The timer is worse than pointless...

[LaveLubber]

The time-to-reach-destination timer, under your target, is worse than pointless - it is misleading.

We all know this and yet we put up with it. Because of the variable, non-user controllable, speed variation in SC, it renders this timer pointless. We all use it to max out our time to destination at "0:06", but we know we won't get there in six seconds. Even worse, when we are travelling long distances, the timer reads shorter than the amount of time it will actually take you to get to your destination.

How about, instead of a misleading timer, we have a small bar under the Ls counter, which is similar to the blue bar next to the speedo. If you have the ball on this bar in the blue zone, you are optimally approaching your destination. In this sense it would mirror the bar on the speedo, and perhaps not provide any additional info...

I'm sure there is a better way, but as it stands, the timer is bloomin awful... Please FD, add it to the never-ending change log.

 

[Masta Squidge]

If you set your throttle correctly, you are always at your optimal approach speed. That feature already exists.

The timer is relevant.

 

[Skip Intro]

Never look at the timer after it gets to the "hit the 75% Power" threshold. I just wait for the blue bars to drift into place.

 

[sqzbox1]

It's accurate, which is what the problem is really. When there are so many forces at work (nature of flight path, gravity wells, throttle efficiency points, etc.) it is misleading somewhat, I agree. You just have to accept it for what it is, what it means, and read it in a "relative" manner. Use ALL the metrics available to you and build your own picture.

 

[LaveLubber]

It's accurate, which is what the problem is really. When there are so many forces at work (nature of flight path, gravity wells, throttle efficiency points, etc.) it is misleading somewhat, I agree. You just have to accept it for what it is, what it means, and read it in a "relative" manner. Use ALL the metrics available to you and build your own picture.

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

I am fine with removing it - sick of the sight of the thing - it clutters the target reticule unnecessarily.

 

[Cocabaron]

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

I am fine with removing it - sick of the sight of the thing - it clutters the target reticule unnecessarily.

Decelleration.

 

[GJ51]

Except for the fact that if you get to 0:06 on approach and just leave it there, your on a really good track to destination without any further throttle adjustments. If you get down to 05 you're probably heading for the loop of shame...

 

[Darth Ender]

This can be done fairly easily. Keep the blue bar thing as-is. Keep the mechanics of auto-adjusting the speed as-is. Change the timer to reflect time to destination at avg optimal speed (taking into consideration the ramping down of your speed as your distance closes, which equates to roughly 1/10th of the distance per seconds) from current distance always. Regardless of your actual speed.

like solving an integral equation for time given a known distance and a speed that is proportional to that distance by a known constant when referring to "optimal speed". Doing this for every frame so it reflects your new current distance regardless of what your actual speed is in relation to the optimal speed.

problem solved.

Edit:

Let me clarify in case anyone is confused. The current timer is dependent on instantaneous velocity and your distance to destination. This is why it is always inaccurate, since your velocity is always changing with your distance.

My solution uses the knowledge that your velocity in the optimal zone will change a known amount (barring environment issues) proportional to the distance to your destination and this equation can be used to give you a much more truer time to destination. You can decide to exceed the optimal speed, this will just make your timer tick faster, eventually you will need to pull into the optimal zone and it will match the real time to your destination to a much better degree than any other method because the slowdown is built into the calculation.

 

[LaveLubber]

Decelleration.

Yeah, obviously... I realise why it is inaccurate; I stated so in the OP.

The fact is it is inaccurate. People adapt and use it as a proxy for optimum speed - but we already have that in the blue speedo bar.

Everyone else is OK with a junk timer that doesn't give reliable information in the middle of the screen? OK, I guess it's just me then.

 

[Fen Harel]

To each his/her own. I like the timer. When I am scanning things on an exploration run, I start slowing down at the 0:10s mark or so, the idea being to start the scan without getting too close.

It's not inaccurate, it just doesn't, in and of itself, tell you all the information. Distance and throttle position don't either. I use the time as one piece of information.

 

[Hanni79]

Yeah, obviously... I realise why it is inaccurate; I stated so in the OP.

