I tried those lower speeds in planetarium mode, and it just makes me crash into the planet.  I guess that's why I got so used to using higher speeds and simply course correcting when I got too high up.  I've been trying to find a happy medium where it wont crash me and wont zoom me up into space, are you saying there is a way to do that in planetarium mode or is flight simulator mode needed for that?

Flight simulator mode will be needed. The free mode auto-level isn't perfect and your camera will drift up or down.

Since docking a planetary ship to an interstellar ship is difficult, can I simply take an interstellar ship to a distant exoplanet and use it like I would use a planetary ship just above the surface of a planet (with hold altitude, directional compass and fixed horizontal speed intact?)

Nope. You can try and it won't be realistic, and it especially won't work if SE ever introduces fuel, crash damage and the structural instability of a massive interstellar ship on a planetary surface. Your best option here is to just dock with an interstellar ship. It'll get progressively easier with each docking, and you might learn some handy techniques for saving time, such as setting the orientation of the mothership and planetary ship to prograde to eliminate pitch and yaw.

I believe I might have a solution.  It turns out there is a small warp drive built into the Skylone ship you referenced....not the default one but the modified one in the manual.  I downloaded the files for it, but they are from 2016 (so made for 0.980), will these work with 0.990?  Also bar at the bottom- the one where I see Main engines 0 listed?  Thanks!

1. You can try it.
2. Yep, that bar. Interstellar ships also let you throttle the warp drive if available using the bar below the main engine and thruster bars.

edit- if I choose the build option- can I do the following- 1) fly a starship to my chosen destination (let's say that's the Fire Dragonfly to a procedural system in the Andromeda Galaxy), 2) build a planetary Skylone ship once I get to that destination and 3) fly over a planet using that Skylone ship I just built there?

If you like.

One thing I noticed is that I can't save locations in Flight Simulator mode and then go back to them the same way I can in Planetarium mode?  I didn't see a Go To option listed under Locations in Flight Simulator mode.  So if I exit the program and return to it again later I will have to do this procedure (or any procedure) all over again?

Flight Sim does not permit jumping through time. Go To is replaced with Select so you can fly to your locations with a ship.
At this point, I'd suggest going through the manual yourself. You'll develop and intuition for spaceflight and many of your questions will be answered.

Thanks, I love learning new things so I've been reading from the manual (is this the most updated version of the manual, seems like it was made for 0980?)  Lots of nice information in there and easily understandable.  I actually love the complexity of the traveling and landing procedures as they make it much more realistic.  I discovered the prograde thing yesterday and love it for pitch and yaw, makes it much easier.  I saw the warp drive throttle below the others, I just have to make sure I'm oriented in the right direction with the ship because sometimes it moves me farther away from my target and sometimes selects a different target than what I had previously selected!  What does the reference button do- is that for computing velocity relative to another object?  I also love the redshift/blueshift.  Too bad the ship wont automatically brake and stop just before it reaches my chosen target (I take it autopilot would do that, but how do you turn that on?), but it's more realistic this way, I just have to figure out how soon to drop out of warp and start braking so I dont miss my target!  Is there an interstellar ship thats better than the others for docking?  When I tried to dock the Skylone with the Fire Dragonfly I got the message "no docking ports available."  I tried Select but it didn't seem to do anything, what does it do?  Does it automatically fly there if I do that?
I've narrowed the scope of my questions since I think I can get everything else I need from the manual   Thanks for your help again!

I saw the warp drive throttle below the others, I just have to make sure I'm oriented in the right direction with the ship because sometimes it moves me farther away from my target and sometimes selects a different target than what I had previously selected!

Warp drive velocity is based on motion relative to distant stars. You have to align your prograde vector correctly or it won't do as you wish. The warp-to autopilot handles this completely automatically.

Too bad the ship wont automatically brake and stop just before it reaches my chosen target (I take it autopilot would do that, but how do you turn that on?)

