So I'm scanning moons to a gas giant, and because the contact list is ordered to proximity (sort of) it's hard to know "where" I am exactly relativistically speaking.
I play a little meta-game, is it better with Orbital Skimming or Orbital-diving.
So here are my latest epiphanies
1) Arrows. (and possible bug to planetary scanning or I still don't understand this)
The two arrows have always confused me.
Until it dawned on me sort of recently.
The orange arrow is my target Destination. Easy! I know!
The blue arrow is my location, sort of or rather the nearest body that my ship belongs to.
The blue arrow jump between 'bodies'(?).
This is why I find this confusing and maybe I still don't get this(?)
But then I noticed it moved (i think) in relation to my gravitational parentage, i.e. the main gravitational body the FSD is working against.
My ship belongs to a certain bodies gravity, which would be the body I would fall towards if I just "stopped" and let nature takes its course.
If I'm near a moon, I belong to "it's" gravity, as I pull away from it, I belong to the more massive parent body gravity which the moon itself adheres to.
The moving blue arrow of "stellar body location" is an indication "sort of" of where in the gravitational barycenter/Lagrange road map, you belong to.
Originally - I always assumed these two arrows had something to do with how you could have a "body" targeted in your helm, but you could target ships as well (still confused me that one) by targeting the thing in your reticule (one assumes it's the planet or station, but it's always some damned patrol vessel).
As I think this may explain the current landable bodies being "mapped" as surely a test value is triggered at the "parent" level, so a scanned primary body, ripples down to the children (and other commanders scans possibly).
2) Orbiting-skimming is fun
This is something I've known since horizons shipped and I got into planetary exploring.
Travelling in a straight line across multiple orbital paths requires multiple adjustments of the FSD with regards to gravity well (Parent Body Gravitational Ownership changes).
If I'm scanning moons around a big gas-giant, you got to plan how to move from moon to moon. The Moons A, B and C can be on one side of the gas giant where-as moons F,E,G and H can be on the other side.
Once you dive towards a gas giant and get in tight to the gravity well, especially near to the rings of a gas giant you move relativetely speaking (pun intended) slower, meaning taking an orbit dive towards the center of gravity and then flying away from would be time-consuming, so orbital-skimming would save you time instead.
So what's this orbital skimming? simply put, you fly around in an orbit around a body.
It is mechanically high velocities and much kinder on your FSD as it doesn't complain as much (if only that was actual integrity damage as a gameplay mechanic and not just a sweet noise from the Audio-team).
So orbit line acts as a threshold-marker for the body, it shows the sweet spot between for that body (it's mass, orbital velocity etc).
If the planet was to somehow inside it's own orbit line it would move slower (the space you are travelling through is thicker and more dense, if it moved outside it would move faster.
It's like light moving between the medium of glass and water.
Meaning you can use a planetary body's own orbiting line as a reference to skim around a parent body quicker until the body you wish to navigate to appear more gravitationally accessible.
As General Lefcourt said in defence of the Mars colony in Babylon5
"It's a diversion! He wants us planet-bound, closer to the gravity well, where we can't manoeuvre. It's like forcing an enemy to fight with his back to the sea"
3) We always had an Orrery Map....ahem..of sorts.
These two things led to epiphany no. 3 the Planning on when to dive or skim.
Knowing which one of those moons were physically near AND gravitationally more convenient is where the Orrey Shines.
but I got annoyed jumping in and own of the system map, recentering the orrery was getting a little repetitive for these small micro-decisions of "was it moon D or Moon A" which I planned to go to next and those arrows in the contact panel and system map aren't helping.
So whilst in the cockpit, I punched up the Sensor panel and swapped out the scale for Logarithmic to Linear.
And then increased the sensor range, and bobs your uncle, you have a local Orrey (as such) in your cockpit. Sure it lacks the orbiting lines/planes so things can still get bunched up and confusing, but the "next" planet decision in combination with the contacts panel (and from memory how it looked for real), makes the decision of Orbital Skimming or Diving that bit easier to spot.