The fact is it is inaccurate. People adapt and use it as a proxy for optimum speed - but we already have that in the blue speedo bar.

Everyone else is OK with a junk timer that doesn't give reliable information in the middle of the screen? OK, I guess it's just me then.

Just forget it. No one cares for sane reasoning or facts.

 

[FX2K]

The timer (which makes sense to me) is something I don't see a need for since its also shown in the lower left panel.
But what bothers me more than the timer is all the other marker's / texts overlaying / obscuring each other
Your current target should, IMO, be the only thing visible.. the other markers should only show when no active target is selected.

 

[babelfisch]

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

I am fine with removing it - sick of the sight of the thing - it clutters the target reticule unnecessarily.

It IS accurate at the moment it calculates the ETA. But since you are deaccelerating the timer needs to calculate ETA continuously. It's actually very logical and functioning well.

 

[LaveLubber]

To each his/her own. I like the timer. When I am scanning things on an exploration run, I start slowing down at the 0:10s mark or so, the idea being to start the scan without getting too close.

It's not inaccurate, it just doesn't, in and of itself, tell you all the information. Distance and throttle position don't either. I use the time as one piece of information.

If a timer tells you the wrong time to arrive at a destination, it is inaccurate by definition. Not sure how people don't understand this.

By all means have a different graphic to reflect the same infomation, but to give a time is inaccurate.

 

[Acarin]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the documentation says that the timer displays how long it will take you to reach your destination at your current velocity. Since your auto-throttle is constantly adjusting your velocity, it leads to a perceived inaccuracy in the timer. I bet if you get close to target, then throttle back to minimum 30kms, the timer will accurately count down second by second?

 

[teaurn]

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

I am fine with removing it - sick of the sight of the thing - it clutters the target reticule unnecessarily.

Of course it's accurate.

If I'm decelerating at a rate that's the same ratio as the distance to target, the time to destination will stay the same:

Speed-----Distance-----Time to target
--------------------------------------------
100..........10000.........6 secs
50............5000..........6 secs
5.............500............6 secs

(My maths may be erroneous here - it's just an example!)

I only use it to tell me when I'm in the 'zone' and after that, I simply wait for the 'safe disengage' to pop up.

How's that hard/misleading in any way?

 

[Dbrn47]

No, it's not just you. I'm not a fan, but I have other more important issues that take up my emotions. I've learned to accept this one since I can just assume that I'm good if it reads 0:06. It's a hard thing to argue when the math works out.

 

[Masta Squidge]

Except it obviously isn't. If a timer reads 0:06 for one minute - that's accurate? Nothing to do with many forces at work, but shoddy programming at FD that doesn't take into account the variable speed that they have put into SC.

I am fine with removing it - sick of the sight of the thing - it clutters the target reticule unnecessarily.

The timer is a representation of how long it will take to reach the target at your current speed.

Not sure why you don't understand that.


Changing the speed can't be accounted for, because the computer cannot possibly know how you are going to adjust your throttle. If you put your throttle just slightly above the center of the blue "optimal" bar on the indicator, you can practically go AFK and your ship will slow down perfectly.

It is however not as fast as the 75% thing, but if you are terrible at doing that as I am its a surefire way to avoid overshooting. Usually I just turn my attention to netflix during this, paying slight attention to the blue bars.

 

[Xaraman]

I think this could improved by having an option to see ATA (Actual Time of Arrival ie. what we see at the moment [factored for actual velocity]) or ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival ie an approximate calculation of time to reach safe disengage). It will be estimated so won't be perfect every time. But if you stay in the blue bar it should be adequate enough.

The ATA, although a little annoying is actually useful for planning a deceleration point. It would be nice to switch to ETA though once you start decel.

 

[Darth Ender]

Like i mentioned in my previous post. The timer can use a simple equation to arrive at a avg time that is much more useful than what it currently uses. It would be the time if you were flying at the optimal throttle point regardless of your throttle at any given distance. This provides much more useful information than the current ETA timer and much more pertinent info. Trying to arrive at an ETA dependent on whatever your current velocity is would result in noisy ETA times, or nonsensical ones since it would result in a destination speed that may not be realistic.