It should say in the manual. See if you can find an overview of the flight UI.

When I tried to dock the Skylone with the Fire Dragonfly I got the message "no docking ports available."

Because there's no docking ports available, try another ship like the Wayfarer.

I tried Select but it didn't seem to do anything, what does it do?  Does it automatically fly there if I do that?

No, it just selects a target.

Thanks for your help again!

You're welcome!

I saw the warp drive throttle below the others, I just have to make sure I'm oriented in the right direction with the ship because sometimes it moves me farther away from my target and sometimes selects a different target than what I had previously selected!

Warp drive velocity is based on motion relative to distant stars. You have to align your prograde vector correctly or it won't do as you wish. The warp-to autopilot handles this completely automatically.

Too bad the ship wont automatically brake and stop just before it reaches my chosen target (I take it autopilot would do that, but how do you turn that on?)

It should say in the manual. See if you can find an overview of the flight UI.

When I tried to dock the Skylone with the Fire Dragonfly I got the message "no docking ports available."

Because there's no docking ports available, try another ship like the Wayfarer.

I tried Select but it didn't seem to do anything, what does it do?  Does it automatically fly there if I do that?

No, it just selects a target.

Thanks for your help again!

You're welcome!

Thanks for your help!  I see autopilot is automatically turned on from Warp To.  A couple of questions I had from my recent trip into the Flight Sim.  So I installed the modified Skylone files into the Space Engine folder (root directory as per the instructions in the manual), however the Skylone ship still can't warp....so it doesn't look like the files were modified.  Should I have extracted the files into a different directory and not the parent Space Engine directory?
Other thing is, I just did a 12 hour video in Planetarium mode and I was wondering if I could do a similar video in Flight Simulator mode.  I went to M 87 ("landed" on there, which takes me to the outer edge of the galaxy), selected its central black hole and centered it, and after doing some calculations flew a cross section flight through the center of the galaxy and back through the other side taking exactly 12 hours to reach its outermost star, the speed needed to do this was 2.76 light years / second.  So what I'm asking is this, in flight simulation can I do a similar trip and set the warp in such a way that I could get fine control over the speed and also complete the trip in 12 hours by setting the warp in such a way to simulate 2.76 light years / second just like I did in Planetarium mode?

by setting the warp in such a way to simulate 2.76 light years / second just like I did in Planetarium mode?

...set your warp to 2.76 light years a second?

by setting the warp in such a way to simulate 2.76 light years / second just like I did in Planetarium mode?

...set your warp to 2.76 light years a second?

Oh okay, I was trying to do that using the boost thrusters function.  I see the same control panel is available in Flight Simulator mode that's available in Planetarium mode but whenever I tried to do anything there my space ship control panel would disappear   But if I just set the speed to 2.76 ly/sec and dont touch functions like "land on", etc., the space ship will use the speed I set in that control panel for the warp?

Oh okay, I was trying to do that using the boost thrusters function.  I see the same control panel is available in Flight Simulator mode that's available in Planetarium mode but whenever I tried to do anything there my space ship control panel would disappear

Might be because you're using functions that put you into free mode.

But if I just set the speed to 2.76 ly/sec and dont touch functions like "land on", etc., the space ship will use the speed I set in that control panel for the warp?

Yes

Oh okay, I was trying to do that using the boost thrusters function.  I see the same control panel is available in Flight Simulator mode that's available in Planetarium mode but whenever I tried to do anything there my space ship control panel would disappear

Might be because you're using functions that put you into free mode.

But if I just set the speed to 2.76 ly/sec and dont touch functions like "land on", etc., the space ship will use the speed I set in that control panel for the warp?

Yes

Thanks, everything seems to be going smoothly now.  Just took awhile to get used to, I'd only been using Planetarium mode since 2017!
Haven't attempted docking or landing yet, but I suspect that will be a trial and error procedure.

