About that "drop to 75% throttle at 7 seconds" trick

[Danquememe]

I assume most everyone knows about the trick of decelerating from supercruise when approaching your destination.

I.e. when you're exactly 0:07 seconds aways, drop to 75% throttle (or the middle of the blue zone) and you'll smoothly and magically decelerate perfectly, assuming you keep your destination centered in front of you. The time remaining will typically show 0:07 if you're doing it right.

But have you ever wondered why it's 7 seconds, and 6 or 8 or whatever?

I think I figured it out:

Because 07, CMDR

 

[Stelar 7]

Six seconds works, and you may recover from 5 if you are quick.

Still o7

 

[Just Paul]

6s works perfectly, you can also go back to 100% once the speed is in the safe zone.

 

[VirtueXOI]

Depends of your surronding and body gravity . they can also slow you down. o7 tho

 

[ubermick]

World has been turned upside down with this.

Still love the fact that the magical "7 seconds" actually takes far longer than that.

 

[VirtueXOI]

World has been turned upside down with this.

Still love the fact that the magical "7 seconds" actually takes far longer than that.

The time is relative to your speed , since your speed is decreasing time is increasing . I think there is a mode that change that in the parameters no ?

 

[GJ51]

You can also execute the throttle back at 10 -14 secs on approach without losing much time.

How fast it counts down to 6 will depend upon the mass of what you're approaching, but I generally hit it around 12 secs using Voice Attack so the software has time to execute.

And yes, once the speed bar is in the blue zone you can mash it down to full throttle.

 

[dognosh]

Also don't forget when approaching station and you see a ship trying to get behind you to interdict : Do the loop of shame on full throttle, once past station go to 75% and pull up or down towards station.

 

[Ydiss]

6s works perfectly, you can also go back to 100% once the speed is in the safe zone.

And when you do this the timer finally, actually counts down to 1s.

The time left is one of the most pointless hud elements in the game. That's the only time it accurately measures what it's supposed to measure.

It actually tells you little more than "you're speeding up" (time increasing), "you're slowing down" (time decreasing) or "you're going too fast" (time less than 6s).

 

[space voyager]

Six seconds works, and you may recover from 5 if you are quick.

Still o7

Not just recover. Five seconds are stable, but only by a very thin margine. If you know where the upper limit of 6 is, you can increase your speed slowly to 5 and keep it there. With keyboard, you only have 2 keypresses of error margin.

So at 6 you can press the forward key twice in a row until you reach those 5 seconds. I usually do that when there are no ships to be scanned...

 

[Alien]

I assume most everyone knows about the trick of decelerating from supercruise when approaching your destination.

I.e. when you're exactly 0:07 seconds aways, drop to 75% throttle (or the middle of the blue zone) and you'll smoothly and magically decelerate perfectly, assuming you keep your destination centered in front of you. The time remaining will typically show 0:07 if you're doing it right.

But have you ever wondered why it's 7 seconds, and 6 or 8 or whatever?

I think I figured it out:

Because 07, CMDR

Why is it 7 seconds, or 6 or 8 or whatever? Easy .... it's nothing to do with how many seconds it is.
Confused?
It's all to do with how fast you are going, and how much you can slow down before you pass a point where you will overshoot.
If you're approaching a planetary body, ie a planet or a star, they have gravity that can grab you and pull you in.

The game gives you an estimate of your E.T.A. and players seem to think that if they can reduce to 75% at the magic point, ie 7 seconds, they can min/max supercruise.

Actually, you don't need to try to be as optimal as possible, just set your throttle to 75% to begin with (or in the middle of the blue zone if you have an analogue throttle, ie a HOTAS) and the game will happily slow you down in plenty of time, and you'll never do a loop of shame again.

 

[Stelar 7]

Not just recover. Five seconds are stable, but only by a very thin margine. If you know where the upper limit of 6 is, you can increase your speed slowly to 5 and keep it there. With keyboard, you only have 2 keypresses of error margin.

So at 6 you can press the forward key twice in a row until you reach those 5 seconds. I usually do that when there are no ships to be scanned...

