Their loot drops to the ground on the planet, so that its inhabitants could sell it on the eBay of Sirius.

Good one!

Friends don't let friends drink and fly transports.

Maybe waiting so long for the dock to free up leaves them defenseless to the planet's gravitational pull, so they can do nothing but fall into the atmosphere.

Here's another question. Why don't the planets rotate or revolve? I mean, they have to because there's gravity on the planets and an atmosphere. Without rotation, there would be neither atmosphere nor gravity. I'm not complaining about the game, don't get me wrong. It's a FREAKING AWESOME GAME! But that is one thing that bothers me.

"Mercy is the mark of a great man. ::stabs guy with sword:: Guess that makes me a good man. ::stabs guy again:: Well, I'm all right." - Malcom Reynolds, Captain, Firefly-class Starship "Serenity"

How would you know even if the planets did rotate? You wouldn't exactly go into space and see the Earth spinning around like a basketball on a Harlem Globetrotter's finger. Imagine they rotate and you can't see it, just like it would seem in real life.

You think plunging into planets is strange? Try hanging outside Alaska jump hole... You'll see ships screaming as they burst into flames ramming into the mine field... then you'll see me ramming the mines and explode...

Ooooh, guys please don't get into the whole "planets revolving and orbiting and what about the trade lanes" arguement, just please assume that everything's magic. Seriously this arguement is sooo not fun to read.

yet you cant help but read it...

they fall assleep.
thats all.

you hear on the com from time to time aswell the typical "hey don´t fall assleep to me. this can kill us both"

and well, sometimes they fall asleep and crash the planet.

happens to all, even to me after a long session of cargo transports till 4 am. I simply fall aswell and hit dock to later *BOOM*

it even happens to players. in omega-11 (I think, maybe 5 or 7, I always get them mixed up) the strange hardcore-radiation-asteroid-field around the sun mixed up my autopilot into flying me straight towards some planet that starts with S. by the time I looked up and saw what was happening, I reached for my mouse and tried an emergency pull-up, but my humpback couldn't turn fast enough and I went kaboom, losing 100k worth of cargo and 8 class 10 weapons in the process. then while flying form the sigma-13 jump hole in sigma-17 to the omicron theta jump hole, my autopilot flew me into an area between the two suns that raped my ship. I valiantly tried to throw on the afterburners and used all my nanobots, but eventually my ship burned to a crisp. fortunately I lost nothing that time.

There are also many other questions....
1: Why all Planets didn't get thunder in game....as I know, earth got 2000 thunder per sec.
2: Why all Planets got no light at the dark side....as everyone know, the dark side of earth can see many many light on ground....especially America.
3: Why all Planets got only 1 city on it....no need to explaine
4: Why all Planets don't going around the sun...as time being, they sound had difference position in system...and how the lane keep linking difference Planet as thet should had difference speed for goinf around the sun
5: Why Juni and Trent go to a planet with -50C and 40C with just the same cloth?
6: Why all ppl in bar don't drink and talk?They all sit by one with no friend and don't drink anything.
7:Why the space base internal area is much much more bigger then it seems?you can simply find there is a problem of scale from the docking entrance.
8: Why the planet can be born with the nebula?according to the astronomer, that's impossible...
there are still at least 30 more questions...but I got no time,bye.

they could be reading this forum. I was reading this topic when I told my ship to dock at crete but forgot about mouse flight, next thing I hear is danger, entering sun's courona, could happen to any bored pilot

The scale of many things in the game are clearly way off (like your ship should be a tiny spec compared to a planet ); but I'm sure much of the "realism" and "accuracy" that could have been implemented wouldn't necessarily make the game more fun to play.

hmm..how do you trick AI ships crashing into planet?
I only saw it once or twice around planet Manhatten.