Oh okay, I was trying to do that using the boost thrusters function.  I see the same control panel is available in Flight Simulator mode that's available in Planetarium mode but whenever I tried to do anything there my space ship control panel would disappear

Might be because you're using functions that put you into free mode.

But if I just set the speed to 2.76 ly/sec and dont touch functions like "land on", etc., the space ship will use the speed I set in that control panel for the warp?

Yes

Hey longname, can you let me know if I'm doing this procedure correctly?
Objective: to fly a cross section through the thickest section of M87 that takes just under 12 hours in Flight Simulation mode.
Process:  Since the ships are all located in the solar system and I have to fly millions of light years to get to the outer edge of M87, I'll need to fly at an extremely high warp speed to get there in a few minutes.  I then have to drop out of warp at the outer edge of M87 and reset the warp speed to 2.76 ly/sec for a "slow" 12 hour trip through the center of the galaxy and back out the other side.
I take it I shouldn't use any of the shortcuts like "Go There" or "Land On Object" since those will take me out of Flight Simulation mode?  What about "Go To Warp" will that take me to the outer edge of the galaxy (just like "Land On Object" would in Planetarium mode- that gets me to 31.76 kly from its Central Black Hole) or should I just do an extremely fast warp to get to that point manually and just center the galaxy's central black hole in my trajectory and viewport and then I can reset my warp value from there at 2.76 ly/sec to do a 12 hour trip through the thickest part of the galaxy for the video?

Hey longname, can you let me know if I'm doing this procedure correctly?
Objective: to fly a cross section through the thickest section of M87 that takes just under 12 hours in Flight Simulation mode.
Process:  Since the ships are all located in the solar system and I have to fly millions of light years to get to the outer edge of M87, I'll need to fly at an extremely high warp speed to get there in a few minutes.  I then have to drop out of warp at the outer edge of M87 and reset the warp speed to 2.76 ly/sec for a "slow" 12 hour trip through the center of the galaxy and back out the other side.
I take it I shouldn't use any of the shortcuts like "Go There" or "Land On Object" since those will take me out of Flight Simulation mode?  What about "Go To Warp" will that take me to the outer edge of the galaxy (just like "Land On Object" would in Planetarium mode- that gets me to 31.76 kly from its Central Black Hole) or should I just do an extremely fast warp to get to that point manually and just center the galaxy's central black hole in my trajectory and viewport and then I can reset my warp value from there at 2.76 ly/sec to do a 12 hour trip through the thickest part of the galaxy for the video?

I assume you can just try this yourself, just generally experiment. I'll leave this tip though, going into free mode and selecting the central black hole itself drops you a lot closer to the center than going to the galaxy itself.

Hey longname, can you let me know if I'm doing this procedure correctly?
Objective: to fly a cross section through the thickest section of M87 that takes just under 12 hours in Flight Simulation mode.
Process:  Since the ships are all located in the solar system and I have to fly millions of light years to get to the outer edge of M87, I'll need to fly at an extremely high warp speed to get there in a few minutes.  I then have to drop out of warp at the outer edge of M87 and reset the warp speed to 2.76 ly/sec for a "slow" 12 hour trip through the center of the galaxy and back out the other side.
I take it I shouldn't use any of the shortcuts like "Go There" or "Land On Object" since those will take me out of Flight Simulation mode?  What about "Go To Warp" will that take me to the outer edge of the galaxy (just like "Land On Object" would in Planetarium mode- that gets me to 31.76 kly from its Central Black Hole) or should I just do an extremely fast warp to get to that point manually and just center the galaxy's central black hole in my trajectory and viewport and then I can reset my warp value from there at 2.76 ly/sec to do a 12 hour trip through the thickest part of the galaxy for the video?

I assume you can just try this yourself, just generally experiment. I'll leave this tip though, going into free mode and selecting the central black hole itself drops you a lot closer to the center than going to the galaxy itself.