I play a little meta-game, is it better with Orbital Skimming or Orbital-diving.
So here are my latest epiphanies
1) Arrows. (and possible bug to planetary scanning or I still don't understand this)
The two arrows have always confused me.
Until it dawned on me sort of recently.
The orange arrow is my target Destination. Easy! I know!
The blue arrow is my location, sort of or rather the nearest body that my ship belongs to.
The blue arrow jump between 'bodies'(?).
This is why I find this confusing and maybe I still don't get this(?)
But then I noticed it moved (i think) in relation to my gravitational parentage, i.e. the main gravitational body the FSD is working against.
My ship belongs to a certain bodies gravity, which would be the body I would fall towards if I just "stopped" and let nature takes its course.
If I'm near a moon, I belong to "it's" gravity, as I pull away from it, I belong to the more massive parent body gravity which the moon itself adheres to.
The moving blue arrow of "stellar body location" is an indication "sort of" of where in the gravitational barycenter/Lagrange road map, you belong to.
Originally - I always assumed these two arrows had something to do with how you could have a "body" targeted in your helm, but you could target ships as well (still confused me that one) by targeting the thing in your reticule (one assumes it's the planet or station, but it's always some damned patrol vessel).
As I think this may explain the current landable bodies being "mapped" as surely a test value is triggered at the "parent" level, so a scanned primary body, ripples down to the children (and other commanders scans possibly).
2) Orbiting-skimming is fun
This is something I've known since horizons shipped and I got into planetary exploring.
Travelling in a straight line across multiple orbital paths requires multiple adjustments of the FSD with regards to gravity well (Parent Body Gravitational Ownership changes).
If I'm scanning moons around a big gas-giant, you got to plan how to move from moon to moon. The Moons A, B and C can be on one side of the gas giant where-as moons F,E,G and H can be on the other side.
Once you dive towards a gas giant and get in tight to the gravity well, especially near to the rings of a gas giant you move relativetely speaking (pun intended) slower, meaning taking an orbit dive towards the center of gravity and then flying away from would be time-consuming, so orbital-skimming would save you time instead.
So what's this orbital skimming? simply put, you fly around in an orbit around a body.
It is mechanically high velocities and much kinder on your FSD as it doesn't complain as much (if only that was actual integrity damage as a gameplay mechanic and not just a sweet noise from the Audio-team).
So orbit line acts as a threshold-marker for the body, it shows the sweet spot between for that body (it's mass, orbital velocity etc).
If the planet was to somehow inside it's own orbit line it would move slower (the space you are travelling through is thicker and more dense, if it moved outside it would move faster.
It's like light moving between the medium of glass and water.
Meaning you can use a planetary body's own orbiting line as a reference to skim around a parent body quicker until the body you wish to navigate to appear more gravitationally accessible.
As General Lefcourt said in defence of the Mars colony in Babylon5
"It's a diversion! He wants us planet-bound, closer to the gravity well, where we can't manoeuvre. It's like forcing an enemy to fight with his back to the sea"
3) We always had an Orrery Map....ahem..of sorts.
These two things led to epiphany no. 3 the Planning on when to dive or skim.
Knowing which one of those moons were physically near AND gravitationally more convenient is where the Orrey Shines.
but I got annoyed jumping in and own of the system map, recentering the orrery was getting a little repetitive for these small micro-decisions of "was it moon D or Moon A" which I planned to go to next and those arrows in the contact panel and system map aren't helping.
So whilst in the cockpit, I punched up the Sensor panel and swapped out the scale for Logarithmic to Linear.
And then increased the sensor range, and bobs your uncle, you have a local Orrey (as such) in your cockpit. Sure it lacks the orbiting lines/planes so things can still get bunched up and confusing, but the "next" planet decision in combination with the contacts panel (and from memory how it looked for real), makes the decision of Orbital Skimming or Diving that bit easier to spot.
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