Elite: Dangerous Blog

News and events from the Elite Dangerous galaxy

Why is a Type-7 Transporter not able to use a medium pad?

I’m glad you asked!

The landing pads in Elite dangerous come in three flavours. Small (66m x 55m), Medium (150m x 90m) and Large (213m x 128m) and these are rotating tables that sink into a shaft and rotate 180 degrees before reversing your ship into the hangar below.



See this early render of the Panther LX.

So far so good.

Now a Lakon Type-7 Transporter is (according to my blueprints) 56.1m wide by 81.6m long and 25.4m high. Which means the Type-7 sits well within the maximum size of the pad.



It’s not so big

 

Compared to the more expensive multi-role Python, the Type-7 is both shorter and narrower despite having similar cargo sizes and yet the Python is Medium ship. So, what’s the problem?

Height. That pesky 3rd dimension is raining on our Medium pad parade!

The highest Medium pad ship is the Federal Assault Ship which is 49.5m wide by 73.8m long and 22.8m high. That means the maximum headroom for a Medium hangar is somewhere between 22.8m and 25.4m, the average of which is a few centimetres short of 24m, so it’s safe to assume that the ceiling is 24m for a ship with gear deployed.

Which, for the Type-7, is a problem because without gear out, it’s already more than 25m high – closer to 27m with feet on the ground.

Like really tall men and women everywhere the poor Type-7 just has to shop elsewhere for hangars big enough, because what fits all those other Medium ships just isn’t tall enough for the Type-7.

Aww.

And that's why the Type-7 Transporter cannot land on Medium pads. Not because the ship is too big for the pad, but because the ship is too high for the medium hangar.

Comments (3) -

  • Rene Christensen

    3/8/2019 12:40:16 PM |

    Dang! The low star rating is mine and is accidental fat fingered on my smartphone.
    I would change it to 5 if i could.
    Well done explaining this not so obvious limitation.

  • AMX-008 GaZowmn

    4/2/2021 8:05:29 AM |

    How about just rotating in the lowered elevator, like when you land in a pad and then launch without activating the elevator first?

    Maybe the Type-7 could be restricted to “landing” on medium pads, but not “docking”. Gameplay wise this translates into having access to most services... except Livery, Outfitting & Shipyard, which require going into the inner dock.

    • CMDR Arithon

      7/21/2021 9:45:37 AM |

      You could put the idea to Frontier, but I suspect such a change in the basic game function would not be possible so far into the games development.

Comments are closed