Automatic speed control in Supercruise is bad?

[Arthur Z.]

Hi there!

EDIT: Just to be clear, I know perfectly how to avoid the "Loop of shame" by hitting the 75% throttle bind. It seems, that too many people think this is the problem.

So, when in supercruise aproaching a targeted signal source, why is it that if I let myself speed up to the point that remaining arrival time is less that 6 seconds my ship is incapable of slowing down to the needed speed? It feels like the navigation system is just too stupid to slow down because if I change the target, the ship has no problem slowing down instantly. I can understand such behavior when near planets (gravity and all) but it makes no sense for signal sources.

Is there an explanation for this or is it really a bug/poorly implemented feature (no offence FDev ^^)?

You can see it in this video. I am at 0 throttle but the ship keeps speeding. As soon as I change my target, the ship stops and I can safely re-target the signal:

[video=youtube;LoObz4j3Bww]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoObz4j3Bww[/video]

With this in mind, it is really possible to reach signal sources a lot faster than simply keeping the countdown at 0:06.

 

[Mohrgan]

Keeping your ETA at 6 sec min is the best process for an approach if you expect to take advantage of the computer control/assist feature built into your ship's navigation controls. Otherwise you can 'double press' you exit SC button to manually drop in on a destination.

 

[Arthur Z.]

Keeping your ETA at 6 sec min is the best process for an approach if you expect to take advantage of the computer control/assist feature built into your ship's navigation controls. Otherwise you can 'double press' you exit SC button to manually drop in on a destination.

This is not the issue. Why would I do an emergency drop if my ship is more than capable to reduce the speed to a safe limit? Also, why can't I reduce the speed manually unless I un-target my destination?

 

[FNLWA]

It's an assistance to make dropping into USS easier. Depending how how far away you are from the nearest gravity source you'll potentially be flying/accelerating -very- fast. Tens or hundreds the times of C. So even the slightest acceleration would easily make you overshoot, as you noticed. The slowdown is there to help you.

 

[Stigbob]

It's an assistance to make dropping into USS easier. Depending how how far away you are from the nearest gravity source you'll potentially be flying/accelerating -very- fast. Tens or hundreds the times of C. So even the slightest acceleration would easily make you overshoot, as you noticed. The slowdown is there to help you.

This. It used to be that you didn't get any slowdown for them and dropping into things like wakes was really difficult.

 

[Arthur Z.]

It's an assistance to make dropping into USS easier. Depending how how far away you are from the nearest gravity source you'll potentially be flying/accelerating -very- fast. Tens or hundreds the times of C. So even the slightest acceleration would easily make you overshoot, as you noticed. The slowdown is there to help you.

This. It used to be that you didn't get any slowdown for them and dropping into things like wakes was really difficult.

It's exactly the opposite! The porblem is, that I CAN'T slow down if the timer is lower than 0:06 unless I change my target. It's like the ship is automatically floring it. I can hardly call that an assistance.

EDIT: Check out my vide in the OP. The throttle is at 0, but ship keeps speeding up.

 

[Stigbob]

It's exactly the opposite! The porblem is, that I CAN'T slow down if the timer is lower than 0:06 unless I change my target. It's like the ship is automatically floring it. I can hardly call that an assistance.

EDIT: Check out my vide in the OP. The throttle is at 0, but ship keeps speeding up.

When you approach anything in SC at the seven second mark drop your throttle to the bottom end of the blue zone, you'll arrive fine.

 

[Tarman]

It's exactly the opposite! The porblem is, that I CAN'T slow down if the timer is lower than 0:06 unless I change my target. It's like the ship is automatically floring it. I can hardly call that an assistance.

EDIT: Check out my vide in the OP. The throttle is at 0, but ship keeps speeding up.

The speed decreased the entire time in your clip, except for the very small part where you popped the auto-approach and had to rethrottle from zero; but you were already traveling at Mm/s by then.

 

[FNLWA]

It's exactly the opposite! The porblem is, that I CAN'T slow down if the timer is lower than 0:06 unless I change my target. It's like the ship is automatically floring it. I can hardly call that an assistance.

EDIT: Check out my vide in the OP. The throttle is at 0, but ship keeps speeding up.

The auto slowdown seems to have a fixed formula for the deceleration speed. Like you showed, sometimes it's possible to slow down faster whilst not locked on. I consider it a neat little trick.

 

[777Driver]

EDIT: Check out my vide in the OP. The throttle is at 0, but ship keeps speeding up.

Monitor your speed in that video, at no point did the ship accelerate whilst the throttle was at zero. The ship was constantly decelerating, it was the rate of deceleration that changed when you unlocked the target.

Bottom line is you only have full manual control when targets are unlocked. And when unlocked deceleration is more rapid. Below is a post I made in a similar topic a long while back.



It's not just gravity as others suggest. If you lock a target you are enabling an auto-throttle,the position of your throttle determines the acceleration/declaration curve. 75% (blue zone) is the optimum curve.

The only way to get full control is to have no target locked. Gravity will effect your ships ability to accelerate & decelerate, however that is completely separate from the Auto throttle mode.

