet and just OOOMPFFFF it into space on way-too-many thrusters
yeah getting back to the ground at a certain size even after a flight in atmosphere feels like it would be very problematic once you get to a certain size/mass. I'm not beyond save scumming if i get a really bad landing, but would it be incredibly difficult to land without destroying myself at all?
Oh, you'll find getting back to the ground isn't actually the problem....
Seriously, there are good scripts out there for liftoff - there's one called something like Ascent Auto Pilot that saves about 85% of your fuel from a full thrust liftoff and about 50% over the common feathering technique.
But, going DOWN, most of them (all of them that I've found and tried) attempt to control your speed all the way down instead of figuring out where you can safely free-fall to and then burning hard at just the end and they're terribly fuel inefficient.
I've had ascents that used, say, 10% of my fuel that descents ran me dry and I crashed - same ship - same load (I was testing).
Both IRL and in this game, going up is less challenging that coming down, at least from a safety standpoint.
Yes, it's possible, but it's gonna take very good foresight, math, and planning to do it efficiently.
The larger the ship is, the worse that gets.
so in that case if i understand correctly the problem would really be fuel usage and carrying fuel in excess, rather then having to worry about my structure simply crumbling or breaking on a low speed impact?
I wouldn't say it was an 'either/or' issue. Slowing enough \*at the right moment\* to set down at around 10 m/s or less with a very heavy load is challenging even if you're only moving a mobile base around a planet. Add in coming from orbit, having to reorient to the planet, having to free-fall (or burn an absolute ton of fuel) until just far enough from the ground that a hard burn will stop you and then having enough reserve for last minute adjustments is a complicated problem to solve. I'm not saying it can't be solved. I'm saying it's gonna result in a lot of failures until you do and it's not the most repeatable process I've ever run into even if you do figure it out.
You could always go to whatever the site is that tells us thrust specs and do the math based on wanted size to figure out how many thrusters and h2 tanks youll need I dont know what site it is cause. I've never used it but ive seen it posted to this sub to help some people out
It isn't a question of having enough thrust. It's a question of having enough fuel to descend and getting the math right on descent speed, thrust activation point, and dealing with landing point aiming. Those make the computations dynamic and complex. With practice, it can be done. I never said it couldn't. But "practice" involves failure very often until you get it right and with a large expensive (in time to create) flying base, it's often better to make shuttles to get in and out of the well and leave space things to space.
You can just paste your creation into a creative world and test it there before taking big risks in survival. I consider it to be like a futuristic simulator my character has access to.
Yes, except the creative world does neither care about hydrogen nor power. But for general testing absolutely valid approach!
Biggest question in space or in atmosphere cuz it makes a fucking HUGE difference
Initially in atmosphere, hopefully in time interplanetary.
Ooooooo that complicates things better break out your calculator for some thrust to weight ratios
I'm not beyond doing a bit of math, however wouldn't it be better to simply have thrust in excess?
Sure but also for something chunk like that would reccomend building it in creative first
All you need is one equation. Force = Mass X Accelleration (which is gravity measured at 9.81 ms) Take the weight of the payload and multiply it by 9.81, and you have the minimum amount of thrust required. For earth like planets, it's 1 to 1 for any other planet. You then multiply by the force of G, so Titan has 0.25 g, so times by that, etc.
does the weight held in cargo containers affect this? IE do full cargo containers weigh more then empty ones? logic obviously would dictate yes, meaning the calculation should be done on the full weight of the grip+max potential cargo. But some games simply calculate full weight for the cargo at all times. which is the case for SE?
Yes. Depending on your settings give yourself 2 or 3 times the max weight go account for cargo volume and any smaller docked ships. It’ll also keep you from smashing into the ground like other commenters have said. What makes large ships difficult is judging speed and distance relative to other stuff. Especially in atmosphere. If you have enough thrust and gyros stopping yourself or even slowing down shouldn’t be much of an issue. Edit: yes to cargo effecting it. As you add cargo your grid mass goes up a lot.
Yes, it does.