I'm not skilled enough at tiny motions with my throttle to pull that off. I usually settle for 6 to 8 depending on how much attention I'm paying.

 

[Ydiss]

Why is it 7 seconds, or 6 or 8 or whatever? Easy .... it's nothing to do with how many seconds it is.
Confused?
It's all to do with how fast you are going, and how much you can slow down before you pass a point where you will overshoot.
If you're approaching a planetary body, ie a planet or a star, they have gravity that can grab you and pull you in.

The game gives you an estimate of your E.T.A. and players seem to think that if they can reduce to 75% at the magic point, ie 7 seconds, they can min/max supercruise.

Actually, you don't need to try to be as optimal as possible, just set your throttle to 75% to begin with (or in the middle of the blue zone if you have an analogue throttle, ie a HOTAS) and the game will happily slow you down in plenty of time, and you'll never do a loop of shame again.

Absolutely correct. But that isn't faster.

I'm anal about it. I'll only set it to blue if I have to look away or it's 6-7s. All those seconds saved are precious to me

And I don't use the assist module.

 

[VirtueXOI]

Absolutely correct. But that isn't faster.

I'm anal about it. I'll only set it to blue if I have to look away or it's 6-7s. All those seconds saved are precious to me

And I don't use the assist module.

Assit module is so usefull , definitly have to be serial =D . It make the game only better

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The time left is one of the most pointless hud elements in the game. That's the only time it accurately measures what it's supposed to measure.

Sure, but it does provide a convenient measure of speed relative to the local gravitational gradient, which is useful for doing approaches considerably faster than 75% ones.

It was pretty irritating in FC Beta 1 when they broke it - sure, I could still judge my approach by engine sounds, but "nose down when the approach indicator says 0:04" is a lot easier than "nose down when the engine sounds a bit stressed but not too stressed"

 

[Alien]

Absolutely correct. But that isn't faster.

I'm anal about it. I'll only set it to blue if I have to look away or it's 6-7s. All those seconds saved are precious to me

And I don't use the assist module.

seconds ... mere seconds. Why the rush? What are you doing that you absolutely need to shave seconds off of each supercruise trip?

Slow down, relax and chill. There is no need to rush.

 

[Mcleansc]

Theres also a trick with Supercruise Assist.

Engage SCA but stay slightly off target (above or below) so the 'align with target' warning appears. Do your usual 75% at 6 seconds. Once your speed is below 2c and your distance is 4ls from your target you can throttle up and align with the target. SC will zip you right in. Saves a surprising amount of time.

 

[Ydiss]

Sure, but it does provide a convenient measure of speed relative to the local gravitational gradient, which is useful for doing approaches considerably faster than 75% ones.

It was pretty irritating in FC Beta 1 when they broke it - sure, I could still judge my approach by engine sounds, but "nose down when the approach indicator says 0:04" is a lot easier than "nose down when the engine sounds a bit stressed but not too stressed"

I did say it's useless at measuring what it's supposed to be measuring (eta).

There are plenty simpler ways to do what you're talking about. But, yes, now it's relatively common knowledge, it works fine for what it's actually used for... Which is an indicator to tell you when to throttle down.

 

[Alien]

Theres also a trick with Supercruise Assist.

Engage SCA but stay slightly off target (above or below) so the 'align with target' warning appears. Do your usual 75% at 6 seconds. Once your speed is below 2c and your distance is 4ls from your target you can throttle up and align with the target. SC will zip you right in. Saves a surprising amount of time.

Again I ask, why the rush? Why are people obsessed with min/maxing supercruise? You're like the driver on the motorway when traffic starts to back up, who floors it down the hard shoulder to get past "all the fools" in the traffic jam, then you catch up to him because he got to the roadworks and no-one will let him back onto the motorway.

 

[Stelar 7]

Again I ask, why the rush? Why are people obsessed with min/maxing supercruise? You're like the driver on the motorway when traffic starts to back up, who floors it down the hard shoulder to get past "all the fools" in the traffic jam.

I don't drive on the sidewalk to avoid the fools, I'm escaping the dangerous idiots who might crash into me.