Newcomer / Intro Loop of shame

[darcek]

As the title states,on many of occasions ,I find myself needing to do a loop of shame ,cause the station or spot etc swuush me by flashing red slow down...

I try to lower throttle,decrease speed,Insted the ship goes faster,stuck in like a "Slingshot" reaction..after I pass the object controls return and im able to lower speed down and return..

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. [downcast]

 

[Sapporo]

Set a bind for 75% speed and when you reach 6 seconds (just below the distance) put the speed at 75%. If done correctly, you'll never overshoot.

 

[darcek]

Ty for the hasty assist

 

[Gator Country]

As the title states,on many of occasions ,I find myself needing to do a loop of shame ,cause the station or spot etc swuush me by flashing red slow down...

I try to lower throttle,decrease speed,Insted the ship goes faster,stuck in like a "Slingshot" reaction..after I pass the object controls return and im able to lower speed down and return..

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. [downcast]

You're going to have to experiment with your ship to find the best spot to throttle down. The "slingshot effect" you're referring to is the SC drive accelerating your ship as the star's gravity gets weaker with distance. Watch the timer as you approach your destination station - when it gets down to 10 seconds or so cut your throttle back to 75% - your ship will start to decelerate and the timer will slow down. The ideal travel time you want to hit is about 7 seconds; once the timer drops below 5 seconds you will more likely than not overshoot your destination - 7 seconds gives you a bit of a cushion. If you've hit the "sweet spot" on the deceleration curve you should be able to cruise right up to the safe disengage point and drop out of SC without fiddling with the throttle again.

Sometimes you may get caught in a planet's gravity well as you approach, and your timer will start to increase. If it does, apply just a little bit more throttle (maybe 80% or so) until the timer starts to drop again. Again, you'll have to find the best points to adjust the throttle through a bit of trial and error, and every ship will behave a bit differently. The points I gave you are a good place to start, though.

 

[darcek]

You're going to have to experiment with your ship to find the best spot to throttle down. The "slingshot effect" you're referring to is the SC drive accelerating your ship as the star's gravity gets weaker with distance. Watch the timer as you approach your destination station - when it gets down to 10 seconds or so cut your throttle back to 75% - your ship will start to decelerate and the timer will slow down. The ideal travel time you want to hit is about 7 seconds; once the timer drops below 5 seconds you will more likely than not overshoot your destination - 7 seconds gives you a bit of a cushion. If you've hit the "sweet spot" on the deceleration curve you should be able to cruise right up to the safe disengage point and drop out of SC without fiddling with the throttle again.

Sometimes you may get caught in a planet's gravity well as you approach, and your timer will start to increase. If it does, apply just a little bit more throttle (maybe 80% or so) until the timer starts to drop again. Again, you'll have to find the best points to adjust the throttle through a bit of trial and error, and every ship will behave a bit differently. The points I gave you are a good place to start, though.

Thanks Gator for this detailed help[up]

 

[PiggyPiggyPig]

You can initiate deceleration when you see the slow-down sign by immediately pulling back hard on the joystick until the little blue solid dot on the left hand side of your radar display turns errm not solid.
As soon as it turns NOT solid, deceleration will commence, usually pretty rapidly, but don't wait for your ship to slow, immediately push the joystick forward again until you are realigned with your target.
Your ship will continue to decelerate as you coast towards your target. Its likely you'll need to throttle up again to reach it.

If you've left it too late to initiate deceleration when you see the slow-down sign then pull back hard on the joystick just as before but this time hold it back to complete a loop until you're back facing your target.
Hint- as you near the top of the loop apply full throttle until your about 3/4 way into the loop maneuver then back it off again. This keeps your momentum and speed but not so much that you end up orbiting your target in ever diminishing circles. Its a balancing act. Different ships will respond differently. This is my Hauler experience.

 

[SG Cersed 1]

I usually cut it to the blue at about 8 seconds.

 

[CMDR Mr. Boombastic]

If you look like you are about to overshoot the station (at ~0:05 ETA) then you can do the so-called 'dolphin' manouevre which involves a sharp 90 degree turn up/down and hitting 75% until your throttle is back in the blue zone. Then turn back towards the station.

Here's a set of useful short videos on approaching a station.

• The first is the standard approach:

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;LA7Iy5vQm7A]https://youtu.be/LA7Iy5vQm7A[/video]

• Next is on how to decrease the rate of NPC pirate interdictions especially if you are carrying cargo by avoiding 'shipping lanes'. The video is quite old so had no 'shipping lane' indicator when it was uploaded. Since 1.6/2.1 the bottom-left of your main HUD now shows if you are travelling either in 'DEEP SPACE' or along the 'SHIPPING LANE' where NPC pirates will be waiting:

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;1nC3KmSF85Q]https://youtu.be/1nC3KmSF85Q[/video]

• Lastly a video on how to safely disengage so that you are facing the station entrance (most of the time) especially useful if you are on a smuggling run:

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;E1cvw5jPL6I]https://youtu.be/E1cvw5jPL6I[/video]

 

[mistohise]

It's not the quickest method but I tend to have speed at the top of the blue zone until the 10 second mark, then drop speed to half way through the blue zone. Then at seven seconds drop speed to the very bottom of the blue zone.
I find doing it that way avoids the loop of shame entirely. Previously I was only dropping speed at the seven seconds mark, but I found that that doesn't work in some cases of weird planetary arrangements, whereas the 10 drop followed by seven drop always works.

