Are you aware that Obsidian Ant is beating the "supercruise toakes too loonnnggg...!" drum?
Setting throttle at 7 seconds is for chumps
- Thread starter CMDR Corlas
- Start date
Nope and don't care. If people want to try to go full throttle until 7/6/5/4/3/2 or 1 seconds, that's up to them. I keep the throttle in the blue zone (or sometimes use Supercruise Assist) because that's how I choose to play. As long as you are still able to drop into the station/whatever that's all that matters.
No, boasting, boasting is all that matters. 0:02 ETA or bust. If I can't get in under 0:03, I'm not even worth the docking privileges and might as well not even loop, just leave me drifting away in the void forever, brooding over my failure.
Boasting.
(Can't get the arguing, play as you like, that's the reason why there are choices, or else we'd be all doing 0:02 corkscrews 'cause the game requires it. Corkscrews in a T-9, brrr...shivers...)
Boasting.
(Can't get the arguing, play as you like, that's the reason why there are choices, or else we'd be all doing 0:02 corkscrews 'cause the game requires it. Corkscrews in a T-9, brrr...shivers...)
Now try the same thing with the docking computer, and watch it go "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Specially the way it handles a Cutter after a boost towards the station is hilarious.
Last edited:
No-one pointed out the typo in the thread title yet? Should obviously read "Setting throttle at 7 seconds is for champs".
No, no, please, no awards.You're welcome, all part of the service
No, no, please, no awards.You're welcome, all part of the service
Bravo sir, you get it! Riding those screaming sub-0:06 eta death spirals into last minute safe drops at stations is the only way to fly. I don't think I've not approached a station that way in over 4 years. Sooner or later we must get you in to a Buckyball Race. If you can do sub-0:04 then you have the makings of a champion!
For the record that does genuinely concern me. If Frontier decided to listen to OA and change supercruise it would utterly invalidate the scoreboards of every single Buckyball race we've ever staged over the last 6 years, including the Sagittarius A* run (not to mention the numerous time trial races that have been organised by other groups), and would mean that nobody could ever legitimately try to beat any of the thousands of times recorded in those scoreboards. We'd have to wipe the slate clean. Now I know Buckyball Racing isn't for everyone but that still seems like an awfully high price to pay!
I'm on your side with that Alex, buckyballing is part of elite's heritage, and supercruise is part of the game's DNA, yet there is an upswelling of misinformed people who are expressing it as their opinion that supercruise is boring so it needs changing, with a lot of those people desiring intra system jumps. So according to them flying the spaceship is boring, but spamming "j" is A-OK? Whatevz... I'm convinced a lot of those people do not fully understand interplanetary distances and what speed they are actually doing in supercruise, but are instead merely echoing the opinions of an "influencer" - in this case Obsidian Ant.
I'm trying to draw attention to this before OA and the others persuade FD to change supercruise "coz its SO bbbooorrriiinnnnggg!!!" Every time OA mentions decreasing supercruise travel times I hit him with a dislike, and on the forum I'm trying to defend supercruise. Or, at the very least, if we can't totally preserve SC, lets make "the accelerator" something skill based, like gravity slingshotting, rather than just another push button get banana mechanic like intrasystem jumps or an across the board buff to supercruise acceleration/speed, both of which are common suggestions. It does tickle me that 2001 times the speed of light isn't fast enough for some people,
I reckon that if the buckyball records withstood the introduction of engineering and neutron/white dwarf boosting, they will withstand slingshotting. But if OA and co get intrasystem jumps, we are probably as well wrapping up Elite and going to play a proper arcade space shooter like star wars squadrons or everspace.Count me in. I am not a fan of people lobbying to change the game just because it suits them better.
Don't get me wrong - I've met OA on a number of occasions and consider him a friend and a good guy, it's just that on this one issue I disagree with his viewpoint and have concerns that he has the power (unwittingly or not) to stir up a lot of assent, potentially leading to Frontier considering making a change to SC. Of course OA and many others would be delighted by that and if it happened I would only hope that it turned out to be what they wanted. It'd be tragic if nobody liked it ('cos FD never roll back changes, even the unpopular ones). Ultimately the decision is Frontier's - I just hope they consider it more carefully than they apparently did when replacing of the station services clock with a toolbar (which few if any asked actually them to do and which made recording time trial runs that little bit more problematic).
Anyway, apologies @CMDR Corlas - we've strayed off topic slightly. You ask "Is it faster?". If you mean letting the ETA drop below 0:06 and then using corkscrewing and skimming the planet to slow back down again at the last minute ... yes, it's a lot faster. There's an old video which kinda illustrates this (although the bottom right approach is very tame compared to what you're describing and only really illustrates gravity braking and not the corkscrew stuff).
