once is generally enough if the landing area is clear... if it is not clear, you should see a message on screen telling you that...

Sometimes that can happen if you approach a landing pad too fast. You have to slow down and let the landscape load.

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

Sometimes that can happen if you approach a landing pad too fast. You have to slow down and let the landscape load.

I do approach at slow speeds for sure and most of the time it just does nothing, not even a message as to why it is no initiating.

Originally posted by MoonshineBandit:

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

Sometimes that can happen if you approach a landing pad too fast. You have to slow down and let the landscape load.

I do approach at slow speeds for sure and most of the time it just does nothing, not even a message as to why it is no initiating.

Also, other landing pads in the area can prevent your ship from landing. For example, if you trying to land at one site, but over the next hill is another landing pad at a different building, this can throw things off and stop your ship from going into landing mode. That's all I can think of that I have personally experienced.

The 'highlight point of interest' function is bound to the same input. If there is such a marker anywhere near the centre of the display the game can interpret said input as an attempt to invoke that function over landing. You need to not look at the marker, which in practice means turning away from your target while the landing indicator is still glowing green.

You're still hammering the 'E' key either way though.

not sure why this works, but when the message pops up saying I can't land, I flip my ship upside down and click the key/button to land while inverted and the game seems to accept it then even if I've not otherwise moved around from the area I wanna land. Just a quirk of the game

I have never had to hit the E key more than once to land, assuming that the area is clear and I'm close enough to the ground to land.

Do you have any trouble with other E-key interactions in the game? If so, perhaps the E-key on your keyboard is actually malfunctioning or there's just a lot of accumulated dirt and dust that's interfering with its functioning. If you're using an old keyboard and you game with a keyboard a lot, just physical damage is possible, given that many games use the E key for various purposes. Do you have another keyboard around that you can try? Or perhaps give yours a good clean?

It should be only once. Often it takes more. Sometimes I have to circle around and try again.

It's worse when memory is tight and frame rates are slow.

My E key works fine in other situations.

As the game has grown more detail has added to the load times of some of the more complex landscapes and arguably some of the more complex ships. The game is now in its eighth year since release.

The new hover class ships (like the interceptors) in recent updates can help on less capable PCs and platforms, as the hover ships float above a chosen landing spot, while the landscapes render in the camera area. Circling in a normal ship can help but more seen requires more rendering simultaneously.

Often plants or creatures, even base parts appear during rendering where you might want to land and so the game prevents you landing. Upgrading an older PC with a faster CPU, even more RAM and making use of SSDs storage to play the game on can speed up rendering issues a lot.

Also game save files have got a little larger as player save slots keep track of their growing list of bases, additional ships, pets, multi-tools and freighter fleets. More players gather at times of the expeditions. Often nearby 'external' bases are downloaded to a save file while you visit a location full of other players. All these little additions can make the PC work harder. An SSD can really help with speeding things up and a steady internet connection helps too that is not choked by background traffic.

Most modern PCs and consoles with new graphics tech handle the game very smoothly with barely a blip at the most highest settings. Also streaming the game on the same PC it is being played on may also put a lot of strain on most mid range CPUs and graphics cards and something to bear in mind.

Less capable PCs might adjust the game to play full screen at lower resolution. Start with 30 FPS at resolution 720p using DLSS or 80% up-scaling. Perhaps no anti-aliasing and lowest specular and all standard settings. Then adjust graphics settings. base complexity and so on upwards until you find best performance for any platform.