Alpha Centauri

The Space Pirate

The Space Pirate
I'm sure most of you remember entering the system and locating the only starport in order to complete your mission and then noticing that it's 900 bloody AU away, meaning you had no chance whatsoever of getting there on time - an especially bad situation if you'd taken on four or five Federation missions! Sirius was another especially bad one from what I remember, in fact anything with more than one star is likely to be a long, long journey to the spaceport. Achenar was around 50 AU - that wasn't too bad.

Maybe there could be a warning when accepting missions to such systems - that the entry point is X number of AU away from the starport?
 

The Space Pirate

The Space Pirate
So did I - which was slightly annoying given that Alpha Centauri is the closest star to Sol and therefore of some importance: it would've been the first star reached outside of Sol.
 

genejoke

G
I remember that all too well, not to mention running out of fuel doing it.


I'm guessing the local jump system will stop this in dangerous.
 

Non Grata

Non Grata
I quite liked that sort of thing - kept you on your toes. Though using your escape capsule only to find that the current system doesn't do autopilots was a step too far for me..
 

The Space Pirate

The Space Pirate
genejoke said:
I remember that all too well, not to mention running out of fuel doing it.


I'm guessing the local jump system will stop this in dangerous.
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Ohhh yes... the running out of fuel thing! If that happened in real life, you'd be royally screwed, given that 'HELP ME!' did nothing in Frontier. ;) :D

I don't get how anyone could like something that puts you 900 AU out from the base, with sod all chance of being able to make your deadline!
 

Warbler

W
The data that you're asking for was in FE2 and was called "Orbital Radius". So if you were planning a trip to Alpha Centauri you'd need to look at the OR for Proxima Centauri.

I don't like the idea of a warning, sounds too much like hand holding to me :)
 

The Space Pirate

The Space Pirate
Hadar said:
The data that you're asking for was in FE2 and was called "Orbital Radius". So if you were planning a trip to Alpha Centauri you'd need to look at the OR for Proxima Centauri.

I don't like the idea of a warning, sounds too much like hand holding to me :)
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Thanks for that - twenty odd years too late, but never mind, eh? :) Good to know for 'next time' though.
 

Zak Gordon

Zak Gordon
And i thought this might be a mention that the GoG version of Alpha Centauri now includes the Alien Crossfire expansion!

I tried to not get to hung up on if i failed a mission, that's life sometimes, and a few successful missions will make up for it. One trick i used when dealing with long in system commutes that made timings tight, was to allow the autopilot to build up good speed to the target, then switch of autopilot and active engines (so go to thruster only), then try to judge when to switch autopilot back on so that it could land me ok. This required a ship with good thrust rates, and it allowed you to travel faster for much longer (and save fuel) compared to letting the autopilot handle the whole trip. It could make the difference between arrival on time or not.
 

The Space Pirate

The Space Pirate
Zak Gordon said:
And i thought this might be a mention that the GoG version of Alpha Centauri now includes the Alien Crossfire expansion!

I tried to not get to hung up on if i failed a mission, that's life sometimes, and a few successful missions will make up for it. One trick i used when dealing with long in system commutes that made timings tight, was to allow the autopilot to build up good speed to the target, then switch of autopilot and active engines (so go to thruster only), then try to judge when to switch autopilot back on so that it could land me ok. This required a ship with good thrust rates, and it allowed you to travel faster for much longer (and save fuel) compared to letting the autopilot handle the whole trip. It could make the difference between arrival on time or not.
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Yeah, I used to do that all the time but it made no difference with 900 AU. ;)
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
The Space Pirate said:
Yeah, I used to do that all the time but it made no difference with 900 AU. ;)
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Want to do the "Alpha run" as fast as possible in FE2?

Set your auto pilot to Eden Station and let it line your ship up, note the distance reading and divide by two. Remember this number (eg 900AU divided by 2 = 450AU). Switch off engines (once lined up), hold enter key to fire main thrusters at full power and hit the Stardreamer to max. Keep holding down the enter key until you reach the magic halfway number and release. Set Stardreamer to setting 1 (real time) and turn the ship around using just the < or > keys, putting Proxima Centauri directly behind your ship in rear view. Hit the enter key again and keep it pressed while setting the Stardreamer again to max. Keep a close eye on your distance to Eden Station. After a while, the distance counter will start to rise again telling you that you are about to overshoot your target, usally around the 7 AU mark. Pause the game then activate your autopilot again and hit the Stardreamer to max again. After a little faffing about the ship will home in on Eden Station and save you many extra weeks of travelling.

NOTE: Carry extra fuel as you will burn up loads and will need to re-fuel a few times.

Just for fun I just did a run there.
Ship: Eagle Long Range Fighter
Time when entering the system: 11:12 8th of January
Distance to Eden Station: 961 AU
Time of arrival at Eden Station: 22:28 27th of January
Amount of extra Hydrogen fuel used: 2 tons

Hope that helps :)
 

Bounder

Bounder
pah - the easiest and fastest way to cover long distances to a docking point was to use the Miggy version's glitch that allowed you to switch off autopilot, then, without touching the mouse or altering course, simply accelerate at full power all the way in, on max Stardreamer, then slam the autopilot on at the last second.

Worked every time.

Edit: heh, in fact this even worked if your fuel had run out.. saved my bacon a fair few times that did...

Edit2: also, FWIW Proxima Centauri's membership of the system has more recently (since FE2/FFE) been thrown into question. Had it been treated as separate the system would've been a much smaller, regular binary. As a ternary though it was one system that really gave you a sense of scale normally lost, courtesy of the Stardreamer...
 
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Geraldine

Geraldine
Bounder said:
pah - the easiest and fastest way to cover long distances to a docking point was to use the Miggy version's glitch that allowed you to switch off autopilot, then, without touching the mouse or altering course, simply accelerate at full power all the way in, on max Stardreamer, then slam the autopilot on at the last second.

Worked every time.
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<Throws Bounder ONE OF THOSE LOOKS>, that is considered cheating Bounder :rolleyes:
 

Kipper

K
It was kinda nice to know that while Autopilot had its drawbacks, and a good manual pilot could get to places faster. I used to use Autopilot for routine runs and then manual thrust / turn & reverse thrust when I needed to get somewhere quick (usually the binary+ systems)

It would be good to see if Dangerous could have a similar distinction, so that you could gain a little speed advantage in system by flying hands-on.

Similarly, docking computers should be slower than a well executed manual dock.
 

Bromley86

Bromley86
Similarly, docking computers should be slower than a well executed manual dock.
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Great idea! Not sure about your first one though, as we'll be using in-system jumps rather than stardreamer and there will likely be a speed limit (real or effectively) in order to facilitate interceptions.
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
Bromley86 said:
Great idea! Not sure about your first one though, as we'll be using in-system jumps rather than stardreamer and there will likely be a speed limit (real or effectively) in order to facilitate interceptions.
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There is a speed limit, its called the speed of light,
metres per second 299,792,458
kilometres per second 300,000
kilometres per hour 1,080 million

miles per second 186,000
miles per hour 671 million
astronomical units per day 173
 

Kipper

K
Bromley86 said:
Great idea! Not sure about your first one though, as we'll be using in-system jumps rather than stardreamer and there will likely be a speed limit (real or effectively) in order to facilitate interceptions.
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Yeah I know, I can't think how they might do it - just saying if possible they should :)
 
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