Anyway, apologies @CMDR Corlas - we've strayed off topic slightly. You ask "Is it faster?". If you mean letting the ETA drop below 0:06 and then using corkscrewing and skimming the planet to slow back down again at the last minute ... yes, it's a lot faster. There's an old video which kinda illustrates this (although the bottom right approach is very tame compared to what you're describing and only really illustrates gravity braking and not the corkscrew stuff).
Last edited:
I'm not up to date on OA reasoning/proposal regarding SC travel times, but I can get behind mostly everything said so far. I'm not against a change to travel times by all means (as it has been pointed out, we buckyballed before as well as after engineers, so changes aren't taboo), on the condition it gets tied to some skill-based interaction to take advantage of it. In the end, SC assist does just that already, if we don't count the drop out exploit. You can go automated at a given speed, or you can put agency in the operation to do it at higher speed and in less time (the classic manual SC we always had).
There's no shame in admitting that longer SC trips are indeed a boring, low attention affair (there's a reason why BRC races tend to avoid 10.000+ ls destinations), so I'd be totally ok with adding some other SC gimmick like a "Frame Shift Slipstream Collimator" (TM), an additional mechanic that allows you to reach progressively higher speeds if you manage to wrestle your ship into keeping in a "slipstream lane", managing increasing overheating the longer you keep it and at the risk of "overblowing" it or tumble out of the lane and into normal space with variable rates of damage/cooldown. Sort of a interdiction game offspring, to put it simple. And that's just something I made up as I wrote it. There are game design ways for good gameplay, if time and coding resources allow.
There's no shame in admitting that longer SC trips are indeed a boring, low attention affair (there's a reason why BRC races tend to avoid 10.000+ ls destinations), so I'd be totally ok with adding some other SC gimmick like a "Frame Shift Slipstream Collimator" (TM), an additional mechanic that allows you to reach progressively higher speeds if you manage to wrestle your ship into keeping in a "slipstream lane", managing increasing overheating the longer you keep it and at the risk of "overblowing" it or tumble out of the lane and into normal space with variable rates of damage/cooldown. Sort of a interdiction game offspring, to put it simple. And that's just something I made up as I wrote it. There are game design ways for good gameplay, if time and coding resources allow.
No matter what you do, the SC travel in Elite is long and boring as hell.
Not necessarily. I like supercruise and avoid an stupidly long journeys.
So when in the bubble, I'm always scanning other ships, to make sure I'm not taken by surprise with an interdiction. Basically when in the bubble I'm always busy in supercruise, either steering and/or scanning ships.
Starting from say an innermost moon of a gas giant to another planet is usually faster by jumping to another system and back. If the other planet is on the other side of the star, this is always true. I can't take this for good gameplay.
Naturally, going to a far-away secondary star is worse by an order of magnitude. I regularly do that as often there is something worth seeing/exploring at the secondary star. My exploration time of actual playing (doing something with the ship or SRV) is probably shorter than the time I spend watching movies while waiting to arrive at the destination. This is a sad excuse for gameplay.
fastest way is to have the target station deselected - then just manually smash out of FSD when your close. wait for cool down, do the final bit as normal, costs money tho
I do this when mission running.
Target Object with Assist
Full speed towards target with the Assist under the recital, so as not to activate.
Wait till it says 7-6sec so that by the time I get the Assist to lock on it says 5sec.
Scream with glee as its now saying 1 sec and my engines are screaming like ... screaming things !
Giggle like a little girl as I drop out of Super and flash through the interior of my target station, unscathed !
Dock
Target Object with Assist
Full speed towards target with the Assist under the recital, so as not to activate.
Wait till it says 7-6sec so that by the time I get the Assist to lock on it says 5sec.
Scream with glee as its now saying 1 sec and my engines are screaming like ... screaming things !
Giggle like a little girl as I drop out of Super and flash through the interior of my target station, unscathed !
Dock
You can do that if you so wish, but it uses up much more fuel, which you then need to spend time fuel scooping.
I don't do that. I prefer to fly in system.
That is a choice you make. I don't do that.
Yup, long distant journeys can be tough, but they are still a choice. Nobody forces you to go there. There have been many times I have passed over one thing I would like to look at because of the distance, but if someone wants to do that, all the power to them. I don't see an issue with that.
It's what I like about ED. The game is as boring or fun as you make it. It's all about choices. You choose to do something boring, you've only got yourself to blame. I try to make my playtime as fun and interesting as possible, and sometimes that's not doing the easiest most efficient way, but sometimes it is.
All true, I just have the misfortune that some aspects of the activity I love in Elite, exploration, are boring as hell.
I sure can choose not to do them, yet that won't stop me from making suggestions that would improve exploration and make it fun. Meanwhile, I play the game as-is.