I might just be missing something obvious, but I can't find any way to tell how much impact damage you need to be able to take before you can land on Rubia.

I tried early on in my save with 2 Mk1 energy shields and got the warning that I would not survive, so I went to go do other planets and came back again with 3 Mk2 energy shields and guessed that you wouldn't make me require more than that in my armor (which seems to have been barely correct). I think it would have been nicer if the planet briefing said something like "you'll take 600 points of impact damage" (or whatever the actual amount is, it looked like I took about that much damage), so I wasn't stuck guessing.

Alternatively, if the guessing is part of your intended vision for approaching this planet, it would be more convenient if you could move it to notify you upon setting Rubia as the destination instead of waiting for you to reach the final section of the path (with all my planet mods adjusting the system, I could only go Nauvis -> Vulcanus -> Rubia, so I had to wait for my platform to cover the entire Nauvis -> Vulcanus leg before I saw the warning). I know very little about the mod api, but the game makes an autosave when you start heading towards a new planet so I'd expect there to be a hook there you could use instead of the current one.

Thank you for the report. Sorry for the long response, but I’m going to link this thread in the FAQ, as I get this question frequently (especially on discord). I am including a full write-up that should address the most common “why can’t you do X.”

I will not explicitly tell exactly how much damage you take on entering Rubia, nor exactly what you need. The reasons are both creative and technical:

Creative Reasons:
1) I prefer it to be somewhat vague to have it play less of a “calculated journey” and more of a “packing for an unknown frontier.” The uncomfortable feeling of not knowing is kind of the point.

2) I want there to be some level of thought process required to enter Rubia. I’ve gone through several iterations of the hints/briefing to avoid saying “You need exactly X.” (the most requested change). This would make it easier, but also rob you of any sort of satisfaction from successfully landing on the planet.

Technical reasons:
1) Rubia really expects you to have certain gear for the landing (reasons below). To do this sort of soft check, Rubia does many things during the landing sequence to filter out having the right gear vs just stacking health from infinite research. Unfortunately, if I told you “You will be taking X damage”, it will be almost impossible for you to accurately calculate what you need due to jank that Wube does not see as a bug. As a result, I needed to very pain-stakingly and manually repeatedly guess-check all sorts of different arrangements of gear to set thresholds for how much damage you will take upon landing. Basically, if I told you “You will take X damage”, and you used that info to calculate exactly what you need, your calculations would be very very wrong. Which defeats the purpose of even telling you a number.

2) The threshold changes dynamically based on other things I will not describe here. It is not a fixed bar. Some people will share with other players: “To land, you need X” and I just immediately know that this combination will likely not work for the other person.

3) For the reasons above, I cannot tell you “You need exactly X” because there are many possibilities for what the player might bring. The combination of quality, infinite research possibilities, tweaking mods, and different items available in overhauls (eg what you get in K2SO is very different from vanilla) lead to cases where “Just bring X” doesn’t makes sense.

4) (Following the above) My warning code (which has way too much logic and manual testing required for it) is the most reliable way to know if you would survive. Even then, the code is rough, and contains fudge factors to not accidentally say it is safe unless there is a bit of buffer. The math isn’t hard, but with all the iteration/factors that go into it, it is definitely not something I’d want you to feel like you need to do.

5) Rubia difficulty affects the threshold for landing, and difficulty can be altered without reloading the game. The main places that thresholds would be communicated (Tips and Tricks and Technology descriptions) cannot be modified dynamically mid-game.

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A related question:
Q: Can’t you just turn off the whole damage upon landing?
No. 1) It is part of my vision. 2) Everyone who reaches Rubia WITHOUT those requirements (eg console commands or mods like NoSpacePlatforms) sends me complaints that my planet keeps instakilling them. Trashsteroids will kill you if you lack the appropriate gear because the planet is expecting you to have said gear.

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To your question about conveyance of the message:
Rubia roughly tells you how close you are to satisfying the requirement (halfway there, not even close, almost…). I am planning on adding another message for if you are clearly very overprepared.

This message plays when you are on a space platform headed to Rubia because this is the earliest I can do so without being obnoxious. I have gotten opposite feedback (on Discord) where people reported to me that Rubia would send them too many messages because Rubia gives you said warning every time your spaceship flies by Rubia (even if you don’t intend to land). I cannot stop you from attempting to land, nor can I read your mind to know if you actually intend to land. If I print warning messages every time a space platform with a player has Rubia somewhere in its schedule, I would produce way more warning messages, and run afoul of the people who aren’t planning on going to Rubia. Unfortunately, this level of warning is the compromise.

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I hope this gives you an idea of what is going on. Sorry, but this is a lot more involved than just “here is the number”.

Thanks for the detailed response! That makes sense for why the description is left a little vague. And I didn't know about the different levels, as I only got the "not even close" and "good enough" messages, I didn't know there were other levels. And I definitely agree with taking damage initially on landing, the initial damage and the song that plays when you first recycle scrap are good for setting the mood for what this planet is about.

As for the timing of the message, I think it would be best (assuming the game engine allows it, idk if you tried this) to have it produce the message if the following are met:

1) The player is on a space platform.

2) The platform has Rubia as the active target in the schedule (not just anywhere in the schedule, but as the next destination it's heading towards).

where it looks to me like your current version of requirement 2 simply looks at the platform traveling along a route directly towards Rubia (not sure what it is with only this mod, in my game those routes are Vulcanus <--> Rubia, Gleba <--> Rubia, and Corrundum <--> Rubia). So if I'm at Nauvis and I want to head to Rubia for the first time, I have to travel the entire Nauvis <--> Vulcanus route first before I can get the warning.

I think this might also help with those extra warnings people complain about, since when I'm in a platform and I have a destination set in the schedule, I'm heading there for one of three reasons:

1) because I'm landing there (in which case the warning should trigger)

2) because I'm picking up supplies for starting a base somewhere else (the tech for launching rockets to supply space platforms requires first the tech to safely land, so the warning won't trigger anymore).

3) because it's after my target planet in the schedule so I don't care (the warning shouldn't and currently doesn't trigger, and my idea won't trigger it, either).

But there's also two other cases I could see being relevant, idk how often other people encounter this:

4) it's not in the schedule, but it's on the most direct path between two other planets that I'm traveling between (idk what it currently does, but my suggestion won't raise an alarm here, either).

5) it's not in the schedule, but it's on the most direct path between two other planets that I'm traveling between, and I decide I'm going to drop to Rubia while my platform is traveling (idk what it currently does, my plan wouldn't send the warning here, and maybe it should?).

Of these five cases (idk if your discord people have other cases they care about), 2 and 3 are both quiet either way, 1 will make a warning either way (but possibly sooner for my idea), 4 and 5 are quiet my way (idk if the current way matches for those). I think scenario 5 is the only potential regression, but I don't think that's common enough to actually matter (though you know your players better than I do, so I might be wrong about how much this scenario matters, or if there are other scenarios I haven't thought of).

Also, this is unrelated to the discussion at hand but I laughed out loud when I got the message:

This junk heap contains a review that says: "Maraxsis: 7/10. Too much water." You are confused, but still disagree.

I think they're all great (at least the ones I've seen so far, idk how many there are), but I especially loved this one in particular.

I’ll see what I can do, as that one might be doable. But it will require me to do some research and testing into feasibility.