A Regretful Commander’s Advice

Do not do what I have done.

I just spent 2.15 hours, maybe a bit more, mining painite and platinum. I ran out of limpets when I had approximately 70 tons of each, plus select other miscellaneous elements. I knew that the payday would be fantastic upon my arrival at the highest bidder’s location.

It was a planetary landing. No sweat. Done this hundreds of times. I made it down within 7Km and I requested to dock. I was told to approach landing pad 12, and I chuckled at the realization that it was directly in front of me, and I was already poised with the correct attitude to land. What good fortune! No work was needed but to close the distance, and then to land. That’s how close I was to what was undoubtedly more than 34,000,000Cr in painite.

I boosted. I was close. 3Km. I boosted again. I throttled down and began to prepare myself for the landing, putting out my landing gear and leveling out. It was exactly in this moment that I realized something quite odd.

The particles zipping past my canopy had ceased to rush towards me and begun to rush straight up. How odd, I thought for a moment, that it appears I am falling directly out of the sk-

Gravity. It donned on me in that moment. This planet must have higher gravity. I glanced at my altimeter in dismay, realizing that it was rapidly closing towards the ground. Speed check returned over 300KPH- straight down.

I angled down just in time to see the mountain’s rocky cliff side screaming up at me at an alarming pace. It was but for a fraction of a second. Bang. My HUD disappeared instantly. My ship porpoised, sparks and flames flew from my dash, my brain fought back against reality but it was too late.

Blackness. Then only the white words displayed across my screen:

“Your ship was destroyed”

Always check the G’s coming in for a manual planetary landing. Always. You never know how early you’ll need to break. In total, I think I lost about 100,000,000Cr worth of legally saleable stock in that crash. At least if I write this, it will have been for the benefit of it never happening to you.