I should add that even with a target locked you can still bring the throttle back to idle and slow the ship to 30kms

 

[Arthur Z.]

Monitor your speed in that video, at no point did the ship accelerate whilst the throttle was at zero. The ship was constantly decelerating, it was the rate of deceleration that changed when you unlocked the target.

Bottom line is you only have full manual control when targets are unlocked. And when unlocked deceleration is more rapid. Below is a post I made in a similar topic a long while back.



It's not just gravity as others suggest. If you lock a target you are enabling an auto-throttle,the position of your throttle determines the acceleration/declaration curve. 75% (blue zone) is the optimum curve.

The only way to get full control is to have no target locked. Gravity will effect your ships ability to accelerate & decelerate, however that is completely separate from the Auto throttle mode.

I should add that even with a target locked you can still bring the throttle back to idle and slow the ship to 30kms

But what's the point of Auto-throttle if it clearly makes me miss my target?

The thing is, if I am able to manually slow the ship down by unlocking the target, why is Auto-throttle preventing me from slowing down while the target is locked? I am setting my throttle to 0, and the timer is below 0:06, I'm clearly on a course to miss my target. The computer should help me, but instead it prevents me from slowing down unless I unlock...

To be honest, I think that FD simply copy/pasted this logic from stations and didn't bother to tweak it. Because it functions literally the same and makes no sense. Basically I think they make a signal source act as a gravity well when targeted.

 

[Villeruff]

You found the 'frame of reference' part of the Frame Shift Drive. Also yes, probably is copy pasted. It's about the most shrug worthy complaint I've seen though

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

It's a very odd mechanic.

But I use it for when I inevitably mess up my approach. Lol



Personally though, gravity braking is annoying.
Make supercruise interesting and completely remove gravity braking, and make crashing in to stuff really bad. Lol

The space syrup feeling is kinda boring.

 

[Iron Golem]

I have a button bound to 75% throttle and when I use this in super cruise when my destination gets to 7s it seems to auto throttle down perfectly.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Ah, the good old "Autothrottle limiter".

It's twofold - manually approaching Disengage Windows of as little as a mere 1000km size sure would be quicker without it... but require insane precision and timing under many conditions, especially if far away from the nearest Gravity Well.

Thus, disengaging Target Lock and hence disabling the Autothrottle limiter (which limits acceleration as well btw., including i.e. a nearby Neutron Star during FSD Boosting) is an Option.
One advanced Players can utilize just like creating intentional Overshoot conditions approaching a Gravity Well and using Gravity Braking to accelerate the overall approach.

 

[Saxon Kili]

Hi there!

So, when in supercruise aproaching a targeted signal source, why is it that if I let myself speed up to the point that remaining arrival time is less that 6 seconds my ship is incapable of slowing down to the needed speed? It feels like the navigation system is just too stupid to slow down because if I change the target, the ship has no problem slowing down instantly. I can understand such behavior when near planets (gravity and all) but it makes no sense for signal sources.

Is there an explanation for this or is it really a bug/poorly implemented feature (no offence FDev ^^)?

You can see it in this video. I am at 0 throttle but the ship keeps speeding. As soon as I change my target, the ship stops and I can safely re-target the signal:



With this in mind, it is really possible to reach signal sources a lot faster than simply keeping the countdown at 0:06.

As you are overshooting the target press the zero throttle button (default X on PC), then wait a bit and press the 75% throttle button ( that you programmed) and fly back around like you did it all on purpose. Then tell yourself that it's probably faster this way. lol.

 

[Vardaugas]

You can fly curves, spirals and loops to allow your speed to decrease back into the 6 second window again when you did slightly pass over it. You can also use gravity wells for that, though it requires some practice and how effective it is depends on the size of the gravity well.

 

[Sapporo]

Just set your speed to 75%. Boom cruise control. It'll even slow you down.

 

[Kaocraft]

@OP: I don't have anything useful to say but it seems like the majority of responses are by people who have totally misunderstood what you're talking about, so I'm responding just to make you feel a little less alone. Yeah it's weird and seems kinda dumb to me. I also just wish supercruise acceleration/deceleration were increased across the board. Way too much playtime is wasted in that final approach before dropping out and unlike supercruise top speed it does nothing to make space feel "big," it just slows the game down.

 

[Myou]

The auto slowdown seems to have a fixed formula for the deceleration speed. Like you showed, sometimes it's possible to slow down faster whilst not locked on. I consider it a neat little trick.

This. Its weird as . Why is having a target perventing me from putting everything to deaccelerating? I can deaccelerate a LOT faster than the AI does when you are past the 7 seconds till arrival.
You'd think the AI would be smarter than that.

I also just wish supercruise acceleration/deceleration were increased across the board. Way too much playtime is wasted in that final approach before dropping out and unlike supercruise top speed it does nothing to make space feel "big," it just slows the game down.

And this also. Im not driving a train with thousands of passengers where i need to take care they all have a smooth and comfortable ride as possible. Let me barrel at things like i do at startport slots and then go full brake when im there.