This is my idea for a soft-landing drop-pod for the AI or player.
Green arrows represent the movement of the nearest object.

Scene 1: Black dropship lowers the red canister, which is attached to the dropship by the blue thing. This whole thing is one sprite.

Scene 2: Flier of the dropship presses E, changing the sprite of the dropship into just the black part, and releasing the red canister as a seperate actor, like a blue clone out of a rocket. Black dropship flies away.

Scene 3: Player gains control of the red canister, and press E, opening the blue hatch, and letting the black actor out. The red canister stays there as normal terrain, or as an actor that can't move.

Overview: AI could use this reach land in a more believable way, instead of just jumping out of the sky. It lets them land softly, and any damage the moving actors would've taken from falling is instead transferred to the red canister.

Sounds good, maybe you can fly the red crate back up afterwards...

How big would these red canisters be?

If it's to scale than it seems that it would make it so that the computer has a harder time getting to you after the crates/canisters start piling up.

The drop-pod that Data has been talking about is probably to solve this very problem (computers land while inside the pod and then just go).

Yeah, I pm'd Data about this, and he said he had it in mind. I suppose the canisters could be very heavy, so they sink into the ground and take up no space, and the AI just jumps out of the top.

Or do my idea and make it so you can fly them back up

Yeah, but that kind of ruins the point of it detaching from the black dropship.