Exiting FSD - daft design?

[SlyRebirth]

I've searched for an answer to (or reasoning behind) this, but can't find anything.

I'm curious as to why the game is designed to spout you out of FSD mode pointing at something and at speed? I'm talking about exiting hyperspace not just next to a star, but actively accelerating towards it. Or, even better, dropping out of hyper when you arrive at a space station, aimed right at it.

I can't think of a single good gameplay reason for making it this way, and certainly no good lore reason. In fact, I'm pretty sure any manufacturer would have to install significant measures preventing the unwary traveller from frying or pancaking themselves into stars or stations automatically. Health and safety, after all...

Unless, of course, I'm missing an option somewhere buried in the menu that enables exiting hyperspace to a full stop?

 

[Lobstris]

1) Good lore reason: The FSD locks on to the highest mass object in the system. 2) Good gameplay reason: Rushing towards a star looks cool and gets the adrenaline going. 3) Good gameplay tip: Zero your throttle when in hyperspace.

 

[777Driver]

I've searched for an answer to (or reasoning behind) this, but can't find anything.

I'm curious as to why the game is designed to spout you out of FSD mode pointing at something and at speed? I'm talking about exiting hyperspace not just next to a star, but actively accelerating towards it. Or, even better, dropping out of hyper when you arrive at a space station, aimed right at it.

I can't think of a single good gameplay reason for making it this way, and certainly no good lore reason. In fact, I'm pretty sure any manufacturer would have to install significant measures preventing the unwary traveller from frying or pancaking themselves into stars or stations automatically. Health and safety, after all...

Unless, of course, I'm missing an option somewhere buried in the menu that enables exiting hyperspace to a full stop?

The distance you drop out is more than enough to take evasive actions. I don't even throttle back, you can full throttle out of hyperspace towards any star, even a neutron star in the most sluggish ship in the game (T9)

If you are paranoid (or have slow reactions), throttle back at any point during the jump

 

[Bokugo]

Well the pointing at something I can understand since you need to lock onto a big gravity source to jump but it is silly to always start moving towards it immediately after a jump. You can throttle down manually during the final charge before the jump or during it to exit at the lowest speed but it really should do that automatically or give us the option to toggle.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Unless, of course, I'm missing an option somewhere buried in the menu that enables exiting hyperspace to a full stop?

No, nothing 'buried' anywhere. Just simple old common sense set your throttle to zero when in HS.

 

[Krepose Gavayne]

I think it would be worse to have the ship simply disappear and reappear (was it the '84 Dune where I saw that? Although for that scenario it seemed to fit) and the Back To The Future trails look quite good. I suppose we could have a brief cloud appear (like a magician's 'poof' trick) but I still prefer to have what we have. Maybe it exists as it does just because it looks okay. We enter the SC or hyperspace jump with a brief but evident acceleration so perhaps we exit with normal space inertia.

 

[teaurn]

Well the pointing at something I can understand since you need to lock onto a big gravity source to jump but it is silly to always start moving towards it immediately after a jump. You can throttle down manually during the final charge before the jump or during it to exit at the lowest speed but it really should do that automatically or give us the option to toggle.

Why? Would you like a full autopilot too? Do you want to interact with the game, or just sit a watch a bunch of automated events happen around you?

I refer you to Lobstris above, he hit it on the head as far as I can see...

 

[Guidebot]

It is very strange. It almost breaks the immersion for me, it's so silly - nobody would ever design, manufacture and market a vehicle that did something like that; it's just too ludicrous. You'd pick that up even before testing.

 

[Zplintz]

As you can turn away from a star at full throttle in any ship in the game, I suspect most people who have an issue are just not ready to drop out of hyperspace. ie they are not concentrating on the game but doing something else.

I see no reason to change the current system.

 

[SlyRebirth]

I get the point about using the star as the navigation point of reference - no problem there. Makes more sense than back in the day, when you started a long way out and had to fly towards the 'middle' of the system.
Good tip about throttling down, I'll do that from now on. Thanks.

But I still don't understand why throttle doesn't/shouldn't reset on FSD exit though, especially coming out by a station. Everything is designed the way it is for a reason; I'm curious to know what the reason is. I'm afraid I don't buy the adrenaline thing, although it's possible.

- - - Updated - - -

I've had numerous occasions where I've had screen or input lag and even trying to turn away at max I hit emergency stop and have to go through the irritation of waiting for CD, then exit vector, etc etc.

I'm not trying to suggest it's a game-breaker, just can't see why it's this way around.

 

[777Driver]

As you can turn away from a star at full throttle in any ship in the game, I suspect most people who have an issue are just not ready to drop out of hyperspace. ie they are not concentrating on the game but doing something else.

I see no reason to change the current system.