I was just about to do that but then wondered how to get the ship to the position that free mode gets me to.
The good thing about getting closer to the CBH is that it lets you select a slower speed for the fly through; the further away you are, the faster you have to do it to get it done in 12 hours (if you want to use a constant speed.)  I figured I should just use a super fast warp to get in that position first and then a slower warp to do the 12 hour trip.

In Planetarium mode, I go to M 87 and then I land on it, and then I select the CBH and then I center it.  I figured if I tried that in Flight Simulation mode it would make my ship disappear?

Go to the position you want to start at the edge of the galaxy in free flight mode, create the ship there, then start your trip.

Go to the position you want to start at the edge of the galaxy in free flight mode, create the ship there, then start your trip.

Thanks!  I see I can do all of this in Flight Simulation mode, by using the control panel on the lower left, it actually works like Planetarium mode, but then when I use the side left control panel to build the ship it jumps back into Flight Simulation mode

Yes, in flight sim mode, it works pretty much like .9.8.0 does. You can use the 1, 2, or 3 keys to select free-flight mode, pressing 4 selects the last active ship (top row numbers, not the num keypad). Pressing 4 again will cycle through the various cameras on the ship.

Also keep in mind that there are two modes of cameras attached to ships: "Behind" (which doesn't have to be behind, but moving the camera (right-click & mouse) will orbit around the ship; "Cockpit", the camera will pan around the camera position.

Gotta go, more later if you want to fly ships...

Yes, in flight sim mode, it works pretty much like .9.8.0 does. You can use the 1, 2, or 3 keys to select free-flight mode, pressing 4 selects the last active ship (top row numbers, not the num keypad). Pressing 4 again will cycle through the various cameras on the ship.

Also keep in mind that there are two modes of cameras attached to ships: "Behind" (which doesn't have to be behind, but moving the camera (right-click & mouse) will orbit around the ship; "Cockpit", the camera will pan around the camera position.

Gotta go, more later if you want to fly ships...

Thanks these are very useful shortcuts!  And I just noticed something....I don't know if it was that modified Skylone ship with warp that I installed (which didn't work, it still doesn't have warp), I didn't add any other add on between July 11th and July 14th which is when this change happened, and the only other thing is using Flight Simulation mode, but the configuration of M 87 has changed.  The procedural galaxies I see when I go all the way through to the other side of M 87 as well as the last few straggling stars are different, the galaxy is now actually larger and the last few stars are more distant from the center.  So much so that I had to change my speed from 2.76 ly/sec to 3.01 ly/sec to make it past the last star in the galaxy in 12 hours.  To make sure, I select the last star and note the distance between me and the star, and track it even after it's out of my FOV until the distance to it is no longer decreasing but increasing (that way I know I've passed the star.)  It happened to me three times already that 2.76 was not quite enough and I reset the time to make sure and I'm sure now that the SE procedural universe has changed.  I didn't add any galaxy or cluster add-ons and besides that modified ship haven't added anything actually. I did some quick calculations today and figured out that I now need to use a speed of 3.01 to pass the last star in M 87 in less than 12 hours and that worked.

Yes, in flight sim mode, it works pretty much like .9.8.0 does. You can use the 1, 2, or 3 keys to select free-flight mode, pressing 4 selects the last active ship (top row numbers, not the num keypad). Pressing 4 again will cycle through the various cameras on the ship.

Also keep in mind that there are two modes of cameras attached to ships: "Behind" (which doesn't have to be behind, but moving the camera (right-click & mouse) will orbit around the ship; "Cockpit", the camera will pan around the camera position.

Gotta go, more later if you want to fly ships...

I can run 0980 and 0990 at the same time actually (one on each monitor).  I don't see why people are having problems with running 0980 on recent nvidia drivers, I've never had any problems.  Then again I dont use Intel CPU, so maybe using AMD Ryzen is why mine have always worked (*knock on wood* lol).