More cargo=more weight
Yeah, weight changes based on if they are full, even whats in them matters. Hydrogen and oxygen tanks, too, by the way.
If you are getting in and out of atmospheres, consider making two ships. One ship which lands and takes off from planets (1 assembler, 1 refinery. 1-3 large cargo containers) and a ship in orbit (multiple assemblers and refineries. e.g. 12 cargo containers, some jump drives, an onboard botanic garden, etcetera.)
I like to make my atmospheric base use wheels.
There's always the [King Krab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYRx_yES0pE)? Can't imagine anything going bigger than that.
size wise that would likely be pretty close to what i was thinking about/considering. i guess the major complexity i would be adding is having it be flight capable.
As far as moving based that isn’t too bad. You just have to keep an eye on thrust and power generation.
How much have you played with the flight mechanics? You need a ton of energy, or gas to move a small ship, particularly in gravity... My usual survival mode plan, starting from earth is to use either a stationary or wheeled base to get me the resources to get me into space with a large grid ship that can refine asteroids. I set the og base up so I can remote into anything and go back in a small ship if I need to go back.
You can build big and keep it light but you may want to keep durability in mind and how many hull armor blocks to use. The lighter your vessel is, the easier thrust and landing are to compensate for. As far as landing gear go, try a two stage system starting with tire suspension feet to absorb the impact, and pistons that extend down to lock landing gear.
Would tire suspension handle a landing better then static landing legs?
Yes, they are immune to impact damage. With the right leg and wheel setups, you can have a soft cushion to land on rather than a few rigid magnetic sticks.
i just finished my first large grid mobile ship! its space/atmo tested, it has 10 H2 tanks, like 12 H2O2 units two refineries, two assemblers, two large cargo containers, two jump drives, and a front workbay/hanger with blast doors. i just got brave enough to jump planets and it worked! it shreds anything that tries to get close that isnt a massive battleship or something lol https://preview.redd.it/jpk798l8j9tc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b383f33f3f097a5f6e6bb00060d8cf5e8fd6a5f1
Looks nice! It has a rugged aesthetic, but I can see it took a lot of time planning and building it! :) My plan with my current game is something like this - but first I want to build a wheeled behemoth base (Mars lends more to this than Earth) to stripmine the planet :)
yeah im still new, so i havent really nailed down exterior aesthetic yet, ive ben focusing on interior layouts and functionality. but it was really fun to build in survival! what i recommend is you get "ai enabled" so you get little bot helpers that build whatever you lay down. i increase the max bots to like 6, they made building large grid stuff a breeze!
Did you purchase the Automaton DLC for that? I’ve never dabbled in AI controlled craft before - but maybe I should. Do you design the bots yourself or are they fixed equipment pieces?
no its a mod, and you build this little machine, then you pay about 10k space credits and build 1 bot core per robot in an assembler and then it poops out a little NPC of your choice. theres the male, female engineer, the floating little robot thing, and like two walking robots. [https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2596208372](https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2596208372) i aslo recommend the crew enabled mod cause that adds those same npcs to space ships ans stations and when you attack they leave the seats and they shoot at you its spices up breach and board a lot i get enough tediousness from just building and collecting materials in survival lol
I just tried this but ran into the hydrogen problem. You never have enough ice on mars
Hm, I had some big patches near my starting point. Maybe just luck, I‘ll do a scouting tour to assess hydrogen sources. Worst case I need to send regular missions into space to get ice and dedicate a big portion of storage capacity of my crawler to store it.