 

[Philip Coutts]

Don't worry about it, I have almost 5 weeks playing time, still get caught in the loop from time to time.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Wow, so much good advice here, even I learned a few minor things or two. Gotta love being several thousand hours in and learning stuff in the newcomers sub-forum

I find you just about get the hang of the loop of shame thing then you get into large ships and get complacent. You handle that and then you try to do fun stuff like using the planet as a brake so you can fly in faster. And usually mess it up

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Station entrance alignment is a great tip, I'd known this for sometime but was doing it in a scrappy way VJ's method is much neater thanks for sharing.

 

[CMDR Mr. Boombastic]

<snip> The "slingshot effect" you're referring to is the SC drive accelerating your ship as the star's gravity gets weaker with distance.<snip>.

Only to be pedantic, so please excuse me . Your ship isn't accelerating as such. The FSD is a warp drive which is based on a modified Alcubierre drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive (inspired by Star Trek's warp drive) and is all about compressing space around you. As I'm no astrophysicist I'll let others explain:

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;H7tU0H6rD-g]https://youtu.be/H7tU0H6rD-g[/video]

The context is something like you're compressing space around your ship to move faster than light using your normal engine capability. However you can only compress space so much in the presence of a gravity well. The stronger the well the less you can compress thus the slower you move through space. Actual gravitational pull isn't being taken into account at all because the space compression is way more powerful than the affect of gravity and your ships computer automatically put you in a stable orbit around planets (i.e. your frame of reference) anyway. Thus the only factor that controls your speed is how much space is being compressed and what throttle you set your ship too.

I think you will see if you do overshoot you will see your numerical throttle speed indicator does not actually increase.

 

[Para Handy]

There are several things which I think as essential for new players to do - first is unbind "eject all cargo" and the second is the assignment of a key (or hotas switch) to 75% throttle.


I ignored people talking about 75% throttle when I first started, the penny didn't drop about what they meant and sure enough I found myself doing the "curve of confusion" or "swerve of shame" every so often. The I got into a trading route where one destination was only 10ls in - and I had horrible overshooting issues. Came across the 75% keybind again, so assigned numpad 5 to this and wow never once overshot. I felt so stupid at having not implemented this before, it would have saved me a lot of annoyance.



On second thoughts maybe unbinding "eject all cargo" should be the second thing....


[alien]

 

[Cmdr BrinBrown]

The thing to know about ED when going to a station or outpost ( or any point of interest ).
Is that if you set your approach speed in the middle of the light blue. You have automatic deceleration!
Just stay on target and the ship will handle the deceleration
When safe disengage reached, just press J, to drop to normal space.
BB

 

[ChewyBachus]

I overshoot all the time, but I didn't know I was supposed to feel shame

A lot of time I overshoot on purpose in order to come in on the planet side if the station orbit.

Even if I don't need to overshoot for alignment purposes, I always "meant to do that" ;-)

 

[Chris Simon]

I overshoot all the time, but I didn't know I was supposed to feel shame

A lot of time I overshoot on purpose in order to come in on the planet side if the station orbit.

Even if I don't need to overshoot for alignment purposes, I always "meant to do that" ;-)

Well, in a Sidewinder, Vulture or Clipper, overshooting may be seen as "playful".
In a T9 or a Cutter, the loop of shame has radius of approximately 50ls and takes almost a minute. A minute during which the whole system can point a finger at you, saying: "Look at that fat sluggish cow, trying to act all cool and intentional. It's pathetic"

 

[Para Handy]

......................

Is that if you set your approach speed in the middle of the light blue. You have automatic deceleration!

.....................

That's the point of having a keybind to set thrusters to 75% - by doing this your time-to-target count goes down to 0:06 and stays there (except for going up if you stray into gravity well) until you get well inside the safe disconnect distance. I press mine as the ttt goes below 0:10 and it goes down to 0:06 and stays there except when I move to approach from planetside as the gravity-well makes the count go up to say 0:09, only to come down once more until it gets to 0:06 again.

I honestly wish I had "clocked on" to that earlier than I did, it would have saved me many an "excursion of embarrassment" in my early days.


[alien]

 

[Manticore]

Don't worry about it, I have almost 5 weeks playing time, still get caught in the loop from time to time.

Yes; an occasional mass slingshot happens because I've forgotten to throttle back. I did it just a few minutes ago. Overshooting can be helpful if you are trying to outpace suspected interdictors...

 

[W4LD0]

If I'm flying my Asp or Conda I'll usually cut the engines just as 6 seconds ticks on and glide in on the deceleration; in the FDL I can usually get away with doing it on the 5 second mark. As you approach and you see those times come up, press x to kill your engines and fly on in, if you happen to still be going too fast (which you can tell by if the clock ticks down to 5 or 4), you can always do the aforementioned dolphin maneuver to slow down.