You hit the nail on the head, people either can't fly the ship, Not focussing or have painfully slow reactions, then say the mechanic is ludicrous

 

[RebellGhost]

When dropping out of hyperspace, your ship had a speed of almost 10000c. You can't realistically expect that it'll just stop to a relative speed of 0. I think it's quite an accomplishment or the engineers to have achieved a that steep decceleration.
Try dropping out of supercruise and turn around 180° degrees to see the exhaust fumes go back several kilometres. That is the distance you just travelled in half a second. Not sure about others, but when I saw that, I felt very much humbled by that extreme decceleration.

 

[SlyRebirth]

When dropping out of hyperspace, your ship had a speed of almost 10000c. You can't realistically expect that it'll just stop to a relative speed of 0. I think it's quite an accomplishment or the engineers to have achieved a that steep decceleration.
Try dropping out of supercruise and turn around 180° degrees to see the exhaust fumes go back several kilometres. That is the distance you just travelled in half a second. Not sure about others, but when I saw that, I felt very much humbled by that extreme decceleration.

This isn't the point I'm making. I'm asking what the thinking was behind the design decision to not reset the throttle to zero on exiting FSD. From a theoretical perspective, of course it's impressive

 

[777Driver]

This isn't the point I'm making. I'm asking what the thinking was behind the design decision to not reset the throttle to zero on exiting FSD. From a theoretical perspective, of course it's impressive

Because no good reason exists to stop at zero speed, the ship is not in any danger unless the person at the controls is incredibly bad at flying.

 

[Loskene]

This isn't the point I'm making. I'm asking what the thinking was behind the design decision to not reset the throttle to zero on exiting FSD. From a theoretical perspective, of course it's impressive

Because the throttle is a physical handle your pilot has to pull downward to turn off the ship's engines. If you don't tell him to do that, he won't! This is pilot error, not a design fault.

 

[officermuffin]

A friend asked the same question of me when he saw me jump and it caused me to ponder it early on. However, after who knows how many jumps yesterday I still nearly peed when I left her throttled up and did not pay attention for just a moment. I nearly ate it. It sure did get my adrenaline going.

 

[Iskariot]

I can't think of a single good gameplay reason for making it this way, and certainly no good lore reason.

I feel it is awesome to exit SC and see a huge star in front of you. I would not want it any other way!
Of course there is a lore reason as Lobstris already mentioned. Your FSD needs a large mass to lock on to for it to be able to make a controlled jump.
And there is no danger to it at all. So I see no problem whatsoever.

In fact, I'm pretty sure any manufacturer would have to install significant measures preventing the unwary traveller from frying or pancaking themselves into stars or stations automatically. Health and safety, after all...

There is no danger of that at all if you are paying attention. Pilots do need to pay attention...
Of course the devs could make this an extremely secure and therefore lame and boring gaming mechanic. I am grateful they did not.

 

[Glenn Ross]

Within the game world, maybe. After all, it's not as if you do actually crash into the sun/planet/station, you perform an emergency stop and exit supercruise at a point where it is still feasable to get away with only minimal damage. But as has been said before in this thread, some people - myself included - are at the whimsy of a rather flakey wireless network which could give problems. FD obviously didn't think it was necessary to automatically re-set the throttle to zero on exiting either SC or hyperjump, and neither do I. If you are generally doing something else whilst travelling - and I often am - it doesn't take long to get into the habit of throttling back manually to zero during hyperspace countdown so that it automatically drops to minimum SC velocity (30KPS) on exit giving you more than enough time to let the star become discovered, target it for a surface scan, honk, and decide if it is worth scooping from before you pull away.
That's what I am doing if I am exploring and will be scanning every object in the system. If I want to travel somewhere fast, I don't bother to throttle back as I will be paying attention and able to take whatever action is necessary when I reach the other end.
Supercruise is a different matter, of course. You need to be paying attention as you won't be getting anywhere very fast at zero throttle and only doing 30KPS [which is still fast, but not for the distances you will need to travel!]

 

[hanks01]

One gameplay benefit of dropping out of hyperspace at speed is if you are doing a series of quick jumps through explored territory then you can carry your momentum away from the star and be ready to jump before your FSD cools down.

For entering normal space from SC there are definitely gameplay benefits. You start far enough away from the station that it doesn't matter if you're carry speed. More importantly if you drop into a hostile area that momentum can be a big help to get you away. I was reconning a nav beacon that had hostile commanders in it, was much easier for me to get out to range with my momentum rather than turning and boosting from 0. I also tend to find it drops you out close or near to the blue zone of your throttle which means you have maximum turning ability at that point.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Only thing I'd like to see is exiting into normal space, near the nav beacon, after a jump. That would explain why all those ships are there in the first place.