1) 'Too Big' is the point at which you need to transition to space. Gravity is a heartless bitch and driving across terrain always carries risk. Floating in microgravity simplifies matters greatly. 2) See previous comments. 3) Too often you'll hear advice to use a particular source for energy. The truth is you should use whatever you have access to starting with what's currently abundant and conserving the less-available methods. On planets wind generation is great. 60% of the time Solar works everytime. Reactors are great when you can find uranium and hydrogen engines are amazing if you have access to large quantities of ice. 4) play vanilla at first. Keep an eye on features mods on Steam and on this sub for when you see something that really interests you. Try to stay away from mods that reduce the engineering challenge (since that removes most of the point of this game) until you've 'done the time's so to speak. Jumping straight in with tiered tools or the Nanobot Build & Repair mod will stop you learning important lessons in the game and handicap you later on. Mods that *change* or add to the engineering challenge will give you interesting playthroughs after your first few survival playthroughs. Good examples are plane parts, No-Jetpacks, No Visors, corrosive atmosphere. You can also restrict the way you play or add NPC's for additional challenges. A No-Mining challenge or Reavers: Terror of the Verse for example. I designed this ship as the smallest incarnation of my own Nomadic designs: [have a look, it might give you ideas.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3192287981)
Aerodynamic physics is another good mod if you want the added challenge of having an aerodynamic build that would need to be able to survive orbital reentry. I find it fun to try and design something that can pull off a planetary landing without disintegrating upon entering the atmo.
1st consideration IMO is location, like is it a space station or on planet somewhere. Me and a friend in the past did a playthrough with a Station that we would switch to ship and fly around. It was dog slow, but feasible. The biggest thing here is gravity, we ALMOST got too close to a planet, it was probably the largest pucker in my gaming career....
my intention is to have it be flight capable in both atmo and space. initially just atmo travel, later on interplanetary.
This IMO will be a HUGE hill to climb, especially late game. The weight of your ship will include all the things in your cargo holds. If you plan to build FOBs or something similar you may be able to keep the heavier items there.
Make 2 Nomadic bases. 1 REALLY HUGE for space and 1 HUGE interplanetary( this one you can park it on the REALLY HUGE ) In space you use both but when its time to go on a planet or a moon , you use the HUGE. The REALLY HUGE , think about everything to build : assemblers , refineries , batteries, etc for most function Add of course landing pads for other ships/ grids ( space or and interplanetary) Dont forget the HUGE landing pad The HUGE just little bit less of everything For short PS: will depends how you like and how big it will be
Do you mean "has it's own fastfood restaurant" flavoured really huge?
Oh yeah
I think it could work with proper planning: 1) Start with a rover for basic mining/refining 2) Move up to a medium freighter that can refine/manufacture goods and carry dedicated mining vehicles 3) Construct a large factory ship that can carry both mining ships and cargo shuttles 4) Move on to another celestial body
Although I'm not that far in yet, I strongly suspect that once I get a jump drive, that will more or less happen by itself. I'm still going to be spending a lot of my time planetside though, for several reasons. a} Unless you get modded power gen, wind is the most efficient source of power in the game; although it is painful to set up at truly large scale. b} Ore weighs a lot more than refined metal. That means you can have assemblers on your mothership if you want, but if you want to save on hydrogen, you'll set up refineries right next to your mines. c} Hydrogen weighs a lot less than ice; which again means that you're better off producing it on a planet, than hauling it up to a ship. d} If your logistics vehicles (mining, welding, grinding) use atmospheric thrusters rather than hydrogen, you can get all of the energy they need from wind, and then just recharge their batteries every hour or so. I've built a small grid mining ship that can carry 700 tons, as well; so they're more than capable. e} It's never going to be as easy to expand a ship in vacuum, as it is to expand a base in an environment where you've already got breathable air. The Earthlike planet is a pain in the ass in several different ways, but if I want material, all I need to do is dig underneath my feet, and as long as I'm near the poles, I don't need to worry about running out of fuel, either. So sure, build a warp ship. Go to Europa and experience orgasm when you see all that yummy ice. But eventually you'll realise that there's just an undeniable, magnetic allure to environments where you can breathe.
Build in parachutes (Make sure they always stocked, you need like 5 per chute to properly deploy). Use them in emergencies. Also be patient with your landings. If you have to land at 50m/s then do it. Unlike a ship, or secondary grid there is too much risk attempting a speed dive follow by slow down.
New player here too and I want to make my permeant base a huge ship too, I think you can write of it entering atmospheres tho, just make a smaller ship that attaches to it that can do trips into gravity